Zoey was trapped under two hundred plus pounds of pure, unadulterated werewolf. She should have been screaming her head off. She should have been struggling to get away from him. She should have been fighting it but she’d already figured out that fighting was impossible.

Her senses had betrayed her and her body wasn’t far behind.

She reveled in the smell of him. Man and musk, pine and dirt. She ached at the feel of him. Hard muscles and coiled strength. And she wanted more of it, wanted all of it, now. Some voice deep inside of her was whispering that he was hers and she could, and should, do whatever she damn well pleased to him, conscious or not.

She whimpered when the still slightly rational part of her brain forced her to squirm, trying to free herself, but in effect all it did was rub her body against his and make pinwheels of desire swirl in her blood. She should have been trying to get away. Instead, it was all she could do not to wrap her legs around his waist and rock herself against him. She gave in to the urge to wrap her arms around him, to hold him close to her, cradle him and try to offer some semblance of comfort, even as her head screamed at her that this was wrong, all wrong.

These weren’t her feelings. They couldn’t be. This was the heat. It was the mating bond taking over and wresting control from her.

This was Rafe. Michael’s brother. A man she hadn’t seen in years. A wolf that, last she’d heard, was still completely unbalanced from the horrors he’d faced when he watched most of his family murdered in front of him.

Had she cared about him before, when she was just a girl? Maybe. Probably. But in all honesty, she didn’t remember. He hadn’t been a part of her life, not really. She had vague memories of Gabe teasing her good-naturedly about her crush on his little brother. Remembered Rafe teasing Michael not so good-naturedly about it.

Had he known back then? Impossible. She’d been too young. But was it possible that he’d felt… something? Just as Michael had felt something for her all of these years that he hadn’t been able to explain, something that told him to protect her like she was family, because one day, she would be?

Michael.

Her senses came jolting back to her. Not even the magical heat that drew her to Rafe could mask the conflicting emotions she was feeling when it came to her best friend now. Confusion, frustration and more than a little bit of anger. They weren’t new emotions where he was concerned but they were all amplified now to a level she couldn’t possibly ignore or swallow down like she’d been doing for years.

“Michael!”

“I’m coming Zo! I’m coming!” He staggered into her view, rubbing a jaw that was already turning an array of colors as his impressive genetics fought to heal him, “Are you okay?”

“Never been better.”

“Yeah, I know. Stupid question.” He winced and shot a look over his shoulder, “Wiley, help me get him off her.”

She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from hissing at him when he grabbed Rafe by the shoulder and started to haul him up. She couldn’t force her hands to let go of him until Michael frowned, looked between them and uttered a growl of his own. She swallowed a whine and let her friend and the Sheriff roll her unconscious mate off of her.

Her mate. She was Rafe’s mate. He was hers.

She could feel the truth in the statement. She’d felt it even before she’d known what was going on. That urge to go to him, to be with him, the immediate and intense attraction she’d felt, they’d all been signs. She’d heard the mated females in the pack talk about the bond, about the heat, she just hadn’t expected it to be so instantaneous or so complete.

She hadn’t expected Rafe.

If it had been Michael, she would have known how to handle it. She would have known what to do. She would have leaped into his arms and never looked back. Her head and her heart and the heat would all have been in perfect, blissful harmony and everything would have been right in the world. She wouldn’t have second-guessed herself for even a minute.

But it wasn’t Michael. It had never been Michael. It was never going to be Michael.

Hadn’t she been trying to get that through her thick skull earlier tonight?

She’d come outside to get some fresh air, to get some space from him, but he’d followed her. He’d touched her and talked to her and she’d started to think that he was coming around to the idea of them being together, even though she knew better. Even though she knew that she wasn’t his mate. Even though she knew that he knew that.

Looking back on it, the moment felt as if it had happened a lifetime ago. It was a faded, foggy memory already. Indistinct. Important only because it had been the last one she’d had with Michael before her entire world shifted, until it realigned, and he was no longer the center of it.

Rafe was.

The others rolled him to his side and she sucked in a breath of air now that she wasn’t being smothered. She missed him. Instantly. Missed his weight and the heat of his body, and she reached for him before she’d made a conscious decision to move.

She rolled up to sitting, ignored the hand Michael offered her, and felt for a pulse in Rafe’s neck. It was there. Slow. Far too slow for a shifter. His chest was rising and falling softly but he didn’t so much as twitch when she swiped his hair off his forehead and trailed her hand across his cheek. The jolt of electricity that flowed through her when they touched skin-to-skin was powerful but he didn’t react at all.

She frowned, “Something’s wrong with him.”

“There’s a lot of things wrong with him.”

She hissed in a breath at Michael’s grumble and spun to face him. He was standing at her feet, close enough to touch, and for the first time in as long as she could remember, she didn’t feel the urge to reach out for him. Considering the anger she felt rising inside of her, that didn’t surprise her. What surprised her was the urge to lash out at him, to put herself between him and his brother, and not to protect Michael but to protect Rafe.

“What happened? What did you do to him? If you hurt him in any way, I will…”

“You will what? You’re going to threaten me now too?” Michael scoffed, “I was trying to protect you Zo!”

“What did you do?” She heard her voice rise an entire octave about the same time she saw Michael’s eyes widen in shock and horror.

She’d never yelled at him before. Ever. She’d been angry with him plenty of times. They’d been friends too long for them not to argue, not to fight, but she’d never screamed at him. She’d never even wanted to. Until now.

“Easy there…” Wiley stepped between the two of them, holding his hands out in her direction as if she might go into full-attack mode, “He didn’t do anything. Calm down Zoey.”

She turned her anger on the older man, “Tell me what’s wrong with Rafe!”

“Nothing’s wrong with him. He’s just sleeping off the drugs.”

“The drugs?”

“Yeah.” Wiley shrugged, “I tranqued him.”

She sucked in a shocked gulp of air and then winced and stared down at her hands. She’d curled her hands into fists so hard that her nails were cutting into her skin. She consciously uncurled her fingers and fought off the urge to swing her fist at the Sheriff’s head.

“You did what?” She hissed through her teeth.

“Tranqued him.”

“Why would you do that?” She struggled between keeping her eyes on the men that had already hurt her mate and turning her full attention back on Rafe to check that he was still breathing.

“Because I told him to.” Michael spoke up.

Vaguely, she remembered his words from earlier, when they’d been facing off and she hadn’t even known what was happening. Michael had told the Sheriff that if Rafe went anywhere near her to take him down. She remembered thinking that the Sheriff didn’t stand a chance of taking Rafe in a fight. She hadn’t realized they weren’t planning to fight fair.

“Why?”

“Why?” Michael growled, his face twisting into a menacing scowl, “Why? The fact that you’re even asking me is proof that you’re not thinking clearly.”

She wasn’t thinking clearly. She knew that. Every single thought she had was being processed through a new filter. Rafe.

How did it affect Rafe? How did she get to Rafe? How did she protect Rafe? How did she get Rafe back? And how long would it be until she could have his skin against hers again, his body pressing into hers and sealing the bond once and for all?

“Jesus, Zoey! You’re not even listening to me.”

She snapped back to attention and felt a blush steal over her cheeks when Michael frowned at her. He knew where her thoughts had gone. It was clear from the disapproval on his face that he knew exactly what she had been thinking. Even still, she couldn’t shut it off.

There was an invisible link between her and Rafe now and it was only getting stronger. Attraction had flickered to life as soon as she saw him, but it was more than that. She’d fought to get to him, felt the urge to be closer to him, and her body had responded to him fighting for her too. Then he’d grabbed her, touched her for the first time, and it was like a piece of herself that she’d never known was missing fell into place.

She glanced back at Michael and her heart squeezed too tight in her chest. It hurt, but not in the way it had for four years. She stared at his handsome face, but objectively, for possibly the first time ever. He was good-looking, too good-looking really, but her heart didn’t skitter and race at the mere sight of him now.

Her attraction to him was gone. Her mind whirled as she tried to figure out how that was possible. He was just as handsome as he had been a half hour ago. He was still her best friend.

She still loved him, that hadn’t gone anywhere. Love like that didn’t just disappear. But it was different now, looking at him and knowing that he had been right before, when he’d said that being together would have felt wrong because they didn’t belong together.

She hadn’t understood it at the time. She hadn’t understood it today. Not until the moment her eyes had met Rafe’s and she’d felt the beginning of that bond take root somewhere deep inside her, could she have ever understood the difference in loving someone and being mated.

She didn’t love Rafe. She wasn’t delusional enough to believe a magical bond could make that happen instantaneously. She did believe that it was possible for her to fall in love with him though, because otherwise, what was the point? The bond was only the beginning, not the end goal like she’d always thought it was.

This was just the beginning for them.