In fact, he’d start now.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Bowman returned from patrolling Shiftertown once the sun was rising and Shifters were crawling home. Some slept where they dropped. Lumps of fur littered the ground, Shifters snoring it off.

Bowman had realized long ago that being leader meant he didn’t always get to join in the revelry. He protected the perimeter so that his Shifters could let loose and enjoy themselves.

Kenzie often patrolled with him, the two of them sharing the quiet while Shiftertown partied behind them. Now that the party was over, Bowman headed home, intending to make up for missing out—with Kenzie. Ryan was safely with Afina, and they’d have the house to themselves.

When he entered the kitchen through the back door, all was silent. The old-fashioned percolator coffeepot sat on the counter, its lid off, the scent of cold coffee lingering in the room. The coffee table he saw through the open space to the living room held two open bottles of beer, but no one seemed to be around. Bowman did a quick inhale and scented human male over the familiar scents of the house. A particular human male. Gil.

The door to the bedroom he shared with Kenzie was closed. Bowman strode immediately to it, his killing instincts flaring high. His Collar bit a warning spark deep into his skin, but he ignored it.

He was sick to his stomach as he reached for the doorknob. He did not want to open that door and find Gil with Kenzie, but at the same time he needed to let the world know that any man who touched his mate would be ripped in half.

Bowman swallowed bile, ignored a second spark from his Collar, and entered the room.

Kenzie sat cross-legged in the middle of the unrumpled bed. She was dressed in jeans and a tank top, her arms bare, though the room was cool. She had a wad of crumpled tissues in her hand, and she didn’t look up when Bowman came in.

“Kenzie, what’s wrong?” he asked, his heart pounding. His Collar quieted, but his fears surged. “What happened?”

Kenzie raised her head. Her eyes were red, her nose swollen, her cheeks tear-streaked. “Gil.” She started to say more, but a sob caught in her chest.

Bowman came all the way into the room, to the bed. “What did he do to you? Did he touch you? I’ll kill him.” He felt faint surprise that Kenzie hadn’t turned a man who assaulted her into so much raw hamburger, but he waited for her to explain.

Kenzie shook her head. “It’s not his fault. Killing him won’t help.”

“What isn’t his fault?” Bowman put his fingers under Kenzie’s chin and forced her to look up at him.

She didn’t want to. She tried to turn her head and avoid his gaze, something Kenzie simply did not do. She always glared Bowman down, and be damned to him.

Kenzie finally looked at him, her eyes red with weeping. “Bowman, do you feel the mate bond?”

She’d never asked him straight out before. When they’d gone through the mating ceremonies and spent their first night together as mates, they’d watched each other closely, to see, even teased about it a little. Which of them would be the first to feel it?

As days stretched to weeks, and then months, they’d stopped talking about it. If it happened, then it would happen. The Goddess bestowed blessings in her own time. They’d stopped talking about having cubs as well.

Bowman stilled at Kenzie’s question, not daring to think anything. He focused his awareness to the inside of his chest, which others, including Marcus tonight, had told him was where the feeling started. A burning or itching sensation, they said, which then brought on a stab of joy.

Bowman felt nothing, only the wild beating of his heart. Terror clenched his gut, and he slowly shook his head.

Kenzie let out an anguished sob. She pounded at her chest, her fingers curling, tearing at her shirt. “I want it to go away. I want it to go away.”

Bowman’s insides roiled. He sat on the edge of the bed as his legs went weak.

“What are you saying, Kenzie?” He made himself get the thought out. “You feel a mate bond? With someone else?”

“I don’t know.” Her words were hoarse, her tears clogging her voice. “I want it to be with you. I don’t want it with anyone else.”

Bowman’s hands clenched so hard his nails creased his flesh. “Gil was here. Is it him?”

Kenzie was silent except for her quiet crying. Tears streamed from her eyes, her face twisted in sorrow.

Gil. Bowman would kill the fucker. He was a dead shithead walking.

“Not his fault,” Kenzie choked out. “He doesn’t understand.”

“He understands a hell of a lot more than he lets on. Why’d he come here tonight? To tell you he felt a mate bond with you?”

“To leave information on Serena and the monster.” Kenzie’s voice shook, then dropped to a whisper. “And to ask me about the mate bond.”

Bowman let out his breath. Son of a bitch. Gil had come here to find out what he was feeling inside, to have Kenzie explain it to him, and Kenzie realized . . .

Bowman wanted to fold up into a little ball and never come out. At the same time, he wanted to howl his misery.

Kenzie and Ryan were the joys of his life, the constants that kept him from saying screw this shit, pulling off his Collar, and running away into the wilds again. He’d become leader young, having to be convinced to take up the mantle of leadership by lesser members of his pack. Bowman had preferred tearing through the woods as wolf to going to pack meetings.

He’d never really settled down, and he’d nearly gone insane when they’d first put a Collar on him. He’d have preferred to kill Cristian in a battle to the death over Shiftertown, but Bowman had known that if he gave in to that impulse, all the other Shifters would have been rounded up and punished for his deed.

The better solution had been to storm to Afina’s house, grab hold of Kenzie, and convince her to become his mate. He’d never regretted the choice, and Kenzie hadn’t either.

Kenzie grounded him. Her touch, her kiss, her scent, made everything bad go away. The wild animal in him calmed with Kenzie, allowing him to think, to feel things besides ferocity and frustration.

Now, because of some stupid instinct they couldn’t control, he could lose her.

“No.” Bowman got to his knees on the bed, cupping Kenzie’s face in his hands. Her tears tracked over his thumbs. “I won’t let you go to him. I can’t. I need you.”