Cougar Bait Read online

  “What if . . . what if I don’t choose to take it?” She asked in a low voice.

  He shrugged. “Then you’ll have to deal with your monthly cravings yourself as best you can. I don’t favor a ‘friends with benefits’ relationship with you.”

  “Of course.” She looked down at the syringe again, as though she were considering it. “And our bond? I mean, the whole feeling-you-inside-my-mind thing?”

  “Is already fading,” Keller assured her. “Through continued disuse. A Shifter life-bond is like anything else—if you don’t use it, you lose it. However, I am prepared to hasten the process for both your comfort and mine.”

  “Hasten the process? How?” Her eyes flew up to his.

  “By blocking you.” Keller had a hard time getting the words out, but he forced himself to say them anyway.

  “Blocking me? What does that even mean?” she asked, closing the padded case and pocketing the syringe.

  “It’s a talent only Alphas have, and the closest thing Shifters have to a divorce,” Keller told her. “It involves raising a mental barricade around the part of me that is bonded to you. Walling it off, so to speak, until it withers completely away.”

  “And this block—this wall—it works immediately?”

  “It depends on how determined you are,” Keller said grimly. “And let me tell you, Samantha, I am extremely determined to forget you and move on with my life.”

  “I see.” She glared at him defiantly. “Then do it. I’m tired of having you in the back of my mind all the time—it’s like having an uninvited houseguest you can’t get rid of.”

  Her words stabbed him deep, but Keller was determined not to show it.

  “As you wish.” Closing his eyes, he zeroed in on the part inside him that was bonded to her. It was like a dying garden that no one tended. Grimly, he pictured himself building a barrier around it—brick by brick, walling it off until he could no longer feel her warm, golden presence at the back of his mind.

  It was the hardest thing he had ever done in his life. And the entire time he worked, he heard the other half of himself, his Cougar, growling in anger and anguish.

  Why? Why are you pushing away our female? Our mate?

  She doesn’t want us—doesn’t want me, Keller told his beast sternly. Be still.

  At last it was done. When he opened his eyes and looked at Samantha, he no longer felt her presence in his mind, and he knew she didn’t feel him either.

  “There,” he said, his voice dry and harsh. “You’re dead to me now. As I am to you.”

  “Good.” Samantha got up abruptly, grabbing her tray in a sudden move.

  “There’s no need to go,” Keller forced himself to say. “I’m leaving myself—you can stay and finish your meal.”

  “I lost my appetite.” Tears were glimmering in her blue eyes, and he wanted desperately to take her in his arms and comfort her. But he couldn’t anymore, Keller reminded himself. He had relinquished his right to her, he had given up any hold or claim he had ever had on her. He had blocked her.

  God, he hated himself.

  “I have to go.” Samantha turned blindly away, stumbled once, and put a hand to her belly.

  “Are you all right?” Keller asked sharply. Despite the fact that they were estranged, he couldn’t stop the stab of concern for her he felt.

  “Fine.” She straightened up with an obvious effort. “Just a little too much comfort food, I guess.” She gestured to the mac and cheese, which looked untouched to Keller. “I’d better go check the ER—this is around the time on Friday night the MVAs start coming in.”

  “Good-bye, Samantha.” They were his final words to her, and they nearly stuck in his throat. Somehow he forced them out.

  Samantha had already turned away from him, holding her tray of uneaten food in one hand and her belly with the other. She didn’t look at him as she spoke.

  “Have a nice life, Keller,” she said in a dead, flat voice.

  Then she walked rapidly away—out of his life forever.

  * * *

  The minute she was sure she was out of Keller’s sight, Samantha dumped her tray blindly on an empty table and rushed to the bathroom.

  This can’t be happening! It can’t be!

  She found an empty stall and pulled down her scrubs, staring at her lower belly. It wasn’t as flat as Sadie’s had been—Rejuvenation had smoothed out the lumps and bumps of aging, but it hadn’t made Samantha skinny. Though she was slimmer than she had been as a forty-year-old, she still wasn’t slim enough to tell if she had a “baby bulge.”

  I imagined it, she told herself. All that drama with Keller is making me crazy.

  Thinking of him made her reach mentally to that place in the back of her mind where she’d felt him since the fateful night of their breeding and bonding . . . but there was nothing there. It was like poking an empty socket after a tooth has been pulled—instead of Keller’s warm, solid presence, she felt nothing but pain.

  My God—he really did it. He’s really gone. How much must he hate me right now?

  Almost as much as she hated herself.

  I never should have let him go, Samantha thought, still staring down at her lower abdomen in a kind of daze. But he wanted to go. I was so sure he was here to ask me to come back. Instead he just wanted to be free of me.

  She thought of the syringe in her pocket—he must have been working day and night to get it ready, desperate to give it to her and break their bond, desperate to forget her and their brief time together. He—

  A small bulge in her belly caught her attention and wiped all other thoughts from her mind. No, surely she hadn’t seen that. It was stress . . . exhaustion. . . .

  It happened again. A little bulge like the tiniest foot in the world had kicked out restlessly. It was a barely there movement, and anyone else would have missed it. Samantha might have missed it herself except that she didn’t just see it—she felt it. There was a fluttering inside her, like a hummingbird beating its wings.

  The baby! My baby!

  A feeling of protectiveness like nothing she had ever felt suddenly flowed over her. A fountain of love she hadn’t even known existed had been tapped—it welled up inside her, filling her completely. Her ambivalence about becoming a mother seemed to magically disappear, like a dark shadow melting in the sun. She knew it wouldn’t be easy, but she also knew she was up to it—somehow she would make it work.

  Samantha gazed at her belly in awe. Was this a Shifter thing? This instant love and protectiveness? This joy? She had a sudden strong urge to go tell someone—to tell Keller.

  I’m pregnant! I felt our baby move!

  Instinctively, she reached for him again . . . only to find that same empty, dead spot.

  Gone . . . he’s gone. I’m going to have his baby and he doesn’t even know. Doesn’t even care.

  She remembered his cold words on the subject—“If there’s a child, you may do what you please with it. . . . I will of course send you monetary support if you choose to keep it, but you may have the raising of it entirely.”

  Suddenly she found that instant joy and elation weren’t the only strong emotions accompanying her new knowledge. Before she could stop herself, she burst into tears. Slumping down on the cold toilet seat, she buried her face in her hands.

  Keller—what have I done? I drove you away because I was too afraid to let my life change. Too afraid to accept your love or let myself love you back.

  And now his love had turned to hate. He couldn’t wait to block her—to kill the bond they shared. He just wanted to be free of her, and Samantha didn’t blame him.

  She sort of wished she could be free of herself.

  Fiona was right. It was a gift—Keller’s love was a gift, and I threw it away with both hands. God, what an idiot I’ve been! What a—

  “Dr. Samantha Becker to neonatal, STAT,” the nasal voice of the intercom said, booming into the bathroom.

  Samantha, who had been sobbing so hard her shoulders sho