Page 140 of Primal Bonds

“What about him?” she asked in a cool voice.

“I thought maybe you two—”

“No. We’re friends, and that’s all we’ll ever be. I’ve told him that, straight out, but he thinks he can change my mind.” She gave a hard swallow and stared down at the eggs congealing on her plate. “I’ll probably never mate.”

“Jani. You don’t mean that.”

“No?” She shrugged and turned the subject. “You’re the alpha. You’re the one who should find a mate—and not Rosana do Rio.”

His bronze eyes went flat. “Shut it.”

But hurt made her keep going. “You think I don’t know you slip off to Grace Harbor hoping you’ll run into her? She’s the Rock Run alpha’s baby sister, asshat. A river fada. You want to start a fucking war?”

“Shut it, I said.”

They glared at each other.

Marjani’s chin jutted. “Only if you shut up about me and Luc.”

“Deal. But you’re not going to Iceland, got it?” He picked up his coffee cup, realized it was empty, and set it back down.

“Yeah.” It wasn’t a lie, because she did get that Adric didn’t want her to go.

That didn’t mean she wasn’t.

She got up and poured them both more coffee.

Chapter 1

There’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing.

~Icelandic saying

Like hell. Iceland was freaking cold.

Marjani wrapped her hoodie tightly around her as she slipped out of Keflavik Airport. It was the end of July, for Goddess’s sake. She hadn’t expected the bite in the wind.

Her cougar did not approve. Back home in Baltimore, the weather had been sunny and humid, and the cat liked the heat.

Oh, well, she wasn’t here on a pleasure trip.

Beneath the hoodie, her quartz hummed against her heart. A sheath in her right boot held an iron dagger, and she had an iron switchblade in her front pocket, an iron blade being the most efficient way to kill a fada or a fae. Her left boot held a steel stiletto, and her fishing knife was in a pocket on the leg of her pants. To get through TSA, she’d had to stash her blades in her backpack and check it as luggage, but she didn’t go anywhere without them.

Reykjavik was thirty miles away. As she got in the bus line, a burly man smelling of alcohol jostled her. Her cat, edgy at being confined for six hours in a plane full of humans, bristled. Her head whipped around, fangs lengthening, eyes flashing a cougar-blue.

The man squawked and stumbled backward.

She hurriedly reined in the cat. This was ice fae territory. If they found her sniffing around, she was fucked.

Worse, Corban might find her before she found him.

She sent a quick glance around, but all she saw were humans. The nearest ones edged away.

Marjani hunched deeper into the hoodie. She would not lose control of her animal. Too much depended on this trip.

The bus for Reykjavik pulled up. She took a seat at the back next to the emergency exit and scanned each face as the bus filled up. Nobody but humans boarded, their salty, iron scent pressing in on her like on the jet.

The seat beside her remained empty. Word must have been passed that she was an earth fada. No one wanted to sit next to the predator in a woman’s body.

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