Chasing Ember by Mandi Konesni

Author:Mandi Konesni
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: firefighter, lumberjack, small town contemporary, jaguar shifter, fated mates, guardian protector, wounded hero
Publisher: Mandi Konesni
Published: 2023-06-24T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

That hadn’t gone as well as he’d probably planned. Ember kicked him out of the room. Well, screamed at him in fear, really. He’d darted for the door, but explained that he’d remain on the property for her protection. She’d thought she’d heard him going after the poachers, so who was he protecting her from? Did he kill them, or just wound them? If they were still alive, she understood why he’d be insistent on staying close. If they weren’t... well... then she was harboring someone who’d just killed two people.

If she was honest, that didn’t bother her as much as it should have. The Tweedles had tried to kill both of them, and shot her. In her world, that meant anything done to them was done in self-defense. Even a jury would agree. No, what was bothering her was the idea that she’d watched a cat turn into a man next to her like it was no big deal.

Yes, she’d been in pain and bleeding, but she knew what she’d seen. The jaguar had come up and laid next to her, then stood before changing into a man in a way that seemed super painful and drawn out. She hadn’t imagined the sound of bones cracking and realigning, of limbs stretching and snapping. It would have been nausea inducing if pain hadn’t already had her feeling sick to her stomach. Just the details being so clear told her she hadn’t been unconscious. This was something she’d actually experienced.

Even still, she could have written it off, somehow. She could have convinced herself it didn’t happen, that she’d been out of her mind. Until the man she’d seen, the one who had carried her inside and tended to her leg, had then come creeping into the exam room. He’d even had her flannel wrapped around his waist, a detail she simply couldn’t have come up with on her own. Heck, she’d forgotten that shirt was even over there in the corner.

Now things made sense. She’d been driving herself crazy over the past week, thinking she was losing her mind. Ember would wake up and find things done that she swore she hadn’t finished before going to bed. Sure, the cat was out of his cage, but he was just a cat. He couldn’t have swept her floor, wiped off ash from surfaces.

He certainly couldn’t have popped open the fridge and made himself a couple sandwiches. Other times, she’d noticed the animals seemed to have been taken care of overnight. Pee pads were changed, bowls were emptied and refilled. The prey animals had been more skittish since he’d arrived, even. She’d assumed it was just because she’d brought an apex predator into the house, but what if they were reacting to him that way because he’d been in their cages, caring for them? Did he still smell like a predator to them, even in human form?

It was mind-boggling, and made Ember feel like she’d lost all sense of reality. Normal people

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