Title: Shadow of Fury
Series: Wayward Mates Series Book 1
Author: Jess Bryant
Genre/Tropes: Wolf Shifter Steamy Romance
Release Date: July 25, 2024
Cover Design: Melissa Gill Designs
Cover Image: Lindee Robinson
He’s keeping secrets.
Logan Kemp buried the love of his life when he was nineteen and, unable to face the loss of his future mate, he left Shadow Pines. Six years later, he’s been summoned back to deal with his ailing father and take his rightful place as Pack Alpha. Only, the pack he left behind has changed and everything he thought he knew is turned upside down with one fateful encounter.
She’s done with the lies.
Wren Culvert was sixteen when her sister drowned. It was ruled an accident but she always believed Lark’s boyfriend was involved and that his Alpha father covered for him. She wants to rip him apart when she sees him again but instead, a bond sparks between them and all her righteous fury is suddenly wrapped up in the confusing need to be mated with this man she hates.
Only the truth can set them free.
Can Logan and Wren manage to put the past behind them or will the need for revenge ultimately destroy them… and their pack?
Wren sniffed at the air again, breathing in a lungful of that powerful, masculine scent, and then she turned down a street that wasn’t normally on her running route and followed it. The burning she’d been feeling in her legs earlier in her run faded to a distant memory. The plans she’d been making were forgotten. There was only the need to follow the scent, find her mate, and complete the bond.
She cut through an alleyway as the scent grew stronger, focusing only on the magnetic pull that tugged inside her chest now, towards someone and something she had never expected for herself. She didn’t even realize she was running full speed until she rounded a corner and collided with something that felt like a brick wall but was warm and moving.
She stumbled again but this time there were big hands there to grab her by the shoulders. The scent of her mate surrounded her and she closed her eyes to soak it in, to relish the feeling of heat that washed through her from the simple contact of his rough fingers on her skin. When they stopped shuffling from the collision, her back was against the cool brick wall and she opened her eyes to look up at the mate that fate had chosen for her.
The feeling of hope that had begun to fill her popped like a party balloon stabbed with a knife as soon as she recognized the face looming over her.
It wasn’t a stranger. It wasn’t someone new to town or just passing through. It was someone she knew and had hoped to never, ever see again.
“Logan?” She felt his name rip from her lips in a broken curse and he blinked his beautiful hazel eyes at her as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
He was even more handsome now than he’d been at nineteen. His dark brown hair was longer and fell over his forehead with sunkissed highlights that she remembered from long ago summers. He’d grown into his features, no longer the lanky teen but a thick, muscular man. His jaw was dusted in dark stubble that emphasized a full mouth that she should never have noticed just like she shouldn’t have remembered the way his dark lashes were enviably long and thick, framing his gold-flecked eyes perfectly. He was all rough, square angles offset by the softness of his full mouth and those mesmerizing eyes that she would know anywhere.
“Lark?”
It was the sound of her sister’s name that broke the spell and sent pain shooting through Wren and shattering everything inside of her. Because of course he was looking at her like that because he thought she was Lark. He had loved Lark. He had loved her and lost her, just like Wren had.
But she shook that thought away because no, that wasn’t right. That was the bond, the mating heat, trying to make her soften for this man who she hated. He hadn’t lost Lark. He had killed her or he knew who had and yet he was gripping her shoulders so tightly she knew there would be bruises tomorrow, all because he thought she was his dead teenage girlfriend.
Wren shoved him as hard as she could and he stumbled back, likely more out of surprise than her actual ability to overpower him, “Don’t touch me.”
He blinked again, slowly, as if he was fighting through the fog of the mating heat that was trying to control them as well. He looked her up and down, slowly, from top to bottom, and Wren fought a shiver of awareness. He met her gaze again and this time she saw the same look of horror that must have been on her own face when he shook his head.
“Wait… Wren?” He looked as lost as she felt. “No. It can’t be.”
The words sliced through her, as sharp as a blade, even though they were the same ones running through her head. Wren told herself the pain was only because of the bond. It was already there, burning through her veins, burrowing under her skin, forming despite her hatred for this man. It made her long for his touch even as her stomach twisted and she felt sick.
She’d always thought that if she came face to face with Logan Kemp again that she would shift and let her wolf rip him apart, shred him to pieces the way he deserved. But now her wolf was lunging for the surface and it was taking everything in her power to hold the animal at bay because she didn’t want to rip him apart at all.
Her animal side only wanted to sink her fangs into his skin, to claim him and to be bonded to him forever. All because fate had decided something she never would have chosen for herself.
Logan Kemp was her mate and she, apparently, was his.
She cut through an alleyway as the scent grew stronger, focusing only on the magnetic pull that tugged inside her chest now, towards someone and something she had never expected for herself. She didn’t even realize she was running full speed until she rounded a corner and collided with something that felt like a brick wall but was warm and moving.
She stumbled again but this time there were big hands there to grab her by the shoulders. The scent of her mate surrounded her and she closed her eyes to soak it in, to relish the feeling of heat that washed through her from the simple contact of his rough fingers on her skin. When they stopped shuffling from the collision, her back was against the cool brick wall and she opened her eyes to look up at the mate that fate had chosen for her.
The feeling of hope that had begun to fill her popped like a party balloon stabbed with a knife as soon as she recognized the face looming over her.
It wasn’t a stranger. It wasn’t someone new to town or just passing through. It was someone she knew and had hoped to never, ever see again.
“Logan?” She felt his name rip from her lips in a broken curse and he blinked his beautiful hazel eyes at her as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
He was even more handsome now than he’d been at nineteen. His dark brown hair was longer and fell over his forehead with sunkissed highlights that she remembered from long ago summers. He’d grown into his features, no longer the lanky teen but a thick, muscular man. His jaw was dusted in dark stubble that emphasized a full mouth that she should never have noticed just like she shouldn’t have remembered the way his dark lashes were enviably long and thick, framing his gold-flecked eyes perfectly. He was all rough, square angles offset by the softness of his full mouth and those mesmerizing eyes that she would know anywhere.
“Lark?”
It was the sound of her sister’s name that broke the spell and sent pain shooting through Wren and shattering everything inside of her. Because of course he was looking at her like that because he thought she was Lark. He had loved Lark. He had loved her and lost her, just like Wren had.
But she shook that thought away because no, that wasn’t right. That was the bond, the mating heat, trying to make her soften for this man who she hated. He hadn’t lost Lark. He had killed her or he knew who had and yet he was gripping her shoulders so tightly she knew there would be bruises tomorrow, all because he thought she was his dead teenage girlfriend.
Wren shoved him as hard as she could and he stumbled back, likely more out of surprise than her actual ability to overpower him, “Don’t touch me.”
He blinked again, slowly, as if he was fighting through the fog of the mating heat that was trying to control them as well. He looked her up and down, slowly, from top to bottom, and Wren fought a shiver of awareness. He met her gaze again and this time she saw the same look of horror that must have been on her own face when he shook his head.
“Wait… Wren?” He looked as lost as she felt. “No. It can’t be.”
The words sliced through her, as sharp as a blade, even though they were the same ones running through her head. Wren told herself the pain was only because of the bond. It was already there, burning through her veins, burrowing under her skin, forming despite her hatred for this man. It made her long for his touch even as her stomach twisted and she felt sick.
She’d always thought that if she came face to face with Logan Kemp again that she would shift and let her wolf rip him apart, shred him to pieces the way he deserved. But now her wolf was lunging for the surface and it was taking everything in her power to hold the animal at bay because she didn’t want to rip him apart at all.
Her animal side only wanted to sink her fangs into his skin, to claim him and to be bonded to him forever. All because fate had decided something she never would have chosen for herself.
Logan Kemp was her mate and she, apparently, was his.
Jess Bryant is an avid indoorswoman. A city girl trapped in a country girl’s life, her heart resides in Dallas but her soul and roots are in small town Oklahoma. She enjoys manicures, the color pink, and her completely impractical for country life stilettos. She believes that hair color is a legitimate form of therapy, as is reading and writing romance.
She started writing as a little girl but her life changed forever when she stole a book from her aunt’s Harlequin collection and she’s been creating love stories with happily ever afters ever since.
Jess holds a degree in Public Relations from the University of Oklahoma and is a lifetime supporter of her school and athletic teams. And why not? They have a ton of National Championships! She may be a girlie girl but she knows her sports stats and isn’t afraid to tell you that your school isn’t as cool as hers… or that your sports romance got it all wrong.
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