Rejection: Moon Fever Book One (Redfern Shifters 1) Read online

  From the Back Cover

  Announcing a new rejected mate shifter romance trilogy by Olivia Concord, part of the REDFERN SHIFTERS universe. This steamy, enemies-to-lovers romance is about a man who can’t let himself love the woman fate gave him. And a woman who feels fate made a mistake yet again.

  Rejection: Moon Fever Book One

  STELLA

  It should’ve been a perfect night. The mating fever gave her a mate. He was beautiful. He touched her. It was supposed to be perfect. It was perfect.

  Her mate kissed her. He gave her a taste of what she always wanted. What she always dreamed of having. Then he shoved her away. Then the dream turned into a nightmare.

  JASPER

  When the mating fever called his wolf, he had to respond. He knew he’d find his perfect mate at Fever Night. Instead, all he found was a woman he couldn't love. A woman fate should’ve known better than to match him with.

  He rejected her. He should’ve hated her. But fate and his inner wolf had other plans and they didn't include letting her go.

  Rejection is a rejected mate wolf shifter romance filled with page-turning action, steamy love scenes, and a satisfying enemies-to-lovers romance.

  *Please note: This is the first book in the Moon Fever trilogy. Stella and Jasper's romance will be resolved in the third book, Redemption.

  Rejection

  MOON FEVER BOOK ONE

  REDFERN SHIFTERS

  OLIVIA CONCORD

  ETON FIELD

  Rejection: Moon Fever Book 1

  Copyright © 2022 by Olivia Concord

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Design: Olivia Concord

  Cover Photos: Depositphotos

  www.oliviaconcord.com

  Don’t Miss a Thing

  Join Olivia’s VIP List at https://www.oliviaconcord.com/vip and get an exclusive alternative-universe first chapter. You’ll also receive other bonus scenes, new book announcements, sales alerts, and more!

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Excerpt from Reunion: Moon Fever Book Two

  Reunion: Moon Fever Book Two

  About the Author

  Also by Olivia Concord

  Chapter

  One

  Wolf shifters tended to sleep in, especially on Saturdays.

  Stella, however, wasn’t like the rest of her pack. She liked to walk around Redfern as the sun rose even though her father got angry whenever he caught her out alone so close to the full moon. She was over twenty-one, but he still tried to control her.

  Luckily that was hard for him to do while he was passed out, sleeping off a night of hard drinking with the alpha and his other enforcers. With the most powerful wolves hungover, Stella knew it was an excellent time to rescue the prisoner.

  She crept out her front door and closed it quietly behind her. The cottage she shared with her father and two half brothers was small with thin walls, so she seldom had the chance to move around unobserved. She paused to listen for the thudding of feet, an angry voice calling her name, but all was quiet, assuring her those she lived with were still sleeping.

  The air was cold and misty, hinting at winter around the corner. Tilting her head back, she sniffed.

  Cat.

  Their village of Redfern was in the coastal mountain ranges of Northern California, so of course there were many large cats and cat shifters in the forest around them, but no feline should’ve been as close as the one she smelled. Redfern was wolf shifter territory—and the dominant pack was their own, the one managed (brutally) by the alpha Hugo Cross. No cat would be here if it had a choice. She’d first smelled a hint of it yesterday afternoon, but too many people had been around for her to investigate.

  Inhaling again, this time for courage, Stella stepped into the grove of pine trees that paralleled the road. As she followed the distinctive feline odor, she had to push aside her revulsion at the scent in her nose. The poor thing wasn’t at fault for being born a cat. Unlike the rest of her pack, Stella didn’t support the ancient war between their species.

  Cat. The scent was getting stronger. Then she detected the emotions blended with it—pain, fear, despair—and felt tears prick her eyes. She just didn’t understand her packmates’ reflexive brutality. Why did they like to inflict so much pain? How could anyone torture another living thing?

  She looked back at her house where her father (hopefully) slept. If he saw what she was about to do, he’d beat her. Perhaps throw her into a cage as well. Starve her, freeze her, humiliate her. As long as she remained unmated, he claimed absolute power over her.

  But she couldn’t just leave the creature there to suffer. Shoving aside her fears, Stella continued walking. She didn’t need to follow her nose anymore; it was the same house as last time. Old Sutton’s. Sadistic bastard.

  She hid behind a massive cedar and peeked around it at the house, a small bungalow with half its shingles falling off. The cage where he kept the poor animal was hanging right next to the back door, between the barbecue and an old toilet used to hold charcoal. He’d duct-taped two old milk crates together and strung the contraption from a flagpole bolted next to the doorframe.

  She’d have to get very close to the house to free the little creature. The window behind the cage was probably a bedroom, maybe Sutton’s.

  She wiped the sweat off her upper lip. If she was lucky, the nasty wolf had also been drinking with her father and was dead to the world. She waited, listening. So far, other than the birdsong, the morning was quiet.

  “Hey, kitty,” she whispered softly, pitching her voice with the birds, not loud enough to wake anyone. The boys in school hadn’t found her particularly attractive, but everyone thought her voice was beautiful. She used her voice to calm the thin, weak, gasping cat that peeked out at her between the plastic holes of the crate. It had golden eyes, long black fur, a pink tongue.

  Meow.

  “It’s okay,” Stella whispered. “It’s okay.” Well, it would be. She reached into her pocket and took out a plastic bag that she used as a glove. Nobody would notice a plastic bag, but a glove would be freakishly out of place in Redfern—wolves didn’t like to cover their claws. Shoes were bad enough, and many went around town barefoot, even in winter. Shoving her hand in the bag, she bent down and found the pocketknife she kept hidden in a hole under the roots of the cedar tree. Keeping it outside kept her scent from clinging to it and would prevent Sutton from tracking her to her father’s house.

  Her heart was beating too fast. And her breathing was too loud—audible to any shifter within twenty yards.

  She told herself to calm down. But another part of her protested it was too dangerous. One of these time
s, she might get caught.

  No, she would get caught. It was inevitable. If Sutton hadn’t been a heavy smoker, he would’ve been able to smell her scent on his property by now. And if she kept freeing his captives, his pets as he called them, he’d finally overcome his shame and ask one of the other men to help him find the culprit.

  She’d do it just one more time. This one hadn’t been in the cage very long; if she freed it now, it might survive to live a healthy life. Sometimes Stella had to put them out of their misery while they were imprisoned, leaving her feeling sick and guilty. So weak. Powerless.

  But sometimes she broke open their cages and they ran to freedom. The joy she felt then was greater than any fear.

  Before she lost her nerve, she ran softly across the broken-concrete patio to the dangling milk crates. The cat began mewing more loudly, which made her heart jump again. If Sutton heard it—

  With the skill of the only girl in a family of men who’d made her do all the cooking since her mother had died a decade ago, Stella sliced the knife through the tape and stepped back as the crates popped open like a steamed clam.

  Although it was matted with blood and half-starved, the cat landed on its feet, gave itself a shake, then bounded off into the forest. Within three seconds, it had completely disappeared into the undergrowth.

  Stella smiled. Cats did have some impressive survival skills.

  She turned to run home, planning to ditch the knife in its hiding spot on her way. But before she took a step, she heard the sound of a nearby window sliding open.

  Chapter

  Two

  Stella froze, her stomach tightening. Had the sound come from the right or the left side of the house? She only had a split second to decide. The left. She was almost sure.

  The sound had definitely been a window though, which meant Sutton would be in his wolf form. His old human back and knees would need a door, but his wolf body was still limber.

  Hopefully he really was on the left side, because she was going to the right. She shoved the knife in the greasy ashes under the barbecue. Being caught with the blade would be the end of her. Then she sprinted around the corner of the house, glanced into the forest where the cat had disappeared, and slowed to an unsteady walk across the front yard. Turning the plastic bag inside out, she shoved it into her back jeans pocket. No thought, just instinct.

  There was no time to escape unseen into the forest, and running would only make her look guilty. And so she forced her legs to propel her up the rickety wooden steps to the front door.

  She would pretend her visit had nothing to do with freeing tortured cats. It was just a coincidence she’d arrived when the actual villain had trespassed and freed his captive. It was a crazy idea—she’d never come to see him before, so why would she start now, just after dawn on the morning of Fever Night? But she trusted her instincts.

  Hand shaking, she rang the doorbell.

  Fever Night. Something to do with that. The full moon. The mating ritual. The matching of the single wolves with their fated loves. He was a nasty brute, but even he had once felt the pull of the moon. It made the most cold and rational of their kind do silly, unpredictable things.

  She shoved her hands in her pockets to hide the trembling and forced herself to look forward, eyes on the door, not at all guilty of anything—even though she could feel the wolf Sutton creeping up behind her, hear the angry rumble in his throat.

  Pretending to be oblivious to his closing the distance between them, she leaned sideways and peeked in the living room window. And then rang the doorbell again. She hoped he couldn’t see the violent trembling of her index finger as she pressed the button.

  The ancient survivor in the depths of her brain was screaming at her to flee. Her shoulders tensed, imagining sharp teeth sinking into her neck. He wouldn’t kill her—her father was too possessive, too violent—but the alpha would forgive him if he maimed her a little for trespassing.

  Fates help me, she thought. She was sweating and shivering, which any capable wolf would be able to smell as the panic it was. Luckily she had a submissive reputation she could use as an excuse. It was her best chance.

  The near-silent creeping of paws turned into loud, clumsy footsteps. He’d shifted back into human shape. Forcing a wide-eyed expression on her face, she turned around slowly and pretended to be surprised by Sutton’s closeness behind her.

  “Oh! Hi. G-g-good morning,” she said, shuffling away from the door and looking down at his huge, callused bare feet. Although nudity was tolerated in their town as the usually unavoidable side effect of shape-shifting, it was rude to stare.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked. He had an unusually high voice, more of a whine than a growl.

  “I-I have the moon fever. I was walking and I— I don’t have time to get home.” She risked looking at his face to watch his reaction. “Can I use your bathroom?”

  He stared at her with incredulous disgust. Moon fever put both males and females into a sexual frenzy that could only be sated by mating or… self-care.

  “You’ve got to be shitting me,” he said. He looked her up and down and broke out into harsh, mocking laughter. “Poodle’s in heat! Does your father know?”

  The pack had been calling her Poodle for years, a mark of disrespect, suggesting she was more of a domesticated, overbred pet than a true wolf shifter.

  It was easy to look embarrassed and uncomfortable. She’d just given him the most pathetic, humiliating information about herself—and it was even true. Now that he was within arm’s reach, he might be able to smell it on her with the fear. She was ready to mate.

  “Y-yes,” she whispered. It was why her father had drunk so much the night before with the alpha, scheming to get her matched to somebody rich—though it was no use. It was the Fates that decided, not any man or wolf, no matter how powerful.

  Sutton barked out another laugh. “That explains his good mood last night,” he said, scratching his balls. “He’s finally going to get rid of you.”

  Her panic eased. He believed her. Figuratively rolling onto her back and showing her belly was the fastest way to prevent an attack. Making herself vulnerable had always been her secret weapon.

  She hung her head and put a dull expression on her face. They thought she was too stupid to know she was being insulted. “He’s glad I’m going to find happiness with my fated mate.”

  “Poodle, he doesn’t give a damn about your happiness,” Sutton said. “Haven’t you figured that out by now? His wives sure did. If anybody ever says the Fates don’t make any mistakes, all they have to do is look at your father’s bad luck. He was matched with two females under the moon. Two. Couldn’t keep either one of them.”

  She clenched her teeth together to stop herself from snapping at him. Her mother had died when she was eleven. Life in Redfern wasn’t easy for most women, but life with her father was especially difficult. His first wife had died too, before Stella was born.

  “I think I feel okay now. I’d better get home.” She gestured past him. “I’m sorry I bothered you.”

  He stood on the top step, blocking her way. He continued to give her an amused sneer. “You sure you can make it that far? I can smell your lust. Must be uncomfortable. Maybe I could help you out.” The sneer turned into a terrifying grin. “As a favor to your father.”

  She pinned her gaze to his gnarled toes, smiling to keep his temper disarmed. “No, thank you. I’ll be fine. Sorry again.”

  He took a step closer to her and reached down to his flaccid dick. “Hope your fated mate feels more strongly about you than I do,” he said, looking her over, touching himself. “I’ve seen dead rabbits that made me more excited.”

  To get away, she’d have to wiggle past him—and she didn’t trust him not to try to stick that thing inside her even without an erection. The moon was calling her, which would make her more attractive to wolves without a mate. Maybe Sutton thought he’d be forgiven for losing control of himself. Young single females we
ren’t protected in their culture, and she’d just shown up alone and needy on his doorstep. Even if she’d been a virgin, it wouldn’t have made a difference.

  “Thank you for your kinship, Old Sutton,” she said, enunciating the word. It had a special, powerful meaning, and by invoking it, she reminded him of the code of the pack. Even theirs had rules that weren’t supposed to be broken.

  He stopped pumping but kept a firm grip around himself, staring at her chest with his lips parted.

  Panic struck her—what if he really wasn’t going to let her go? A beating would’ve been better than—

  Wait, what was that? A red jacket through the trees caught her eye. She watched it get closer, hope flaring inside her.

  Jasper Cross, the alpha’s youngest son, was just stepping out onto the road from the forest trail. Unlike his father, he didn’t seem to be a complete brute. Gorgeous, confident, and popular, Jasper was the same age as Stella but had been sent away to private schools for a real education—one reason she didn’t know him very well. The Cross family had more money than the rest of the town’s residents put together. The lives of the alpha’s family were nothing like hers.

  “Jasper!” she called out, pretending he’d be glad to see her. Sutton took a half step back.