MATED TO MY EX is finally here!! So much of my heart has gone into this project, I can’t believe it’s finally out in the world. I love the characters so deeply and hope you will too, I think these adorable idiots are just a riot. 

Below, I’ve included a little bonus art (stay tuned for the fully NSFW version) and part of the first chapter. Things get hairy pretty quickly…

Chapter 1: Elise

I don’t have the energy of a go-for-a-morning-hike person, I just wish I did. I push myself out of bed the fourth time my bladder wakes me up in the night and put on just enough clothes that I’m not shivering my ass off, never mind how goofy the resulting outfit is.

That’s how I wind up outside in the woods when it’s still o’dark-thirty, my hands jammed in my near-nonexistent pockets, because I grabbed the wrong pants.

It’s more than a little foggy out. Sometimes it seems like clouds come down and rest on the mountain for a while, the dim morning light casting the trails in a hazy blue lens.

In three years, I’ve never run into anyone one out here. I’ve spooked deer and raccoons on occasion, but for the most part, the world is still entirely asleep. Hell, I’m pretty much asleep. Sometimes when the trail is straight and level, I walk with my eyes closed for a few paces, like it’ll add up to a little more sleep.

I yawn as a flutter of birds take off some distance away, cawing like they’re mad about something. I don’t think anything of it until I hear a noise, vicious and animal.

Mid-step, I freeze.

My heart is climbing into my throat one thud after another as I turn my head in the slightest amounts, scanning my surroundings much more intently than I had been before.

I don’t know what it is, but I catch something out of the corner of my eye. Even with minimal detail, I can tell it’s a hulking figure of an animal, dark fur.

I swallow and peek over my other shoulder. The trail back is long and winding. I can cut through the woods and get back to the house sooner.

A low growl thrums through the woods and raises all the hair on the back of my neck.

I’m off at a sprint, leaving behind everything I probably should have learned in Scouts about not giving chase to predator animals.

For several seconds, I’m nothing but one harried foot hitting the ground after another, nearly slipping on wet leaves and who knows what else. I’m covering more distance than I thought I would; I can see my backyard in the distance.

There’s a hint of a self-congratulatory feeling that I’m going to be able to get back into my apartment before anything catches up with me.

But the woods are not as kind as the main trail.

My foot slips out from under me, and I sprawl through a mound of leaves and pine needles.

Oof.

The points of my body that hit the ground hardest are still ringing with the impact. Not the worst fall I’ve had in the woods, but still dizzying.

I start to pull myself up, but I glimpse through my hair the large paws stepping through the leaf-covered ground, circling me. I still. I’m simultaneously wishing for a hair tie, and that I had never gone out for a hike.

My heart is quivering like a rabbit in my chest. Maybe if I remain motionless, it won’t see me.

But I doubt my neon-green yoga pants will blend in with the ground.

I can feel its breath puff against my ankle, feel the graze of whiskers move up my body until it’s sniffing loudly by my ear.

Not biting, just smelling. I dare to look at it through the tangle of my hair across my vision.

Maybe not a wolf, I realize. Something else.