This is book two of the Rejected Mate Refuge series and the main character is Cara, whose wolf shifter goes by the name Ginger. She is one of many rejected fated mates, but in her case, her fated mate McCoy, sold her to a cage fighting club full of rabid werewolves. He tortured her, broke her bones and almost her spirit and when she escaped she thought she had killed him, until he turned up at the bakery she ran with one of her sisters. Her wolf Ginger and she fought him and Ginger bit out his heart, killing him for sure this time. Her wolf starts to call herself ‘Mate Murderer’ and takes over control, racing off into the woods. Her wolf had gone rabid and wasn’t listening to anything she tried to say or ask it to do. She only calmed down when Ko, a wolf she met in the cages, came up alongside her. He leads her back to the bakery and Ginger orders him to shift and open the door, allowing her a glimpse of his human form, Knox. She knows she won’t be welcome in town anymore and Ginger pushes for her duffel bag and wants it packed, so they can leave. She also needs to find the other rabid wolves she had rescued, Savage and Havoc, who are still unable to control their wolves much and Bulldozer and Claws, who would listen to Ryker, another friend. The last two rabid wolves went back to the van when Ryker asked, so now she just has her whole family outside the bakery and the alpha Mr Finch and his wife, to speak to.
Ryker is a very wealthy wolf shifter, after his whole family and the rest of his pack were killed by witches and he got a large insurance payout. He also has the ability to read anyone’s mind and is partnered by Shadow, whose ability is to be able to locate other rabid wolf shifters and tries to rescue as many as she can, for the refuge they set up. Rejected mates, either male or female, often go rabid after they are rejected and are then killed by the pack. Those that survive or have left their pack voluntarily, or been forced out for other reasons, all have a home with their rejected mate’s refuge. Cara’s ability is as a wolf tamer, her touch allows any rabid wolf to calm and eventually shift back into their human form. Many of them are happier in their wolf form to start with and she can’t leave them alone until they regain some of their sanity and can be trusted. Her family also reject her and want nothing to do with her once they find out she was rejected by McCoy, her fated mate, even after they are told what he did to her! The same is true in other packs, the rejected wolf is banished or killed even. Her old alpha has threatened to kill Havoc and Savage unless they can find them within a short space of time and get them out of town. Knox and his wolf Ko are trying to help look after Cara, after what she went through in the cages and now with having to kill McCoy.
Ginger reckons that Knox likes her as more than a friend and Ginger wants to mate his wolf Ko, definitely. Shadow and Ryker are supposedly just friends, but I would love to see them together romantically in the future. Knox was kicked out as alpha in waiting, under his own father, when his mate rejected him and he hasn’t seen any of his family or pack since. His mother finally contacts him with news of his father and he needs to go and deal with this, but can’t enter the pack lands without a mate! Everything is starting to get complicated, as they are also told of a rejected female mate on the pack’s lands that is being kept isolated from all the others and they want to rescue. Someone is attacking some of their rabid wolves and they don’t know who is behind this and why. When Cara sees someone closely linked to her abusive past, she runs away, but a message has been left for her. What that is all about, I can’t wait to find out in the next book. I missed out on the first book, but this could easily be read as a standalone, it just would have been nice to have read it first for more background. This is a different view of shifter life and what happens to rabid and rejected mates and a place they can actually go to heal. I really enjoyed this different take on the shifter genre and would recommend it to any who love a good shifter series. I received an ARC copy of this book from BookSprout and I have freely given my own opinion of the book above.