The Mating Season: A Paranormal Shifter Romance by Jade White Page A

rest of you were systematically brainwashed through residential schools. No white person is allowed here without express invitation of the Elder council, especially that white man.”
    Kim nodded as the elder spoke. “Don’t worry, I won’t,” she whispered. “I still, I’m still not ready for this kind of commitment, and especially to someone I have just met. I need to get to know them a bit better before I can choose. I’ll also feel safer if Smiley were caught.”
    “We can arrange that,” Rusty said confidently. “You have three months to pick. The autumn equinox marks the end of the mating season. If you don’t pick by then, the winter will become unbearable for you, Keith and Tony. The one you don’t choose will go back to being his normal good-natured self, don’t you worry. He won’t go feral because of a little rejection, but both will go feral if you don’t mate with one of them by the equinox, whether this Smiley fella is caught or not.”
    Kim nodded. What had she gotten herself into by moving here? she thought. Cougar shape shifters, life mates, and a shaman that seemed to be a genuine legitimate shaman, not just one in name, like on her home reservation.
    Rusty looked at her. “Do you have any questions for me?” he asked.
    “Well, kind of, but, I don’t know how to phrase it,” Kim stammered.
    “Try me,” Rusty said. “I’ve been around for quite some time and I have fielded many a question from a young woman about to go up for the ceremony. Everything from how the people shape shift to if their penis goes barbed during sex.”
    Kim blushed furiously. She didn’t want to talk about sex to her actual boss.
    “I can see you’ve already been with both of them, so you can answer that question for yourself,” Rusty chuckled.
    “That wasn’t my question. I think it’s more along the lines of, how bad will it get, like the mating burn, if I don’t choose by the equinox.”
    “It will drive you insane. You can’t shift into mountain lion form. You can’t escape the burn like Keith and Tony here can. Even in our human form, we have a heightened sense of smell. You’ve already been exposed to the mating pheromones of both Keith and Tony. You’ve had a double dose, so if you don’t mate with one of them, you’ll slowly go insane, eventually killing yourself to make it stop.”
    “Wow,” Kim said looking at both Tony and Keith. Their lives, as they knew them, were in her hands. She didn’t want them going off and living as cougars for the rest of their lives, but she didn’t want to make any kind of long term commitment to either of them right away.
    “Okay, I’ll give it until the autumn equinox,” she agreed. Neither Tony nor Keith seemed like bad guys. Three months seemed like a reasonable time to get to know the guy one was going to settle down with.
    Rusty smiled slyly, knowing she might not have three months to make the choice, but he kept that little secret to himself for the time being.
     

CHAPTER FIVE
    Kim sat at the kitchen table, looking at her bacon and eggs, her appetite vanished with Rusty’s pronouncement. She had to pick one of the men, Keith Mountainside or Tony Underhill, before the autumn equinox, three months away. It would be extremely difficult to pick one of them with Smiley Rockborne, her estranged ex, skulking about, wanting to kill her and all those she held dear.
    She looked at all three men with tears in her eyes. “Please, leave my house. I need to be alone for a while.”
    All three men nodded solemnly and shuffled out of the house. Rusty stopped for a second, his piercing black eyes examining Kim. “You know, you were destined to come here. All this bad, there will be good to come of it in the end. Just be patient, child. I hope to see you at work soon.” With that, Rusty left the house.
    Kim walked to the living room and collapsed on the futon. She pushed a lock of her raven black hair behind her ear and started to tidy up the area. The