Yvena needs to start over and leaving for the Crossroads is what she has planned. Being followed by the mongoose of her dreams is a shock.

Yvena was one of the stolen shifters, and her recovery has not been easy. Six months of healing after two months of torture is not enough to make her whole, but she knows that not everyone is out to get her.

She is released from the recovery centre and sets out to the Crossroads. After one day there, she knows that she is trying to hide and rushing toward a mate was a mistake. She asks to leave and it is agreed that she can go home the next day, but that night everything changes.

Liander is a mongoose with his eyes on the king cobra who stole his heart. As her caregiver, he couldn’t pursue a relationship, but now she was out, he had quit and there was nothing between them but mutual attraction and being natural enemies. How hard could a relationship be?

Excerpt:

After two months thinking that she was going to die every day, she now had a fixation on the future. Today might be emotionally uncomfortable but tomorrow was the chance for something new, something better with someone else.

Liander nodded and got to his feet. “Good night. Get some rest, Yvena.”

She lifted her cup of hot milk. “Thank you, Liander. Good night.”

He left her alone, and she stared out the window at the snow and moon. It was so different from her home that it was almost like being on holiday. Almost.

The shifter recovery home that she was in had a room for her species with a hot rock and bright light. She hadn’t bothered with it until her therapists had forced her to shift to check her healing. She had been sealed in the room for four hours, and when she emerged, she could not get into her human form fast enough.

Her snake form was no longer the joy or safe haven it had once been. She was officially the most timid cobra that had ever slithered through her family tree. Yvena wanted something more, but even after months of therapy, she wasn’t sure that she would be able to manage it. Throwing herself into the Crossroads would cause her to react. When she was in doubt, she could always react. It was the snake in her. Life was something that had passed her by until she was captured; now, she was fixated on participating in whatever socially uncomfortable manner she could.

Going to the Crossroads was right up that alley. She would learn how to speak to people, to make friends out of strangers, and if she were lucky, she would find someone willing to look past her wall of crazy.

She didn’t hold out much hope, but she had to try. Her life at the recovery centre was over; time for the next step.