Denying the obvious is not easy, but Mab Owen is determined. She runs long and hard to avoid Dmitri. She's not buying it.
Dmitri has been quietly waiting for his mate to show herself. He's close to giving up and just accepting that she wasn't out there. When he finds her during a rescue mission, she hits him in the head with a shovel.
He's got a tough row to hoe and makes things very hard for Mab, until her refusal to accept the bond cuts all of her ties with the nice life she'd been leading because of who she was related to.
The whole world is exploding around them turning everyone upside down and showing a lot of cracks in the Shifter foundations.