An Impossible Mate — Joy Lynn Fielding

Loner Matt Urban has somehow ended up as alpha to a pack of outcasts and misfits. When an injured shifter blunders onto their territory one night, swearing he didn't know it was pack territory, Matt is suspicious. It doesn't help that the stranger, Jesse Turner, is as stubborn as Matt. Wanting answers, Matt persuades Jesse to stay a while, and the intense attraction they feel for one another soon blazes into heat. That's when Matt realizes: the stranger with the smart mouth and the attitude problem is his mate. Matt, still mourning the lover he lost years ago, doesn't want a mate, and Jesse doesn't believe in mates. Yet neither of them can deny the pull they feel toward one another. They're still struggling with the situation when a hostile alpha claims Jesse. Matt has to fight to protect Jesse. First, though, he has to fight Jesse's stubborn independence if he's to win his heart.