CHAPTER SIXTEEN
–Bain–
THE LAST THING I wanted to do was clothe Naya and remove her from where she straddled me after I had finally claimed her and made her mine. After I had experienced the most intense, profound moment of my life. One I wanted to do again and again until I died, but knew Naya needed sustenance and to get to know as much about her new pack as possible before I was gone.
So, as difficult as it was, I did away with her silky dress, returned her to medieval attire, and we joined the others in Mave’s eating hall at the center of numerous dens. Given how loud we’d been during lovemaking and Naya, with her stunning beauty, especially post-rutting—her creamy skin aglow, and her hair dried into silky waves—men and women alike had trouble keeping their eyes off of her.
“Come, brother and new sister.”
Mave invited us to join her at her table beside a bonfire, where she sat with her female lover on her lap and her men on either side. “Feast and enjoy my people, for they are as much yours as you are each others.”
She looked at us with a small, knowing smile. “In every sense of the word now, ta?”
She shrugged a shoulder. “At least until you make Naya your fated mate and your queen, Bain.”
“If she will have me ‘twill be sooner rather than later,”
I swore, pulling Naya onto my lap before she had a chance to sit beside me. Though she was bound to keep me harder than ever, I would have her nowhere else.
“If I’d have you?”
Naya exclaimed, as at ease amongst Mave’s wolves as she had been among mine. Her sultry eyes turned my way, and the corner of her mouth shot up. “Pretty sure I just did that.”
“You did, and perfectly, too,”
I praised her because she had more than earned it. “Yet I would have you be my bride and queen, too.”
“Sure you would.”
Naya chuckled before she realized I wasn’t joking. “Oh, you’re serious?”
Her brow furrowed. “Bain, we’ve known each other for like a day.”
“We have known each other far longer than that, and I’ve never been more serious.”
I filled her cup with wine and fed her meat off one of the wooden platters, ensuring she ate. “I want you to be my queen, and I want my pack to be your pack. Everything that belongs to me will be yours.”
I ran one of her silky, brown locks through my fingers, praying we had time together to enjoy everything I could give her. “I know you have a life in the future and are wealthy, but I am too. As you saw at my castle, I can offer you much.”
Naya’s eyes lingered on me for a too-long moment, her thoughts in disarray when she realized just how serious I actually was. We would have to work out the details, but she could have it all and keep everything she had in the future, too, if she so chose, as long as she stayed true to the Wolves of Ossary and cared for our pack.
It seemed Mave figured out what was coming before all else because she motioned to her lovers to see everyone out for a good night of resting and rutting. She would join them soon enough.
“You know you’re not the first man to propose to me,”
Naya finally said softly. She narrowed her eyes at me as she heard the truth behind my words and caught my thoughts, putting the pieces together faster than I had hoped. “You are, however, the first person to make it sound, whether through words or thoughts, like you want to marry me before you die.”
“You have not told her yet, brother.”
Mave sighed. “Though I cannot say I blame you given the circumstances.”
“What’s going on?”
Naya said slowly, looking from Mave to me with a frown. “What haven’t I been told?”
I was beyond grateful when Kaia arrived, sent here to protect us, while Tréan stayed close to Callum, Ceara, and the pups. Not surprisingly, she had continued following us telepathically, so she knew we had progressed swiftly in our Fated Mate Cycle. Even faster than she and Tréan had.
When Kaia sat down opposite us and told Naya to drink her wine because she would need it, the color drained from my mate’s face.
“Drink, cousin,”
Kaia said sternly. “Then we’ll talk and figure things out.”
Even though Naya shook her head, Kaia was her arch-alpha’s fated mate, which meant if she told Naya to do something, her inner beast would force her to do it. So, as disgruntled as she had become, Naya drank her wine in a few long gulps, took a deep breath, and showed the same courage she always did. “Tell me everything.”
So Kaia did, sparing me the heartbreaking chore of telling my mate I would be gone soon. We wouldn’t have a life together because I was doomed to die once we completed our Fated Mate Cycle, but at least she would be free of Niall and, by extension, Tadc.
“Adlin couldn’t say why it would happen, only that it goes against the rules of the curse to take a Renegade werewolf from her mate,”
Kaia said in closing, refilling Naya’s cup and ordering her to drink more. Though she kept a stern look, I felt my new queen’s pain for me and her cousin. The heartache she couldn’t show yet because Naya needed her to be strong. “The price for going against the rules is Bain’s death in this life once you complete your Fated Mate Cycle, yet you’ll have each other again in every life to follow.”
Naya drank and stared at her cousin for a stretch, clearly grappling with Kaia’s revelation, until she swallowed hard, blinked away the moisture in her eyes, and shook her head.
“I don’t give a shit about every life to follow.”
Despite her voice being raspy with emotion, she sat up a little straighter on my lap and notched her chin in defiance. “I want this life.”
Her gaze narrowed on me. “You in this life, not in dreams or nightmares.”
Inhaling deeply, Naya gathered herself and looked from me to the others. “So we need to figure out a way around this.”
She shrugged, not batting a lash if it meant saving me. “Or I will shun Bain and go back to Niall.”
“If only it were that easy,”
I said gently because I felt her building tension and wanted to soothe her. “You belong to me now, Naya, not him. Your inner Renegade was tamed by me and me alone.”
I shook my head. “And my wolf will not let yours go any more than your inner beast will allow you to leave mine. We are mates now, soon to be fated mates, our wolves loyal only to each other.”
“And you knew this going in?”
Naya said through clenched teeth, her sadness turning to anger. She searched my eyes with disbelief. “You reeled me in and let me trust you, sleep with you, and all along, you knew it would mean your death?”
“I knew it would mean your safety,”
I corrected, not letting her go when she thought to remove herself from my lap. “And I would do it again and again if it meant keeping you out of Niall’s clutches and far away from the life he would have enslaved you in because we both know you would have suffered one nightmare after another with him. You would have gone full Renegade with a monster who would have utilized your immense strength, mixed with just the right amount of ruthlessness, to his advantage because that’s the direction your Renegade takes you rather than toward insanity. You are incredibly driven and strong but lethal, too.”
I paused, letting her soak that up before I continued. “There would be no safety for you in his arms, only torture and abuse.”
I softened my tone but made her look at me. Straight into my wolf’s eyes. “So, ta, yes, I took you from him even if it meant my death because I love you, Naya.”
It was the first time I had ever uttered those words to a woman, but I meant them. I think some part of me had meant them since we were children. Since the moment we were thrust together through our dreams and nightmares, and fate somehow brought us together across the centuries because we were destined for each other. Two people. This moment. Us. Built for one another. One half of a whole unless we were together.
Naya’s mouth dropped open at my declaration before it snapped shut, and her wolven eyes flared in anger. She ground out her words one at a time, emphasizing each one. “Screw. You.”
That was it. Nothing else. Familiar enough with her declaration to know she had rejected me out of hurt more than anything, I sighed and let her go when she stood up this time.
I thought she might storm off because she was so furious, but I should have known better because, as Naya had said, she didn’t run from a fight, and this moment was a full-out battle for her. So she refilled her cup, sat at the table across from Mave, and glared at all three of us.
“For starters, you suck for not being straight with me from the beginning. All of you.”
She narrowed her eyes at Kaia. “Especially you because you’re family.”
Downing half her cup, she set it down when I sensed she’d prefer slamming it, smoothed her expression so it would be hard to know what she was thinking if you weren’t in her mind, and eyed us all again. “How do we fix this, and what will it cost? Everything can be fixed, and everything has a price. Not just that, but hell if there isn’t a loophole somewhere that can be manipulated.”
She homed in on me. “Maybe it’s as simple as slowing down our Fated Mate Cycle? Or never completing it?”
“’Tis too late for that,”
I said. “And you know it. Feel it. Even if our human halves tried, our wolves would never allow it. Our connection is irreversible.”
“What if I turn myself over to Tadc?”
she wondered, looking at Mave and Kaia. “Would that work? Let him steal me from Bain and put this damn death sentence on him?”
“I will never give you to that monster,”
I growled, loathing the idea of Tadc anywhere near her. “You would have to kill me with your own bare hands before I allowed it.”
“Don’t tempt me,”
Naya spat, pressing a hand against her trembling thigh. We might have conquered a lot when we lay together, but there was clearly no extinguishing her stress-related tremors when it came to me. Her level gaze strayed from me and remained on the women. “What if I shunned Bain?”
She shot me a contemplative look. “I hear that’s a thing.”
Her eyebrows rose when she looked at Kaia and Mave again. “Or even exile him from our pack? Have I the power to do that? Maybe our Fated Mate Cycle will be halted indefinitely if he's shunned or exiled?”
“It doesn’t work that way,”
Tréan said softly from the shadows before joining us. It seemed he felt the pups were safe enough in Callum’s hands, and this moment was too important because he crouched beside Naya and cupped her cheek, his eyes flaring with his inner beast when his gaze locked with hers. “If you need to blame anyone, blame me, my new sister and pack member. Blame me because ‘twas I who asked you to swear allegiance to me above all others, so ‘twas I first and foremost who didn’t tell you the truths that should have been yours up front.”
“Why?”
she whispered, her eyes welling again as she gazed into her alpha’s eyes. “Why let it get this far? Why break my heart?”
“Because I wanted your heart to feel love,”
Tréan said, wanting to be nothing but honest now since he hadn’t been from the start. “And I had to protect my pack above all else. You and your cousins. My sister. Brothers.”
“Yet you didn’t protect Bain,”
Naya managed, her trembling thigh calming beneath Tréan’s touch. “And he’s your brother.”
“Yet he is also an alpha protector with his own mind and heart, and ‘tis fierce indeed.”
Tréan sat in the chair beside her, rested his hand over hers on the table, and, with a heavy sigh, shared my story from the beginning. “As you must realize, I had no choice but to turn Bain when he was young. Not long, it seems, before he traveled to your time and tried to rescue you.”
Although we hadn't discussed it yet, I knew Naya sensed Tréan didn't age as quickly as others because of his unusual status, possessing not just the blood of a werewolf but of wizards and witches. Now he had taken a fated mate, he would likely age with her.
Tréan shook his head, took a deep breath, and continued. “I’d never turned anyone that young, but I had no choice because Bain was a mighty warrior and protector even then. Son to a poor farmer, he was barely walking when he learned to hunt and wield a blade to protect his family. Yet it wasn’t enough one morn when he and his father went hunting and came across a bear.”
As Tréan retold the story, I remembered the moment like it was yesterday. The crisp chill of the pine-scented air and low-hung fog snaking through the trees. The cold, blustery wind caused the branches to click together overhead before everything grew quiet. At least, it had seemed that way when a great bear lumbered out of the murky whiteness and roared at my father.
“I had been tracking the bear,”
Tréan said. “I knew ’twould cause great harm to the people of the local village and nearby farms, yet feed my pack well.”
He shook his head and frowned. “Yet, I did not expect to find him charging a farmer in the woodland only for a boy to roar in fury and whip a dagger into his side to distract him.”
Goosebumps appeared on my skin as Tréan recounted the story, and I was transported right back to that day. That moment. I had never felt terror like I did when that bear rushed my father. Yet anger overtook my fear, and I acted, protecting my da the only way I knew how.
“I had never heard a bear roar with so much fury,”
Tréan said, still marveling at it to this day. “Nor did I expect a boy of all things standing so steadily with his eyes narrowed, not running away when the bear, barely slowed by the small blade, turned his attention Bain’s way. A beast that dwarfed him by far.”
I could feel my alpha’s pride as he retold the story. “Bain cared nothing for his own life, only that of his father’s, and it was clear as he stared death in the face because it would be certain death and brutal, at that.”
As if still there, lost in that moment, I remembered the longer I stared at it, the less fear I felt. If anything, a calm acceptance overcame me. This was my father’s chance to escape so he would live on to take care of our family. My mother. Sisters. My younger brother. They would be all right without me. Had to be because this was it.
Or so I thought.
“When the bear swung in Bain’s direction and stalked his way, I should have attacked right then, but it was too risky with the boy so close,”
Tréan went on. “But it didn’t matter in the end because when I growled, distracting the beast”—he paused a moment, clearly biting back emotion at the memory— “it seemed Bain thought I was worth protecting, too, because he was there again.”
“What do you mean, there?”
Naya said softly, shaking her head as if she had seen the moment, which she probably had, as it replayed in my mind.
“Bain tried to protect me, and it cost him his life,”
Tréan said just as softly.
“Or at least it would have had Tréan not been there,”
I said, remembering the searing pain the bear had inflicted on me before Tréan ended him. “If he had not saved me...turned me with my permission, we wouldn't be sitting here now.”
I knew it wasn’t one of Tréan’s fonder memories because he had thought me far too young, but when I was on death’s doorstep, I wanted life, no matter the curse that came with it.
“So you see, Naya,”
Tréan continued, getting to his point. “Bain is always going to fight for those he loves. Protect at all costs. Lay down his life if necessary.”
He squeezed her hand, held her gaze, and made things clear in a way only her arch-alpha could. “And you, his fated mate, will always be the most important person to him. That means even if I wanted to, there would be no stopping him from protecting and loving you.”
He shook his head. “No stopping him from dying for you if it means keeping you safe.”
Naya went to say something, argue, try to make another point, but the words died on her lips the longer she gazed into Tréan’s eyes and felt our memories. The longer she gazed into our past at a stormy sea and what I had been willing to do for her even then. There was no changing who I was, and she wouldn’t want me any other way because we were the same.
“I can promise you this, though, my new sister,”
Tréan said gently, brushing away a silent tear that rolled down Naya’s cheek. “If I am given half a chance to intercept the bear coming for Bain now, whatever its form, I will gladly lay down my life to stop it as he was willing to do the same for me. Is willing to do to this day.”
Though Naya nodded without responding, I felt her anger simmering down, but not her determination. Instead, she inhaled deeply once more, gathering herself when Tréan left her side, eyed me for a long moment as if weighing how she wanted to handle things, and then returned to my lap. Better still, she nuzzled her lush little backside against a cock that went hard the moment she sat down and spoke bluntly to everyone. “Let’s eat and drink. Then, I’m taking Bain to bed and pleasuring him so well, he’d be a fool to die and leave me behind.”
“Indeed!”
Mave exclaimed, tossing back her head and laughing. She was clearly a fan of my woman, and I didn’t blame her. Naya was exceptional. Everything I could have ever wanted in a mate as she didn’t drown her distress over our predicament deep down in the murky waters of her mind this time but kept them shallow where I could help her through them.
Although our time was brief before Tréan had to return to the pups, it was time well spent eating, chatting, and eventually even laughing. Naya didn’t eat much, but she ate some—enough to satisfy me before my inner beast finally grew impatient, and I needed satisfaction in other ways.
As it turned out, Naya wasn’t lying because, by the time she was finished with me later that night, I couldn’t imagine dying and not enjoying far more of her, no matter what was at stake.