16. Kate
After exiting off the 101 half an hour ago, I pulled into a roadside diner in a town I haven’t the first clue where I am except that I’m in Washington state. At the speed I rode my bike, I’m far enough from Kane, but I still have a ways to go before I’m close to the border.
I don’t plan on leaving the States until I’m certain my brother isn’t here despite Kane’s threat. I shouldn’t have left Oregon until I was sure Trez wasn’t close, but I couldn’t breathe being in the same state as Kane.
If you or any other Marked Crest wolf enter my territory again, I’ll kill you myself.
Was he serious?
Did he mean the words he yelled?
I’m not entirely sure. It felt like he meant them down to the center of my heart when he broke it. I told him I hated him, and I do, but I also don’t.
I can’t.
For all my bravado, I told myself yesterday that I could live without him, but now I’m not sure that’s true. My wolf retreated so far inside me that I can only feel her when she pines for someone she’ll never wholly have.
And if we can’t have both, then it’s neither Kane nor his wolf.
Kane made it clear he wouldn’t settle for anyone who wasn’t his mate. It’s admirable. I should respect that, but I can’t when I’m in love with someone fated to another. And being the other bitch isn’t in my future.
“Are you sure there’s nothing else I can bring you, hun?”
My eyes flick up, seeing Peggy pull my ticket from her pad and place it on the counter next to the plate of food I scarfed down. I started with two steaks, six eggs, and a double order of hash browns. After I polished off that meal within fifteen minutes, she brought me a stack of pancakes. I counted them. There were eight, which I devoured. A few minutes ago, she told me the peach pie was on the house.
Who was I to refuse such a generous offer?
I ate the pie too, not that it helped anything except curb my hunger. It did nothing to soothe my soul or the raging headache pounding against my skull.
“Yes. I’m good. Much better than when I walked in here. Thank you.”
The food was delicious, but I was also starving. After the marathon sex session Kane and I had, the energy those two pieces of bacon provided was gone. I was running on empty.
“You be safe, dear.”
Pulling cash from my bag, I place enough bills down to cover the meal and her tip, then I swivel around on the stool. Hopping down, I step away from the counter.
Pushing against the glass door, I head toward my bike. I paid the attendant for fuel before going to the diner, so I’m good, but I still don’t have a plan to find my brother. I don’t even know where to start.
Where the hell are you, Trez?
I can’t feel anything except the Mount Everest size heartache breaking me apart. I don’t know which direction to go. I could have already passed him, or what if he never left Canada? What if the night I spent with Kane was my only chance to find him, and I gave into my stupid desire for a man who doesn’t want me instead of searching for my brother?
A real alpha would have put her brother first instead of her selfish wants. Maybe I’m not really an alpha.
Doubt and self-loathing settle in the pit of my stomach. Usually, my wolf is there to growl some sense into me when that happens, but she’s lost in her own pity and heartbreak to bring me out of mine.
As I near my bike, I pull my keys from my pocket, then stop dead in my tracks. I’m ten feet from my motorcycle when my nose catches a smell I know all too well.
The attendant I paid is nowhere in sight. There were only humans inside the diner. I made sure I pulled in the surroundings before shutting off my bike to ensure there weren’t any supernaturals around.
How did he find me?
A white van, dirt covering every viewable surface, is parked at the pump in front of my bike. There are no windows except for the cab facing away from me.
I glance to my left, then my right, seeing trees across the street and behind the diner and service station. I know I have to run, but which way?
I pivot, but something sharp pierces my chest before I take the first step. I rip it out as the man holding the gun comes into focus.
Then I feel it, and my breath catches. The poison begins to spread, and anger grabs ahold of me as acutely as the burning blooms inside my body.
“I’m going to rip out your throat,” I seethe. My teeth clamping together, the pain latching onto every nerve.
He fires the air gun again, and this time, the tranquilizer penetrates the muscle in my shoulder. I yank that one out, but another stabs my forearm and then my stomach.
Pulling the one in my arm out, I stumble forward and toss the dart to the ground.
“Katie,” his stentorian voice echoes behind me, telling me he’s closer than when I saw him step from the front of the van into view. I’ve hated that nickname since I was a child, and he knows it.
It’s worse than when my alpha calls me Katherine, refusing to acknowledge Kate as my only name. Both Katherine and Katie grate on my nerves. They both piss me off, but the way Katie rolls off Henrik’s lips is possessive.
Whereas my father is narcissistic and pretentious, his beta is calculating and devious. Henrik is patient but ruthless. My father treats me like I’m dirt under his boot. When the alpha looks at me, it’s with hatred in his eyes. When his beta’s stare is on me, it’s the confidence of someone who owns the thing they’re gazing at.
“Kill her already,” the disloyal coward standing behind the rifle shouts, his raging navy eyes looking behind me where Henrik stands, waiting for me to drop to my knees.
My keys slip from my grasp, falling to the ground.
“That’s not our plan at all,” says a sickly-sweet voice behind me. “I need her alive, and Hen was promised a compliant little plaything.”
“You’re not a wolf,” I spit out. “You’re a snake in the grass, and if I don’t kill you first, Kane will do it for me.” The poison clouds my vision, but I take another step and then another, my strides short. I can already see two of him, and I’m not wholly sure which version is correct.
Another shot pops off, but this one is louder than the noise the air rifle made. The sound cracks all around me a nano-second before the bullet hits its target. The fire at the back of my thigh hurts like hell, the pain too great for my willpower to withstand. I go down. The knee of the leg that the silver bullet pierced hits dirt and gravel hard.
“That’ll be hard to do when you’re kept on your back, where bitches belong, cunt,” says the traitorous motherfucker as my other leg gives out, the minerals in the silver zapping the remaining strength I have left that the Wolfsbane hadn’t smothered.
“Time for you to skedaddle, mutt.” The woman with Henrik steps from behind me and into view. I can only make out her petite stature, a long dark-colored dress, pitch-black eyes, and black inky lines covering her hands and disappearing beneath the sleeves. “It’s your job to kill your alpha’s brother before he makes it home. I suggest you hurry.”
“Kane’s brother?” I choke out, my heart spasming. “Trey?”
If Trey has returned home, does that mean . . . No.
“Trey,” the witch coos. “Trez. They’re one and the same, Anna… Kate.”