17. Kane
Is the one woman I’ve wanted and refused to allow myself to have my mate?
Could Kate really be Anna?
Guilt presses against my chest plate as the same panic that jarred me awake an hour ago claws at the back of my neck.
Everything inside me is at war. Well, everything except my wolf. He’s still MIA, and as lonely as that feeling is, it’s pissing me off too.
Kate can’t be Anna. It’s impossible. But fuck if I don’t want her to be. And that fact makes me the world’s shittiest mate. I want another woman to be my fated mate rather than the one I was gifted twenty years ago.
How fucked up is that?
I can’t think clearly to even begin to analyze everything.
My skin prickles and itches with unease. My hackles are up, and it’s not just because I’m mad at my wolf for putting up a wall between us. Something else is triggering my senses. My instincts are telling me to run, to find Kate, but my head is telling me to stay the fuck away from her. She’s not Anna. I can’t have her.
Storm is wrong. I’m not Kate’s alpha. I’m not Trez’s either. They aren’t them.
“Goddammit, A.K., where the hell are you?” Trez bellows from where he’s standing, staring out the open front door. My gaze flicks to his back, his hands braced on each side of the doorframe.
Who the fuck is A.K.?
He took a shower half an hour ago to wash the remnants of the Wolfsbane and smell off his body. We’re close in size, though I have several inches of height on him. The pair of worn jeans and loose Carhartt T-shirt he grabbed from my closet fit him perfectly. Even my boots look like they belong on him.
That was one of the first things I noticed about him years ago. We wore the same things. Everything he was wearing the day we met was the same brand, down to the color of the material, as the ones in my closet. Back then, the only difference was he was smaller than me.
Now, he’s not, and I’m unsure when that happened. The second year they visited, he’d put on weight and grew a few inches. The year after that, the same.
“What did you say?” My dad steps from where he’d disappeared down the hall to contact my mom after Trez came from my bedroom.
Dad said he wouldn’t tell Mom that Trez was her missing pup, at least not until it’s confirmed, but I know my father. If he thinks Trez is Trey, then he won’t keep those thoughts from his wife, the love of his life, his fated mate.
“Who’s A.K.?” I ask the same thought that flickered through my head before my father opened his mouth.
Trez swivels his head, looking over his shoulder, first at my Dad, then at me. His mouth opens, and my supernatural hearing picks up the swoosh of air forced between his lips instead of an answer.
“Kate,” Dad replies for him, his eyes never veering from Trez while I’m left baffled as to why my father would assume that when I’ve never heard Trez call his sister anything other than her name. “I’m wondering, does my son know why he called her by that specific reference.”
“Jesus, Dad. You don’t even know?—”
“I’m certain.” My father interjects, his former alpha side showing in his tone as his head whips toward me, not liking that I can’t accept his certainty as a factual statement. “They’re initials, Kane. They’re Anna’s initials.” He sighs, his breath more ragged than his spoken words would have you believe. His eyes leave mine, his head shaking ever so slightly I wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t trained my unblinking stare on him.
“My sister’s initials are A.H. for—” Jagger starts to argue, but Dad cuts him off.
“Anna Hayes, yes, Jag, but you’re not putting two and two together. Neither is Kane.” He swallows, his amber eyes flicking back to mine. “Fuck, I didn’t either, and it’s been staring me in the face for years. Her name is Anna Kate Hayes.”
Pins and needles prick the back of my neck, stabbing a path down my spine. The air in my lungs rushes out of my mouth.
How did I not know that?
I glance at Jagger, his eyes as wide and round as mine. He shakes his head, telling me he didn’t know either.
“A wolf won’t answer to any name other than what its mother named him or her,” my father explains, reminding me of the time I learned that lesson in middle school.
“Is this where you tell us that Trey was also called Trez before he was kidnapped?” I ask, knowing I sound like I’m smarting off and not giving one fuck.
This isn’t possible.
Kate and Trez aren’t our wolves.
She is not my mate.
He isn’t my brother.
This is too farfetched to be a reality.
Dad has lost his fucking mind.
“No, Kane,” he barks. “But Trez is close enough to Trey that at the age he was, your brother could have been manipulated or...”
“Beaten into believing it,” Trez finishes when my father pauses for too long of a beat.
“I’m going to rip that motherfucker’s throat from him if it’s the last thing I do,” Dad vows.
“Not if I beat you to it.” Jagger’s voice is a whisper.
Dad pivots on his heel, turning to face my beta. “He’s my son. That is not a kill you’ll take from me.”
“He’s my mate,” Jagger says, his teeth bared.
“And he’s standing right here,” Trez adds. “He doesn’t need either one of you to fight his fucking demons. You both want a run at Dick Everhart? Get in fucking line. Besides, what he’s done to me over the years doesn’t compare to what he’s put Kate through.” Trez turns his back to us, going back to watching the outside from where he’s standing just inside the door.
There’s a powerful force inside me that wants to stalk the four steps it would take to reach Trez to force him back around to face me, to make him spill everything that anyone has ever done to harm or wrong Kate and make them suffer a long, slow death. But then another side of me still refuses to believe any of this make-believe. That part of me is also running scared because what if…
No. There is no what if. Only proof and that isn’t something I’ve been shown.
“You’re going to have to do better than closely related names to get me to buy this nonsense, Dad.”
“You want proof, Alpha?” Jagger says in an almost menacing tone, making my fists ball at my sides. He stalks forward, his hard gaze on me as he storms between my father and me, stepping toward Trez’s back. “So be it.”
My head doesn’t catch up with what my eyes witness. Shock cements my booted feet to the floor. My father’s too. It happens before I can blink. Jagger’s head tips to the side, one claw comes out, ripping the T-shirt down the center of Trez’s back as his teeth sink into the flesh covering Trez’s neck.
I blink, and it’s done.
Jagger pulls away, but Trez flips around to face him so fast that multiple emotions pass before a growl rumbles from his throat.
“What the fuck did you do?” he accuses.
“What was bound to happen sooner rather than later,” Jagger answers, licking his bloody lips. “Kane wanted proof, and if his bite faded Kate’s mark, then mine should fade yours.”
“That’s not a gamble you take,” I chastise, almost yelling in his ear now that he’s backed away from Trez to stand between my father and me. Dad is silent, and that’s an admission by omission that he’s okay with Jagger’s actions.
But I’m not.
Trez reaches for the shirt collar, barely hanging from his shoulder. Fisting the material, he yanks the shredded cloth from his torso.
My wolf isn’t obeying my commands, but that doesn’t mean I can’t put my beta on his back. That’s my sole intent when Trez rushes forward, shoving his hand against Jagger’s chest and pushing him backward.
“You think that was your right to take what I didn’t offer?” Trez demands, his tone bordering on lethal.
“You’re mine.” The possessive wolf inside Jagger growls in agreement. “I made that clear the last time you were here.”
A warning growl, low and calmer than I know Trez is right now, seeps from his mouth, followed by a beat of silence long enough for me to anticipate his next move. Jagger does too, but my beta does nothing to stop Trez from pouncing on him and taking them both to the floor, Jagger on his back with Trez straddling his hips.
“You think a bite makes me yours?” Trez’s head dips to Jagger’s neck quicker than a blink of eyelids. A guttural growl leaves my beta’s lips, his hands going to Trez’s waist as teeth tear through skin. “That two bites bond us together by fate?”
Three audible gasps sound at the same time Trez leans back up, Jagger’s eyes wide as he stares up.
“Fuck fate. I’m only yours if I decide I’m yours,” Trez declares, his words as clear as the flesh no longer marked by the curse that existed on his back seconds ago. “And fuck you too right now.”
“You. You look…” Jagger stammers.
“Am I seeing this?” Storm says, but it’s more to herself than any of us. She’s been silent the entirety of the time we’ve been arguing.
“Your hair…” Dad’s words fail him too, but they make me take in more than the blank canvas of Trez’s back.
“Is just like Dante’s,” Jagger says. “You look like Dante.”
Trez pushes from his knees to his feet, then steps back while Jagger stares from the floor. Turning, Trez meets my father’s eyes, then flicks his gaze to mine, a question waiting for me to answer.
I nod, confirming Jag’s claim. Staggering to the side, Trez’s unblinking eyes on mine, he turns and dashes down the hall to the bathroom, my guess to look in the mirror.
“He’s my son. He’s really my son,” Dad says, but all I can do is take a step back, away from everyone. “Trey is finally home.”
My feet move again, taking another step back.
Jagger pulls himself to his feet. He looks toward me, then rolls his head to see the open bathroom door. A beat passes, and his eyes are back on me.
Trez is my brother, which means…
“Kane,” Jag calls out. He takes a step forward but stops. “We’re going to find her.”
Trez comes back down the hall, his fingers running through his lighter hair. The change is a lot to take in, and now I can feel everything he’s feeling on top of everything running through my head.
Confused.
Overwhelmed.
Relieved on one level, but also fear tainting that tiny bit of joy that he isn’t a silver wolf, that he isn’t a Marked Crest wolf.
Then there’s his worry and mine knotting together to the point I don’t know whose is whose.
Kate is gone. I ran her off.
I kicked my mate out of my pack. Out of her pack. Her home.
Acid coats my tongue.
A mountain sits on my chest, pinning my soul in Hell.
How did I not realize?
My head thunders with my pain, my agony, my fear, my failure. My father’s disappointment in the son he made an alpha rains down on me like icicles piercing my skin. But I feel his elation too that he’s trying so hard to hide. Trey is home. He should be happy. I should be thrilled. We should be celebrating that one of our wolves made it back.
But Kate isn’t here, and that’s on me.
Jagger wants to punch me as much as he wants to take my burdens from me. He can’t fix it. I’m not even sure I can fix this.
My mate is still missing, but she isn’t the only one I’m responsible for who’s out there somewhere.
I glance up as a shadow catches my focus, giving me a momentary reprieve from everyone’s heavy emotions. If only it stopped my own from clawing at my insides.
Jagger stands in front of me.
“It’s only been a few hours. She wouldn’t have made it to the border yet. We will find her. You know Kate. She won’t leave until she makes sure Trez isn’t here. We’ll find my sister, Kane.”
“My sister!” Trez corrects, a snarl on his lips. His too-familiar eyes flick to mine. “There’s something you aren’t telling us. Spit it out.”
“Kate’s pregnant.”