33. Kane
During summer months, with kids out of school, we gather more often as a whole pack than at other times during the year. We feast for hours as the sun sets on the night of the full moon, we run for at least two solid hours, then we return and eat some more.
Tonight isn’t a full moon. We still have nearly a week until then, but that doesn’t mean we don’t run together as a pack at other times or in small groups. We do, but I’ve brushed off running with my parents, Jagger, and even Trez. Ashleigh hasn’t said anything, but her looks speak volumes. She suspects something is wrong.
I overheard Laney asking Ashleigh why I hadn’t been coming with them. Since she started working at the body shop for me a few months ago, she asked if she could join Ashleigh, Jagger, and me on our once-a-week group run, and I allowed it once. That turned into her showing up to them all, but I didn’t want to be a dick and disinvite her, so the three of us started running on Saturday mornings while the rest of the pack slept in.
As the next full moon nears, I still haven’t figured out how I’m going to get around not shifting or leading the run. I doubt I’ll be able to use the same excuse as last month when Kate and I fucked each other into a coma, and I got my mate pregnant.
She’s yet to say one word to me.
At this point, I’d take a fuck off, Kane, just to hear her sexy, raspy voice again.
My one saving grace this week is that as each day passes, I can feel more of Kate’s emotions when before I couldn’t feel her at all. That tells me she’s starting to accept being part of the pack. I can sense her in ways I can the rest of my pack, but her emotions aren’t ones I can easily shut off like I can the rest.
Perhaps that’s because she’s my fated mate. I know if our mate bond were complete, I’d be able to know the direction she was in just by sniffing the air. I could communicate with her in my head like I can my beta. Maybe then I’d know the right thing to say to get her to see that I know I fucked up, that I’d do anything to take back the words I spewed, the way I acted, how I treated her. To earn her trust again.
Fate knows I would do anything to earn her forgiveness.
The bathroom door down the hall opens, the sound turning my head and pulling my gaze toward it to see steam billow out at the same time Trez comes into view. He’s dressed in a pair of dark wash denim, my jeans, because he’s yet to leave the pack to buy any of his own, not that I’m bothered by it. His feet are bare, he hasn’t put on a shirt, and his dirty-blond hair is still damp as he turns right, coming my way instead of the bedroom he and Jagger have been sleeping in.
The oven door slams hard, making my eyes skirt over to where Annalise sets a tray of goodness on top of the stovetop.
“More cookies?” Trez screws up his face in distress.
“Shut up and don’t ruin it for the rest of us,” I chime in before bringing a bottle of beer to my lips and letting the contents fill my mouth.
“Easy for you to say.” He blows out a dramatic breath. “You don’t seem to have a problem not eating them.”
“Moderation is key, little brother. You should learn it.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” he comments, not looking at me as he swipes a chocolate chip cookie from the tray while Annalise is turned away, washing her hands. It crumbles between his fingers because he didn’t wait long enough for it to firm up.
Impatient dumbass.
We three are the only ones in the lodge. With her staying here, I haven’t let our rowdier bunch of shifters hang around, not that Annalise would care. She’d likely mother them the way she has been doing all of us. Jagger is more thrilled than I would have expected that she’s here instead of with Eli.
She’s been baking all day, only breaking when she went to visit her daughter for an hour this morning, like she’s done every morning since Kate has been back.
I get why she’s upset with my dad and her husband, and now my mother, since she took their side in all this. I’m angry with them too, but I’m pissed off at myself more than I am anyone.
I should have known Kate was my mate. Spell or no fucking spell, I should have known, felt it, and goddammit, I did. I just ignored the signs, telling myself it was simply an attraction. And sure, it was that as well, but I was drawn to her from the first moment I smelled her nearby. Never in a million fucking years would that have happened with anyone else if she wasn’t the one person fate chose for me and I for her.
“Did I say those were ready to eat?” she seethes in a way a mother does when she’s both annoyed and happy that someone can’t wait to devour something she made. “Shoo.”
She fans her hands, chuckling when she swats him in the side. He turns to face me, stepping to the island’s edge to my right.
“Lay off the little brother shit, the brother calling altogether, unless you want Kate to slice your junk off with her claws,” he offers.
“She likes my dick too much to go to those extremes.”
At least, I hope she does, but I keep that thought locked behind the smirk on my face.
As many times as I made her come that night and filled her full of my cum, I like to think I pleased her before I went and fucked it all to hell.
“That’s just the attitude to have. I’m sure my sister can’t wait to jump back on the Kane train and tell you how much she forgives all of your douchebagness.” He shakes his head.
“It’s more like a roller coaster that tips at four hundred feet in the air and plummets at a ninety-degree angle. Speed mixed with adrenaline and a force you’ll only ever dream about... little brother,” I snicker, enjoying the easiness he and I share around each other.
Growing up, I was just as eager to find my brother as I was my mate, but that was because my parents were heartbroken and never stopped grieving for their son, and the fact that he was my best friend’s mate. I never considered that we’d one day become friends. He was seven years younger than me. I didn’t see it happening. Ashleigh is three years younger than Jagger and me, and for the longest time, I saw her as an annoying brat who just wanted to play with the older boys so the rest of the pack didn’t view her as weak.
It makes me wonder, would Trez and I have the friendship we do today had we grown up together, had I always known he was my brother?
“Okay, that was too much for my ears,” Annalise says, sounding as grossed out as her eyes portray. “I’m going to see if Storm and Ivy need any help with the meat pies.”
After the door closes behind her, I roll my head over to find Trez back in front of the stovetop, a cookie in hand traveling to his mouth.
“I thought you said you’d get her to show?” There’s irritation in my voice, but it’s not directed toward him. Everything about the situation with Kate comes back to me and me alone.
He devours the chewy goodness in one swallow and then twists to face me. “I planted the seed. Kate is too curious not to come tonight. She’ll be here. Trust me. I know my sister, Kane.”
“I hope you’re right.” I strum my fingers on the island. “I can’t go another day looking at that motherfucker, knowing he had a hand in those bastards taking her.”
It’s taken mental strength I didn’t know I possessed not to wrap my hand around his neck, sink my claws in, and rip his throat from his body. Being unable to shift into my wolf makes it impossible to kill him with my teeth. I’m lucky I can still force my beast’s claws through my nail beds.
“You and me both,” he replies while I lift the beer bottle to my lips and tip it back, letting the contents flow into my mouth and down my throat in one swallow.
The sound of the rubber flap attached to the wolf door opening causes me to twist around to see which shifter came through. I find a black wolf with blue eyes staring at me, but it’s not the one I was hoping for.
Jagger shifts, then shakes his head in a jerky motion like he’s trying to knock something loose or rid water from his ear. I can smell the saltwater residue from his naked flesh, telling me he recently took a swim or at least ran through seawater at some point. I’d take a bet it was the former.
Whereas most wolves don’t care to get wet, Jagger loves it. Swimming in the ocean or a lake or running through a rainstorm are things he enjoys doing. Summer is his favorite season. It’s my least favorite, but I’ll admit, that’s because I only get to see Kate in the winter.
“She said she was coming.” Jag raises his arms above his head, stretching.
A frustrated sigh falls from my open lips.
“But,” he continues, “there wasn’t any conviction in it like she was asking herself rather than telling me she wasn’t coming. Give her time, brother. She’ll show up tonight. I feel it in my gut.”
“Do you think your gut could tell you to go put on some fucking clothes,” Trez grits out as he steps around the island toward us. Crossing his arms, he leans his lower back against the edge, the same as I’m doing.
“You worried your big brother wants this?” He motions down his body, a smirk forming as Jagger tilts his head, his eyes on his mate. “He’s seen me in my birthday suit more than you have. We used to take baths together before you were even born.”
Jag doesn’t remember that and thank fuck, neither do I. If it weren’t for Annalise having a picture as proof, I could have gone my whole life without knowing that ever happened. I definitely don’t need to be reminded of it.
A low rumble vibrates up Trez’s throat and past his lips.
Jagger bellies over with a haughty laugh, proud of himself, while I swallow the last ounce of beer from my bottle.
“Give me ten minutes to shower and adorn some coverage so my mate doesn’t get jealous and show his true colors,” Jagger’s eyes flick to Trez, then back to me, “and we’ll find your mate. We can drag Kate kicking and screaming to the gathering if necessary.”
“Her kicks don’t feel that great. I wouldn’t advise it,” I note.
“Neither do her punches,” he adds, triggering a memory of when she nailed him in the stomach after she showed up at Ash’s bar looking for me those few short weeks ago.
“Make it quick. I need a beer, and if I go outside to grab one from the cooler, there’s a good chance I will ruin everyone’s night.”
I want to give Kate time to deal with shit on her terms, but my patience is waning. The longer he remains in the pack, the more time he has to infect others with hatred. Hell, for all I know, he already has, and I still don’t know why he did what he did.
I need him alive until I find out.
I know that, yet it does nothing to dampen the desire to end his life for hurting my mate.
Maybe it’s a good thing she didn’t come back with Jagger.
Part of tonight’s festivities is ensuring everyone is near the lodge so Ashleigh can get into Ronnie’s house to search for any information we’ve missed. She’s been combing through his emails and online activities since I discovered he was at the diner the night Kate was kidnapped.
It doesn’t take a genius to assume he followed her when she left here and was likely the source that tipped the former Marked Crest beta to her location. Ivy was the one who told me of Henrik’s death. According to Storm’s sister, their coven leader was the one who saved Kate and why she returned to me.
Storm isn’t buying into her sister’s claim that the dark witch isn’t pure evil in every sense of the word.
I haven’t made up my mind one way or another. I can’t. I’ve never met the woman, so I’ll leave my judgment open until I do, but frankly, I hope we never cross paths. Because if she had anything to do with my brother and Kate’s disappearance when they were pups, I won’t care whether she’s a bad person or goddamn saint, I’ll end her life.
Something else Ivy admitted to her sister was that Salem knew Henrik murdered her sister, Storm and Ivy’s mother, and the reason she allowed monster hunters to dispatch him, doing what they do best: eradicating shifters from this world in the most painful ways imaginable. Ivy also said Salem held Richard responsible for their mom’s death because it was his order Hale carried out.
It sounded to me that had Salem’s sister not been killed, she wouldn’t have had a reason to let Kate go when she went back to Rivermoon to end the British Columbia alpha.
If he were dead, I would know it. I would have felt his death. Or maybe not, Everhart isn’t a real alpha.
Alpha wolf shifters all across the world have a single connection with each other through Fate. When one dies, there’s a violent pop that happens within our heads, signaling the event. We don’t know which alpha, only that their spirit is no longer on earth.
I’ve felt that volcanic headache once when Caleb Drake killed his own alpha. At least that’s the rumor, but he’s never confirmed it as fact to my knowledge.
“Want me to fetch her?” Trez asks, suspending my thoughts just as the shower faucet from the hall bathroom shuts off. “You have murderous vibes rolling off you.”
“It’s not a vibe if it’s premeditated.”
“Which will turn into a crime of passion if you take this kill from Kate.”
“Do we really want this on her hands?” I turn, pressing my hip against the edge of the island while facing my brother. “What kind of mate am I if I let him continue breathing after he literally served her up to a wolf?”
“One that knows she’s also an alpha, his equal, and knows she’s capable of handling herself. A mate that recognizes she doesn’t need or want a man to come to her rescue.”
“Shut the fuck up. No one asked you,” I grumble because he’s so fucking right that I want to punch him in the face. Instead, I narrow my eyes on him and bare my teeth.
That’s the moment the door squeaks open and Trez’s eyes skate over my shoulder. Jerking around, I see her standing at the entrance, her hand on the knob, her smile bright.
“There you are.”