34. Kane
My shoulders drop with so much disappointment I can barely suppress the whine that tries to work its way up my throat before I swallow it back down. I’m not entirely sure if the reaction was me or my absentee wolf.
“Laney,” I breathe out, not bothering to hide my annoyance at her presence.
I gave her half the day off today because she was getting in my way more than doing the job I pay her to do.
I hired her a few months ago to answer the phone, deal with customers, take inventory twice a month, and order parts and materials. I was reluctant then, and now, I know I made a mistake.
Once I returned to the shop regularly after we found Kate, Laney started offering her assistance to help me work on my jobs. I blew her off at first, then allowed her to apprentice twice, thinking if she got her hands greasy, she wouldn’t ask again.
I was wrong about that too.
I know she has a crush on me. I learned that fact when she was ten. Back then, it was cute and innocent, not something I’d ever reciprocated, even if I’d never found my mate. I see Laney the same way I see Maddy. The only difference is I enjoy being in Maddy’s company. Like my cousin, Maddy might as well be the other little sister I never knew I wanted.
I’m not the only one Laney annoys. She gets on Ashleigh’s nerves by just opening her mouth, but then Ash is the leader of an army of wolf shifters I hope I never have to use. She’s skilled in hiding her emotions and thoughts from everyone except me. Sometimes, I think she could put up a barrier between us if she wanted, but she chooses not to.
Maddy, on the other hand, has never gotten along with Laney and doesn’t hold her tongue. They’re the same age, and when they were younger, Laney used to pick fights with her just to show everyone she was stronger. Of course, she was and still is stronger than Maddy. She’s a supernatural creature, whereas Maddy is human.
Though, Maddy is only human in bones and blood. Her mind is as strong and determined as the rest of us.
I can’t count how many times Maddy has begged me to turn her, and even knowing it’s what she wants more than anything, I can’t bring myself to do it. Not every created werewolf turns feral, but taking that chance isn’t something I’m willing to do. I can’t stomach the thought of one day having to put her down.
“Hey, Boss,” she greets with an eager smile and a beer bottle in her left hand.
She’s twenty, but the way I see it, Laney is an adult. As long as she doesn’t leave pack land or drive any type of automotive vehicle, including an ATV, her choice is hers to make. I don’t attempt to father my shifters, not even the ones like Laney, whose Dad is absent. I’ll only advise them should they ask my opinion. Otherwise, they make their own choices. Jagger and I were sneaking beers at fourteen, so even if I wanted to disagree with her choice of beverage, I’d be the pot calling the kettle black.
When she started working for me in March, she went from referring to me as Alpha to Boss instead of calling me Kane like most of the pack does. A handful of shifters refer to my title, and that doesn’t bother me like hearing her call me Boss.
“What do you need?” I ask, cutting to the chase.
Once Jagger comes out, we’re going to locate Kate, even if it’s so I can put eyes on her for the first time today. After I cooked her breakfast like I have every morning, I left before she came out of the bedroom. The only glimpses I’ve gotten of her in human form since she slammed the bathroom door in my face have been while she slumbers… naked in our bed.
Luckily, my view has been of her meaty ass and smooth back. Had her legs been open, or had she been flipped around, I’m not sure I could have kept my distance standing in the doorway watching her rest. I’ve yet to see the proof growing in her belly that I badly want to feel with my hands. I can sense him within her, and that’s amazing in itself, but to touch her while she’s carrying our pup is something else entirely and the one thing I’ve longed to do since I woke up beside her weeks ago.
But I can’t. I won’t without her permission.
If it takes the rest of my life to atone for my fuck up, then that’s what it takes.
“The fire is going. Everyone has started chowing down, but our alpha is missing.” Her body twists marginally as her head turns to look over her shoulder and out the open door before she rights herself, her gunmetal eyes returning to mine. “Uncle Ron wanted me to see if you’d hang out with our group tonight.”
My fingers tighten around the empty bottle in my hands. It’s the only visible sign her mention of Ronnie bothered me and not one she would have noticed with her eyes fixated on mine.
My brother slides down the side of the island I’m standing against, stopping when the side of his bare foot meets the side of my boot. Somehow, his closeness relaxes me.
“Trez too, of course,” she quickly adds, her stare darting to him. Then she blinks, and her eyes are back on me, another smile climbing up her face.
“What about me? Am I not invited?” Jagger walks down the hall, pulling a black t-shirt over his head, and when I see the design on the front, I know he helped himself to my closest as well.
“You’re always invited, Beta. In fact, your dad was talking with Uncle Ron when I walked in about heading out for a run a little earlier than usual.”
“Dad should probably run that by his alpha, not Uncle Ron.” Jagger’s jaw locks as he forces a tight smile. Jagger drops a pair of boots in front of Trez, then holds a shirt out to his mate.
He likes having his mom here. They’ve always been close, but he’s angry that his father hasn’t attempted to make amends with Annalise or gone to see his daughter once since she’s been back.
I’m pissed about it too, but I also feel his guilt despite Eli trying to shield his emotions from me. He pines for his mate the same way Annalise has for him. He knows it, and so does she. The guilt he’s harbored since learning that Kate is his missing daughter, that she’s been within arm’s length every year for the past five winters, is slowly eating away at his mental health.
Elijah’s heart hurts maybe more now than it did when they first discovered my brother and their daughter missing. He blames himself because he was the one who urged my father to stop focusing their efforts on Trez and Kate after those blood tests came back as not a match for Trey and Anna.
Apparently, our moms had sought out a powerful witch from New Orleans that first year. I learned that tidbit of information last week while trying to get Annalise to open up about feelings she was still trying to hold inside.
I hadn’t expected her to drop that bomb on me.
Had they followed through, maybe wasted years could have been avoided. I wouldn’t be alpha, nor would Jagger be my beta. I’d gladly trade my role as a leader to have had my brother and mate back with us, back where they belong. Kate and I could have been better friends had I not kept her at a distance.
“Maybe the old crew could go early, and we’ll go when the Boss wants to go,” Laney offers, her eyes trailing back over to where I’m leaning against the island.
“We have more important issues at hand,” Jagger replies. “I believe our alpha told everyone weeks ago that he wasn’t leading a run until my sister, his mate, was found.” He pauses, letting his acknowledgment of Kate sink in. When Laney flinches, he continues. “Can’t have an official pack run without our alpha, now can we? That doesn’t mean everyone isn’t free to run in groups, but Kane and I won’t be joining.”
“Or me,” Trez adds, lacing his shoestrings, his head pointing to the floor while in a squatted position.
To the pack’s knowledge, we’re still searching for Kate, though I suspect Maddy may have insider information since she and Storm live together. I can’t feel either of their emotions, but with me, Maddy is a shit liar. She’s been avoiding me, which makes me think she knows that Kate is on pack land.
“Noted,” Laney draws out like she isn’t sure which response to give Jagger.
“If there isn’t anything else,” I jut my head toward the exit behind her, “we have somewhere to be.”
Trez stands and pulls on the t-shirt his mate brought him from my closet.
“Of course, Boss. If there is anything I can help with, let me know.”
I tip my head but remain silent. After a beat, she twirls around and steps back over the threshold, pulling the door closed behind her.
“You still haven’t fired her?” Trez inquires, his tone low to ensure she doesn’t hear us.
“I can’t fire her. She didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You don’t call wanting someone else’s mate wrong?”
My reply to my brother is on the tip of my tongue, but the tickle behind my ears, a feather-like starch so soft I barely noticed it, has my eyes flying out the window behind Jagger.
I don’t have curtains hanging in the lodge either, so I have a view of the setting sun through the tall trees. They once hung above every window in the lodge when my father was alpha, but I took them all down when this became my primary home, preferring the sunlight and nature it brings indoors.
“You felt her, didn’t you?” Jagger questions, his head tilting, and then I hear him in my head. Kate, I mean.
“It’s impossible. The bond isn’t complete. She hasn’t marked me.”
But I felt something.
I just don’t know what that something was. It was the oddest sensation and one that felt… pleasant.
“What if it’s not?” Jagger says in thought as his eyes flick to where Trez is next to me. “What if we’ve always been able to feel them when they were near? Maybe we were just too stupid to recognize the signs.”
“Maybe,” I say, not really believing the possibility, but also not stopping to give it much thought as goose bumps cascade down one side of my neck, then over my shoulder and down my arm.
My feet move on their own accord, eating up the path to the door in long, fast strides. When I’m standing on the other side, looking off the raised patio, I see roughly twenty percent of the pack, but not one of them is Kate. Sure enough, as Laney mentioned, Eli is chatting with Ronnie and one of his buddies. Jagger’s dad is sitting, relaxed against one of the Adirondack chairs next to Pike, the backs of their chairs facing the lodge. Ronnie is standing in front of them both, a beer in his right hand that’s hanging by his side.
Jagger steps to my left side and Trez to my right while my eyes scan the trees and tall brush. It takes mere seconds for me to spot her, or rather her wolf crouching low in the brush as if watching her prey and waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
She’s perfect.
All black fur that seems to glisten in the rising moonlight. The sun hasn’t entirely dipped below the horizon yet. Within another ten minutes, we’ll be shrouded in darkness save for the ambient lights strung around the courtyard that are weaved through the surrounding trees and hung onto the porches nearby the same way they are here at the lodge.
We have several spots on pack land where we gather for these types of events that are meant to bring the pack closer. I decided to have everyone gather in front of the lodge tonight, where we have picnic tables and Adirondack chairs scattered about in multiple different groups with a bonfire in the center away from trees. Grills of different varieties have been smoking and grilling meat for hours, the smell of burning wood thick in the air, enough to cloak an approaching predator.
A feeling in the pit of my gut forms, but instead of a sense of foreboding, I’m stricken with anger as well as relief at the same time.
Kate creeps forward, her paws slow and measured.
I could stop her if I wanted to, and maybe a better alpha would. I never claimed to be the best choice for my pack. At the end of the day, I just want to be the best man for her.
My mate.
Anna Kate Hayes.
My gaze shifts, looking to see if anyone else has noticed her. No one has.
At least, they hadn’t until everyone freezes in place at the sound of her low growl. It sends a shiver down my spine. A reaction that only another alpha could produce, one only a stronger alpha than myself could do to me.
A whimper slips from Jagger, then Trez, as over half of everyone standing is forced to their knees.
Ronnie’s spine visibly straightens as Kate’s black wolf lowers her head, another rumble bringing the rest of the pack, the shifters not seated, to the ground. Her wolf’s eyes glow.
Only myself and Maddy remain standing, her eyes wide, but not frightened in the least. My limbs tremble, threatening to do the same, as the old man slowly turns.
Then Kate’s wolf lunges.