37. Kate
He keeps coming and coming, spilling through my fingers. His release is scorching, hotter than the blood gushing into my mouth, or so it feels. It could be in my head. I could be making this more than it is, but I don’t think I am.
I never imagined it could feel like this.
Our connection. Solid. Impenetrable.
I can feel what he’s feeling like they’re my own emotions, a pressure so heavy my chest may cave in on itself.
Kane is wrecked. He’s experiencing pure bliss. But there is so much doubt that it’s breaking my heart all over again.
Was biting him, claiming him as mine, not the right thing to do?
It felt right.
It felt like I was going to die if I didn’t clamp my teeth over him and break skin.
It was euphoric. Better than the drawn-out orgasm he triggered throughout my whole being.
When he came, it was like I was coming again too. If my teeth hadn’t been holding me in place, I’d be a puddle on the floor right now. It was so intense my body is still shaking.
Kane’s thick arms band around my back, pulling me closer and anchoring me to him as a shuddered breath leaves his mouth, fanning the side of my face. His wet cock slips from my hand, my claws already retracted back into my nail beds. My small breasts press against his upper abdominal muscles, his heart beating in rhythm with mine.
His lips make contact with my forehead in the softest touch I’ve ever been given, his kiss smooth like velvet. Kane lingers against me, his chest finally slowing, his breathing warming me like a campfire without smoke billowing in my face.
After a beat, his arms unwrap and his palms move up my bare arms, stopping at my shoulders. He pushes me away from him, our eyes locking on each other’s stare.
“Did you do it because it’s what you want?” He swallows, his eyes unblinking and reddish-orange with emotions that have nothing to do with the alpha power inside him. “Did you claim me as yours for yourself, or did you do it because…” He chokes up and jerks in a breath. “Because you feel trapped here with me like it was your only option.”
“Kane—”
“I won’t force you to stay here.” His big hands cup my cheeks, the bottom of his palms resting on the column of my neck as his head shakes so slowly that I’m not wholly sure it’s even moving. “I wouldn’t make you be with me if you didn’t want me, Kate, but I wasn’t lying before either. If you leave, I leave. You’ll never be free of me, and now that our mate bond is solid, I’ll always know where you are.”
“If I wanted to be free of you, I never would have claimed you, asshole.”
I use the space between us to smack him in the stomach with the back of my hand, hoping to get my point across, but all it does is make me feel like shit when he sucks in another sharp breath like I sucker punched him. It’s now that I see just how tired Kane looks. Like he’s barely holding himself upright.
My brows knit with concern, and something scratches at the back of my skull like I should know something that I don’t.
Is something wrong with him?
“I’d rather be dead than be here without you. Be anywhere without you. You’re my always, Kate. Please, fucking forgive me. Don’t hate me. Don’t stop talking to me again.”
His words make me lose my train of thought, and my chest starts to burn with an intensity I’ve never felt before as tension stretches across my back.
“Don’t say that.” I’d hit him again if I wasn’t sure it would knock him out this time. Something is up, and I don’t think it has anything to do with the silent treatment I was giving him over the last few weeks, but I can’t dwell on it when he’s talking about death.
I’d lose my shit if anything happened to him. Not when I just discovered who I am, who he really is to me, or why it felt like there was something just out of reach from the second I smelled his scent five years ago.
“We may be bonded for life, Kane, but you and I are anything but solid. You crushed my heart. You could have set my body on fire, and it would have hurt less. You fucking…” I jerk away, taking a step back and heaving as the memory comes back tenfold all over again.
Does no one understand that words often hurt much more than physical pain? It fucks with your mental health on a level that doesn’t make sense. Once they’re spoken, you can’t take them back, and the person you lash out at hears them over and over like a bad song playing on a loop.
I want to forget I ever heard them from his mouth, but I can’t.
“If you tell me it felt like I rejected you, my mate, it’ll fucking kill me, Kate.”
He yanks up his pants in haste, covering himself, but he doesn’t button them or pull up the zipper. His belt buckle remains dangling.
“Do you want me to lie?”
“Never.” He shakes his head. “I’d feel the lie. I’d taste it in my mouth. It would be pointless, but even if it weren’t, you never have to lie to me.” He swallows again, then his arms raise, his hands going to the top of his head and crisscrossing his wrists. Kane grips his dirty-blond strands, pulling them taut like he’s trying to cause himself the pain I feel, and maybe he is.
He hurts because I hurt.
I know he does. I can feel his agony as deeply as he feels mine.
When I bit him—claimed Kane for myself—I hadn’t been thinking about what it would do to us. How it would connect our feelings. It makes me wonder if our thoughts are connected too.
Ever since Trez told me that he and Jagger can speak to each other telepathically, that it’s supposedly a benefit of being mates, I wondered if Kane and I would have that ability too. I’ve wanted it. I even dreamed that we could a few nights ago, and when I woke up, the disappointment made me want to cry.
Or maybe that was pregnancy hormones. Still, I wonder…
Can we?
I don’t hate you,I say in my head, not really sure how it works with someone else who isn’t my brother.
His eyes widen, surprise opening his mouth and giving me the answer I wanted.
We can talk to each other like Trez and I can during a full moon. But there is no full moon now. Not for another week or maybe a few days. I haven’t exactly been staying up to date on what day it is or what phase of the moon we’re in. I only just ran earlier with Jagger, but the moon hadn’t crested the sky yet.
I could never hate you when I love you.
Whatever had been holding Kane back after I tore myself away from him breaks. It shatters in front of me and… inside me. But it’s also as if a cauldron within us fills to the brim and firms into a gelatin of sorts.
Kane takes a long step toward me, and before I can blink, his hands wrap around my butt cheeks, and he lifts me. I have no choice but to wrap my bare legs around his waist, my hands going to his shoulders.
“I more than love you, Kate. You’re my oxygen, my heartbeat, the blood in my veins. I don’t want to do this life unless it’s alongside you.”
Tears pool into his amber eyes, or maybe it’s my own because my vision of him blurs, but when Kane staggers with me in his arms, his hands pulling me tighter to his chest, I blink.
What the hell?
I know Kane’s abilities. No matter how thick I am and pregnant, I am but a twig in comparison to his supernatural strength. He could hold me for hours and never tire out, but that’s exactly the first thought that came to mind. But instead of opening another can of worms, I lean in, fusing my lips to his, wanting to give him my energy, and I kiss my mate until my lips go numb.
I kiss Kane until my eyelids grow weak.
I kiss the one and only man I’ve ever wanted until he’s the only thing taking up space in my head.
I kiss my always until I forget I killed a man today.
I kiss my unborn baby’s father until I’m not sure if we’re still two beings or if we’re now one.