Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Dane
I should go after her. I shouldn’t let her out of my sight.
“Brother, I know you want to go after her, but right now, we’ve got other shit to talk about,” Corbin remarks, hand pressing into my chest.
Cyrus and the rest of the Iron Howlers MC left behind the car, taking my mate away from me.
I’m struggling with the fact that Raine is Bandit’s little sister. I didn’t even know the VP of the IHMC even had a sibling.
Corbin and Justice both usher me back into the clubhouse, and the first thing I do is set eyes on my sister. She doesn’t have that pissed look in them anymore. Instead, she’s got her head cocked slightly.
“You know, I didn’t see it before. Didn’t understand why you were such a jerk to women. Using them and throwing them away, but I get it now.”
“Get what?” Corbin growls, moving to Karsyn and bringing her into his arms. “No offense, Syn, but we’ve all been dicks to women. What you said goes for all of us with dicks. Hell, I’d been an ass toward you the first day we met.”
Karsyn elbows Corbin in the side. “I know that. But I wasn’t talking about the whole male species. I was talking about my brother and the fact that he could be a bigger asshat than most. He toyed with women differently than others do.”
“Syn, right now isn’t the time.”
My Prez was right about that. It wasn’t the time.
“When is the right time?” The question comes from Karsyn, who is laced with worry and sarcasm all in one. “When is it the right time for any of you,” she says, pointing around the room, “to find your mate, to find what fate deems what should be? The Moon Goddess picks only those who the fates allow to be birthed into this world with the ability to understand what you all are. Not just that you’re shifters. The reason each mate is picked for each shifter is because they’re the other half of one soul.” She pauses and looks in the distance. “Some are even the soul that you are without.”
What the hell does that mean?
Sometimes, I swear Karsyn has completely lost it. However, I know the truth of it. She only speaks the truth of what she sees, what she knows. Even when it doesn’t make sense to the rest of us.
“How about we get back to what we all need to talk about,” Justice grunts.
I twist to look at my VP and see him watching me curiously.
“Swear your eyes are giving me the creeps right now,” Tucker remarks.
“What’s wrong with my eyes?” I cock a brow, not knowing what the hell he’s talking about.
“They’re no longer brown,” my dad announces. “Your eyes are a greenish blue.”
“That’s not possible. They’ve always been brown.”
There’s no way my eyes can change color when they’ve always been the same damn color, just as my dad’s have always been.
“It’s what happens when those of our family meet our mates,” Dad remarks, rakes a hand through his hair, and starts pacing. “That’s not the right description of when it happens. Our eyes change only after the first meeting of our fated mate. The connection you felt inside you with your wolf, that was the bonding of your soul mending the tatters of itself, making your wolf and you whole rather than two separate beings.”
“That doesn’t make sense.” What he’s saying, I can’t seem to wrap my head around. “My wolf has always been a part of me.”
“Yes, he’s been a part of you,” Dad agrees, nodding. “But our family was cursed nearly a millennia ago when our ancestor broke the heart of a woman of great power. She wasn’t his mate, but she’d fallen for him. He toyed with her.”
“This sounds familiar,” Karsyn mutters.
I shoot her a fast glare and focus back on our dad. “Okay, so some scorned bitch cursed him because he didn’t mate her?”
“Pretty much, he found his fated mate and ended things with her. The woman didn’t take too kindly of it all. Story goes that she cursed his pups that their wolves would be a part of them, yet not. Their souls will be of tatters until they find their true mate. Only then can it be mended. The eyes change colors to that of our ancestors upon seeing our mates for the first time. ”
“How is that a curse?” Justice asks, getting to the point of it before I can.
“Because the last sentence of it says, until the desired one, the one meant to be true opens her heart to her mate, we shall go crazy. We’ll war with ourselves until they give themselves willingly. If they don’t, if we’re rejected, then madness sinks in, and there’s no hope. Those who have been rejected end up remaining a wolf or finding a way to get themselves killed.”
Well, shit.
“Let me get this right, if his mate doesn’t accept him, madness will drive him to either getting killed or him shifting and never turning back again?” Abel grumbles out in question.
“Yes.” Dad nods, confirming.
“How come I hadn’t heard this before?” I demand. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me before now?” Anger boils beneath my skin over the fact my dad has kept yet another secret to himself. I get my mother hadn’t been his mate. He only mated her because she’d gotten knocked up with me nearly sixty years ago. He wanted to do right for his kids and give them a family. I also got the fact my dad wasn’t in love with her. But they’d given me a good family. Raised me in a home of a family rather than in two different homes. When she’d been killed by blood witches, Dad went after her murderers. Killing them hadn’t alleviated the anguish of the mother I lost.
Then he’d gone and kept the fact he’d found his fated mate, an earth witch . . .
“Wait a minute,” I growl, narrowing my gaze on my dad. “How did you evade the madness, considering you didn’t have your mate?”
“Karoline didn’t reject me. She accepted who I was. Loved me for who I was.” The tormented look in his gaze speaks volumes, just as the agony in his voice does. He lost two mates, and the guilt ate at him.
“She did love you,” Karsyn whispers, her breath hitching.
Dad twists toward Karsyn and nods. “I know she did, sweetheart. I know she did.”
“So, to keep our brother from losing his mind, we need to make sure Raine doesn’t reject him?” Corbin mutters, brows drawing together.
“Pretty much.”
At Dad’s confirmation, I shake my head. “Great. Just what I need.”
“It’s not going to be easy, big brother, but I know you can do it. You and your wolf both can show her that you won’t treat her as anything else but what she deserves.” A soft smile curls into place on my sister’s lips, and she cocks her head slightly. “Just be patient with her, you don’t know her story as she doesn’t know yours.”
Now, what the fuck does that mean?
I don’t bother asking. She’s not going to tell me. I know she’s not.
“I’m gonna get out of here. Need to clear my head,” I tell everyone as I stalk toward the door. All the bullshit I’ve been dealing with, I need a break from everything. To clear my head and think about what I need to do and what needs to happen next.
What we have to do is get our mate to desire us as much as we do her. The wolf inside me growls. It’s weird hearing it in my head. The way everything feels inside my head, my chest. My wolf has always had a voice of his own, but it’s different now. It’s like he’s actually talking rather than thinking, and I’m understanding. We’re a whole, together as one. Our bond is complete in a way it never was before. All because of Raine.
Raine.
Just thinking about her makes me wish to go in search of her, to find her. Make sure she’s okay. I know there’s more to the story where those men who attacked her were concerned. I intend to find out and make sure they never come near her again.
Riding through the night, a freedom I get only when I’m on the back of my bike, flows through me. With it, visions of the woman that’s my mate. My Raine. Mine. Yet, she’s not mine. Not yet, at least.
A plan forms in my head as a grin slides into place. What I need to do is show her just how much my desire for her goes. In order to do that, I’ll prove to her that I won’t do to her what I’d done to Sloane. This time around, there won’t be any scorning of women. I’ll make sure of it, even if it means warring with the madness threatening to start sinking it. I’ll fight it off as long as I can to give Raine the time she needs for me to get to know her, her to know me. We’re whole together, and I want her to know I won’t do a damn thing to harm her in any way.