Chapter FOUR
–Tréan–
WHILE MY INNER wolf wanted to take Kaia back to my era and into my bed, I had to fight my baser instincts.
Had to think like the leader I was because she was no average wolf.
Not by far.
After all, the descendant of Tadc, Alpha of the Wolves of Carraig, had turned her.
A bloodline that had been my pack’s longtime rival.
A wolf that was my mortal enemy.
So, as much as I wanted to steal Kaia away and mount her until my lust was slaked, I needed to go about this tactfully.
Be smart.
Use her to my advantage.
With a female like her, that meant showing her the respect she craved. Deserved. She was more courageous than most, making me want her even more.
I had gleaned much from my run with her—one she’d yet to fully remember— but not nearly as much as I wanted.
I should have ended her last night, but when I heard her lone howl through the moonlit forest, my heart ached for her.
Like me, she understood what it was to struggle through life.
How hard it could be to protect the ones we loved. And like me, she carried the heavy weight of that responsibility, doing her best not to second guess herself and trust her instincts.
Stay strong no matter what.
Despite my initial hesitation, choosing to let her live came easily.
Dangerously so, given who she was and all the trouble she could bring down on my pack.
Yet I had no choice.
None at all. And I’d known it from the moment I sensed her from the woodland of medieval éire.
She was mine.
Better yet, she was my wolf’s.
That meant I had to go about this the right way.
So instead of kissing her like I wanted to when I held her close, lost in her scent and the intensely arousing feel of having her against me, when the front door opened, I dropped to a knee, lowered my head, and did what I needed to do.
Protected my pack.
The best way to do that was to convince Kaia I was her friend.
I needed her trust because things would only get harder for her before they got easier.
“Stop right there,”
Kaia warned her cousin Storm and my Uncle Adlin when they walked through the door.
She looked warily from me on bended knee with my head lowered in supplication back to them.
“Leave.
Now. It’s unsafe.”
“No,”
I said softly, aware she was ready to grab anything she could, be it a candle holder or photo frame, and use it to protect them from me.
“They know I mean you no harm, Kaia.
Your realtor, Adlin, is my uncle, and he has told Storm about us.
They know I ran with you last night. They understand things have changed.”
“Changed?”
Kaia exclaimed, backing away from me slowly, edging toward the door.
“Nothing’s changed, and whatever you’re doing right now isn’t going to work.”
“They have changed,”
I replied, shocked by what I was about to say but eager to say it.
My jaw ached with the need to voice what she had yet to understand.
What I felt more deeply by the moment.
“Here and now, before witnesses, I vow to protect you always, my mate.”
I lifted my head and met her eyes.
Made sure she saw my inner beast and understood what this meant.
“I vow to keep you safe, no matter the cost.
Vow to give you offspring and—”
“Stop,”
she ground out, narrowing her eyes, still edging toward the door.
“Whatever the hell you’re doing, stop because this is insane.”
“Yet it’s not, Kaia,”
the lovely redhead beside my uncle said gently.
“And neither is Tréan.
He’s trying to protect you.
Keep you safe from—”
“Him,”
Kaia ground out, slowly but surely catching everything I fed into her mind.
Not lies, not really, but truth.
What she needed to know for now.
She shook her head in confusion as if trying to understand the thoughts flickering through her head before she clearly saw what I needed her to see.
“Niall,”
she whispered hoarsely.
Her eyes narrowed on me even further.
“Who is that bastard to you? What is the evil shithead who turned me worth?”
“His head on a pike outside my castle,”
I bit out, meaning every word, wishing I could cut him down at this very moment.
He might have given me the best gift a wolf could get when he turned her half beast, but I would still end him for it.
Still destroy what had only made her life more difficult.
Surprise that I had a castle flashed in Kaia’s eyes, but she didn’t ask about it.
Instead, her gaze went hard, telling me what I already knew.
She was still on guard and didn’t trust me. Not yet.
But it would happen soon.
She had just become my mate, so we would bond more by the hour in ways even I didn’t entirely understand because I’d never taken a mate.
And I hadn’t meant to last night, but there was something about her.
Something that was all mine.
“Now that we have all that squared away,”
Adlin said with a merry smile as if life-changing events weren’t unfolding, “I think it's high time we sit down over a nice cup of hot tea.”
He sniffed.
“Or coffee, as it were, and have a good chat.
See where this all leads, aye?”
“Leads?”
Kaia’s wary gaze lingered on me for a long moment, as if she distrusted looking away before she frowned at Adlin in his immaculate white suit with his well-tailored white beard, looking every bit a successful realtor.
“And since when do you have a Scottish brogue?”
“I told you that you should’ve just been you,”
Storm said out of the corner of her mouth to Adlin.
“Now, here we are.”
“You did, lassie.”
Adlin shrugged and looked properly guilty when he glanced from Storm to Kaia.
“Deepest apologies, lass, but when your Uncle Connor reached out, I knew this was the place for you and your kin.”
His knowing gaze went from me back to Kaia.
“Knew you would be safest here.”
“Why?”
Kaia’s frown remained in place.
“Why are my cousins safest here, and why should I trust you?”
When she clenched her fists, I knew she was preparing to go through me and Adlin to get Storm out of there.
Anything to keep her safe.
Adlin went to speak, but Storm rested a hand against his shoulder and shook her head.
Her brilliant emerald-green eyes brightened in a way that told me she carried considerable power.
I just couldn’t figure out the variety because it was more than just wolven.
“You should trust Adlin because he’s my friend, our friend,”
Storm said gently, nodding once at Kaia with reassurance.
“And because he only sold us this house because I urged him to.”
When Kaia frowned in confusion, Storm explained how she’d dreamt of the property during her first shift.
“Or at least I think it was a dream.”
The redhead narrowed her eyes in contemplation.
“Or maybe a premonition during my actual shift.”
She glanced from Adlin to Kaia.
“Either way, I looked up listings in New Hampshire and found it almost right away.
I told Uncle Conner about it, sure we'd be safe from Niall and his pack here, so we moved forward.”
“And Adlin—”
Kaia’s wary gaze flickered from my uncle to me— “your uncle was conveniently waiting for that call.”
She gestured at me.
“Then you, his nephew, just happened to be here the second time I shifted, giving you the impression you own me now.”
“I said we own each other,”
I corrected.
“You are mine as I am yours.”
“Again, not happening.”
She frowned at me.
“So you can get up and stop pledging some sort of fealty that’s never going to happen and sure as hell won’t be reciprocated.”
“So you think,”
I returned but did as asked and stood.
“So I know.”
Kaia clenched her fist as if tempted to grab the candle stick close to her but just as swiftly relaxed her grip, not because she trusted the situation but because her inner beast couldn’t help herself.
Whether she would admit it or not, every second that ticked by made it more impossible to see me harmed.
“Tell me more.”
Kaia looked from Storm to Adlin.
“Why did Storm dream of this house, and how did you know she and our uncle would reach out?”
While she didn’t look directly at me, I knew she was fully aware of my presence when she gestured loosely my way.
“And what about him and his convenient arrival? He clearly knew I was going to be here.”
Her brows shot up.
“Do I have you to blame for that, Adlin?”
“I would say you have me to thank for it.”
Adlin rocked back on his heels, and his merry grin slowly faded under her glare.
“But I see ‘twill take time to get that far, and I cannae much blame you all things considered.”
He made a hand flourish toward the kitchen.
“That said, might we all enjoy a spot o’ coffee together?”
“I think that sounds great.”
Storm’s tentative gaze went from Tréan to Kaia.
“You are a coffee person, after all.”
Her eyebrows edged together.
“Not that I knew we had any.
I was going to grab some tomorrow.”
Kaia’s frown deepened.
“Then who brewed it?”
“Me, mate,”
I divulged.
“I sensed it would comfort you to wake to its scent.”
Shrugging, I bit back a knowing grin when referring to the sensual pleasure she'd experienced when waking beneath my furs.
“And mayhap help you push past other more tempting scents.
Otherwise, you might have given yourself to me before I could assess your battle skills.”
“Rash assumption.”
Kaia scowled at me.
“If anything, I showed you that whatever hold you think you have over me isn’t working because you baited me with that fur, and I didn’t bite.”
“Not this time, anyway.”
Imagining the possibilities, there was no stopping a small, crooked grin.
“But you will soon enough, mo maité.”
“I’m not your mate,”
Kaia made clear, picking up my dialect quickly the longer we bonded.
“So don’t call me that.”
She might say as much, but I noticed her body language had changed.
She grew less defensive around me.
Less on guard.
Exactly how I wanted her. Needed her to be so when the time came, she’d come peaceably.
“Adlin’s right, Kaia.”
Storm made a come-hither motion.
“Let’s sit down and talk.”
She looked pointedly from me to her cousin.
“Because clearly, there are things we need to discuss and understand.”
“She’s right.”
I chanted Kaia’s blade into my hand and held it out to her hilt first.
“Hold onto this the whole time if you’d like.”
“What’s the point?”
Her plush, delectable lips flattened into a hard line.
“When you could take it whenever you damn well please?”
“I could,”
I conceded.
“But I prefer knowing you have it just in case.”
Her brows furrowed.
“In case what?”
I gestured toward the kitchen where Adlin and Storm were already heading.
“Sit, and I’ll tell you.
You’ll find a freshly poured cup of what you would call strong black coffee waiting on the table.”
“So that’s how this is going to go, isn’t it?”
she ground out softly, her gaze never leaving my face.
“You lured me here and ran with me during an important shift, now you have some kind of hold over me.
Know me inside and out when it was never your business to begin with.
When you were never given permission.”
“Parts of that are true.”
I shook my head.
“But not all, and you’ll know that soon enough.”
I glanced from the clock and fading daylight beyond the curtains to her.
“Exhausted from your shift, you slept most of the day.
When the first Moon Wane Eve descends, as it’s called for all newly made wolves after the second shift, you’ll begin bonding with your pack in more intense ways than any bond you’ve ever felt.”
Ways I was already feeling but kept from my face.
She had no idea how much I wanted to pull her back into my arms and keep her there until I’d touched every part of her, inside and out.
How much I longed to feel her every last curve.
Bury my cock in her. Search out her mind. Know every memory and sensation she’d ever felt from the moment she’d been born to this very minute. Very second. With every new breath she drew.
“And here you are,”
Kaia said, her voice a little hoarse, either because of her emotions or because she was starting to pick up how intensely I felt.
“My sole wolf pack, as it were.”
She wrapped her hand around the hilt of the blade I held out, clearly debating if she wanted to use it on me again.
“I should kill you now for that,”
she ground out.
“For taking the choice out of my hands.”
“Then kill me.”
It was a risk, but I had to gain her trust, so I stepped closer, steered the blade until it was against my neck, clenched my hands behind my back, and kept my eyes locked with hers, not in challenge but surrender.
“End my life now if you don’t trust me.
Sever any connection we might make here and now and be done with it.”
“I should,”
Kaia replied, her voice still not quite right.
Rather than step away, she held the blade surprisingly steady against my neck, given how fast her heart raced.
I heard every last heavy thud.
Caught the courage in her sweat where most would feel fear. The scent of an arousal she couldn't control around me.
“Right here, right now, I should stop whatever this is.”
Her narrowed gaze searched my eyes, and her jaw tightened.
She breathed deeply, obviously at odds with what she wanted to do next.
“You’re trouble in more ways than one.
Trouble in ways I’ve yet to understand.”
She stepped closer, dug the blade in enough for my inner beast to take notice, and spoke through clenched teeth.
“And I learned a long time ago to trust my instincts.”
That was it.
No mincing words.
And it was all she’d say before she did something I should have seen coming.