Chapter EIGHT
–Tréan–
“THE MOMENT YOU stepped foot on my territory, you became my prisoner,”
I said to Kaia, hating every word, but she had trusted me enough to come this far, so I would continue giving her only truth.
“Or at least that’s what all but my blood brothers will think.”
Kaia eyed me for a moment in confusion before the corner of her mouth twitched, and she chuckled.
“Sure, okay.”
She kept chuckling and took a swig of bourbon before lowering the cup slowly and losing all humor at the grim expression on my face.
“Oh, shit, you’re serious, aren’t you?”
I’d never met a woman who cursed so much, but somehow, it suited her.
At least who she had been, complete with all her hard edges, because there were plenty.
I understood why, though.
Understood she had been raised in a difficult area around difficult people. Life hadn’t been easy.
From what I’d heard, the more we bonded, who we’d once been was bound to morph.
Our mating wouldn’t change who we were at our core but adjust us subtly to ease our connection and make us one.
Each our own but still one as we mated.
That we were fated mates—a realization that had come so swiftly and naturally as we sat here talking—explained my overly intense reaction to her.
The certainty of it didn't take me aback either.
Rather, it felt like I'd been waiting my whole life to find her.
More than one life.
“You realize I have five blades on me?”
Kaia said, her voice low and guttural as she prepared to attack, given she now knew she was my prisoner.
“And as you know, I know how to use them.”
“I do know.”
I liked how she thought, finding comfort in it, despite already knowing I’d cut down anyone and everyone, even if I loved them, to keep her safe.
“And in the vein of fairness, I already know how you’ll use them.”
I pressed my palm against my chest.
“You will whip your smaller dagger here first, knowing I’ll evade by shifting to my right as I favor that side.”
I put my hand on the left part of my neck.
“So you’ll whip your next blade, my blade, here, but you tend to underperform when throwing in that particular direction, so you’ll hit my left shoulder if you’re lucky.
And we both know that won’t do me any real harm.”
I shook my head and put up my forefinger, silencing her before she could dispute me.
“Then, using your larger blade, which I kindly returned to you along with the others when I dressed and re-armed you after your shift, you’ll try to engage me in blade-on-blade combat again, but I’ll knock it free with my wrist within seconds to spare you the indignity of chanting it from your hand into mine.
Yet you'll still come at me with the blade sheathed at your waist, and I'll knock that one from your grasp, too.”
I gave her a pointed look.
“But I imagine worst-case scenario, you’re counting on that, so you intend to save the best for last.
The Viking blade you feel will protect you no matter what because it very well might.”
Yet again, I felt pride in Kaia when her expression remained perfectly level, giving away nothing of what she felt.
The slender vein in her neck might be pulsing, and a bead of sweat might be forming on her forehead, but her blue eyes remained locked with mine as she decided how she wanted to handle this.
Interestingly, after a good long pause, it wasn’t how I anticipated.
“You’re right,”
she finally said softly.
Evenly.
Not a waver to her voice.
Her heart had even calmed, and her scent put off no fear.
Yet I heard the deception in her voice that no one else would have because she was mine.
So I waited for her next move, curious despite myself.
“I guess you have me all figured out, Tréan,”
she went on, slowly and methodically laying each blade on the table between us.
She flinched, offered a little shrug, and shook her head.
“But I had to try.
You understand that, right?”
“Of course.”
I nodded once in acknowledgment, waiting for her next move.
Eager for it.
“Anyone would in your position.”
“Why did you bring me here?”
She placed the dagger I kept at my waist down first, hilt facing toward me.
“Why am I your prisoner?”
“I brought you here because you are my mate,”
I replied.
“And now you’re my prisoner because that’s what my pack will expect.”
She set the dagger she sheathed at her waist and my Viking blade down next. “Why?”
Admittedly, I like her method because setting the Viking blade down invoked memories of her crouching and searching for it in my boot.
The way her delicate yet firm hand had felt against my calf.
The lust that flared in her gaze as it remained locked with my eyes.
The pleasant rush of blood that had filled my cock. The way she’d known the power she already had over me when her gaze lingered on my arousal just long enough to make my need for her painful.
“My pack will expect you to be my, our prisoner because you were bitten and made by Niall,”
I said, glad my voice didn’t sound hoarse with need.
Kaia’s pupils flared, and I knew she was tempted to act rashly with that revelation, but she remained perfectly calm as she laid out one of the blades I'd taken out of her boot next, undoubtedly sensing what it would do to me.
I tried not to, but despite having had it in my possession so recently, I couldn’t help but inhale deeply, recalling how it had felt crouching in front of her.
The warmth of her slender calf.
The way her eyes drifted for a fraction of a moment when I touched her.
The way her sweet, aroused scent had filled my nostrils in a fashion no other’s had in this life or the last. Because I remembered every scent of every woman I’d been with, and Kaia was...Kaia.
Made for me in a way none of them had been.
Built for me from the inside out in ways that breathed new life into me.
I should have anticipated how she intended to disarm me, but, yet again, she nearly got by me when I went to grab the dagger she kept in her boot, wanting to be back in that memory and soak up the feel of her flesh.
Taking advantage, she almost speared my hand when she leapt to her feet and slammed her other dagger down, blade first.
I couldn’t help but smile a little when I moved my hand just in time, only for Kaia to use the hilt of the blade, now dug into the wooden table for leverage, to swing around and kick me from the side.
At least she tried.
Ready for her, I grabbed her ankle and twisted enough that she had no choice but to shift her weight.
When she did, I grabbed her around the waist and slammed her down on the bed.
It angered me that she knew what to do in this position because it told me she’d had to fight off men before, but they weren’t me.
No one she had ever met was me, and I hated I needed to make that clear.
Yet I did, anticipating her every move.
When she tried to punch my face, I grabbed her wrist and pinned it down on one side of her head.
When she tried to drive her free fist into my side, I grabbed that wrist and pinned it down on the other side of her head.
As expected, she tried to drive a knee into my groin, but I locked her down with my thighs before she could, then reared my head back when she tried to slam her forehead into mine.
If nothing else could be said of Kaia she was a fighter.
A true warrior.
“Yet you still feel I could improve my fighting skills,”
she snapped, trying to bite me with no luck.
She was pinned and hellishly angry.
So said her red face and the blue fire flaring in her wolven eyes.
Her cool reserve and cunning nature had finally been tossed to the wind.
“And I hate that I know that,”
she fumed.
“I hate you.”
“I know,”
I managed, trying to teach her a lesson about survival, only to find myself fighting how intense it was having her in this position.
How it felt to feel the fire of her hot body against mine as her inner beast struggled to break free and get closer to mine.
Her firm, fit, yet soft curves against mine.
The plushness of her breasts and the pebbled sensation of her nipples straining through her shirt.
Focus, I preached to myself, but my inner beast made it hard.
Almost impossible.
Focus for her.
Focus because she deserves it.
“You’re a very talented fighter, Kaia,”
I said hoarsely against her ear because I needed to be even closer.
Needed to settle my arousal against the warm, damp heat between her thighs like I needed to breathe.
“But I will make you a better fighter.
Stronger so no one will ever—”
When she tried to bite me again, I used just enough magic to keep her teeth from attacking, but not so much she felt helpless.
No female should ever feel that way.
So my magic was only for her teeth because I suspected she excelled at biting if need be...and that was before turning half wolf.
“The last thing you’re doing right now is making me feel strong,”
she seethed, yet stopped trying to bite me.
Now, she would attack with words because, with every second that passed, I sank deeper inside her and her past, understanding all her defense mechanisms—her means of survival—so she lived to fight another day and protect her cousins.
That’s what it all came down to with Kaia.
Protecting her kin no matter what.
I bit back another wave of emotion when I sensed rather than outright knew just how far she’d gone to keep them safe.
The things she had suffered.
The lengths she had gone to.
“Stop fighting me, Kaia,”
I managed, nearly groaning when I caught the scent of her arousal despite her anger.
“I mean you no harm.”
“Yet you lured me a thousand years into the past where I’m at your mercy,”
she bit out, finally stilling beneath me, no doubt trying to fight her body’s reaction to mine.
“Only to take me prisoner to become some sort of bargaining chip, I suspect.”
“Ta,”
I murmured against her temple, breathing in the scent of her soft skin.
“Only to get what I want.
Never to be turned over.”
“And what is it you want?”
she ground out, yet there was a breathiness to her voice that hadn’t been there before.
A softening that had everything to do with our intimate position.
“What am I worth?”
“Everything,”
I said softly, pressing my cock against her instinctually to try to ease the growing ache.
The painful need to be inside her.
Our breathing grew choppy, and her heart slammed against mine.
She didn’t struggle but seemed to soften even more, as if melting against me.
“If I’m worth everything, take me back to the twenty-first century,”
she whispered, her voice hoarse now.
“Let me go...please, Tréan.”
It was the first time I’d heard genuine vulnerability in her voice, and I didn’t like it.
Especially considering I was causing it.
I pulled back enough that I could look into her eyes.
Probably unwise, given staring into them while in this position aroused me even more.
Yet she had to see my eyes.
“You need never fear me, Kaia.”
I cupped her delicate cheek because I couldn’t help myself.
If she lashed out with her free hand, so be it.
“Can’t you feel that by now?”
I searched her eyes, needing her to see I meant what I said.
Every last word.
“You will not truly be my prisoner, and I won't let harm come to you.
You’re mine to protect now, as I protect all my pack. Mine to love because you’re my mate. ‘Tis why I’m being honest about how things must go until I understand what’s happening.”
I shook my head.
“You will not be safe anywhere else, mo maité.
Not in the future near your maker and not here without my protection.”
“Why not be honest from the start?”
Clearly struggling between whether she should fight me or turn her cheek into my touch, she swallowed hard and balled her free hand into a fist.
“Why lie when you were trying to build trust? That wasn’t the best way to go about this.”
“It was the only way from the moment I caught your scent.”
I struggled to keep my gaze from dropping to her full, luscious lips and the way they had parted ever so slightly with her increased arousal.
Struggled to ignore the way her breasts heaved against me as she breathed harder.
Most of all, though, I struggled to keep from chanting away our clothes and burying myself in her hot sheath because she was ready for me.
I felt it through our clothing. Saw it in her eyes. Heard it in the breathy sounds breaking from her lips.
“I caught Niall’s scent on you and knew he descended from my mortal enemy, Tadc, Alpha of the Wolves of Carraig.”
I tried to keep rage from my voice when it came to both Niall and Tadc.
Though I hesitated to share, I needed to remain truthful with her henceforth.
“In truth, I should have ended you during your shift.
Put you out of the misery of this curse. Spared you a life of Niall, or even Tadc, because they would have…”
Trying to control my anger, I clenched my teeth and worked hard not to envision what they would have done to her.
Still may if she ever ended up in their clutches.
“You might be one of the strongest people I’ve ever met, but they would have broken you eventually,”
I finally managed.
“And I could not have that.
Would not have it no matter what making you mine might cost.”
“I knew you meant me harm when I shifted,”
Kaia said, surprising me with the emotion in her voice.
“I knew I was running for my life.”
I could feel the confusion and pain roiling inside her, and it was like a punch to the gut.
“Instead, you saved me…at the possible expense of your pack and, according to you, your option to mate with another.
So it wasn’t entirely your wolf…it was you, too.”
“’Twas both of us and a decision that came easier than I imagined when I heard you howl.”
I would never forget shifting and racing after her, knowing with every step my wolf took, I’d never have been able to harm her.
How to convey that to her, though, when I barely understood it? “I recognized a piece of myself in you.
A piece that had been missing.
A twin soul of sorts. A part of me I didn’t realize was lacking until I caught your scent, then saw and heard you. Now I know ‘twas because you are my fated mate.”
Her fist slowly unclenched, and her expression turned strange, as though she grappled with all this as much as I did.
As if she struggled with how to feel emotions she’d never felt before.
“I don’t know if I should want this,”
she murmured, her eyes still locked with mine.
“Yet I don’t know how to fight it…fight you when...”
Kaia didn’t have to finish her sentence for me to know what she was about to say.
She was losing her ability to fight me because her inner beast wouldn’t allow it, leaving her helpless in a way she’d never allowed herself to be before.
I understood it, too, because I was equally vulnerable.
Just as exposed because there was nothing I wouldn’t do to protect her.
She came before everyone else now.
My entire pack.
And there was incredible danger in that, but right now, here in this moment, as I finally allowed my gaze to drop to her mouth, I didn’t care.
Nothing mattered but her.
How she felt beneath me.
What her lips might taste like. I had never experienced anything like this. Never craved someone so much.
I didn’t realize I was lowering my mouth until her warm breath brushed my lips.
Had she just pressed her center against my cock? Did she want this as much as me? I had no clue.
There was too much anticipation.
Too much raw need. Was I crossing a line? Was it too soon? Or was it too late, and we’d both been craving this long before we met? Long before we realized our other half was out there somewhere?
Low, lower, breathing each other in, pulling each other closer.
Almost there before she stilled in a way that made me go still, too.
More than that, she sensed something before me that she never should have been able to.