Chapter TEN
–Tréan–
I HAD NEVER hated yet appreciated anything more than Kaia wanting to meet my brothers without keeping my hand in hers.
For letting go, holding her head high, and walking into something even the bravest warrior would have trouble facing alone.
I appreciated how she kept her footing when Bain and Callum didn’t hold back in their approach.
While I understood they were immersed in their wolves, they were old enough now they could have been less intimidating.
Yet I sensed their reasons for approaching Kaia like they would any new blood in the pack.
They were testing her, and they had every right to.
I was their alpha and had never taken a mate, so this moment was monumental, given the changes that had happened over the past few years.
She must be strong.
Unbendable.
Worthy of their alpha.
A queen in her own right.
And she did well, making me proud.
She held her ground when faced with two wolves that would make most twenty-first-century women flee in terror.
My heart was in my throat every second of it as my brothers circled her and dwarfed her, but there was no need.
They would never harm my own.
And she was my own.
They knew it.
Felt it the moment they first sought us out through the woodland.
Yet still, unexpectantly, Callum howled at the moon in distress that would chill anyone to the bone, and Bain…
Well, Bain would suffer my wrath later for his behavior.
What had he been thinking, baring his teeth at my mate? Raising his hackles? Growling at her? It was a wonder I hadn’t wrapped my teeth around his neck and brought him to the ground right then and there.
But I hadn’t because Kaia had turned and looked at me.
Straight into my wolf eyes.
Saw me as I truly was for the first time.
And I would remember that moment for the rest of every life I lived.
The feelings that coursed through my wolf when it looked at her were like nothing I’d ever felt.
She was my other half and would only make me stronger.
Not just her human half but the wolf reaching out to me from behind her defiant blue wolven gaze were intensely courageous.
Both sides could push past fear in a way most could not.
And she was immensely beautiful while doing it.
It took everything in me not to shift back, throw her over my shoulder, and bring her right back to bed.
She might not bow to me, but I would still own her flesh.
Make her mine.
Fill her womb with my seed and watch her belly swell. I could just imagine the wee ones she would give me. How incredibly strong they would be.
So the last thing I wanted to do was talk about shit because somehow she’d led the conversation there.
Not the best topic for our first meeting as wolf and human, but one that did lessen the tension that had grown between my brothers and me, when Bain’s mood ended up lifting, he returned to human form and chuckled.
“I might not like whatever I just sensed off of you, Tréan’s mate,”
Bain said to Kaia, still laughing, “but I appreciate the humor betwixt you two.”
Kaia handled herself just as well facing Bain in this form as she had his wolf because my brother was as large as me.
An intimidating sort who tended to affect females in a rather specific way.
Fortunately, for his sake, Kaia had no physical reaction to him other than wariness and perhaps surprise that he could shift so effortlessly and be fully clothed.
“My name is Kaia,”
she clarified, frowning at Bain.
“Not Tréan’s mate.”
“’Tis a pleasure to meet you, Kaia.”
Bain finally did what he should have from the beginning.
He fell to a knee and lowered his head, giving her the respect due her as my mate.
“I am Bain, and you have my apologies for my wolf’s reaction to you. It was…”
He seemed to struggle with how to describe it.
“Inappropriate.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
Kaia's eyebrows edged together, and she frowned from Bain to me, clearly unsure what to do when Bain kept his head lowered in submission.
“He will remain that way until we both forgive him,”
I said into her mind, returning to human form as well. “Or not.”
“Not that it’s going to happen, but what would happen if we both didn’t forgive him?”
she asked.
“He would be put to trial by the Wolf Counsel, and our pack would decide his fate,”
I said.
“His punishment would be harsh for threatening an alpha’s mate.
Just as harsh had it been me he’d threatened.
Best case, he would be put to death. Worst case, exiled from the pack.”
“Hell,”
she exclaimed.
“I think death would be worse.”
“’Tis not, though.”
Not nearly.
“Wolves would rather die than be without a pack.
We are deeply connected to our own.”
I couldn’t help but wonder how much she knew about wolves and intended to follow up once we dealt with Bain.
Shockingly enough, Callum had stalked off into the woodland alone, yet another insult to me and Kaia that would be dealt with later.
After he came out of whatever moodiness had just befallen him.
“I won’t see your brothers exiled any more than I would’ve allowed you to kill them to defend me.”
Kaia looked Bain’s way, blunt as always.
“We forgive you, Bain, but don’t do it again.
That was a crappy way to greet me.”
“We might be one, but you cannot speak for me, mate,”
I said into her mind.
“That is not our way.
But I appreciate you forgiving him.”
“Your alpha forgives you, Bain.”
I gestured at him. “Stand.”
Yet I gave him a look when he stood, making things clear when I flashed my wolven eyes at him.
“This isn’t finished betwixt us, brother.”
“I imagine not,”
Bain grumbled.
“Why did you do that, anyway?”
Kaia asked him before frowning into the forest after Callum.
“And what’s up with him? I don’t think I've ever heard such a sad howl before.”
She shook her head in confusion.
“And I get the feeling it has something to do with me.”
“Not you.”
Bain discreetly eyed her over, and I didn’t blame him.
She was stunning.
“But scents connected to you.”
When Kaia sensed my brothers approaching before I did, I realized taking a mate would be more of a transition for my wolf than I’d anticipated.
She consumed my inner beast’s attention, so I needed to be careful and pay extra attention to what was happening around me.
Yet another reason why it was so dangerous for me to mate.
Point in fact, it wasn’t until Bain explained his wolf’s response to her that I finally picked up on things my beast would have caught immediately had Kaia not been here.
Had her vulnerability with my brothers not monopolized my wolf’s attention.
“You carry not just your maker’s scent, Kaia—”
Bain tossed me a warning look because he and Callum had figured out who her maker was related to— “but you carry the scents of females connected to you.”
He sniffed a little as if he couldn’t help himself.
As though he were trying to catch whatever scent he’d caught on her again.
“Kin, I would say.”
Kaia visibly tensed and narrowed her eyes.
“What does that mean exactly? And why did one of you get so sad about it and the other so mean? You were definitely in attack mode if I didn’t know better.”
“I could not say why Callum grew so upset because I was too consumed with my own reaction.”
Bain gave both me and Kaia a warning look this time.
“One of the female scents ran alone during her True Moon Shift, a Hunter's Supermoon no less, and will go Renegade.”
Bain’s troubled gaze settled on me.
“I cannot tell you how unfortunate that is right now because she, too, is related to our enemy, and ‘tis only a matter of time before he realizes it and brings her back here.
She is too important and—”
he clenched his fists as if fighting his own draw to her— “tempting in her wildness…in her scent.”
Kaia looked at me in alarm.
“I don’t understand.
I thought my cousins didn’t shift last night?”
She frowned.
“And we never did get around to you explaining why that was.”
“Storm did not shift,”
I assured her, as troubled as Bain because I caught the scent now.
Knew it had been her cousin who was still in Boston.
“Yet it seems Naya did.”
“Sonofabitch,”
Kaia cursed, her wolven eyes flaring.
Clearly, she’d bonded with me enough to know exactly what going Renegade meant for a wolf.
Especially during such a powerful moon.
“I need to go back. You need to take me home right now, Tréan.”
She went for the blade at her waist that was no longer there and cursed again.
Her eyes might have been hard when they landed on me, but I saw the fear and heartache nobody else could in them.
She notched her chin, ready to go to battle over this.
“I won’t have Naya turning dark and violent because I wasn’t there during her second shift. She needs me. Now. So let me go back, or I’ll never forgive you.”
“She does not need you,”
I corrected, subtly comforting her via the mind, calming her inner beast in ways only I could.
“Turning Renegade does not happen overnight, mo maité.
It takes time, and we have that right now.”
I shook my head.
“Your going to her will achieve nothing.
All ‘twill do is put you both in more danger.”
Not only that, but I would not have Kaia out of my sight, and I needed to be here.
More so, she needed to be.
Yet I knew better than to think she would simply take my word for it.
So I stepped close, ignoring how she tensed because she wasn’t sure she could trust me, and cupped her cheek again. Gazing into her eyes, letting her wolf see mine, I ensured she knew I told the truth through touch rather than just words and our growing mental bond.
“Naya has time, Kaia,”
I vowed.
Promised.
“Right now, the best way to help her is to help me and our pack because they belong to you as much as they do me.
There are ways to keep her from turning entirely Renegade. Ways to ease her into everything. But first, I must learn what’s happened in my absence and bargain with my enemy. See what resolution can be found.”
Her wolven eyes lingered on mine as she felt me out.
Saw inside me.
Realized I was, in fact, telling the truth.
Hope wasn’t lost for Naya. Not yet. With that knowledge, her fear and worry slowly eased, and she calmed down.
“Tell me what to do,”
she finally said, determination and again, courage in her gaze.
“Tell me how I can help even if it means giving myself to your enemy.
I’ll do whatever it takes to keep my cousins safe.
Anything to give Naya a chance.”
“Come home with me,”
I said, surprised by how right it felt saying that.
How much, despite the circumstances, I looked forward to her meeting my people.
Our pack.
“Come as my prisoner.”
My voice thickened with emotion.
“As my female and fated mate.”
“Won’t they think that’s odd?”
Her voice cracked with just as much emotion.
“Or is taking mates as prisoners more common than you’re letting on?”
“I think, mayhap, you misunderstand what your imprisonment will be like.”
I couldn’t help a small smile.
“It might look one way on the outside, so those who need to see such take it with them when they leave, but after that, to those who can be trusted, your true pack, you might find your stay more pleasant than you expected.”
In fact, I intended to make it my mission.
She would fall in love with her new people and this place if it were the last thing I did because they were hers now.
That meant if anything ever happened to me, they would protect her as she would protect them.
Be loyal to her always. Although I wanted to keep touching her, I knew better because it would only lead to more arousal, so I stepped away.
“Dawn is nearly here, so we will head home,”
I said, educating her as we started through the forest.
“Our pack is most active at twilight, dawn, and dusk, so all should be awake.”
“Right,”
she said.
“Because wolves are crepuscular rather than strictly nocturnal.”
Having clearly caught the surprise in my eyes that she knew as much, her eyebrows shot up.
“Hey, I might not be the scholarly type, but I am a protector, so you can bet your ass I learned about what my cousins and I had become.
I know we have a reflective layer in our eyes called a tapetum lucidum that allows us to see better in low-light conditions.
I also know we tend to rest during warmer times of the day to conserve energy for hunting.”
She shrugged.
“At least full-blooded wolves do.”
“We do as well.”
Once again, I was proud of her for thinking logically and educating herself when cursed with something so terrifying.
“More so in this era, as we’re a more primitive version of what wolf shifters will become.”
“Yet I get the sense, based on how quickly and painlessly you shift, you’re more advanced.”
“We are,”
Bain grunted.
“Thanks to Tréan.”
“Something we will talk more about later,”
I said to her when I sensed she wanted to know more.
“For now, I need to know what’s happened in my absence.”
“Outside of the same fools brimming with mutinous intentions?”
Instinctually protecting her, Bain fell in on Kaia’s other side as we made our way through the cool, blustery woodland toward my castle. “Much.”
I sighed.
“Tell me.”
“From what Callum and I have been able to gather, Tadc and his pack are planning some sort of coordinated attack on our castles,”
Bain revealed.
“Something he feels confident will be successful because we’re weakened from the inside out by those within who were as much against us raising a Viking dragon as he was.
Pack members that I fear are in league with him now.”
“And why were they so against raising a dragon shifter again?”
Kaia asked.
“I get they might be considered a predator to wolves, but weren’t you raising a little girl? I know nothing about dragons, but a little girl dragon doesn’t sound all that threatening.”
“She wasn’t,”
I replied, missing both girls.
“Her kin, however, were if they or the curse attached to them ever decided to turn on us.
Most of us loved the girls like they were our own, but a few thought otherwise and have become a festering disease amongst our ranks since.”
I shook my head.
“So I’m not surprised to hear they are working with the enemy.”
Looking at Kaia, I gave her an idea of what to expect upon arrival at our castle.
“The way I walk you in might seem threatening, but again, ‘tis only for appearances.
Soon after, I will be banishing the wolf who has caused me the most trouble over the years, so word of your captivity will be brought to curious ears.
Something that will be reiterated by those I won’t banish just yet.”
I was about to go on when I sensed someone approaching.
Someone that forced me to put my plan into action sooner than I’d hoped.
Now, I could only pray it worked.
More so, that Kaia knew better than to hate me for it.