Chapter 14 Kane
Kane
Sleep is a fucking joke tonight.
No matter how many times I shift positions, how many breaths I count, or how many sheep I mentally massacre, my wolf refuses to let me rest. All because Violet’s gone.
She snuck out around midnight, and my inner beast has been pacing ever since, like he knows something I don’t. I keep trying to shove him down and tune him out, but he’s more insistent than ever, gnawing at the inside of my skull to the point of near madness.
I’ve never been so tempted to inject myself with wolfsbane just to get some damn peace. The sting is brutal, the effects worse, but at least it’d shut him up so I could get some rest.
I roll onto my side and glare at the clock on my nightstand.
It’s almost two thirty in the morning. The city outside has settled into that deep, uneasy quiet that only comes in the dead hours before dawn.
Meanwhile, I’m lying here wide awake, every nerve strung so tight it feels like one wrong move might snap me in half.
Lying here like this is pointless. I know it, my wolf knows it. This is an exercise in futility, and I’m done pretending otherwise.
The pack armory is only a few floors up, stocked with pre-filled syringes of wolfsbane. I’m just about to haul myself out of bed and go get one when I hear it.
The muffled chime of the elevator.
The scrape of a key sliding into the lock.
The soft protest of the front door’s hinges, followed by the hush of footsteps crossing hardwood.
My chest tightens instantly, like an invisible wire has been pulled taut straight through my ribs. The bond hums, and my wolf goes dead silent– not calm, not content, just suddenly hyperaware.
She’s home.
I’d assumed she’d gone to crash with a friend and wouldn’t be back until tomorrow. Now that she’s back under the same roof, maybe whatever itch has been crawling under my skin all night will finally ease.
Except the longer I listen to her move through the apartment, the more I get the sense that something’s off.
Her footsteps aren’t light like usual. They’re slow, dragging slightly, like she’s favoring one side of her body. She stops, then there’s a long pause before she moves again, the subtle scrape of weight shifting unnaturally.
My wolf loses his shit.
He slams against my chest, snarling and pacing, howling warnings straight into my head. Every instinct flares hot and sharp, screaming that something’s wrong. That she’s hurt. That I should already be moving instead of lying here trying to reason with myself.
I grit my teeth and try to shove him back down, to tell myself I’m overreacting. She’s stubborn. Reckless. Perfectly capable of getting herself into trouble without it being my problem.
It takes all of two minutes before I snap.
With a low growl of frustration, I shove the covers aside and sit up, the mattress creaking softly beneath my weight.
My bare feet hit the cold wood floor, the chill biting immediately, but I don’t pause to bother with a shirt or socks.
I just move, leaving my bedroom in nothing but my sweatpants and heading down the hall toward hers.
I’m not angling to invite her into my bed again, just hoping that getting a glimpse of her alive and well will quiet my beast. But as I approach her bedroom door, I scent something that has the opposite effect– not just her usual cocktail of lemon and florals and stubbornness, but something sharp and metallic undercutting it.
Blood.
It slams into my senses like a fist to the throat, and I don’t knock. Don’t hesitate. Don’t even stop to ask myself whether this is crossing a line. Instinct takes the wheel, shoving rational thought aside as I push the door open the rest of the way and step inside.
Her room is dim, shadows pooled thick in the corners, but the en-suite bathroom is blazing with light spilling from the open door. I hear the shower running, but when I cross the room and step in, she’s not behind the glass beneath the spray of it.
She’s standing in front of the mirror.
Naked.
Her fingers are clenched tight around a towel, pressing it to the side of her face, knuckles bruised.
My gaze tracks lower, stomach dropping out at the sight of more bruises spreading like storm clouds across her skin.
Some are obscured by smears of dried blood, a pile of bloody clothes lying abandoned in a heap at her feet.
My eyes dart back up to her face, meeting hers in the mirror. She startles hard, nearly jumping out of her skin.
“Jesus, can you not fucking knock?” Violet snaps, clutching the towel tighter to her jaw as she whirls to face me. “Get out of here, creep!”
Her words barely even register– I’m too busy sweeping my gaze over her body again to assess for damage, counting injuries I can see and wondering how many I can’t. I step closer without even thinking, drawn in by both the bond and a sudden wave of protective instinct.
“What happened?” I growl, voice low and rough as my eyes flick up to meet hers. “Who did this to you?”
She flinches at my threatening tone. Then her spine stiffens, anger unfurling like armor. “What part of get out don’t you understand?”
I take another step toward her, fists clenching at my sides so hard my knuckles ache. I don’t touch her. I don’t let myself. Every instinct is screaming to haul her against me– to check her ribs, her jaw, her pulse– but I keep my hands locked down by sheer force of will.
“Tell me who did this,” I grit out.
She glares back at me. “You’re not my fucking dad, Kane.”
“No, I’m your mate,” I say with lethal calm. “Which means if you show up injured at two in the morning, I’m gonna need answers.”
She drops the towel from her face, lifting her chin in defiance. “Fuck off. I can take care of myself.”
It takes everything in me not to react when I see what she’s been hiding behind that towel. More bruises. More blood. More proof that something or someone hurt her tonight.
A wave of fury ripples through me, paired with the sudden, overwhelming urge to tear the world apart until I find whoever did this and end them. I clamp down on it hard, forcing my expression into something resembling control.
“Clearly,” I scoff, the word coming out clipped and mean, fueled by a fear I don’t want to name.
Violet flips me the bird and turns on a heel, reaching for the handle of the glass shower door and yanking it open.
Steam pours out as she steps inside, but she doesn’t flinch when the hot water hits her bare skin.
She doesn’t react at all– just stands there numbly with her shoulders hunched and her head bowed, watching the bloody water swirl at her feet before disappearing down the drain.
I should take that as my cue to leave. Shut the door, walk away, give her the space she’s clearly demanding. But my feet don’t move. My wolf won’t let me.
She spins suddenly, eyes snapping up to find me still lurking, her blue-eyed glare cutting through the fogged glass. “Why the hell are you still here?”
Again, I don’t think. I just move, lunging forward to wrench the shower door open and stepping in after her.
The water instantly drenches the cotton of my sweatpants, turning them heavy and clingy against my legs, but I barely notice.
I’m too busy raking my gaze over her body, cataloging every bruise, every cut, every smear of dried blood the water hasn’t washed away yet.
“Let me see,” I order, voice dark.
She scoffs and backs away, lifting one hand to hide her face and crossing her opposite arm over her chest like a shield. “Get fucked.”
I advance anyway, crowding into her space until the steam and heat and the scent of her is all I can breathe. I grab her wrist–not hard, but unyielding– and pull her arm down so I can see her face properly.
Her jaw is bruised badly, and there’s a split just under her cheekbone. It’s already closing, her shifter healing working overtime, but the skin is still angry and swollen. I thumb the edge of it without thinking, carefully assessing the damage.
Her breath catches.
“You done?” she grumbles, but she doesn’t pull away. And she doesn’t put up a fight when I drop to a crouch in front of her.
Water pelts my shoulders as I run my hands over her legs, her skin impossibly smooth beneath my palms and sparks lighting up everywhere I touch.
I inspect the torn skin at her knee, the darkening bruise on her calf.
I follow the curve of her pirate ship tattoo up her thigh, then higher, tracing past the floral ink on her hip until my hands slide around to her ribs.
The bruise there makes my vision darken at the edges. It’s massive– the size of a grapefruit, purple and black, with faint parallel lines scoring through it. Like she got slammed hard into a fence or a pole.
Something white-hot and instinctive pulses through me, all the way down to my fists. “Was it a pack member?” I demand, jerking my gaze up to hers.
She snorts derisively, still defiant to the bone. “What if it was?”
I surge to my feet and slam my hands against the tile on either side of her head, caging her in. The scalding water beats down my back, the cotton of my sweats heavy and waterlogged, but I barely feel a thing. My entire focus narrows to the space between us.
“Tell me who,” I growl.
Violet shoves at my chest, but I don’t budge an inch. “You’re such a control freak,” she spits, lips twisting in a scowl. “What, you want to hunt them down and play hero? Or do you just get off on being the big bad enforcer?”
My wolf claws at the inside of my chest, hungry for vengeance. “Stop fucking around and tell me who hurt you,” I bite out.
“Stop acting like you care,” she replies bitterly, glaring at me with stormy eyes. “Or is that the only way you know how to feel? Through violence?”
The truth of those words cuts through the last shred of my restraint. I grab her by the throat– not hard enough to hurt or cut off her air, but enough to shut her up instantly and get my point across.
“Stop,” I snarl, pressing my forehead against hers. “Just fucking stop.”
We glare at each other, noses brushing, panted breaths tangling between us. Water crashes down against the tile, steam rolling off our skin and curling between our bodies like smoke from a fire that’s already out of control.
Her throat flexes between my palm with a hard swallow. I can feel the hammer of her pulse against it, fast and furious, matching the brutal rhythm pounding through my own chest. The moment stretches, teetering on a knife’s edge between a fight and something else entirely.
Then something snaps.
Her hands sink into my hair, yanking my head down, her mouth crashing against mine.
There’s no hesitation, no softness. She kisses like she argues– savage and unapologetic, claws out.
I let her tear into me and give it right back, our lips crashing and teeth clacking, tongues battling for dominance.
My hands slide from her throat to her waist and I haul her up into my arms, pressing her back against the wet tile.
Her legs wrap around my hips automatically, bare skin slick against mine, the heat of her body a brand I can’t erase.
I grind into her, my drenched sweatpants dragging low on my hips, cock already hard and aching against the heavy cotton.
She gasps against my mouth, hands sliding up to my shoulders, nails biting into my skin as her head tips back.
It isn’t submission, it’s challenge. The same wild, untamed thing in her that probably got her hurt tonight, and the same fire that’s been driving me out of my goddamn mind since the moment she crashed into my life.
I roll my hips, grinding against her hard as my mouth latches onto her neck, sucking and biting hard enough to bruise. She moans, and my wolf goes fucking insane, howling with the need to take her right here, right now. To finally claim her and make her mine.
It’s inevitable. We’re inevitable.
A feral growl rips from my chest as I press her harder into the tile, my grip tightening on her hips, control slipping through my fingers. Then she makes a sound– a soft whimper, unmistakably pained– and it slices straight through the haze.
The spell shatters.
I let go of her, stumbling back a step as reality crashes down all at once. The heat. The water. Her body bruised and trembling beneath my hands. What I was seconds away from doing.
Violet slumps against the wall, chest heaving as she fights to catch her breath. Wet hair clings to her cheeks and throat, blue eyes blazing with fury.
I drag in a breath that does nothing to steady me, my hands flexing uselessly at my sides. My whole body hums with adrenaline, overcharged and on a knife’s edge while want and shame and regret collide in my chest, hollowing me out.
Violet’s lips part on a shaky inhale, her stare locked on mine like she’s daring me to push her one last time. “Get out,” she rasps.
And for the first time tonight, I do what she asks.
I back out of the shower, letting the glass door swing shut between us before turning away. I don’t look back. I already know what I’ll see, and I don’t trust myself not to cross that line again.
Water splashes against tile, then hardwood as I storm out of the bathroom and down the hall, leaving chaos in my wake. Every step is heavy, my head still spinning, body still humming with everything I didn’t finish. My wolf howls inside me, furious and unsatisfied.
I hate myself for what I almost did.
For wanting her anyway.
And even as my bedroom door slams behind me and the apartment falls quiet, I know one brutal truth with absolute clarity.
This isn’t over. Not even close.
It’s only just beginning.