Chapter 2 Caelan #2
“That’s just his face,” Thessa said. “Resting murder face. Very off-putting. We’ve tried to fix it. There’s no cure for it yet but doctors are hopeful.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my face.” I grunted.
“You’re glaring at her right now.”
I wasn’t glaring. I was gazing. There was a difference, a significant one.
Riley laughed, and the sound made my wolf want to roll over and show its belly. “I like you,” she said to Thessa. “Your brother’s a little intense, but you’re fun.”
“He’s very intense,” Thessa agreed. “It’s exhausting. I keep telling him to lighten up but he’s physically incapable.”
“I am not-”
“Ky, you once threatened to duel someone because they mispronounced your…Pet’s name.”
They had mispronounced my title, not my pet’s name. But I guessed saying in the human world you were heir to the Duskmere Crown would raise a lot of eyebrows. “They called it ‘prints.’ Not prince. Prints.”
“And violence was the appropriate response?”
“It was a formal dinner. There are protocols.”
Riley was watching our exchange with obvious entertainment, her green eyes bouncing between us. “So you’re intense, you’re from some mystery region of Australia that I’ve never heard of, and you threaten people over pronunciation. Anything else I should know?”
Yes. We’re fated mates, my wolf recognized you the moment I walked through that door, I would burn down this entire realm if you asked me to, and I’m going to spend the rest of my very long life devoted to your happiness whether you want me to or not.
“I also read,” I said instead. “Occasionally.”
“High praise from Outback.” She slid a book toward me. “This is my newest one. It’s about werewolves and fated mates. Very spicy. You probably won’t like it.”
Fated mates? What were the odds?
I picked up the book like it was made of gold. My mate wrote this. She poured herself into these pages, created worlds and characters and love stories. I was going to read every single word, multiple times, and memorize my favorite passages.
“I’ll try to keep an open mind,” I said, then I noticed her cheek.
Inflamed, and the kind of red that came from being hit. Every warm, fuzzy feeling in my chest turned to ice.
“Who hurt you?” The words came out as a growl. I was reaching for her face before I could stop myself, wanting to see the damage to catalog it, wanting a name so I knew exactly whose throat to rip out.
Riley leaned back, the amusement flickering into something more guarded. “Okay, that’s a weird question to ask someone you just met.”
“Answer it.”
“Or what? You’ll glare at me harder?”
“Riley-” I started, her name falling off my lips as if we’d known each other forever.
“Ky.” Thessa’s hand closed around my wrist, her grip bruising. A warning. “Your manners are beastly. That was incredibly rude. Apologize. Now. “
I didn’t want to apologize. I wanted blood. I wanted to find whoever marked her face and make them regret every choice that led them to touch what was mine.
But Riley was looking at me with an expression that said she thought I was completely unhinged, which was fair. I was unhinged. I was so far past hinged I couldn’t even see hinged from where I was standing.
I forced myself to take a breath, then another. My claws, which had started to extend, slowly retracted.
“I apologize,” I said, and the words felt like swallowing glass. “I didn’t mean to be forward. I just...” I searched for an excuse that wasn’t: my wolf wants to murder whoever touched you. “I don’t like seeing people hurt.”
Riley studied me for a long moment. Her green eyes were assessing, calculating, and I held still under her scrutiny. Whatever she needed to see, I would show her. I’d bare my fucking soul to her if that meant she’d trust me, or even look at me twice.
Then her expression shifted, softened slightly. Good. I fucking liked that.
“It’s fine.” A pause. “Weird as hell, but fine.” Another pause. “You’re really not from around here, are you?”
“No. We’re traveling.”
“Backpacking across America,” Thessa added. “Seeing the sights. Eating the food. Stumbling into bookstores because my brother has no sense of fun and I have to force culture upon him.”
“I have a sense of fun.”
“Name one fun thing you’ve done in the last decade.”
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Fuck.
Thessa turned to Riley with a triumphant expression. “See? Tragic.”
Riley’s lips twitched again. I was becoming obsessed with that almost-smile. I wanted to make it a full smile, make her laugh until she couldn’t breathe.
“Well,” she said, “if you’re looking for fun in Lysmont, you’re in the wrong place. This town is basically a retirement community with a ski resort attached.”
“You live here,” I said. “It can’t be that bad.”
The words came out before I could stop them, way too honest for human standards for a person you just met. Damn.
Riley blinked, a faint flush crept across her cheeks. Before she could respond, a man cleared his throat behind her.
My attention snapped to him immediately.
Everything in him was mediocre, not even his expensive clothes that didn’t quite fit his energy managed to hide the simplicity of his presence. He smelled faintly of Riley, not intimately, thank the goddess, but in the way of people who spent time together. Who were near each other often.
My wolf took one look at him and decided: enemy.
“Closing time,” the man said, smiling in a way that didn’t reach his eyes. “Riley needs rest. Buy a book, she’ll sign it, and you can be on your way.”
There was possession in his voice, ownership. He wasn’t asking me to leave, he was telling me, dismissing me from Riley’s presence like he had the right.
I stared at the man. Really looked at him.
This was the one who hurt her, who left that mark on her face. I didn’t have proof, but my wolf just knew. The way he stood too close to Riley, how her shoulders had gone tense. The way she wasn’t looking at him and was trying to make herself small.
My claws pressed against my fingertips and my vision bled amber at the edges.
The growl building in my chest was getting harder to suppress.
I wanted to kill this man. Wanted to shift right here in this bookstore, pin him to the ground, and rip his throat out with my teeth.
My wolf was chanting a prayer: kill him, kill him, make him pay for touching what is ours.
“I’m still talking to her,” I said. My voice came out cold and deadly calm.
The man’s smile tightened. “The event is over.”
Thessa’s hand landed on my arm. A reminder that we were in public, that I could not murder humans in bookstores no matter how much they deserved it.
Instead, I reached into my pocket, pulled out a hundred-dollar bill, and slapped it on the table with more force than strictly necessary.
“Two copies,” I said, grabbing books without looking at them. My eyes found Riley’s, holding her gaze. “Do you need more?”
The question was aimed at the man but I was looking at her. Asking her if she needed more. More money, more protection, more anything.
She blinked, surprise crossing her face. “That’s way too much.”
The man took the money. “It’s great. Thank you.”
My wolf wanted to bite his hand off at the wrist.
“Damien, that’s not-” Riley started, but Thessa was already tugging me toward the door, her grip insistent.
“Okay! Great meeting you! We’ll definitely come back! Bye!”
My feet dragged against the floor. Every instinct screamed at me to stay, to protect, to never let Riley out of my sight. My mate was in the same room as the man who hurt her, and I was supposed to walk away?
But Thessa was stronger than she looked, and determined. She managed to get me to the door, but right before it closed behind me, I looked back and found Riley’s eyes.
“See you soon,” I said. It came out as a promise, a vow. The most inevitable thing in the world.
The door closed, and I immediately started missing her.
I stood on the sidewalk, chest heaving, hands shaking with the effort of not going back inside.
“What the fuck,” Thessa breathed, staring at me with huge eyes. “What the fuck was that?”
“I found her.” My voice didn’t sound like my own. It was rough and wrecked. “I found my mate.”
Thessa’s mouth dropped open. For a long moment, she just stared at me, processing. Then her face transformed into the biggest, most delighted grin I’d ever seen.
“Oh my god.” She was bouncing on her feet now, practically vibrating with excitement. “Oh my god. You found your mate in a human bookstore.” She grabbed my arm, shaking it. “She writes wolf books, Ky. Your mate writes mating stories about wolves. The goddess has such a sense of humor.”
I wasn’t laughing. I was too busy staring at the bookstore door, calculating how long I had to wait before going back inside.
“That man,” I said quietly. “Damien.”
Thessa’s grin faded. “What about him?”
“He hurt her.” The words came out flat, cold. The kind of quiet that came before violence. “He’s the one who marked her face.”
Thessa went still. She’d seen me in battle, so she knew what I was capable of.
“Ky,” she said carefully. “We can’t just kill him.”
“I know.” I didn’t look away from the door. “Not yet.”
“But you’re going to...”
“I’m going to find out everything about him. Where he lives, who he knows, what he cares about.” I finally turned to look at my sister. My eyes were still amber, my wolf still too close to the surface. “And then I’m going to destroy him.”
Thessa studied me for a moment.
Then she nodded once. “Okay. I’m in.”
“You don’t have to-”
“He hurt your mate, Ky. That makes it personal.” She linked her arm through mine and started pulling me down the street. “But first, we need a plan. You can’t just lurk outside her bookstore like a creep.”
“I wasn’t going to lurk.”
“You were absolutely about to lurk. I could see the lurking forming in your brain.”
“Shut up.”
Thessa snorted. “You’re going to have to do better than that if you want to woo her. Humans don’t like being stalked. They call it stalking and they get the authorities involved.”
“I’m not stalking her.”
“What’s her address?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Yet. You said yet. That implies you’re planning to find out.”
“Of course I’m planning to find out. She’s my mate. I need to know where she lives so I can protect her.”
“From a distance? Without her knowledge? While watching her through windows?”
When she put it like that, it did sound somewhat concerning.
“I’ll say hi first,” I amended. “Then I’ll protect her.”
“That doesn’t make stalking right, you dumbass. Besides, you growled ‘mate’ at her and asked who hurt her within thirty seconds of meeting her. I don’t think it went well.”
She had a point. My first impression had been less than ideal.
We walked in silence for a moment. My mind was already churning, planning, strategizing.
I needed to see Riley again. Soon. I needed to find out more about Damien and how to remove him from her life permanently.
And I really needed to understand why my mate had a bruise on her face and a haunted look in her eyes.
“I’ll read all of her books to learn about her. What she thinks about mates and bonds.”
“Yes!” Thessa was getting excited now, her strategic mind engaging. “If she’s already open to the idea of wolves existing...”
“Then she won’t run away when we tell her we’re from another realm.” Hope flickered in my chest. “She might accept the bond more easily.”
“Or she might think you’re insane and call the authorities.”
“Always the optimist.”
“Someone has to balance out your intense brooding energy.” We rounded a corner, and I allowed myself one last look back toward the bookstore. Thessa patted my arm cheerfully. “Let’s go home for now. I have a feeling we’re going to be here for a while.”
She was right.
I was going to be here for as long as it took. As long as it took to earn Riley’s trust, win her heart, and eliminate every threat to her happiness.
Starting with Damien.
The mission could wait. The portal investigation could wait. Everything could wait. I’d found my mate, and nothing else mattered.