2. Kane
Iscrub a calloused hand down my face. The smell of grease lingering on my palm overpowers all other scents in the bar. The odor of automotive lubricant generally calms the beast inside me. It’s why I own and work at a restoration body shop, but tonight it’s not cutting it.
Nothing gets under my skin more than dealing with rich assholes who think slapping a coat of shiny paint onto an old, rusted-out, beat-to-hell-and-back car is all there is to restoring a classic to its once-showroom glory.
They know nothing about the hours spent grinding out every speck of rust or the time spent hammering metal back into place, so the least amount of Bondo is needed to fill and shape a car panel or sanding and prepping the car before that coat of candy apple paint can be applied. The parts that must be searched for, bought, and then delivered with the hope they aren’t damaged when you open the box.
Fucking customers.
A growl slips through the sliver of open space between my lips before I can swallow it back down. If I don’t fuck soon, I’m liable to maul the next motherfucker that pisses me off. We’re nearing the full moon—a lunar eclipse—and my body is on edge more so than usual.
Uncontrolled rage doesn’t look good on any wolf shifter, especially when you’re the pack alpha in an establishment with not only shifters but humans too.
Blow jobs aren’t cutting it anymore, and I’ve amped up my daily runs to the point that I’ve dropped body fat I wasn’t trying to lose. I’m giving my beta a run for his money against his vigorous cardiovascular routine. Jagger is the leaner one between us. He prefers running for longer periods than most wolf shifters, whereas I spend more time pumping iron than I do scouring the forest surrounding our land.
That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy going for a run. I love it, but I prefer running with my pack than alone—or I used to. Then she came along, and I realized deer and elk weren’t the only things I liked to hunt.
But I haven’t allowed myself to devour my favorite prey yet.
And I can’t.
Even now, I know it’s wrong. She’s wrong: the wrong fur, the wrong eyes, the wrong goddamn name. She isn’t my fated mate. For that reason alone, Kate is off-limits. Not that it matters. I won’t see her again for another eight months.
I’ve been in a foul mood since she and Trez left three months ago. They aren’t part of the Bloodmoon pack. Hell, their alpha and their pack are enemies of mine dating back generations.
When Kate and Trez first trespassed into our territory five years ago, we allowed them to stay instead of chasing them back to the Canadian border. We decided it was better to make them think we were friendly, welcoming. At least, that was my dad’s reasoning. I wasn’t the alpha until three years ago. Plus, they were fifteen at the time; teenagers. I’m sure that was partly why my father allowed them the freedom to visit.
If their alpha had sent them here to spy on us for his benefit, I knew we’d figure out his angle eventually. Dad probably knew that too. But I hadn’t counted on liking either of them, let alone both. I still remember the first time her scent tickled my nose. I smelled them both nearby, but Kate’s scent hit me first. It was more overpowering than Trez’s, but then she is the stronger of the two of them.
Jagger and I had been doing a perimeter patrol around the land our pack lives on along the coastal region of Oregon, with Ash trailing us. She wasn’t on patrol duty, but my little cousin rarely missed the opportunity to scout with us even when she wasn’t invited—and she was never invited. But Ashleigh was our shadow, and by this time, we’d gotten used to her tagging along on any adventure Jag and I set out to do.
I’d shifted from my blond, cream-colored wolf back into my human form and changed into the clothes we made Ash bring with her. If she was bound and determined to follow, she was going to be useful. Jag had changed too, but Ash remained in her red wolf form. Back then, she preferred four legs over two.
After a fifteen-minute hike that led to the beach, I saw them: a female with blonde hair so white and shimmery it almost looked unnatural. She was dressed in a black sleeveless crop top with army green, low-rise cargo pants paired with black combat boots. Her hair was straight and hung to the middle of her back. The guy with her had dark brown hair. They were both the same height, but he was bulkier. Though, I sensed her strength and spirit were stronger than his.
It made me suspect she was like my cousin, someone strong-minded and intelligent. She was clearly a female born to lead an alpha’s army. Ashleigh only submitted to me, but she held so much respect for my father that it was easy for her to obey him without causing a riff in the pack. I knew long ago, when I became alpha of the Bloodmoon pack, Ash would be on my left side while Jag was on my right as my beta.
We watched the two young shifters for half an hour before letting our presence be known. I was about to step out of the woods when the girl looked over her shoulder, meeting my eyes with a smirk on her lips like she’d known we were there the whole time and had calculated the exact moment I was going to show myself.
My blood didn’t simmer, it boiled. My wolf took it as a challenge. But I had at least fifty pounds on her. It wouldn’t have been a fair fight. Besides, adolescents pose no threat to my pack or me.
We walked to where they had set up a makeshift camp far enough from the shore the tide wouldn’t reach them.
From where I stood, her scent pissed me off just as much as it called to me. I knew the moment I scented them in the area they were Marked Crest shifters. They reeked of being silver wolves, but there was something deeper that I couldn’t quite figure out that intrigued me. It made my beast want to claim her, and there was no way in hell I’d ever claim another unless she were my mate, who’d been kidnapped just shy of hers and my brother’s second birthday.
My mother and Jag’s mom are best friends, the same as our fathers are; like we are. They gave birth on the same day. Anna, my mate, is the little sister of my best friend. My brother Trey is Jagger’s mate.
We discovered that when the babies shifted into pups for the first time just after learning to crawl. It was weird for Jag and me to learn who our mates were when we were eight years old and they only a year old. We were kids.
There was no instant love effect, but there was a bond, and it was strong. I vowed to protect Anna from that day forward. I knew in time, she’d be the only one I’d love the same way my dad loves my mom. Like I knew his beta loved Jag’s mom. Anna was mine, and I was hers. Fate had declared it so.
I broke that vow a year later when she and my brother went missing. I failed her before I even claimed her. Before I truly understood what that even meant. At least I wasn’t alone in my deficiency as a mate. Jagger was in the same boat. He’d made the same vow to Trey that I’d made to his sister.
Over the years, we’ve traveled the world searching for them, hoping we’d pick up their scent. Every being has a smell unique to them, and I knew Anna’s. It’s something I’ll never forget.
Three years ago, our parents asked us to take over as alpha and beta so they could go on searches themselves. Our moms joined us over the years, but our dads couldn’t leave our pack as easily as we could.
By the time I made it within three feet of the female, she reacted faster than I’d ever seen another shifter move. She lifted her knee and kicked her leg out. Her boot nailed me dead center of my gut. The next thing I knew, she swept my feet out from under me, and I was staring directly at the blinding sun, which was unusual for late January in Oregon with no rain clouds in sight.
Kate pissed me off before I knew her name, and she’s been pissing me off ever since.
I was twenty-three at the time and struggling with an attraction to a teenager. I didn’t want any part of the effect she had on me. For one, she was a shifter, and two, she wasn’t my mate. And thirdly, she was a goddamn kid, and I was an adult. It was wrong. It wasn’t going to happen—not then, not now, not fucking ever.
It wasn’t like I was a virgin. I’d been fucking since I was her age, but I wasn’t about to bed a minor, for Fate’s sake. Had my mate not gone missing, I would have waited for her. But the fact was, she was gone, and I had no idea if I’d ever be given a second chance.
Teenage hormones were a bitch. I gave up my virginity to a human girl who was nineteen at the time. Jag and I snuck into a college party, and after that night, I never saw her again.
“Want some company, Kane?” I glance up, seeing Syn standing in front of me. “You look like you need someone to take the edge off.” A smile inches up one side of her face as she bats her thick, painted black eyelashes.
I do. Fuck, do I ever, but it’s not going to be her I screw.
“Come on,” she continues. “For a night with you, I wouldn’t even charge.”
“Thanks for the offer, sugar, but it’s never going to happen.” I stand, making her step backward. I knew my wide, six-foot-eight-inch height intimidated her petite frame despite her being hungry for every dollar she could make. “You have a good night, though.”
Stepping around her, I head to the bar, needing something stronger than the beer I finished a while ago.
Syn is a human and a local prostitute. Personally, I don’t care what someone does to earn a living wage, but the last thing I need is for any of my shifters to see their alpha with one of the sex workers. If they want to pay for it, that’s fine. Their business. They’ll get zero judgment from me. But what I won’t have is any of them bringing humans back to pack land just so they can get their dicks wet.
The shop I own, as well as this bar Ash owns, is on the outskirts of pack land, closer to the neighboring town. Our territory covers west Oregon to Freeway Five and up to Port Angeles in Washington state. Our pack property is near farmland and closer to Washington than California.
As I near the bar, seeing Ashleigh is the only one behind the counter, I flip the service entrance open and step behind it. With her tending to other customers, I’m not going to interrupt her to make me a drink. She’d stop serving everyone else to wait on her alpha. There’s no point in her doing that when I can serve myself. Plus, she keeps the good shit hidden so she doesn’t run out of the bourbon I prefer. Especially when it’s so hard to fucking come by.
Dropping to my haunches, I open the cabinet under the register. While I’m reaching for the bottle, a delicious scent I’d recognize anywhere wafts up my nostrils, hitting every single sensory inside my body, making me freeze and lighting me on fire at the same time. Tingles tickle the back of my neck, telling me Kate is here.
But why?
They never visit this time of year.
What’s strange is I don’t smell Trez with her.
She’s never come by herself. Why would she now?