4. Kane
Kate is an alpha wolf.
How did I never see that before?
It’s the only explanation for her claws protruding from the tips of her fingers and penetrating my skin. It’s not the ability to control what she lets shift that alludes me to think her wolf is a Luna wolf, an alpha female. Plenty of alphas, though not all, can control their shift. Only the strongest in mind and body can do it. It’s even been recorded that a few betas have the ability.
Jagger can, but he’s also stronger than most beta wolves, so it wasn’t surprising the first time I saw him push his claws out without shifting into the giant black beast of his wolf.
In Kate’s case, she was past the brink of exhaustion. I could smell the fatigue on her when she walked in last night, yet she didn’t allow it to show through her expression or in her body language.
I didn’t realize the depth of her tiredness until I was staring into her gray eyes. They were dull, almost lifeless. Then I nearly fell to my knees following the words she wasn’t able to finish.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out she was telling me her brother was dead before she went limp in my hand.
Trez is dead.
My friend is gone.
I can’t tell you when it happened. When I started to think of Trez, and even Kate, as friends rather than the offsprings of their father. Richard Everhart is more than the alpha from a rival pack. He’s our biggest enemy. Responsible for killing my grandfather, the alpha before my dad was the leader of our pack.
Years before I was born, the Bloodmoon pack and the Marked Crest pack were at war. It resulted in my father becoming alpha a few weeks past his eighteenth birthday following the death of his father and half of the pack. We still haven’t regained the number of members we once had.
Wolf shifters aren’t immortal, but we are immune to disease, and it’s rare for a wolf shifter to die accidentally. Ninety-nine times out of one hundred, a wolf shifter is killed at the hands of another wolf shifter or another supernatural being. After we reach our mid-twenties, we start to age slower.
Trez hadn’t even reached that mark. He was only twenty.
“You really think Trez is gone?” Ash asks from where the small of her back is pressed against the corner joints of the countertop to my right. I’m standing with my back facing the window above the kitchen sink while Jag is perched on a stool around the side of the island.
After Kate passed out, I took her to my pickup truck in the parking lot. That’s when I discovered her racing bike with a stuffed backpack hanging from the handlebars. Her exhaustion made sense if she rode all the way from Rivermoon Mountain to Moonwake without rest. That’s a sixteen-to-seventeen-hour drive; probably less the way she drives, but still too long on that bike.
She’s had a love for riding motorcycles since the first winter they showed up. Jag taught her how to ride. The bike she showed up on is meant for a racetrack, not traveling between two countries. The only logical reason she’d drive it is if she were running from a supernatural being.
“She wouldn’t lie, but…” my words trail off before my voice cracks.
Jag, Ash, and I are the only ones in the pack lodge with Kate while she sleeps on one of the oversized couches in the living room where I placed her.
There are two couches as well as a big recliner that all face a seventy-inch television hanging above the fireplace. The downstairs is open to the kitchen and dining room, making the space one large room with a hallway that leads to a full bathroom and the primary suite, which is where I’ve been living since I became alpha. There are five other bedrooms on the second level that only get used sparingly when we have guests visiting or lazy shifters who don’t want to go to their own homes.
Kate’s never been in the lodge before now. The only rule my father put in place when Kate and Trez started visiting was the lodge was off-limits to them. It was so a riff in the pack didn’t occur. The fact is, they’re from a rival pack, and several of our members didn’t like them being here.
Ronnie, the old shifter Kate put on the ground last night, was the ringleader of the shifters that didn’t want them in our pack. After becoming alpha, I kept my father’s rule on the pack lodge being a no-go zone where they were concerned—until late last night.
It was after eleven when we returned to pack land. Eight shifters were in here drinking and having a good time. I kicked them out so Kate could rest. She’s been asleep on the couch ever since.
“But we didn’t hear the details either,” Jag finishes for me, knowing exactly what I was thinking, or maybe I’m praying there was more to what Kate was going to say and Trez isn’t gone in the forever kind of way.
“Uhhh,” Kate groans. Our eyes snap to the couch facing away from us. Wrapping her fingers around the back of the sofa, she pulls herself into a sitting position. “Why is it so hot in here?”
“It’s not,” Ashleigh chimes in. “But it’s June. You’re probably not used to our weather down here.”
Turning her head, Kate looks at each of us, her stare lingering before stopping on mine. She stands, cracking her neck as she steps toward the long, rectangular island in the kitchen. Slipping her leather jacket off, she lays it across a stool tucked under the counter before grabbing the backpack I placed on top of the island last night.
“What time is it?” Kate asks, her eyes on me.
Her cheeks are flushed, her hair is matted and dull, and there’s no shimmer in her blonde strands. Neither diminishes her beauty. She is still the most stunning creature I’ve ever laid eyes on, but as she stands across from me, the island between us, I notice the dark strands of her roots for the first time. It strikes me as odd, making me wonder if she’s been dying her hair an unnatural color this whole time.
“Almost six. At night,” I answer.
Her head bobs in acknowledgment as her eyes go to the bag in front of her like there’s something inside she doesn’t want to face. I didn’t plunder through her shit, but whatever is in the bag makes me think I should have looked.
“Tell us about Trez,” Jag says, a strain in his tone that’s rarely present.
“Is he dead?” Ash follows, pulling Kate’s haunted expression toward my cousin.
“Yes. No. Maybe.” She pulls in a breath, then quickly releases it.
“What the fuck does that mean?!” I blurt out, my tone harsher than I meant. I’m still on edge, and it’s only gotten worse since she showed up. There’s an itch to my skin I’ve never felt before last night.
“It means I don’t know, Kane. It means I have my doubts about what Dick claimed happened to him.” Kate’s arms cross over her athletic chest as her back straightens into a steel rod. I haven’t forgotten how she reacted to my alpha power. It rooted her feet to the floor, or maybe that was wishful thinking on my part.
Until now, I’ve always found it humorous how Trez and Kate call their father Dick rather than Richard or addressing him by any term of endearment meant for Dad. They claim to have a strained relationship with their alpha, and I’ve never had a reason not to believe that to be true. I’ve always been able to tell Kate dislikes her father, while Trez isn’t as outspoken on the subject.
“Then explain,” I growl, needing to know if the guy I’ve grown protective over in the last few years is alive or dead. If the latter, someone will pay with their life for ending his. “What did your father tell you?”
A low growl rumbles up her chest at the mention of her alpha. Something about him always sours my stomach when it comes to Kate and her brother, which is why we’ve never officially spoken about Richard Everhart.
“He claims Trez was killed by a human hunter with a bow outside Vancouver,” she spits out, and without a shadow of a doubt, I know she doesn’t think it’s possible for Trez to have been snipped with a bow and arrow. I have to concur. It is a hard fact to believe, but it’s not implausible either.
“What makes you think there’s a chance he’s alive?” I ask, trying to control the rage festering inside me at the thought of Trez gone, taken from this world.
She glances down, looking at the zipped-up backpack in front of her once again. “Call it sibling intuition.”
“Yeah, well, I’m calling bullshit on that.” Her gray irises snap to my amber stare. “There’s something you aren’t telling us, so spit it out.”
Kate reaches for the top of her bag. Grabbing the zipper, she pulls it open, revealing an urn. It’s the last thing I expected to see, but I’m guessing it holds his ashes. This time, it’s not me that lets out a low growl. It’s Jag.
“That’s not helping your case that Trez could be alive,” Jagger tells her, and I have to agree.
Lifting it from her bag, she places the metal container on the counter, gently pushing it away from her to the center. I eye the shiny stainless steel canister, wondering why it’s here if she isn’t even sure Trez is dead.
“Before I left, I stole it with the hope that Dante could tell if the ashes are shifter or human. I have to know for sure.”
“Dad’s out of town. Don’t know when he’ll be back,” I disclose, which is the truth. My parents and Jag’s mom and dad left two months ago to search for our missing wolves. They likely won’t be back for another few weeks.
“Could you smell the difference if the urn was open?” she asks, her tone hopeful but desperate.
I nod, then step forward. Reaching toward the center, I grab the urn and slide it toward me. Six tiny screws secure the lid to the canister, keeping it airtight.
Once, my father had to identify a shifter’s body that had been killed by an organization of evil humans who call themselves monster hunters. The man’s body was in such disarray that Dad had his remains cremated to bring back to his family.
Upon having the ashes given to us, Dad realized there had been a mix-up. The ashes he was given were human, not shifter. That’s when he taught me how to distinguish between human scents and wolf shifters.
Wolves have a deep, earthy smell that humans don’t often have from the amount of time we spend running and hunting in the forest. Plus, supernaturals have an unmistakable scent of other I’d be able to recognize.
“I’m going to need the smallest Phillips head screwdriver we can find.” Looking at Ash, I say, “Can you locate one?”
Most of my tools are kept at work or in my shed at the secluded cabin I built close to a cliff that drops off to the sea.
“Sure.” Ashleigh nods, then pushes away from the counter and heads to the front door.
“I’m going to take a piss while she’s gone,” Jag informs us before striding down the hall, leaving just Kate and me staring at each other.
Kate is the first to look away, and as her eyes roam around the open space, my stare dips to the flesh exposed between the waistband of her pants resting on her hips and the black top that stops an inch above her navel. Lifting her hand, her fingers grip the hem of her loose shirt, fanning the fabric back and forth from her abdominal muscles and making me swallow the nonexistent saliva in my mouth.
I wouldn’t say Kate is slender, but then I wouldn’t describe most female wolf shifters that way. The thing about wolves is we like to eat and indulge, but we also have an instinct within us to be the biggest and the toughest beast we’re capable of being.
From what I’ve seen, there’s no part of her flesh that isn’t wrapped around strong muscles. Even as a teenager and eight years younger than me, she was able to drop me to my ass. The only other person to ever do that has been Jag, and even for him, it’s rare when he can best me.
“I hear if you take a picture, it’ll last longer,” she chimes, making my gaze snap to hers. Her head is cocked to the side with one brow arched. There’s a challenge in her gray eyes, making the beast in me rise to the surface before I push him back.
“When was the last time you ate?” I ask, ignoring her comment and the fact that her body has an effect on me that we’ve both danced around for years. But my question holds merit. I’ve been hearing her stomach rumble from hunger for hours. If she hadn’t woken up when she did, I was on the verge of howling my dissatisfaction that would have woken her and alarmed my pack at the same time.
“About an hour before Dick tried to bring me to my knees by telling me my brother was dead in front of the whole pack.” A growl slips past her lips before she clamps her teeth down and balls her hands into fists by her sides.
“And when was that?” I press for more information, needing to know so badly it pisses me off. I shouldn’t care. She’s a grown fucking woman that can handle her own shit. She isn’t mine to worry about.
“Four days ago.” She rolls her eyes like it’s not a big deal, but for me, it takes more effort and strength than it should to clamp a leash around my beast before he pushes through to shift, wanting to growl his displeasure at the fact that she hasn’t fed herself.
“You haven’t eaten in four goddamn days?!”
“Does bourbon count?” she tosses out, not the least bit afraid of my tone or the alpha vibes rolling off my heated skin like a thirty-foot wave about to crash into her, pulling her down into an abyss she can’t come back from. “Pretty sure I drank three full bottles and had started on another when I passed out from lack of sleep.”
The blood flowing in my veins rushes so fast through my system that for a split second, I see two of her. My beast is so furious it matches my human emotions. When Kate’s lips part and an audible breath leaves her mouth, I know my eyes have flashed from amber to glowing a reddish-orange before returning to their true color, revealing my alpha temper.
All alpha wolves’ eyes change color when we trigger the alpha power inside us, glowing a shade resembling an ordinary full moon. My pack, however, is affected by the lunar moon. When my eyes change, whether it’s because I’ve pulled the power forward or an overpowering emotion triggered it, mine look like two blood moons.
Very few shifters have witnessed it from me. Like my father, I’m adept at controlling my reactions. It doesn’t make sense that she’s able to obtain that response as easily as she breathes. Sure, I can admit my attraction to Kate, but that’s all it is. She’s just an itch I haven’t scratched.
As if reading my thoughts, she rounds the island until she’s standing toe-to-toe with me, looking up with a mixture of power and deep sadness colliding.
“Come fucking talk to me when Dante tells you Jagger was killed and then turns around in the same breath, forbidding you from tracking down the hunter that was responsible. Come speak to me then, asshole.” Her palms meet my chest, shoving me, but my body doesn’t budge, which shows exactly how weak she’s allowed herself to become.
My fingers wrap around her throat, my claws extending, then sink into her flesh before my mind catches up with my reflexes. Just like last night when my hand was wrapped around her pretty neck and my claws pierced her skin, pleasure, unlike anything I’ve ever felt runs down my body, straight to the tip of my dick. If she hadn’t passed out when she did, I’m sure I would have fucked her in front of everyone in the bar and not gave one fuck until I spilled my release inside her.
A moan slips from her mouth despite Kate’s teeth biting down on her bottom lip. Her eyes flutter closed, and I have to force mine to widen for them not to mimic hers. Taking a step backward, I forcefully yank her along with me until I’m standing with my back to the range and vent hood. Kate’s mouth is open as she tries to suck in the air I’m keeping from her lungs. Reaching behind me, I snatch a piece of bacon I’d cooked earlier and shove it past her lips.
“Eat,” I command as I loosen my grip enough for air to fill her lungs and she’s able to swallow once again.
She complies, but I can see the fight building in her eyes. My free hand flies between us, catching her knee before it nails me in the crotch. Shoving her leg down, I let her throat go, and then I flip her around so that her back is in the corner of the counter and I’m in front of her. Reaching for her waist, I hoist her up onto the countertop and force my way between her thighs.
“Get another piece and eat it,” I order, unable to hold back the alpha power coursing through me, demanding that I feed Kate until her belly is full of food I’ve provided and not understanding one damn thing about why I’m doing this or acting like a jackass.
Wrapping her strong legs around my waist, she jerks me forward as her chin lifts and her eyes bore into mine. “Make me.”