6. Kane
Jag and Ash left twenty minutes ago to drop off the urn with Storm. By now, they should be roaming the lands in their wolf forms. I’m grateful to Ashleigh for going in my place. My head isn’t in the right state to be as alert as an alpha has to be.
When Kate pulled that sealed vase from her backpack, the tissues that make up the organ in my chest squeezed so tight I thought it was going to burst. I shouldn’t feel that strongly for another shifter who isn’t part of my pack. It doesn’t make sense. The thought of Trez being dead hurt and angered me.
We were never supposed to be friends—but we were. We are. But the relief I was gifted after I scented the witch’s ashes was a fleeting moment. We still don’t know where Trez is. If he’s alive, hurt, or in danger. Worry crept in, sidling up next to my fury and mingling into something I don’t have a word for.
Kate’s father, her alpha, would have known those ashes weren’t his son’s. He would have been the one to have his body cremated in the first place, so what was Richard’s end goal? Why did he inform his pack and daughter Trez was dead? What would he have to gain by lying?
“Kane?” she calls out, pulling me away from thoughts of her brother and where he could be. Her voice is low and hoarse, but I knew it would be before she shut off the shower less than a minute ago.
The second my hearing registered her shuddered breaths, sweat broke out across the back of my neck, and my wolf started pacing. It pulled me toward her until my boots stopped in front of the closed bathroom door in the hallway. Bracing my fingers around the unpainted wooden frame is the only thing keeping me from breaking the door off the hinges to get inside.
That earned me snarls, followed by low growls from my wolf. I can feel he thinks I’m not doing what we should be to soothe Kate’s heart. I don’t understand why he doesn’t get that her heart isn’t ours to heal, nor can I rationalize my chest aching with the need to do exactly what my wolf demands.
“Can you bring me my bag? It has clean clothes inside the front pocket,” she informs me before I hear a thud against the other side of the door, making me think her forehead fell against it.
“Open the door.” A growl follows my order as the sweetest scent I’ve ever smelled coats all the receptors in my nostrils, tickling my throat and sending a tingling sensation rippling down my spine. My fur sprouts before I force my golden blond hair to retreat.
The knob turns and the door opens from the inside, revealing Kate wrapped in a thick, navy towel. Whatever I smelled with the door closed hits me tenfold with her damp body standing before me barefoot.
My hands slip from the doorframe. I meant for my arms to drop to my sides and to take a step back, only I reach forward instead. Wrapping my fingers around the opening of the towel, I tighten my hand into a fist and pull. Kate flies toward me as the towel unwraps, falling from her and my fingers as my eyes cascade down the body of a goddess.
My wolf whimpers at the sight before us, and I can’t blame him. Never before have I wanted to take to my knees in front of another until now.
Fuck.
She’s more stunning than my imagination ever did her justice. The junction where the column of her neck connects to her shoulder has my canines aching; for what I haven’t a clue. Her tits are small, but plenty to touch and tease and suck—and bite. Her waist tapers inward before flaring out toward her meaty hips. Her stomach looks so fucking soft that I want to squeeze my fingers around her flesh.
Reaching for the hem of my T-shirt, I pull it up, yanking it off my torso as quickly as I can, then I snatch Kate by her waist, pulling her to me until I’m able to reach her ass cheeks. Lifting her off the ground, she wraps her legs around me, and the feel of us flesh-to-flesh makes me lose every shred of control.
Stepping sideways and out of the bathroom entrance, I press Kate’s back into the wall as I slam my lips down on hers. She whines, or it’s coming from her wolf deep inside; either way, it’s like a goddamn aphrodisiac that goes straight to my cock.
She kisses me back just as hard and brutally as I’m attacking her mouth. Her tongue, worshiping mine, is the most erotic feeling I’ve ever experienced, but then, I have five years of suppressed sexual frustration and need for this woman that maybe my head is making this more than it actually is.
Her pussy is already slick against my abdominal muscles. Feeling it is one thing. Being able to smell her arousal is something else entirely, and it’s doing something to my wolf and me that I can’t explain. He wants her to shift so that he can fuck her wolf, but that isn’t happening. I’ve waited too long for this, thinking it would never happen. I’m having the woman before he gets the beast.
Going for the buckle on my jeans, I pull away from Kate’s lips. A whimper leaves her mouth, but her eyes flick to mine, giving me exactly what I want.
“If you don’t want this, you better stop me now,” I say to her as I yank the zipper down on my pants and push my clothes down my thighs.
Kate’s hand moves to my throat, her claws extending and sinking beneath my skin. My dick becomes harder as she looks me dead in the eyes, and for a moment, I swear the gray in her irises changes to a vibrant color that pricks at the back of my head. But then she says, “If you don’t fuck me, Kane, I’m going to reach inside your chest and rip out your beating heart. Then I’m going to eat it,” making me think I imagined it because when she blinks, her eyes are the same muted gray they’ve always been.
A low growl follows her threat, but before the rumble in her throat subsides, I shove my cock so deep and hard inside her that her lethal warning turns into a scream so loud there’s no doubt in my mind the entire pack heard her cry of pleasure.
Kate won’t go into heat for at least another year. Female shifters don’t come into heat until they are nearing their twenty-second birthday, and since we aren’t susceptible to diseases like humans, there’s no need for protection. Though this is a first for me since I’ve only fucked human women until her. With them, I always used a condom.
My wolf howls his satisfaction as I tighten my grip on her meaty ass cheek and pull my dick back to her slick opening, only to plunge forward with twice the force.
“Ah, Jesus, fuck, that feels good.” Her moan vibrates from her throat down to her hot little pussy, squeezing my cock like no one before has managed to do. There’s a pulse inside her, and it feels like something is nipping and licking the tip of my dick at the same time. It’s like fucking two beings at once, and the reality is, that’s indeed what I’m doing: fucking Kate and her wolf. Or, they’re both fucking my wolf and me because she’s giving just as much as she’s taking.
“Tell me now that I’m not the biggest dick you’ve had in you, baby?”
I don’t know where that particular endearment came from. I’ve never used it with a woman I’m fucking, or any woman for that matter, but then I’ve never fucked another shifter before now either, and apparently, I’ve been missing out. I usually have to let the girl I’m banging ride my dick to control the speed so that I don’t hurt her, but with Kate, it’s like I know she can handle anything I give her.
“Shut up and fuck me harder.” Her claws sink into my shoulders as her heels dig into the meat of my ass cheeks, urging me to comply. “If you aren’t the man for the job, bring your wolf to the surface. I bet he could fuck me harder than you.”
A growl leaves my throat just before my fingers wrap around the column of her pretty little neck. I shove her head toward the wall and slam so far inside her pussy that no man or beast will ever reach the depth I can.
A scream of pleasure and pain leaves Kate’s mouth, but instead of pushing me away, she pulls me closer until her lips connect with mine. Her tongue and lips and teeth fuck my mouth equally as rough as my cock is fucking the best thing it’s ever been inside.
Her pussy is an inferno I never want to leave. Her scent calls to me in a way I’ve only experienced when hunting prey, and although I do want to eat everything she’s willing to offer me, I also want to protect her like she’s more valuable than the rarest treasure. Like she’s more important than my pack.
That realization should have me pulling out and getting as far away from her as possible. Kate isn’t my mate. These feelings are nothing more than me projecting my longing for a mate I may never find into someone I’ve wanted for longer than is morally right.
Every dream I’ve had of my mate since Kate and Trez entered my life contorts into Kate’s image.
Anna’s blue eyes would fade until they turned into a shade of gray that matched Kate’s. My mate’s raven hair would lighten until it was blonde like Kate’s long locks. Her tan skin, which I know would match her mother’s complexion the way Jagger’s does, would turn pale and snow-like to match Kate’s fair skin tone. Kate is always the one I wake up in a cold sweat remembering.
Maybe this is what I need to get her out of my system and out of my head because, at the end of the day, she can’t be mine, and I will never be hers. I’ve belonged to another since I was eight years old, and there is nothing that’s going to change fate.
“Claws,” she pants. “Sink them into me. Please, Kane.”
My wolf doesn’t wait for me to comply with her demand. Instead, he pushes his claws through the tips of my fingers and straight into Kate’s flesh on the bottom of her ass and around her throat, piercing the back of her neck and making her eyes roll back. The most delicious moan I’ve ever heard slips from her lips.
While my beast holds her in place, I hammer in and out of her beautiful body, every dive inside better than the previous. It’s a miracle I’ve managed to last this long without blowing my load. Jesus, she feels so fucking good that I’m almost convinced this has to be another one of my dreams.
Her muscles tighten around me, sucking me deeper, and whatever her wolf is doing to the tip of my dick has me seeing fucking stars. I have to bite down on my bottom lip to keep myself from sinking my canines into her like my wolf is trying his damnedest to do.
“Yes. Oh, fuck yes. Ahhhhh,” Kate moans as her head tips forward. My grunts follow her over the edge of the best pleasure I’ve ever been gifted. My heart is beating so fast that it feels like it skips a beat as it trips over itself to slow down. My forehead falls to Kate’s bare shoulder as shallow breaths leave my mouth. My claws retract back into my skin, leaving the only sound a mixture of our breaths coming in and out.
A growl rumbles its way up my throat, but it wasn’t me that made a sound. My wolf wants what he thinks is his.
I let Kate’s legs slide to the hardwood floor. My energy so wholly spent that I don’t have the strength to stop the shift I know is seconds from happening.
“Kate,” I call out. My hands leave her slick body and plant them on the wall behind her as I push myself back to look her in the eyes. “Run.”