10. Kane
Hours after the sun has risen to its highest peak, my sated body begins to stir. A sense of calmness I haven’t experienced in years settles in my bones. The heaviness in my chest is gone.
My wolf’s head pops up, his cocky smirk staring back at me like I’m the dumbass that can’t put two and two together. He huffs through his snout to drive his point home, which has my eyes popping open and my thoughts echoing: what’s changed?
Delicate snoring tickles my eardrum to my left. My chest expands, and I pull in air through my mouth, her scent coating my insides.
Kate.
Everything from last night and this morning comes rolling back through my head. The way she feels when I’m inside her. The sexy sounds she makes. The taste of her skin, her essence. Our bodies joined, making me feel stronger than I ever have. Not having to hold back…
I roll onto my left side, putting most of my weight on my elbow. She’s sleeping on her front side with her long blonde locks covering her face and the top half of her back and shoulders. Her breathing is even as her back lifts and falls in a hypnotic pattern. I could stare at her forever and not tire of the sight before me.
Moving my right hand to the side of her face, I gently pull the strands of her hair away, allowing me to see more of her stunning beauty. She doesn’t stir, and I can’t blame her. The hours we fucked, it felt like we went at it for days. Being between her thighs blew every fantasy I’ve ever had out of the water.
My knuckles run across rough skin along her neck a beat before Kate’s face turns into a grimace, and a whimper of pain slips from her still swollen lips. My eyes flick down. That’s when the memory of my wolf forcing his way through me to bite her returns, flashing through my head. It happened so fast I couldn’t stop him from claiming her, from forcing me to claim her.
He pushed me to make her ours, but I wouldn’t do it. I still had enough sense about me to know I couldn’t take it that far. Not to mention, it should always be a conversation beforehand, even with mates, to make sure both want the same thing.
I told her we’d talk about it today, but I still have no idea how to rectify what I’ve already done. And apparently, I’m even more of an asshole because I never healed her wound. The bite is deep. It’s angry. My wolf didn’t show her an ounce of mercy, and the last thing I want is for it to get infected because he refused to control himself.
Maybe I need to seek Storm out for advice. To see if she knows of a way to undo a claiming that neither of us agreed to. Kate isn’t my mate. I’m not hers, but she bears a mark that I’m responsible for. If I heal the wound soon enough with my saliva, that could mean minimal scaring or no scar at all.
It’s odd that her shifter abilities haven’t already kicked in to start the healing process, but then the bite was from an alpha wolf. Still, I need to heal it. It’s the right thing to do. It’s what I should have done as soon as I retook control from my wolf the second I’d seen the bite instead of forcing it from my head and continuing to enjoy Kate’s heat.
Leaning down, I brush more of her hair away from the side of her face, sliding the strands across her back. My tongue inches out, licking her jagged, raw skin, but something on her back catches my attention. My eyes dart over her as a moan from Kate’s lips tickles my ear. It’s a tattoo between her shoulder blades.
The shimmering silver of a wolf’s head makes me pause my aid to her wound. Lifting my head, I take in the whole of the design. A silver wolf blended into a full moon that I know all too well. Both are encased in a thick circle that’s more faded than the beast and moon. There are familiar symbols inside the inked circle, though I can’t place where I’ve seen them before. But it’s the Marked Crest tattooed on Kate’s back that rips a growl from me, not my wolf.
It’s an almost copy of the Bloodmoon crest I have tattooed on the upper part of my left shoulder, only the full moon is reddish-orange and the wolf doesn’t shimmer that sickening silver metallic.
For all her claimed hatred of her father and his pack over the years, the fact that she bears the silver wolf that represents Richard Everhart’s pack speaks volumes above her words. Last night, she told me they don’t fit in with their pack, that she and Trez were born into the wrong pack.
Clearly, that was a lie, or she wouldn’t have had my enemy’s wolf tattooed on her flesh.
Has she played me this whole time? I don’t want to believe the thoughts thundering against my head, but the proof is inked on her skin.
A warning growl comes from my wolf, but it’s not aimed at the woman in my bed. His issue is with me, and that pisses me off. He already sees her as ours, and that can’t happen. He’s protective of her.
“Kane,” Kate whispers, her tone sleepy, but there’s also contentment in her voice that’s hard to ignore. My wolf notices it too. For her, he smiles. For me, he snarls.
Flexing her hand, she finds my naked thigh and runs her palm up my leg.
I jump off the bed so fast I would have gotten tangled in the covers had they been covering us instead of piled on the floor at the foot. Pressure builds inside my chest while the pounding behind my eyes thunders. I’m unsure if it’s my wolf’s doing or the guilt creeping up my spine.
I’ve never fucked another wolf shifter for a reason. My mate was missing, is missing. It was always supposed to be Anna. Not Kate. Not anyone else. Just Anna. Now, my stupid fucking wolf has screwed everything to hell. He bit the wrong woman. He claimed someone he did not have the right to take. An enemy, nonetheless.
Kate rolls over onto her back and sits up. “What the hell, Kane?”
My wolf growls, but only I can hear him. It’s low but lethal. He’s angry—with me.
There’s worry etched across her beautiful face. The first instinct that comes to mind is to fix it. Take her concern away, but that isn’t something I can do. It’s not something I’m willing to do.
She should be worried.
My own anger swirls around me. It clouds my vision. The blood pulsing through the veins behind my ears roars. It’s all I can hear as the noise grows louder with each passing second.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, looking from me and then around the room as if she doesn’t know what spooked me before her round eyes land back on my face. “Say something, Kane.”
“Your brother isn’t missing, is he?” My spine steels. My shoulders roll back. My chin lifts. Distrust sinks so deep inside me while my wolf pushes against the cage I trapped him inside. “Otherwise, you would have left last night after I told you the ashes weren’t his.”
The truth coils around me, choking me. She played me. But why?
Why plant the seed that Trez might be dead?
Was he even my friend?
“What are you talking about? Yes, Trez is missing. I don’t know where my brother is. I told him I’d give him until tonight to show up, and if he didn’t?—”
“There you go again. So, you’ve spoken to him. You know he’s alive.” My tongue clucks as a humorless laugh falls from my mouth. “Why are you really here?”
“You know why.”
“If I had to guess, I would say certain members of my pack were right all along. Your father sent you here for a reason. What reason was that? What did he have to gain? Is he looking for another war?”
Kate is off the bed so fast her naked body is standing in front of me before I can blink. Her speed could rival a vampire, but it’s her warmth that wraps around me, reminding me of every second I spent connected with her very much alive and beautiful body that makes me take a step away.
Kate follows, eating up the distance between us.
“Dick is not my father,” she says so adamantly a growl rumbles behind her words. “Maybe technically he is, but I have never loved that man. Never respected him. Never obeyed him unless he forced me to do so.” Her palms lift, and before I step back again, she shoves me away, my back connecting to the closed bathroom door. “Fuck you, Kane. Fuck you for whatever this is. For whatever has you regretting last night. At least be a man and admit your guilt. Don’t accuse me of bullshit.”
“Bullshit is tricking me into wanting you. You sure played the long game well. I’ll give you that.”
My wolf slams against his bars, my chest wall. The sheer force feels like a boulder nailing me center mast. It fucking hurts.
“You bit me.”
“It was the blood moon. You are not my mate.” My wolf snarls at me from within, disagreeing or pissed that I’m using the moon as an excuse. But it was him… not me.
“You claimed me!” Kate shouts, her mouth open and her eyes full of emotions that make my knees weaken. It takes loosening my hold on my wolf to prevent myself from going to the floor.
“I don’t fucking want you. It wasn’t real, Kate.”
“You expect me to believe that you don’t feel it?”
“I don’t feel shit for you. My wolf wanted you, not me. It was the total lunar eclipse with the full moon. That’s all.”
“The only way you wouldn’t be able to control your wolf, your instincts, Kane, is if I’m your fated mate.” Her statement sends a shockwave with a magnitude that could level a building straight to my eardrum. Anger coils at the base of my skull.
“I know who my fucking mate is, and she isn’t you.” I reach forward, snatching her by the throat. My fingers squeeze, but my claws won’t extend. Doesn’t matter. I can still get my point across. “Get out of my house. Out of my fucking pack. And if you or any other Marked Crest wolf enters my territory again, I’ll kill you myself.”
I push her away before I do the opposite. Before I kiss her instead of running her off.
“Get the fuck out. Now!”
Standing feet from me, her shoulders roll back. She stares, her eyes darkening. “You’re a fucking coward. I hate you.”
“Good. Leave.”
She turns. By the time I blink, she’s no longer in my bedroom, but with my supernatural hearing, I hear every step she takes. They’re like knives, stabbing me in the chest, over and over, faster and faster, deeper with each thrust.
When the front door slams, my knees finally give out. I go down fast, my wolf ripping me apart from the inside.
My head pounds.
My heart stops.
Everything goes dark.