39. Kane
If I hadn’t needed to piss so badly, I would have happily passed out after pulling out of Kate’s heat. I wouldn’t have minded staying nestled inside her either, but the way my dick shriveled up after unloading everything I had, it was in its own state of comatose.
The fatigue is getting to me. My eyelids feel as if there are weights tugging them down. I’m sure not eating last night didn’t help, but it’s not like I haven’t gone a day without a meal before. Fuck me. All I want is to crawl back in bed with my pregnant girl and sleep for a year, or at least until next month when the baby comes, but I have too much shit pressing down on my back to allow myself more than a few more hours of rest.
Ronnie and his sister are dead, and I’m not sad over their loss. Their betrayal cuts deep, but their deception fuels my anger. If V was hiding her emotions from me, then I have to believe her brother was too. For Laney’s sake, I hope she was left in the dark and didn’t know the things her family was responsible for.
Then there is Richard himself—the false alpha of The Marked Crest pack. Do I go after him, with or without Kate, for what he’s done to all of us, what he’s likely still plotting against us? Or do I wait for the day he brings another war to my pack?
There’s no doubt in my mind that I have Caleb Drake and his pack’s help if I want it. He wants Everhart’s territory bad enough that he’d help us take him out. I won’t, however, take the choice of Kate seeking her own revenge away from her if that’s what she needs or wants. It’s her call, but I also don’t want to wait too long to end this rivalry once and for all.
As long as Richard Everhart breathes, my family isn’t safe. That’s an unsettling feeling that needs to be eliminated. But without the presence of my beast, I wouldn’t stand a chance against another supernatural creature. He already has magic on his side, not that I don’t in ways, but I’d never use Storm or her sister the way he uses Salem.
It’s a lonely fate-forsaken place inside my chest having my mate, finally, after all this time while missing a whole other part of myself. I never thought I’d be pining for the wolf that lives within me. But that’s exactly what’s happening, and every second of his absence is another second closer to death.
I scrub my hand down my face and over my beard. It needs a trim, but I’ll handle that after the sun comes up.
I figured Kate would have followed me to shower and clean my cum off her, but after washing my hands and honing my ears toward the open bathroom door, all was quiet, too quiet. I can’t even hear her breathing.
Shucking the used, damp hand towel toward the back of the counter below the mirror, I walk my naked ass back into the bedroom. My mate is nowhere in sight.
“Kate,” I call out, my feet moving to the door and down the hallway.
It’s dark, the lights are off, but I hear the faucet in the kitchen running. Before I reach the opening that leads into the living room with the kitchen to my left, the water shuts off.
When she comes into view, the moon shining on her sexy frame, she pulls the glass away from her lips and places it into the rectangular drop-in sink, then turns to face me.
From here, my keen eyesight can see the corner of her lips dipped upward. Her head jerks, and she says, “Come on,” while walking to the door.
“Where the fuck are you going with my cum running down your legs?”
I cross my arms when she pulls open the door. Kate doesn’t respond, just motions me to follow her, so my arms drop and my legs move toward her.
“It’s three in the morning,” I say when I step over the threshold. “We just marathon fucked. Can we go to sleep before we have to deal with people in a few hours?”
Kate’s entire demeanor changes. I feel it before she flips around to face me, her knowing eyes landing on mine. “When was the last time you shifted?”
“Kate,” I draw out, scrubbing my palm down my tired face, my exhaustion showing in more than just my eyes. It’s in the way I move, slower than usual, lethargic-like. But it’s not like I fucked her as though I didn’t have the strength of a beast inside me. That was basic instinct and adrenaline mixed with an abundance of need.
“When?” she asks again, not budging on the subject.
“That’s a priority for another day. Other shit?—”
“I asked you a question, Mate. I want the truth.” Her hands go to her hips.
Fucking hell.
I don’t have the strength or the willpower to argue with her. It’s pointless, useless really, when she can feel what’s going on with me. I should have known Kate would find out now that we’re fully bonded. I just didn’t figure it would’ve been this soon.
“The night I kicked you out of our pack.”
Her eyes flick away from mine. There’s a pregnant pause long enough that I hear a bird chirp nearby. Probably in one of the trees that surround the cabin. Waves break against jagged rock in the distance, where the ground drops hundreds of feet to the sand below, leading into the ocean.
“That was weeks ago.” The concern in her voice wraps around me like thick wool. “Kane.” She sucks in a deep breath through her mouth. “You can’t go that long without letting your wolf free. Tell me you aren’t punishing yourself, punishing your animal for biting me.”
A band slips around the organ in my chest, tightening and knowing that Kate is recalling what I told her. My wolf claimed you, not me.
Fuck.
Is there anything I can’t screw up?
I’ve regretted those words since the moment they jumped off my tongue.
No matter if it was the absolute wrong way to go about it, my wolf claiming my mate was the best thing to ever happen to me.
“He’s punishing me for what I did to you.”
I let out a sigh, and when I do, pain shoots through my chest as if an arrow pierced it. My fists fold and clench so tightly that my short nails dig into my palms. Forget my wolf’s abandonment, Kate’s emotions are going to be the death of me.
“I deserve worse.” She stalks toward me, stopping when both of her big toes touch mine. “I don’t deserve you, and he knows it. Hell, even I know it.”
“Shift.” Her tone is hard. It’s an order.
“Baby, if I could, I would have done it long before now. You know shifting is mutual consent between yourself and your animal. I won’t be able to until he’s ready.”
Which may fucking be never.But I don’t voice that fear to my mate.
“I. Said. Shift.” Her jaw locks.
“Kate, I?—”
Before I realize what she’s done, I blink, and her hand is wrapped around the nape of my neck, holding me in place with her claws sunken beneath my skin. I’m on my knees, staring up at two eyes that resemble blood moons.
She triggered her alpha power. It’s mesmerizing. Impossible not to become paralyzed. Any amount of fight I had left is zapped. I’m left in a state of raw vulnerability. She could do anything she wanted, and there would be nothing I could do to stop her.
Is this what it feels like when I use my alpha power on others?
I’ve never experienced it. My father never once used his on me, though I never gave him a reason to, I suppose. I only use it on others, pack members, when it’s a last resort. When I used it on Kate all those weeks ago, it was by accident. It hadn’t been my intention. It just happened, and back then, I hadn’t believed that’s what it was.
“Shift, Kane. Shift… now, Mate.”
My bones break, changing from a man into a massive, blond, deadly predator within the time it takes to pull in a long breath of air. It’s been so long that the change gives me vertigo momentarily. Had I been standing on solid ground instead of my mind being pulled into a dark space inside my being, I would have lost my balance.
The blurriness fades, and I can see Kate through my wolf’s keen sight. Her eyes are back to that radiant shade of blue I want to paint onto my next restoration. An old Bronco that I’ll give to my mate. She’ll need more than a racing bike to drive. The pack has plenty of vehicles, but I know Kate, she likes her own shit. So, that’s what she’ll get if she wants it.
“Aren’t you a pretty boy,” Kate says, her fingers weaving through the fur on my wolf’s head, her nails scratching as she combs them back toward her. I feel the same things he does, and it’s nothing less than being in seventh heaven. “Are you done being a dick to Kane now?”
My wolf grumbles in reply, his ears flicking. Kate makes a tsk-tsk noise, and he huffs back as if to say he was making a point.
Kate’s eyes flash, her sexy, powerful alpha eyes coming to the surface once more.
Pressure rains down my back at the same time my wolf’s ears flatten, and his legs lower him to the ground. It’s a slight amount of pain, but not in a terror or violent sort of way, more like she’s saying, I’m sorry, do you want to repeat that, type of authoritative way without saying the words.
“No more refusing to shift on either of your parts. That better be clear, wolf and mate.” She releases her hold and steps back several feet. Once she blinks, her eyes are normal again.
My wolf pushes off his paws to stand, his thick, big head just above Kate’s pussy. From here, I can smell her and me mixed together, so I know he does too, her scent being the potent of the two. She makes my mouth water, salivating to taste her again.
So, I do.
Just as my wolf can push through me if he so chooses, I can too.
And that’s what I do.
His front leg lifts, and he steps his paw forward. His cold nose nudges between her legs, inhaling her and making me lightheaded at the same time. His tongue laps, her taste coating my tongue.
Fuuck. My eyes close, savoring my mate.
“Oh, my God, no! No. No. No, you dirty flea bag.”
That was hurtful and uncalled for.
He exhales dramatically through his nose, agreeing with me.
“Don’t do that again. Never, never again. You hear me?!” He raises a brow at her antics. “I can’t believe you. And don’t look at me like that. That better had been Kane’s idea, not yours. Save your nastiness for my wolf.”
Kate steps backward, then back again, and I can’t help the laugh that leaps out of me.
She’s so fucking cute.
“You know what, I’m done talking to you. My wolf is going to go for a run. I’d suggest you come. She’s a little restless inside me, so handle that, would you?”
Kate turns on a dime, her long, black hair swinging out as she whips away from my wolf, transforming into the most goddamn beautiful fucking creature to ever walk the earth. If I’d blinked, I would have missed it.
Her black fur is so rich that streaks of metallic blue sparkle in the moonlight. Then she breaks into a run. My dick hardens again, painfully seeking another release.
Or maybe that’s my wolf’s animal instincts I’m feeling; his need for his mate. His desire for the twin being to his soul. His fated mate. Maybe we were created for Kate and her wolf, but fuck if they aren’t so fucking perfectly made for us. For me.
It takes him longer than it should, but I gather he’s savoring the experience of simply watching her—his mate.
After another two heartbeats, he pushes off his paws and lays chase. Adrenaline courses through me, through us. His speed increases, gaining on her, but Kate’s wolf is fast, the fastest beast I’ve ever seen. But right now, my wolf is going off sheer determination and sexual drive. A need to claim.
He jumps over a downed tree, flying through the air and landing back on his paws. He chases his prey, his legs burning, but he doesn’t slow down.
A growl, deep, wanton, and raw, leaves his chest. I feel it vibrate through me, down the length of my shaft.
She makes it two miles through pack land before he closes the distance so that only several feet separates us from them.
In a leap I hadn’t anticipated yet, he springs off his back legs, propelling himself higher than I remember him ever cresting the air, then comes down over Kate’s wolf. Closing his teeth over the nape of her neck, he bites hard and forcefully. A yelp mixed with pain and pleasure leaves the wolf’s throat, and at the same time, he connects them as one.
It’s beautiful being somewhat of a spectator, watching something so basic and natural.
I can’t feel what his mate feels like I can with Kate and her with me. Our wolves’ connection, their emotions between them, are private, the same as Kate’s and mine are between us.
While he holds his mate in place and ruts her, he breathes her in like he can’t get enough. We’re alike in that way. If it were my choice, I’d inhale Kate every second of every day for the rest of my life like oxygen. Fuck the fresh scent of nature. Give me my mate. She’s all I need, all I want. She is my always and my forever. I want to live and breathe only her.
When he’s done, he nudges the side of her neck in affection, then he licks the area his teeth marked for a long time. So long that his slow laps start to lull me into slumber.
He whimpers, and she does the same.
My wolf is finally at peace.