Chapter 12 Kendra #2
“Let me find a gas station before someone gets kicked in the face,” Kade mutters, and she’s already moving right, scanning the exits as they appear through the snow.
A truck stop sign appears in the street light ahead. She takes the exit quickly, the tires grinding through deep accumulation on the ramp, and pulls into the lot and parks at the nearest pump. She cuts the engine, and we are not even halfway to Wintermoon.
I’m still unbuckling my seatbelt when my door swings open from the outside.
I squeal. Kojo is already there, filling the entire doorframe, and I genuinely have no idea how a man that size moves that quickly.
He reaches in without asking and closes his grip around my hips, and he lifts me out of the cab and sets me down on the salted pavement in front of him.
The cold hits me immediately, sharp and direct.
His heat hits right after it, displacing the night air like nothing human-made ever quite manages.
I tilt my chin up. He rolls his shoulders once, slow, and the ridge along his back shifts through his shirt with the movement, the fur rippling and settling.
“I’m sorry, Kojo,” I say, because I’ve been carrying it and I want it out. “I can’t be your queen. I don’t know how to be that.”
He looks at me for a long moment and I brace myself for the law of the Bouda again, the explanation I’ve heard in variations since I woke up in that motel room, but instead he reaches out and rests his fingers against my cheek. Carefully, barely touching.
“I am sorry, Kendra.”
I gasp, not sure why I’m so surprised that he’s using my name.
“I do not want to force the position upon you. But you are my mate, and among my people, that law cannot be unmade. You are my leader, and my queen.” His palm is still at my cheek.
“I will build you a home in Wintermoon and I will explain the lore of my people to you, every part of it, until you understand. I will not demand your compliance. I will earn your understanding.”
He starts to pull his hand back and I grab his arm before I can stop myself, my fingers closing around his forearm, and he goes still and lets me hold it. I’m working out what I want to say when the back door bangs open and Aiden’s voice cuts through the cold air outside.
“What the fuck!”
Kojo looks toward the sound without alarm, then back at me, and says quiet and without any room for debate: “Grab the back of my shirt and stay behind me. I will be your guard.” I don’t wait for him to say it twice.
I step behind him and take a fistful of fabric at his lower back and he moves forward, steady and unhurried, and I move with him around the side of the truck to where Aiden has gotten himself out of the back seat and is standing in the snow with one palm pressed to his temple, staring at Andrew.
Andrew stands on the other side of the open door with his hands in his pockets, watching Aiden with a patient look.
Aiden looks at Kojo and his voice, rougher than usual from the paralysis, cuts straight across the cold.
“You knew.” He drops his hand from his head.
“You’ve known the whole time I had the fated scent.
That Andrew was my mate. Three years I’ve been your guardian, your friend, and you said nothing to me.
I’ve spent my whole life thinking something was wrong with me, that I was just built to be alone, and you said nothing. ”
“It is not my story to tell,” Kojo says.
Aiden stares at him. He moves closer, still unsteady on his feet but not stopping. “That’s what you’re giving me. Three years, man. Not one word. I trusted you.”
“It’s okay, honey bun,” Andrew offers from behind him.
Aiden turns and glares at him. “You and I are going to have our conversation later. And stop calling me that.”
Kade has come around the pump and is leaning against the side of the truck with her arms folded. She laughs, short and sharp.
Andrew glances at Andrew, then shrugs. “At least he’s not rejecting the mate bond anymore.”
She moves toward him and puts a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve got a mate with spunk. Appreciate that. He’ll keep you on your toes, and for a man like you.” She gives him a look that says the rest. “You need that.”
Aiden hasn’t moved his eyes from Kojo. “Do you care nothing about me? Was I just your transportation to Wintermoon?”
Kojo tilts his head, turning the question over. “No,” he says. “You have been a true companion to me and to my Bouda.” He stops there, and I can see it. The part where a different person would say I know I hurt you is just missing. He’s not hiding it. He doesn’t know where to look for it.
I move from behind him. He raises one palm, guard instinct, and I put my hand on his arm.
“On your homeland,” I say, “how does the Bouda clan resolve conflict?”
He looks at me directly. “It depends on the nature of the conflict. Some are brought before the Matriarch for mediation. Others are settled on the battlefield.” I blink at him. “The battlefield.” He nods, and I take a second with that before I ask which one this qualifies as.
He considers it like it’s a real question that deserves a real answer. “This conflict is not worthy of the battlefield.”
Aiden makes a sound that has some laughter in it despite everything.
Kojo keeps his eyes on me when he says, “I do not understand why he is angry.” Then, quieter: “My Bouda does.”
“Then listen to your Bouda,” I say.
Something shifts in his face. When I try to pull my hand back he catches it with his other hand and presses it back against his forearm, his fingers closing over mine.
“No,” he says. “Please.”
His skin is so warm it should be alarming. Like holding your hands over a furnace vent, except it moves, it breathes. I leave my hand where it is.
“Did you build a real bond with Aiden over three years?” I ask.
“Yes.” No pause at all. “My Bouda and I owe him our lives.”
I look at Aiden for a moment, then back at Kojo. “So if Aiden had known from the beginning that I was your fated mate and said nothing to you, and you found out tonight the same way he did, how would that feel?”
“He would not be able to identify you as my mate.” “He cannot detect your scent as I can.”
“Hypothetically.”
He looks at me with the word sitting between us. “Hypothetically?”
“Put yourself in his position and actually try.”
He stands in the cold with my hand between both of his and when the answer comes, his jaw tightens slightly.
“Yes,” he says. “It would hurt me.”
“Then you know what to do.”
He releases my hand and straightens. He turns toward Aiden and bows his head.
“You are my friend, Aiden,” he says. “I am sorry.”
Aiden holds his gaze. Then he nods, once.
The tension between them doesn’t dissolve all the way, but it loosens, and that’s enough.
“Come here, sweetheart.” Andrew steps forward and takes Aiden’s arm, guiding him back toward the open door. “Let me get you some water.”
Aiden frowns at the pet name but lets himself be steered back into the seat, lets Andrew reach past him for the water bottle in the door pocket with a tenderness that Aiden is clearly not comfortable with and not stopping either.
Kojo looks at me and something in his face has gone soft.
“My Bouda is proud that we could honor you.” His voice carries warmth I have not heard before.
“That’s great and all,” I say, “but I really have to pee.”
He blinks once, then says “I will escort you,” and puts his palm against my lower back, warm even through my coat, and walks me toward the truck stop entrance.