Chapter 27 Kendra
KENDRA
Iwake up warm, his arm locked around my waist, his face pressed into my hair, and for a few seconds I just lie there listening to him breathe.
His furnace has turned the bed into a place I never want to leave, and his body curves around mine with a possessiveness that should bother me but doesn’t.
The pull hums behind my ribs, steady and low, and I realize it has changed since last night, no longer tugging me toward him but settled into place.
The mark on my neck throbs when I shift against the pillow, not pain exactly but a dull heat that pulses in time with my heartbeat, and when I press my fingers to it the warmth spreads down through my shoulder and across my collarbone.
It feels alive, and I trace the edges of it with my fingertip before easing out from under his arm.
He makes a sound in his sleep but does not wake, his hand closing around the warm spot on the sheet where I was lying, and I tiptoe into the bathroom and close the door behind me.
I stare at the bite mark on my neck, dark and raised and already scarring, the center deep where his teeth broke through.
I tilt my head and follow the shape of his jaw preserved in my skin, expecting brutality, a wound, but the mark has a symmetry to it, a pattern, and the skin around it is flushed with warmth.
I look at my own face and cannot find the woman from Detroit --- the grayish tint, the heavy lids, all of it erased.
I shower and let the hot water run over the mark, hissing when the heat stings the tender edges. I wash my hair, condition it, finger comb through my curls until they’re soft and defined, brush my teeth, lotion my skin.
When I open the bathroom door, Kojo is sitting on the edge of the bed, awake, watching the doorway.
His eyes find the mark on my neck and his face does the thing I knew it would, that war between guilt and want that pulls his brow together so I walk over to him before he can speak and tilt my neck so he can see it clearly.
“Stop looking at me like you broke something.” I keep my voice soft and steady. “It’s beautiful, Kojo.”
He exhales and his lips find the mark, pressing gently. I let him hold me there for a moment, his forehead resting against my neck, his breathing slow, and then I pull back and tap his shoulder. “Come on. Shower and get dressed, I need to eat.”
He nods with the corner of his mouth lifting just enough that I know the guilt has eased, and he disappears into the bathroom.
I walk over to the dresser and find some clean underwear and clothes, quickly remembering I left the shopping bags in the SUV. I find my boots and a pair of socks and slip into them, then find the key fob from my coat and make my way downstairs.
Zaki is already in the kitchen, standing at the counter with her ridge fully extended, her silver-ringed eyes narrowed at a cast iron skillet with the personal contempt she reserves for objects that do not meet her standards.
She is dressed in the fitted top and draped fabric from the seamstress, her bone ornaments clicking as she moves, barefoot on the wooden floor with raw meat laid out on the counter and a knife in her hand.
Zaki’s cooking processed meat? Am I dreaming?
“Good morning, Zaki.” I round the corner and her head lifts. Her nostrils flare once, and every muscle in her body goes still. Her eyes move to my neck and lock onto the mark, and my palm almost rises to cover it.
“Well.” She sets the knife down and folds her arms across her chest, her ridge flattening slowly, spike by spike, and a smile spreads across her face that I have never seen from her before. “My brother has claimed his mate.”
I press my palm over the mark instinctively. “Zaki, please don’t make this a thing.”
“It is a thing, Kendra. It is the most important thing that has happened to our bloodline in a thousand years.” She walks around the counter and stops in front of me, studying the mark with her head tilted, her silver-ringed eyes tracing every edge.
“His bite pattern is clean and his jaw is strong. The scar will be impressive. I could smell the change from Meekah’s territory last night. ”
I press harder over the mark. “You could smell it from that far?”
“Every shifter within five miles could smell it.” She says this with zero concern for my dignity.
“Meekah sent me home and said, and I quote, the Bouda have finally done something worth celebrating, and he did not want to intrude.” She turns back to the stove and picks up her knife without looking at me. “Also, you were very loud.”
I nearly choke on my own air and my face burns hotter than anything Kojo’s furnace has ever produced, and she is already cutting meat again, her ridge lifting with what I can only describe as smug.
I drop into a chair at the table and press both palms over my face while she works at the counter like she has not just destroyed whatever was left of my dignity.
Kojo comes down the stairs freshly showered, wearing a clean shirt that his ridge has already started to press through.
He stops at the bottom step when he catches Zaki’s scent mixed with mine, reads the room in a single breath, and his ridge shifts with the same satisfied frequency his sister’s did a moment ago.
“Brother.” Zaki does not look up from her cutting. She lets the word hang for exactly one second before adding, “Your mate was loud.” His mouth presses into a line and the warning comes out flat and immediate, but she ignores it completely. He walks past her to sit across from me at the table.
I catch his eye and we share a look that says everything neither of us will say in front of his sister. “I have news for the clan,” he says, resting his hands on the table.
I sit up straighter and put a hand on his arm. “Then we should wait for Zaki to sit down. She needs to hear this too.”
Kojo looks at me for a moment, and I see a shift behind his eyes. Zaki turns from the counter with the knife still in her hand, her eyes narrowing. “What is this news?”
“King Amir visited me during the night.” Kojo folds his arms on the table.
“My Bouda needed to hunt after...” He glances at me and smiles.
“After the claiming. My Bouda was feral and he needed to run.” I feel the heat rise in my face and I find something very interesting to study in the grain of the table.
“Amir found me at the border and we hunted together and spoke at the water’s edge.
” He pauses, and the formality in his voice shifts into something quieter.
“He has given us land. Open territory on Wintermoon for the Bouda clan, a clearing with a stream, old-growth forest on three sides, enough space for a village. Levi will be coming to help with the build.”
Zaki’s knife hits the counter with a clang and her ridge spikes to full height and her eyes widen and for a second she does not breathe. Her hands come to her mouth and she looks surprised. Show me,” she says behind her fingers. “I want to see it now.”
“We will go today.” Zaki finishes with a smile. “But first, we will eat.”
Zaki starts to argue but the black smoke erupts in the front room before she can finish, and she hisses and her ridge spikes higher, her hand reaching for the knife while Kojo gets to his feet and positions himself between me and the dissipating cloud. I lean around him. I already know who it is.
The smoke fades and Kade is standing there, her long blonde hair braided, her sheriff’s shirt stretched across her shoulders, and Leah is beside her, her dark brown hair loose around her face, her tan skin carrying a warmth.
They are holding hands, Leah’s free hand resting on Kade’s forearm, her thumb tracing small circles on her wrist.
There’s a sudden knock at the door and Zaki hisses at it. Kade narrows her eyes and say calm down, then walks over to the door and opens it.
A man steps in that I have not seen before, tall with brown skin and sharp features. He wears an immaculate black suit, and on his wrist sits a device that is not a watch, a smooth metallic surface with no visible buttons.
Zaki’s ridge spikes. She inhales once through her nose, cataloging the new scent, and her lip curls. “Another vampire,” she says.
“This is Amari.” Kade pulls out a chair at the table and drops into it like she’s making herself comfortable, and Leah settles into the chair beside her.
“He’s the Sire of Medina Shadow Coven runs the technology infrastructure for Wintermoon.
Amari, this is Kendra, the new Bouda matriarch, and you already know Kojo and Zaki. ”
Amari dips his head to me. “It is an honor to meet you, Kendra. Kade has told me about your background in software engineering.” Something wakes up inside me that has been sleeping since Detroit. “You run the tech here?” I ask, and his mouth curves.
“I built most of it.” He says it without arrogance.
“The technology center at the academy, the projection systems, the AI integration for the instructors, the security infrastructure for the border, the adaptive learning programs for the shifter children.” His eyes light up when he talks about it, the same way mine used to light up when I talked about code architecture at my old job, and I recognize a fellow nerd the instant I see one.
“What stack are you running?” I ask, and the room shifts around us, nobody else in the cabin speaking this language.
Amari’s eyebrows lift and his mouth curves with genuine surprise.
“Custom framework, built from the ground up to accommodate supernatural processing speeds, so the architecture had to account for input rates that would crash any human-designed system within seconds. The coding terminals adapt to the user’s species, a dragon shifter processes information differently than a wolf, their cognitive mapping is spatial rather than linear, so the interface restructures itself in real time. ”