Chapter 18 Tate
Chapter eighteen
Tate
I parked my car outside of Kyren’s house, wishing I’d been able to accompany Jack tonight at the witch’s party. But, with Kyren staying here instead of on campus, I had to split my time between them.
For the hundredth time, I wished they’d make up already. I’m starting to feel pulled in two different directions and not in the fun way.
Sighing, I turned the car off and stepped out of the vehicle. My nose smelled them before I saw them—my brothers sitting on the steps leading up to Kyren’s house. When they saw me, they stood, Jacob shoving his hands into his pockets while Kolby crossed his arms, already vying for a fight.
Then there was this shit.
I had enough going on in my personal life that I didn’t need to add family drama to the mix, especially unsupportive family members who wanted me to be something I was not.
“Jacob, Kolby.” I nodded to each of them. “How’d you find me?”
What I meant was how the fuck did you find my boyfriend’s house, and who did I need to kill to keep them from giving out my private information?
Jacob winced. “We asked the school office. They had this down as your primary residence.”
“And what exactly did you tell them to get them to disclose that?” I pushed, knowing that the academy took their students’ privacy very seriously. Even more so than a human college.
“The truth,” Kolby snapped. “Dad died, and you needed to come back home for the funeral.”
I shook my head laughing in disbelief. The audacity of these two. “I don’t need to do anything. I already told you. I can’t be your alpha.”
“Can’t? Or won’t?” Kolby growled, eyes flashing yellow green.
“Both.” I tried to walk around them, but Jacob grabbed my arm.
“Please, Tate,” Jacob pleaded, clear distress on his face. “We need you. The pack needs you. There’s still the pact with the Crescent Moon clan, the one you agreed to. Are you going to make the pack break their word? Dad’s final word?”
I shoved the sleeves of my Henley up to my elbows.
“And how exactly do you propose I fulfill that pact? Do you think the female I was promised to would be ecstatic to find out that her new mate won’t grow old and die with her?
Or maybe it’s the man I’m in love with that might put a bit of a kink into that relationship?
Think she’d be down for that?” I realized my voice was rising as I spoke, likely drawing attention from the neighbors, but I didn’t care.
I was tired of them telling me what I had to do.
“Well… no…” Jacob started, his brows furrowed. “But they’re expecting to marry their daughter to the alpha. We can’t just offer them someone else.”
“And I’m not your alpha,” I snapped back, baring my teeth at them.
My frustration and rage at the whole situation started to poke at the beast underneath. I usually was able to keep a lid on the wolf. I was a cool customer most days, but nothing brought the beast out of you like your family.
“You’re being selfish,” Kolby snarled, waving his arms around. “Like always. Pushing your responsibilities off on us so you can go fuck around.”
He stepped toward me, his shoulders heaving clearly close to changing as well. “Tell me, is it worth betraying your family to fuck the undead? Is his dick like a popsicle, or does it even work anymore?”
My fingers curled into the front of Kolby’s shirt, pulling him close to my face. “Talk about Kyren like that again and I don’t care if you’re my brother. I’ll rip your throat out.”
“Fucking parasite.”
A roar ripped through my throat, and the nails on my fingers sharpened into claws.
My hand came up ready to make good on my threat when suddenly, I was pulled away from my brother.
A dark wisp wrapped tightly around my waist, lifting me away from them to land on the top of the porch next to the very vampire I was defending.
“Kyren,” I growled, unable to pull my wolf completely back.
“Hush, now.” Kyren ran a hand down my arm. “You’ve done enough.”
A yelp of fear pulled my attention back to my brothers.
More shadows had come out and held Kolby back while Jacob backed away his eyes wide from either shock or terror. Hard to tell with Jacob, he always played the weaker person, but there were moments where he let his real personality slip. He was far cleverer than any of us combined.
“Get this shit off me,” Kolby snarled, ripping at the shadows with his claws only for them to pass through them. “I always knew you were a blood sucking corpse—”
A shadow wrapped around Kolby’s face, keeping him from spewing anymore hateful words.
“Now that’s better.” Kyren hummed, his gaze dropping to my other brother. “I won’t have you harassing Tate. He’s given you his answer, which means it’s time for you to go.”
Kolby chomped on the shadows, trying to argue through the gag. Jacob gave Kolby a wary look before turning his attention back to me, not even acknowledging Kyren.
“Tate, we’re your family. Are you really going to turn your back on us for… him?”
I breathed out a sigh. My beast calmed with each stroke of Kyren’s shadow and hand on me. “You don’t seem to get it.” I stepped closer to Kyren and wrapped an arm around his waist. “He is my family now.”
“But… Tate…” Jacob huffed and looked at Kolby for some guidance, but he obviously had none to offer. “Who’s going to be alpha?”
I shrugged. “That’s not my problem. You decide. Though…” I frowned at Kolby. “I would suggest not Kolby. He’s likely to start a war ‘cause he can’t keep his mouth shut.”
Kolby glared at me.
“Yeah…” Jacob sighed. “I guess you’re right. I… I’m sorry, Tate.” Jacob shook his head. “I had hoped this would have gone easier.” He stepped towards Kolby and then grimaced. “Can you…?”
Kyren’s shadows released Kolby and slithered back beneath his feet.
Kolby spat, swiping a hand over his mouth before stalking toward us. Jacob grabbed his arm.
“Enough, Kolby.”
Kolby looked at Jacob and then back to us. “You’re just going to let him go? After we came all the way here? You know the council won’t be happy if we don’t—”
“We’ll deal with it,” Jacob interrupted, giving Kolby a pointed look. “There’s nothing more we can say. Tate has obviously made his choice.”
Kolby’s eyes switched back to normal. The tension of his oncoming change lessened as he rolled his shoulders. His gaze landed on Kyren and me before he sniffed and turned his back on us as if we were nothing more than fleas to him.
“Bye, Tate,” Jacob murmured, leading Kolby away.
When they had climbed into their vehicle and left, I turned to Kyren, leaning my forehead on his shoulder. “What the fuck.”
Kyren patted me on the back. “Do not worry, I won’t let them take you.” His fingers curled around the back of my neck, lifting my head so I met his gaze. “You’re mine after all.”
“Yes,” I smiled softly, “I’m yours.”
His mouth pressed to mine, his hands clinging to me as much as I was clinging to him. Kyren pressed me into the half-opened door to the house, using his shadows to close it behind us.
We pulled at each other’s clothes with as if it were the first time we’d ever touched one another, each of us desperate to feel the others’ flesh against them.
It wasn’t surprising. It had been days since we’d made love, between Kyren brooding about Jack and the Durands and me trying to play devil’s advocate between the two of them.
While touching Jack had been wonderful and a big step forward to getting her back with me and Kyren where she belonged, I missed him.
Kyren’s shadows joined his hands, undoing my clothing, showing his own impatience to be close again. He walked me backward through the hallway and then, suddenly, I was falling my back pressed against the soft mattress of our bed.
I laughed and let him roll me over, my pants jerked off leaving me bare before him. I knelt on the bed, elbows digging into the mattress. Kyren left a trail of open mouth kisses down my spine, spreading me apart before licking me from taint to asshole.
I groaned and pushed back into him, as I heard a drawer opening before the cool, familiar feel of lubricant dripped between my cheeks.
Fingers circled me, pushing in and then out with a squelching noise that only made me buck my hips back for more.
With one hand in between my shoulder blades and his other otherwise occupied, I shouldn’t have been surprised to feel my cock being tugged.
Kyren’s shadows stroked me up and down with a firm grip.
“Please, Kyren. I can’t wait any longer,” I gasped and groaned, a pressure building in my cock already.
Kyren growled, his fingers slipping out before he lined the blunt head of his cock up with my ass. He pressed in slow and deep, not giving me the fast rough pounding I wanted. His mouth on my shoulders as he murmured against my skin.
“You chose me.”
Thrust.
“You’re mine.”
Thrust.
Each of his declarations with his thrusts made my balls pull up toward my body, my release inevitable.
“Kyren,” I moaned, pushing my hips back to meet his thrusts. “Stop torturing me.”
He smiled against my back, nipping at my skin, then lapping up the blood. “Tell me you’re mine and I’ll let you come.”
“You’re such a sadist,” I chuckled, groaning when he hit inside me even deeper.
In response, his thrusts slowed, barely moving at all against me, just the tip pulsating in and out of me. My fingers curled into the blankets, whimpering as my orgasm was robbed of me.
“Say it,” he growled, hands tightening on my hips until his nails bit into my skin.
Kyren wanting me to declare his ownership of me wasn’t something new. He got off on it, even if we were equal partners in this relationship. So it didn’t bother me to let him know I was his.
Except there was something different in his tone this time. Something vulnerable that told me this wasn’t just about me letting him claim me.
This was about Jack.
Her being a Durand made Kyren feel out of control. Self-conscious that I would choose her over him or she won’t want him anymore, even though he was the one who was keeping them apart.
“Yes, fuck,” I grunted out, “I’m yours. I’ll always be yours. Now fuck me, Kyren, before I explode.”
His chuckles rumbled against my back before he started to thrust in earnest. His shadows stroked me and picked up pace, moving in time with Kyren’s thrusts. In seconds, I came, my cock and balls pulsating as strings of cum poured out of me and covered the bed.
Kyren grunted.
A sharp sting went through my shoulder as Kyren’s fangs pierced my flesh, emptying inside of me while he drank from me. His tongue lapped at where he’d bitten me before he slid out of me.
My forehead pressed to the mattress, breathing heavily.
Kyren collapsed on the bed next to me, his face near mine. He put something beneath me before I turned my head, letting my legs stretch out behind me.
“You don’t have to worry, Kyren.”
His eyes locked with mine, an unreadable expression on his face.
I reached out and stroked his face, smiling slightly. “There’s room for both of you in my heart. Just like both of us fit in yours.”
Kyren snorted and turned, staring up at the ceiling. He was quiet for a long moment.
“What if I can’t forget it?” he murmured.
I turned on my side, so I could look him in the face. “What?”
His head tilted toward me. “Vengeance.”
Pressing my body against his side, I pressed my lips to the side of his face.
“You have to decide what’s more important. Getting justice for Kleon or Jack. Though, no one who chose revenge over love ever died happy.”
Kyren hummed, wrapping his arm around my shoulders.
I didn’t know if I got through to him, but the fact that he was willing to talk about it had to mean we were moving in the right direction.