Chapter 16
Kade
Pace the perimeter. Check the wards.
Shove all the guilt and grief and bullshit into a box.
Pace the perimeter. Check the wards.
Seal up the box and forget about it.
A frustrated growl comes from my chest. Pacing isn’t enough.
I want to shift, to become the wolf and shed this human skin that feels too small, too compromised.
I long to run, to channel the pain into speed before it can detonate inside of me.
But not today. I don’t dare venture too far.
If the echo-beast shows up and I’m not here .
. . That’s not going to happen. I’m not that fucking stupid.
So, I pace the goddamn perimeter instead.
She shouldn’t have seen that; it’s mine.
But she’s my mate. She’s the only person I would ever want to share it with.
She needs to know—she can’t know. Not everything.
Not about what she means to me. And why getting close to her, her specifically, is the worst possible thing for me—for both of us—right now.
Fucking hell, this is so fucking messy.
She thinks this is an open wound that can be sewed closed with her heartfelt words.
It’s not. It’s an ancient scar, a one-hundred-year-old mutilation that will never heal.
A hundred and eight years since I shared this world with Maia.
And that’s how long it’s been since I’ve had a pack, or let myself care about anyone.
I turn the memories over in my mind, like a macabre movie that I can’t hit pause on.
It took me only five years to hunt down Sutton, that piece of shit.
Wasn’t hard. After he took my pack’s territory, his pack moved in.
Wherever he roamed, he always returned eventually.
I remember holding his mate’s throat in my hand while she cried.
So, so tempting to rip open her flesh and leave her bleeding out on the floor like Sutton left Maia.
Leave her for him to find, so he’d know what it felt like.
But that would make me no better than him.
Still, when he came for her . . . Well, she had to watch the way I gutted him—violent, brutal.
His entrails spilling out like spaghetti.
His blood running down my chin, staining my muzzle.
And what did it get me? A fleeting moment of satisfaction that tasted like ash.
It hadn’t brought Maia back. Hadn’t mended my pack.
Hadn’t helped David either, who’d hanged himself on the first anniversary of Maia’s death.
All it had done was prove that I was capable of righteous fury.
Ending Sutton didn’t even touch the void left behind by Maia.
And it didn’t change the facts—that I’m here, and she isn’t.
That it was my fault and that I will never forgive myself.
Connection is weakness. Caring is a liability.
I stride along the tree line, not bothering to be quiet, every step in my patrol a futile attempt to outrun the past. Though it feels like an eternity has passed, judging by the sun, it’s only been an hour.
Even out here in the open air, I can still smell the Librarian on me, her old books and rosy sweetness like ambrosia to my senses.
The scent alone is a torment, a constant ache that goes beyond craving and claws at my restraint more and more with each passing moment.
My mate. Alanna, sunlight after a century of darkness.
Will I kill her like I did Maia? Will I keep on living, without her, when it should be my body that’s cold in the ground?
The thought is almost too painful to contemplate—so I zero in on it, pressing it like a bruise, digging in for maximum agony.
Because that agony is the only thing standing between me and the brittle hold I have on my resolve not to crawl back into the den and claim her right now.
Leaning forward against the thick trunk of a maple tree, I press my forehead against the rough bark, squeezing my eyes shut against the phantom images of Maia, David, and now—cruelly—Alanna.
Despite my decades of practice, she flayed me open with her touch, her compassion.
She’d held on with all her might, even when I tried to pull away.
She hadn’t let go. And part of me . . . didn’t want her to.
Stubborn Librarian. Idiot Lycan. Damned if I don’t admire her spirit.
But she doesn’t understand what she’s dealing with.
She doesn’t understand shifters, or the primal pull of the mate bond, or how precarious my control already is.
How it slips every time she reaches out to me.
She doesn’t understand what happens when I get too attached.
I can feel my resolve to protect her hardening into a bone-deep vow. And at the center is an absolute certainty: if my control breaks, it will be her who reaps the consequences.
***
The sun is lower in the sky now, and my vigil has become a slow, deliberate circuit. My pulse is steady, the despair retreating to a cool simmer. I’m contemplating going back inside the den when a light thump reaches me, too quiet for human ears. The front door.
I sprint to the den’s street-facing side to find Alanna outside, hair disheveled and face pale.
She’s frantically searching around the warehouse, locking onto me the moment I emerge from the side of the building.
Her state of distress has me instantly on edge, the urge to shift surging up with unexpected strength.
“Kade!” She rushes to meet me, her eyes wide and agitated while her hand clutches her phone in a death-grip. “Lizzy’s in the hospital. The echo-beast attacked her and Jen. I have to go see them. Can you drive?”
“What? No. We can’t. We talked about this, you’ll put them in more danger if you go there.”
There’s a stubborn set to her jaw that makes me nervous. “I have more control now. I need to be there.”
A horrifying thought comes to me. “What if that’s what it wants? What if it’s luring you out, using the people you care about?”
Her expression softens as she looks at me and I’m uncomfortable with how much they see. “I don’t know if it has that much . . . intention.”
I look at her sharply. “Librarian,” I say, and it comes out in a growl. “How do you know what it wants? What it’s capable of? Have you been holding out on me?”
“Of course not,” she counters, waving her hand dismissively. “But I’ve been studying. I’ve been practicing. And last time, when it came, I had this sense about it. If you’ll just get in the truck, I’ll explain more on the way, okay?”
“I won’t ‘just get in the truck.’ This is exactly the kind of lapse of judgment that gets people killed. You saw that first-hand, but you’re still going to do something this reckless? You go in there, you paint a target on everyone in that hospital.”
“They’re my best friends! And I’m not going to abandon them because you are afraid. Look—I know how difficult this is for you. But you have to trust me. I have enough control.”
“Do you?” I ask, my voice a rumbling challenge as I reach for her despite my better judgment. Prove it.
Her eyes are locked on mine, seemingly unable to look away, as my hand wraps around her wrist and raises it up between us.
With the slightest tug, I draw her toward me and she comes willingly, almost entranced.
Our bodies are inches away, a searing heat building between us that races up my arm and straight to places I’ve been trying to ignore for weeks.
My thumb finds her sensitive inner arm where the crystal mark pulsates with gentle radiance, and her breath catches as gently, so gently, I sweep my thumb across her skin.
A test, that’s what I’m doing.
But I can’t stop, even when her magic doesn’t lash out in chaos like I expect.
The energy stirs under my touch but it only pulses along with my own heartbeat, like we’re woven into the same fate, inevitable.
It’s a response, but not a reaction. To me, it feels like an undeniable invitation to something far deeper.
Staring into Alanna’s big hazel eyes, the air around us grows thick, heavy, until my wanting weighs on me like a physical thing.
My gaze drops to her full lips, and all I want is to close the space, to taste her sweetness, to set my mouth onto every single inch of her skin until she’s trembling in my grasp. In fact, she’s already trembling . . .
My voice is a caress as I say, “You’re barely holding it together, and all I’m doing is . . .” I stroke her again, agonizingly slowly.
She watches the play of my fingers along her arm for a moment, until suddenly the trance breaks and her eyes jerk up to mine, narrowed and . . . wounded? She jerks her arm away.
A hot flush is creeping up her neck. “Is this a game to you, Kade?” she whispers, her voice shaking with strong emotion. “You’d use my—my feelings. To make a point? Have you known all along?”
I go still. Her feelings? Known all along?
Oh shit.
She thinks I’m playing with her, with the very connection that has my resolve hanging on by a thread? The flush on her skin, the tremor in her voice. It’s not anger alone, it’s embarrassment. I can smell it on her. And underneath, fuck—arousal.
She wants me.
I’ve caught the scent on her more than once but I always had my head too far up my own ass, trying to fight my own urges.
In bed the other morning, I thought she’d just had a dream.
Could’ve been about anyone. I didn’t think it was me who did this to her.
She fucking came with her thighs wrapped around my leg, and if I’d known—well, it’s better that I didn’t.