The Society Series Box Set 2

by Mason Sabre

  As he moved, he was gentle with her, gentle in a loving way, one that was making love to her and not in the aggressive way she had pushed herself onto him the night before. No, this was different. Different and frightening. Not of him, but to her mind and the worry that her heart would call for Cade in any moment and destroy the one thing keeping them both alive.

  She closed her eyes as Karl tucked his hands under her backside and tilted her up to meet him. He moved rhythmically, and she reached for him, not physically, but mentally. She tried to form the link between their tigers. It lit the fire in her until she craved his touch, his animal, and then she gave herself over freely, accepting him as her mate.

  Pressing his unshaven chin against her, Karl nuzzled against her neck and kissed her. In response, she wrapped her legs around his waist and pushed him deeper inside. “Yes,” she breathed against his ear. She grabbed for his face, her hands at the sides of his cheeks, the way Cade would do to her. She made Karl look at her, made him look as he made love to her, but then she leant up and kissed him again, this time pushing her tongue into his mouth and bringing from him a sound that was neither tiger nor man, but a perfect feral blend of them both.

  Clenching her body, she made herself tight. The sensations inside her were chaos and pure heat. She had lost to the tiger. A surge of possessiveness gripped her. She could do this. She felt Karl’s tiger’s surrender to her, and when he stopped breathing for a second and bowed against her. Somewhere along the way, she lost her ability to protest, and it all ended in an explosion of wet heat, hot moans, and clenched bodies.

  “Gemma …”

  Afterwards, he lay on top of her, panting and sweaty and not noticing that she had turned her head away. She held him to her, hoping that he wouldn’t see, or feel. She could only stare at the ruins of the house next to them and bite on her lip. It was as broken as she was, ruined. Every emotion in her was mirrored in the scattered bricks that lay discarded away from the foundations. She pressed her face into Karl’s shoulder, because she didn’t want him to see her like this. She didn’t want him to feel the way her heart cracked at what she had done.

  Too late.

  “Are you okay?” He tried to pull himself up, but she didn’t let him.

  She wasn’t ready yet. Wasn’t ready to throw into place the mask she needed to wear. “Stay there a moment,” she said. “For me.” She still had her legs wrapped around him, and her arms around his back. She pushed her fingers into the hard edges of his shoulder.

  Slowly, she turned her face until her mouth was against his neck and she could breathe him in … until she was confident she wouldn’t need to push him away.

  She kissed his neck and licked at his salty skin as her fingers made circles on his back. He moved. He pushed onto his elbows, so he could peer down at her. He was just watching her, staring. Her tiger could feel it. Her tiger knew. Karl was on the path she didn’t want him to be on. A path that would lead him to his broken heart, and hers. “I think I am the luckiest man alive,” he breathed, brushing her hair back and framing her face with his hands. He ran a thumb along her cheek, and his deep green eyes studied hers. They were lit with the light of his tiger, content. He kissed her again, but this time it was slow, sensual, a lazy kiss soft against her mouth.

  When he was done, she didn’t answer what he had said. She didn’t have the heart to. Even though they had mated, even though she had made promises to him, some part of her still stayed on the edge. It stayed back not wanting to give him hope or promises.

  She reached up to him, though, and angled her own head and smiled. “We should head back before my father sends out the tigers to look for us.”

  Karl frowned. “He’d do that?”

  “Maybe,” she said, smiling. “Or maybe we have time.” She didn’t really know herself. Maybe he wouldn’t. He’d know she was with Karl. They hadn’t gone back for their clothes, which meant they hadn’t shifted yet. It wasn’t unusual for newly mated shifters to spend their time alone in the woods. Mostly, she wasn’t ready to head back yet. Not back to everything she had to do.

  Karl rolled off her and pulled a blanket over them. It wasn’t cold, but Gemma welcomed the feel of the material against her skin and the break between them so that she could think a little more rationally.

  She rolled onto her side with the feel of Karl still between her legs as a warm buzz. He let his arm flop down and invited her to lean on his shoulder, and she went without question.

  If lying with Karl meant Cade would live, then she would do it every day. This was how it would be … how it had to be. She could chase herself away inside. Chase and hide, just as she had done when Connor died, when Stephen died and when she had lost the parts of herself that wanted Cade.

  Closing her eyes, she pressed into Karl’s side and draped an arm across his chest. He was warm, perfect, beautiful even. Next to him, her tiger was content to curl up. She pressed a kiss to his skin, and something cool brushed along hers, not outside, not the breeze or the air, but something. Something deep and knowing, like her tiger was up and alert, and looking at something.

  Gemma paused, pushed up and narrowed her eyes toward the darkness in the trees where the morning’s light hadn’t reached yet. Karl twisted, trying to follow her. “What are you looking at?”

  She couldn’t see him, couldn’t find him, but she knew … her tiger knew. “Nothing,” she said. But he was there, hiding, in the darkness.

  Henry.

  Chapter 29

  Cade

  Natalie’s infectious smile had hardly moved all morning. She had a light around her almost, one that Cade was sure he could touch if he just tried—if he dared. It was almost touching him … almost breaching the boundaries he had so carefully crafted. It sneaked in slight rays of hope. It was a pressure in his chest, a leap his mind made—a leap to dream, to think, to even see the future, but the moment he felt the soft twitch of a smile at the corner of his mouth, or the way his wolf reached out, his stomach recoiled with remorse and guilt and images of Gemma as he imagined how she would react once she learnt the news.

  Cursing to himself, Cade blew out a breath. All he could see in his mind right then was the sight of Gemma when she’d carried their child … when Connor was safely tucked into his mother’s womb … when he was alive.

  He held his hands together in front of his face and then pressed them to his face as if he was praying, thumbs tucked under his chin. It was a move he did often, a way to think, to feel. He couldn't think about the future or to imagine a child of his could ever exist.

  He had thought about that with Connor. He and Gemma had dreamed, laughed. They had spoken of all the things their child would do … who he would be, how he would look. But they were gone now, stolen from them. He closed his eyes and let his head hang heavy for a second while Natalie had her back to him. Connor tugged at his heart like a warm beacon out in the world somewhere … across a path he was too afraid to step onto. What if he could reach out to him in the otherworld? In the afterlife if one even existed.

  “Someone is in a good mood,” Avery said, interrupting Cade’s thoughts when he came into the office. He was referring to Natalie, though, his attention caught by her, giving Cade enough time to pull his mind back into the present. He had a tray of coffees in one hand and files in the other.

  After Natalie had bathed and cleaned up, Cade had given her some of the concoction Emily had made when Gemma had been queasy with Connor. Gemma never really got sick with it, though. More of a turning in her stomach, but the herbal tea had eased that, and it seemed to have done the same with Natalie.

  “I got you decaf, as requested,” Avery said, putting a cup down on Natalie’s desk. He glanced to Cade. “Wasn't sure if you wanted the same … some weird health kick?”

  Cade relaxed into his chair. “If you got me decaf, then you better hand over your coffee instead.”

  Avery took a step back with a mock fear expression flitting across his face. Then his grin broke, and Nat
alie smiled at him. She really was glowing. “I wouldn't dare. I brought you some files, though. We got the call records back. Seems the office traced both incoming and outgoing with a more itemised listing for you.” He handed Cade a coffee, but he held the file back.

  Although Cade had already had the call list, it had been brief. What they needed were patterns, details of everything that had gone on in Jessica’s short life. Now the call record would have names, and links to other people’s files … people she had dealt with.

  Cade took the cup and despite it being so hot, he took a sip, needing the shock to his system, the wake up from the dream he was suddenly in. It was a welcomed sharp sting across his mouth to shake his mind into clarity and focus. But that didn't mean he missed Avery holding out on him. “What is it?”

  Avery glanced from Cade and then to Natalie and back again, an unspoken fear in the air that brought tension back to Cade’s shoulders, but this was work tension, easier to deal with. He put the file on Cade’s desk.

  Coffee in one hand, Cade opened the file and flipped through the pages. The three numbers were highlighted again, Danny … Aaron and … “Is this right? I mean …” he took a breath and then let it go again, his brows knitting together.

  “What is it?” Natalie asked, coming from her desk and standing next to Avery. Cade flipped the pages back, staring down at the numbers like Avery had just handed him vomit. The numbers had been colour coded, showing frequency across the page in splashes of reds, blues and yellows. The third number was coded red.

  “Karl Ellis,” Cade said, his voice flat as he bit back the ball of anxiety that was desperately trying to form in his chest. It took everything he had to stay standing there and not race out of the office and go to Gemma. His wolf was torn between the woman who held his child and the woman who held his heart.

  “Karl as in the man mated to Gemma?”

  “Gemma is mated?” Avery’s shocked statement was both loud and stabbing—a spear in Cade’s chest at the stark reminder she was gone. Avery didn’t know about Cade and Gemma. Maybe he suspected like many people. “Wow.”

  “He’s called her several times, according to this. The last one was a few hours before she died, and then nothing.” Cade flipped the pages, put his coffee down and leant on the desk with both hands flat at either side. “It shows he called her every night around seven and sometimes nine. Except the night she died.” He looked up to meet two sets of eyes reflecting exactly what he was thinking, but his was deeper, protective … a predator behind his eyes who wanted to protect Gemma.

  “He knew she was dead?” Natalie’s words were a whisper of what Cade and Avery clearly thought, but she frowned with it as she spoke and then shook her head. “He follows the Society reel, you said? If it was on there pretty quick …”

  The news application … yes … relief wanted to clutch at Cade’s insides. Cade hadn’t checked it out, but Natalie had.

  “No,” Avery said. “Her death wasn’t reported on there until the early hours.”

  “So he could have called that night?” Natalie added.

  “Yes,” Cade said. “Unless he knew she was dead.”

  The statement hung in the air for a while like the stench of something rotten and acrid that had found its way into the office. But there was no escaping it. No denying that whatever way they looked at this, it would not add up.

  “Want me to go over there? I’m about to—”

  “No,” Cade said, cutting him off. “I’ll go.” He could have called Karl. He could have easily picked up the phone and asked him, just like he had with his brother, but he wanted to see him. He wanted to look into his eyes … to see his face, but more than that, some part of his wolf wanted to face down the tiger who had claimed something that belonged to him … something that was his.

  When he looked up and met Natalie’s eyes, fear resided in them.

  “I want to ask him myself,” he said, as if that would give the answer she needed.

  The air in the room changed. It grew colder, thicker, and Cade could feel the weight of Natalie’s stare on him. It was deep, penetrating. His wolf wanted to chase away the look in her eyes, to show her that there was nothing to fear, not now. But that was a lie he told himself—a lie that pressed against him and forced man and wolf to square off with each other. The offer to take her along formed in his head, and he almost spilled the words from his lips. The wolf’s need to reassure his mate nudged him closer. But Cade … the man. He recoiled with the thoughts and images of Gemma and Natalie coming face to face … of Gemma seeing the finality of the relationship in the female wolf who would stand before her. He wasn't ready for that yet. Maybe he never would be.

  Natalie pressed her hands around the outside of her cup, holding onto it for security. Her jaw was firm, rigid, and the light that had, moments before, radiated in her eyes, dimmed now, to a dark, brewing mess. She slunk wordlessly back from him, back to her chair. She didn't need to speak for Cade to know the thoughts that plagued her mind. They were connected now. He could feel her. He could wear her emotions like a cloak around him. “Can you give me a moment,” he said to Avery, not taking his eyes off Natalie.

  Avery didn't have Cade’s ability for reading people, but he wasn't a stupid man. He looked from Natalie and Cade and gave a nod. “I’m going to go speak to Jace. I’ll be down the hall.”

  Cade waited until Avery was far from the office where he was far enough away to be out of earshot. Then he went to his mate. She had her back to him. Hurt radiated from her, from every pore, but she was holding onto it. He grabbed the back of her chair and spun her to face him. She didn’t resist, didn't tell him no. He crouched in front of her. Not to patronise her, not to treat her like a child, but to show her … to honour her wolf with his by bowing down to her … to his mate, protecting her, putting her above him.

  “Gemma will be there,” she said it as a statement rather than a question. Wolf blue eyes met his.

  “Perhaps, but I’m not going there to see her.”

  It wasn't a lie, either. Seeing her terrified him. It brought a lump to his throat he couldn't fight. But this was why he needed to go. Why he needed to see Gemma with Karl … with someone else. He was trying to mix the logic of his position with the DSA and the illogical thoughts of his wolf and his heart. Maybe Karl’s calls to Jessica had been innocent. Maybe there was nothing to them, but Cade hadn't made the detective rank by linking A to B and then taking it at face value. He knew too well that there was something else. Some other reason. He just needed to ask what it was.

  Taking Natalie’s hand in his, he pressed her knuckles to his lips and inhaled her scent. “I’d ask you to come along, but if Karl turns out to be someone of interest and you’re there … You’re technically a civilian. If the Humans get a reason to say we didn't do things right, Karl could walk.” It wasn't really a lie. Just a stretch of the truth. The Humans loved to make shit like this fall on its arse, just because they could. But if she was there, and Gemma, he would lose focus and do something stupid.

  “I know.” She glanced down at his hands still holding hers and then she ran her thumb along the back, a soft, subtle gesture that stirred his wolf in the depths of his body. It was touch and comfort and it made his wolf forget who she was and who she wasn't. “If Karl turns out to be someone, then …” she raised her eyes to meet his. “You’ll want to protect Gemma, right?”

  Yes.

  “Her father will protect her.” Even as the words came out of his mouth, he heard the flatness in them … the lies in them. He couldn't deny the surge in his body … the need to protect Gemma. “He is her alpha.”

  “Will Avery be going with you?”

  There was a different question under that one, a request. “If he wants to.” If Avery came, he and Gemma couldn't cross any lines. A few days ago, it was possible. He would have, maybe … probably, but the baby changed things now. He’d said it … it was out in the open. It didn't matter what he wanted. It couldn't matter what he want
ed … what his soul cried for when no one was listening. This child was real now, connected. He could hear it almost, a faint hum on his radar. If he closed his eyes and focused enough, it was like he could speak to it. He’d felt this with Connor … still felt it with him. Like his mind hadn't yet disconnected the call. “I’ll ask him to come,” Cade said after a moment. “Okay?”

  Her cheeks reddened, and she leant into him and rested her head against his broad shoulder. He kissed her cheek, breathed her in and let her know it was okay. “Sorry,” she whispered.

  “I’m not a cheater, Nat. I promise.” He lifted back enough to look her in the eyes and give her his sincerity. “You don't have to worry about that. Okay?”

  Her face was mere inches from his. Her eyes were bright. She nodded. “Cheating isn't always physical, though.”

  He nodded back and stroked a thumb across her cheek. “I know.”

  Chapter 30

  Henry

  Henry leaned back on his haunches and surrounded himself in the almost dead foliage. Leaves had fallen as well as twigs and parts of nature that rotted and dropped to the ground when they had been cast away. They provided ample coverage for him as he watched Gemma and her new-found mate.

  His fangs pressed against his bottom lip, nipping at it, bringing a sting and sweet taste of copper. His eyes were alive, his dead heart thumped in his chest, and he gave a shake of his head. Although there was no one to see it, it brought a smile to his thin lips and a feeling of satisfaction to himself.

  Realisation had hit him like a boulder to the chest. He’d been had … fooled … idle trickery on Gemma’s part. He wanted to go to her and say well done, to congratulate her for leading him down the wrong path. He’d been so blind.