Kade

by Dana Archer

  “Why did you invest in all these local businesses? There’s one here that makes homemade soaps, shampoos, and candles. You can’t tell me that’s profitable.”

  “Surprisingly, it is. Shifters don’t like artificial scents in the products we use. It messes with our senses.” Kade glances over his shoulder, catching my eye before resuming his study of the darkened landscape outside his window. “But you’d know that.”

  I accept the jab. My use of cover scents worked brilliantly in a pinch. I’m still proud of my creativity. “Your investment choices seem odd, is all. You have a whole drawer dedicated to local stuff, from business to the charities you regularly donate to. I look at all this and can’t help but think you’ve decided to become some kind of benefactor to this area.”

  Kade’s grunt answers me.

  I close the drawer and take in his image, from where his hands are clasped behind his back to the fancy shoes on his feet and the stiff fold of his collar. Underneath all that is a body more fit for a football field or straight-up hard labor than this richly decorated office. Even those descriptions don’t fit him. Hard one moment, diplomatic and cunning the next. There’s no doubt about it. He’s so much more than who he appears to be.

  With my gaze locked on his hands and the dots of white over his knuckles, I make my way across the room and loop my arms around his waist. He reaches back and holds me, settling his hand on my bottom. I rest my cheek against Kade’s spine and breathe. Minutes pass with me holding Kade and him holding me. He doesn’t turn and take me into his arms or kiss me and push this moment into one where lust rules. All it would take is his lips on mine. Desire hovers between us. The raw need has a force of its own. Instead of giving in to it, Kade relaxes. Tension slips from him, his body purging all his anxiety and stress with his slow and steady exhales.

  Peace.

  The feeling is overwhelming, flowing from him to me and back. Where not long ago the demands of life and the looming threats hyped both of us, here in the quiet of Kade’s office, there’s this sense of rightness. It’s a promise of… “Everything will work out.”

  “It has to.” Kade’s tone holds a finality to it even while his posture remains loose.

  “It will.”

  A slight roll of Kade’s back gives me the physical confirmation of his nod. Silence returns. The ticking of the grandfather clock near the door becomes a second heartbeat. Yet, I wait. This is Kade’s chance to talk and for me to listen.

  Finally, Kade says, “The Alexander pride’s goddess no longer talks to me.”

  “She’s bonded to my brother.” That much I know. Without her, Josh wouldn’t possess the big cats living within him or been able to mate Mira, or father her kids, for that matter. Humans and shifters together are infertile. A human female can only act as a surrogate.

  “I’m not sure she’ll ever talk to me again, and I don’t know what that means for me or all those connected to me. The Alexander pride’s goddess was our gateway to the heavens, and as alpha, I was the guardian to that pathway. I still feel my pride mates, including those who have passed from this world. Come every full moon, I catch glimpses of their lives, living and dead. I sense them, their needs and their pains and their happiness. In those respects, nothing has changed.”

  “But?” Because there is one. I can hear the consideration in Kade’s voice.

  “I no longer know how to reach the heavens. The path is gone, simply wiped away as if there has never been a way to reach it.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Kade shrugs, the rippling of his muscles a sensual caress. “I don’t know. None of my pride mates have died and needed to find their way.”

  “What happens if that path to the heavens is gone?”

  “I don’t know. My goddess doesn’t either, or she won’t say. Josh has posed the question to her, and she shrugs, then walks away.”

  “Then nobody can die.”

  Kade snorts. “That’s always the plan. Each of us has a reason to endure, even if we don’t see it.”

  The consequences of an alpha bonding with a possessed shaman press down on me. “We can’t soul bond. It’s too dangerous.”

  “We have to s…” Kade takes a breath, expanding his chest and holding it before letting the pent-up air escape. “Why is it dangerous?”

  Kade’s restraint adds to this feeling of belonging, of being a part of a relationship, of being his partner. He was going to tell me we had to soul bond but stopped himself and asked my thoughts instead.

  “If we soul bond, and I lose my battle with her, she can…”

  “Claim my soul and potentially that of every member of the Alexander pride, living or dead.” Kade finishes my words, proving he’d already considered the possibility.

  “Yes.” I slip in front of Kade. “The risk is too great. I want you to take the piece of your soul back.”

  He holds my gaze for an endless moment. His agreement is there in his eyes. I see it. What’s worse is I feel it flowing through me as clearly as his peace had moments ago, and the rejection growing within me hurts more than I imagined it could.

  Stupid! It’s all stupid! Him, me, these ridiculous emotions. Everything is stupid. Including my “woe is me” attitude. Kade is not regretting me. He’s making the best choice for everyone involved.

  “Never mind. I’ll call Jarah or Dr. Fairchild. Maybe one of them can separate your soul from mine.” I scoot around him.

  Kade snags my sweatshirt and tugs me, smacking my back to his chest. “You’re right. The risk is too great.”

  “Then do it. Right here. Right now. Before either of us can change our minds.”

  “While my goddess has shown me visions multiple times over my tenure as alpha, she’s only spoken to me once. The night I became alpha.” Kade crosses his arms over me, spreading his right hand over my left thigh and his left over my right. The move engulfs me but doesn’t lock my body to his. All it would take is me scooting under his arm.

  “She told me I was special.” Kade presses his lips to my head. “That I was the chosen one to lead the shifter world into the future. The Alexander pride would shatter barriers long-ago erected by the misdeeds of the heavens. We’d be the gold standard other shifter families could follow. Our principles, our honor, our loyalty—all these things would guide us, but most of all, we’d have to remain strong to face the challenges awaiting us. Change does not come easily to a species as old as time.”

  “Talk about pressure.”

  Kade offers up a small laugh, my awkward comment obviously lightening his mood. “Yes, a little. Especially when she warned me I couldn’t fail. Everything was depending on me. Everything. She stressed this. I was her chosen one. Her handpicked warrior. And you, Zoe… She chose you to be my true mate.”

  “To make you godlike.”

  “To be my life, my haven, my everything.”

  “She didn’t know I’d make the mistake I did. She—”

  “She’s the Golden Goddess, a mixture of pure beauty and deadly fury. Some say she’s not simply a goddess but one of the elite, maybe a queen. I can’t speak to that, but I know she’s extremely powerful, a being with the ability to transcend time and foresee the future. And she sacrificed greatly to give me what I need to thrive. I just have to claim her. Those are the words she passed on to me through your brother. I just have to claim her, and I’ll have everything I could possibly ask for.”

  “Me.” My breath catches. “She was talking about me, wasn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  Kade steps around me, his fingertips sliding off and tempting me to reach for him. I don’t give in to the urge. The flickering flames from the fireplace dance light and shadows across his face, a mesmerizing display that holds me enthralled and fixated on my true mate.

  Standing in front of me with mere inches separating us, Kade warms me with only his heated gaze. “And she’s right. Everything I could possibly ask for is right in front of me.”

  “I’m scared.” My
admission turns me into a hypocrite. I’ve sworn time and time again nothing frightens me. I was wrong.

  Kade holds his hand out. “Then let me hold you.”

  With my attention on his face, I rest my palm on his, and his gentle grip builds a sensation of belonging within me. He draws me close, then lifts me, swooping me up with ease. I loop my arms around his neck and rest my cheek against his chest, where his heart beats steady and strong. “I don’t want to fail you.”

  “Then let me love you,” Kade breathes the words into my hair.

  The emotion I haven’t been able to name grows stronger, expanding outward as if the moon broke free of the storm clouds shadowing it. No guilt accompanies it. No regret. There’s only this desire to raise my face to the soft light and bask in its beauty. I turn my head instead and burrow my nose into Kade’s shirt, where his scent acts as a lulling enticement. “Love won’t save you from Hell if I damn you there.”

  “Then let me be the one to guide us out.” Kade brushes his lips over my temple and down my cheek, and I tip my head for him, giving myself to him. “Let me be the one you reach for when darkness calls, when Hell whispers your name. Let me be the one you fight for.”

  “Kade.” I turn my head for his kiss. The gentle rolling strokes leave me pliant and loose, and all the while, that emotion I had no name for swells into a raging tide threatening to sweep me away.

  “Liar.” The word reverberates within me, not quite spoken, but I hear it all the same. “He’ll take away our freedom. He’ll turn us into nothing more than his weapon and…”

  An inhale fills me with my true mate’s scent. Memories of heaven overpower the reminders of hell and chase back her.

  “Kade.” I say his name again, drawing strength from it and from him. More warmth flows between us, him to me. My lips tingle first, then fingers and toes and everything in between. Desire flickers, then flames in an expanding rush of pure need until there’s no room for doubt, for fear, for questions. There’s only us, and this promise of forever, wherever it takes us.

  I shift my weight and wrap my legs around Kade’s waist, clinging to the only man in the world who can save me from drowning in the cold dark sea that’s always waiting to drag me under. I kiss him with abandon, letting any reservations fall to the side. Loving Kade doesn’t erase what I felt for BJ and for the life we’d planned. Loving Kade offers me another chance.

  Only one question remains:

  Will it—will we—be enough?

  Twenty-Nine

  Zoe

  My arms shake, but I grit my teeth and press harder. The wall of darkness doesn’t give way, however. The more I fight, the denser the shadows become. I’m trapped. Locked in the prison I’ve created. Weighed down by a past I can’t remember. And possessed by a demon who could’ve been my twin.

  Laughter surrounds me—in my head and in the world around me.

  Hands balled, I pivot and scan the murky horizon. No glint of light. No hint of where the piece of Kade’s soul has gone. There’s nothing here. Not even a single tree or rock. The replica of the overlook where my dreams always take place is gone. Everything’s gone.

  Except her.

  The black shirt that made me snicker when I saw it on the rack of the secondhand store hangs on her almost anorexic body, a body that matches mine down to every scar and blemish, but the funny phrase “My Favorite Pussy” and the cartoon cat don’t look silly on her. It makes her look beaten down and cheap.

  “Then you shouldn’t have worn it today.” She scrunches her nose. “I’m stuck wearing what you do. Going where you go. Screwing the same animal you do. So don’t blame me ’cause you’re an ugly skank.”

  “Because of Dr. Fairchild. That’s why you’re stuck with me. Because he bonded our souls.”

  “Jeremiah’s no doctor. He’s a quack. A desperate fake! If he was a real shaman, he’d have taken me on, not played God. That’s what he did too. He played with both our souls. Screwed us both over ’cause he was too weak to handle me! He knew it. I knew it. But in the end, he did me a favor, and he doesn’t even know it.”

  “What favor has he done?” I’m not even touching on her belief she has a soul. Demons don’t have souls.

  “Don’t go acting like I can’t read your mind. You’re an open book. A pathetically boring open book. So let me answer the question I know you’re dying to ask, or else you wouldn’t have thought it. Yes, demons do indeed have souls. Lots of souls. We like me eat ’em up like candy.” She grins, her white teeth a stark contrast against her black lipstick, the same I’d chosen to wear today. It looks better on me. Or at least I thought it did when I got ready this morning.

  Ugh, I need to stop comparing us. She is not me. “You steal other people’s souls. You don’t have one.”

  Her smirk dies abruptly. “I was like you once, Zoe Jane Conway. I had a soul. A beautiful soul.”

  “Liar.”

  “For real.” Eyes wide as if that makes her words more believable, she nods. “I was a shaman. A very, very powerful shaman who even the heavens feared, but I made a mistake. Just like you did. And now I’m here, living the pathetic monotonous life you do.”

  “What favor has he done?” I won’t argue with the demon bonded to my soul. She lies. Constantly.

  “I don’t lie.” She pouts, then gives in to the snicker she’s fighting to contain. “Always.”

  “What. Favor.”

  Rolling her eyes, she looks heavenward. The same black nothingness hangs above us as below and around us. “I’m trying to educate you, Zoe Jane. I know you’re a high school dropout and all, but you’re not a complete moron. You can understand what I’m saying. So listen. And learn.”

  “What favor!” The world undulates, heaving the misty floor and tumbling both of us.

  She presses a hand into the cushiony ground. “He stopped me from eating you up. Trapped me in this prison.”

  “He trapped both of us and ended up doing you a favor. What favor?”

  She cups her ear and leans to the side. “Do you hear that?”

  “What favor?”

  “Don’t you hear him crying?” She looks at me. Her mouth forms a little O. “You don’t. Goddesses, you are the worst mother evvveer. It’s a good thing you didn’t raise that bloody hellion. You probably would’ve left him to bake in your car or something while you went and painted yourself up like some devil-worshipping wannabe.”

  “Shut up.” I step forward, leaving behind the shadowy door that had slammed and locked me inside with my crazy doppelgänger. “Do you hear me? Shut up.”

  “Why?” She leans forward, taunting me with her hands planted on her hips. “Don’t you like when I speak the truth? Would you like a lie instead?” She nods, answering herself. “Okay. Here’s a good one. Kade loves you, and he thinks you’re bea-u-tiful.”

  “Shut. Up.” I take another step.

  “You can’t make me. You can’t me go away either. You’re stuck with me. They made sure of it.” Head lowered and butt up, she backs away from me in a move that’s more snakelike than sensual. “Now they realized their mistake, and they’re panicking. Scared. Freaking afraid! They’re right to fear too. ’Cause I’m coming for them. Every last one of them. And you’re going to be the one to unleash me. Willingly.”

  “I can’t.” I hold my ground while the faintest echoing cries of a newborn reach me. “You’re stuck with me. Forever and ever. Even death won’t separate us.”

  She smiles. “Exactly. That’s why they’re shitting their pants, and I guarantee you, they’re regretting the deal they made with me, every last one of them.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  She turns her back on me and walks away. I follow. I shouldn’t. She’s messing with me, playing some kind of mind game. Or she’s actually telling me the truth. I can’t be sure, and I need to know. When she quickens her pace, I do too. When she bolts, I run faster. Trees sprout and grow at a fast-forward clip. Rain soaks us, then snow falls. Rocks make the
ground under my feet uneven. I stumble and push harder, using the sloping surfaces to propel me forward. The overlook where we always meet looms ahead of us. I stretch an arm out and snag her shirt before she leaps over the edge, then spin her. She lands on the jagged rock with a smile on her face.

  “What are you talking about?” I repeat my demand, pushing my will into the words.

  “True mates are weapons. You’re Kade’s. And the day will come when he has to fight. When it does, you’ll do anything to save him. Anything…including”—she looks up at me from where she’s sprawled on the cold rock—“letting your crazy side out, and once I am, I ain’t never coming back here.”

  “What deal did you make?” I press the other question she evaded. Her version of the future isn’t one I want to contemplate, because I can see the scenario she painted coming true, and that concerns me.

  “That scares you. Not concerns you. Don’t lie.” She pushes to her feet and moves to the edge of the overlook. “The truth scares you because you know what’ll happen to you if you let me out.” She looks over her shoulder. “Don’t you?”

  “What deal did you make?”

  “I’m stronger than you, Zoe. Infinitely stronger. But you’ll risk everything—anything—to save your favorite kitty. Even your eternal freedom.”

  “What deal did you make?”

  Huffing, she crouches down. Inky black mist creeps over her feet and the surface of the rock she’s perched on. She dips her hands into the shadows and sweeps them through the thick fog while her mouth moves in a silent chant.

  I step behind her and shove against her shoulder. “The deal. What deal did you make?”