by T. S. Joyce
And those two, pleading words, begging his step-brother to live, broke something inside of her. Trina’s face crumpled.
When her shoulders sagged, Leah asked again, “Trina?”
“Yeah?” she croaked out.
“Leah hugged her from the side and rested her face on her shoulder. “You did so good. You brought him back. He’s the strongest wolf in the whole world, raised by Ethan and Rike’s mom, so he’s practically a Blackwood Wolf. He’s going to be okay.”
“Leah?”
Leah laid a little kiss on her shoulder and snuggled her cheek against her skin. “Yes, best friend?”
“Your boobs are on my arm.”
“Nudity is natural,” Leah whispered, still nuzzling her. “We’re shifters. It’s the best part of all this.”
Trina wiped her eyes and sighed. “You’re really weird.”
“Thank you,” Leah said in a mushy voice.
“Come on, weirdo. I want to be in that room.”
“You do?”
Trina nodded as she un-suctioned herself from Leah’s rain-soaked embrace. “This isn’t the first time.”
“You’ve been in rooms with injured shifters before?”
“Lots and lots,” she said sadly. “My first Clan made a lot of bad decisions, and they died for them. They declared wars in waves. Sometimes when they came home hurt, I’d hold vigil, hoping they pulled through. The Clan didn’t learn their lesson. They kept picking and picking, just like the Wulfe Clan does. And then me and my dad sat in the room trying to save Kurt when he was sick.”
“You mean succeeding.”
“Hmm?” she asked numbly as she padded through the muddy yard behind the crowd filing into Leah and Ethan’s house.
“You didn’t just try, Trina. You succeeded in saving Kurt.” Beside her, Leah’s eyes blazed the same silver as Kade’s when he got real determined about something. “You got good magic, Trina. Go save Kade, too.”
Trina tried to smile at her, but she didn’t really have control of her emotions right now. It might have been a grimace for all she knew. In a daze, she walked up the porch stairs where the crowd of big shifters parted for her. Hands touched her back, her hair, her hands, her shoulders. They were comforting her in their own way, in the way their animals demanded. The edges of her vision were dark and blurry, and her focus was on putting one foot in front of the other, pushing herself closer to her mate. If he stopped fighting, today would be the worst day of her life.
She walked through the kitchen to the hallway that led to the east wing where Kade had claimed a room. A few shifters posted up beside the door, nodded to her and made room for her to pass. The handle was cold under her palm as she turned it and opened the door.
Inside was a scene she would never forget as long as she lived. Kade’s wolf was lying on the bed. The pillows had been thrown to the ground, and Ethan and Hairpin Trigger blocked most of his body as they worked. On the bed, Rike and Kurt were holding down the wolf. When Ethan wiped his hair out of his way, there was blood on his hands. Kade’s blood. A low snarl rattled her throat before she could stop it.
“Trina, we won’t be able to work with you at our backs if you can’t control the lion,” Ethan said without turning around.
“I’m fine.”
Ethan cast a quick, fiery look at her over his shoulder before tossing a piece of mangled, bloody metal to the ground. Tink, tink, tink. The bullet landed inches from her toes, and slowly, she knelt and picked it up. It had left a red scuff on the wood floor.
“Come on, man,” Rike muttered, his body jerking with whatever he was doing to Kade. “Show a damn sign of life. Mom’s gonna kill us if you die.”
Trina didn’t want to know what they were doing. Not even a little part of her wanted to peek over their shoulders. From the bottom drawer, she pulled out a pair of black cutoff shorts and grabbed one of Kade’s Harley T-shirts from the top one. She pulled it on and sniffed the collar. Smelled like him—the human half, who was stuck and hurting in the wolf’s body right now. She put the bullet in her pocket because that would be her fuel when she faced the Wulfe Clan.
Kade was going to be avenged.
Following an explosive yelp, Kade turned into a hurricane on the bed, thrashing, eyes white and empty. The boys were yelling, especially Ethan, who kept ordering him to stay still. It was an Alpha command, but Kade wasn’t listening. He was out of his mind.
“Shhhhh,” she said, rushing to him. All she could reach was his head, and there was every chance in the world she was about to get shredded by his teeth, but she couldn’t stay away if she tried. “Shhhh, Kade. I’m here. I’m here.”
His eyes rolled in his head as he struggled. She glanced at his body, gasped, and then closed her eyes tight. Nothing could survive that…right? Stop it. Gritting her teeth, she knelt down beside him and forced her hand onto the side of his face. “Kade. You’re mine, do you hear me? You’re mine, and I’m telling you it’s not time yet. You can’t leave. You won’t. You’re a beast, and beasts don’t quit fighting. You owe me. You owe me!” When she gripped the scruff of fur at the side of his face, he snarled and twitched to the side as if he would bite her, but then his eyes locked onto hers and he froze.
“It’s me,” she whispered. “You aren’t alone. I’m here. I won’t let anything happen to you. We’ll be a team, okay? You fight, and I’ll fight, and when you wake up, I’ll be here. I’ll always be here when you wake up. Okay?”
Kade’s panting sounded so pained, but he held her gaze, and he didn’t bite her. Chest heaving, eyes rimmed with tears, Trina leaned forward and dared a kiss to the side of his muzzle and then nuzzled against him. “You’re mine and I’m yours.”
That’s when she felt it. The softest touch of his tongue against her cheek. He’d licked her. She eased back and brushed her fingertips over the cheek that tingled from the wolf-kiss, but Kade’s eyes were closed again.
“What the fuck was that?” Rike asked in the most shocked tone she’d ever heard from a man. “He didn’t even rip your face off.”
“He…he licked me,” she murmured, fingers still on her cheek.
“Holy fuckin’ shit, Trin,” Kurt said. “Did you tame the monster?”
Heat rushed up her neck and landed in her face. She was probably the color of a beet, and she couldn’t help her dumb smile. This shouldn’t be a happy moment, but Kade’s wolf had really licked her instead of killing her. Trina looked down at her body in shock. She wasn’t bleeding. “I thought that was going to go way different,” she admitted as Ethan started stitching up the holes in Kade’s shoulder.
“Uh, we all did,” Rike muttered. “This wolf is a psycho. Or…he was.” Rike’s dark eyebrows drew down with confusion. “Trina, I think you might be a witch.”
She huffed an exhausted laugh and sat down hard right by the bed, resting her hand on Kade’s face, leaning her cheek on the side of the mattress. “I wish. I would make a magic potion to take his pain and put it in me.”
The boys got quiet, and when she looked up, they were staring down at her with unreadable expressions. “What?” she asked.
It was Ethan who answered. “You really found him, Trina.”
“Who?”
Ethan went back to work with the smallest smile on his lips, barely even visible through his beard. “You found the one.”
Chapter Sixteen
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck, everything hurt.
“And so when I went in to sign the paperwork, it was this bittersweet moment…” Someone was talking in a soft murmur he could barely make out. He tried to bring his hand up to rub his forehead, but he couldn’t make his arms work.
“The Darby Clan used to be in that bar almost every day…”
His head was pounding and it felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to his body.
“I bought it with my dad, I felt really brave because I knew I would have to be in that place every day where my friends used to hang out…”
Wait, what? What was th
at? A TV playing? Something brushed his face, but he was too groggy to move.
“But in a way, it was me paying tribute to the Clan after they died. They weren’t always bad. In the beginning, they were good. Good for mountain lions at least, but mountain lion Clans don’t have a long survival rate. The culture is to fight everything, no matter what. It’s to start shit, no matter what. It’s to kill everything in our territory, and when the males started coming into their own, figuring out their dominance, they started making bad decisions. Decisions that got people hurt. Not just themselves, but innocent people. Humans. Women. My dad and I backed off to the edge of the Clan and stopped going to meetings. All they did there was fuel rage and war…”
Another brush against his face. He winced. What was that? It tickled a little.
“I watch the Wulfe Clan, and they’re so similar to the Old Darby Clan. They’re just getting worse…”
Brush.
Kade smelled Trina’s shampoo. Her favorite flavor was mango, so her hair always smelled like it. Relief washed through him. Trina was okay. She was right here beside him where he could keep her safe. He just needed to remember how to use his damn fingers again so he could stroke her hair like she was stroking his face. Kade eased his eyes open and came nose to hair with Trina. She was leaned against his bed, her head right beside him, relaxed as she talked and petted him.
Petted him.
Kade tried to frown but his face didn’t work right. What the fuck? He forced air past his vocal cords, but a soft whine came out. What the fuck, what the actual fuck? He was a wolf? He was a wolf, but Trina was right here and he could hurt her. Trina! “Trin,” he growled in his wolf voice he hated so much. “Run.”
Trina gasped and then looked right at him, hope endless in her pretty green eyes. “Kade?” When he didn’t respond because he couldn’t, she repeated louder, “Kade?”
She tugged at his ears and hugged his neck. Please don’t hurt her, please don’t hurt her he begged the wolf over and over, but the wolf was quiet as he whispered in his mind, “I would never hurt her. She’s ours.” The last word drew out, and the voice in his head faded away.
Kade laid there panting, waiting for the wolf to come back with a “just kidding” and attack Trina, but he didn’t. He just sat there inside him, watching her eyes fill up with tears.
“You love me,” he growled.
She ran her hand over his face over and over. “I love you very much.”
“Ride or die,” he huffed on a breath.
“Always. We’re a team, you and me.” She gripped the fur on his cheeks and rested her forehead against his. “Don’t do that to me ever again. You scared me.”
He’d never been so present in this form before. So aware. So in control.
He didn’t even want to think about Changing, but he had to know if he could. Had to. Before Kade could change his mind, he closed his eyes and imploded. He pushed the Change as fast and as hard as he could, gritting his teeth against the agony. His snarl of pain turned into a grunt, and then he clutched the comforter in his closed fists, his body shaking for a minute before he could think straight again. He was drenched in sweat, exhausted, his bandages shredded, and his shoulder smelled like blood again.
“Why are you smiling like that?” Ethan asked from the open doorway where he, Rike, Leah, and Bailey were piled.
Trina had backed away from him a few feet, but she was grinning, too. “Because he Changed on purpose.”
Ethan and Rike exchanged glances. They looked surprised. They looked…proud. Ethan asked, “You good, man?”
“Yeah.” He nodded, his eyes on Trina. “I’m good.”
“Okay,” Rike murmured, lingering as the others made their way back into the hallway. “Well…” He cleared his throat and looked down at the floor, scuffed it with the toe of his riding boot. “I’m really glad you didn’t croak.” Rike slammed the door behind him and could be heard stomping down the hallway behind the others.
What was this feeling? Belonging?
“You got good people, Kade,” Trina murmured. God, she looked pretty in his Harley shirt and those little cutoff shorts. No shoes, just long fair legs curled up under her.
With a grunt, Kade pushed himself up and sat on the edge of the bed, gripping the mattress. “My insides feel like hamburger.”
“Well, you got shot, ran around the woods for a while, and tried to fight me. Then you almost died while Ethan and Hairpin Trigger dug metal out of your body.”
“Trigger was here?”
“Yeah, I’m guessing Kurt called him in because a grizzly is about the only thing that stands a chance against you when you’re pissed. When I was a kid, my dad told me something I’ll never forget. It’s played in my mind every time I liked a boy. It plays in my mind now.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me ‘Trina, whatever you do, don’t pick a weak man.’ And that defined me for a long time. It defined my relationships. I ended relationships at the first sign they couldn’t handle me, my life, or the animal inside me. And then along came you—big badass wolf.” She shook her head slowly. “There’s nothing weak about you.”
Kade huffed a laugh and dropped his gaze to the floorboards. “Woman, I’m bleeding everywhere, I can barely move, and I feel like I’ve been hit by a fuckin’ semi. There’s nothing strong about me at the moment.”
“Wrong. You shouldn’t be alive, but here you are crackin’ jokes and controlling a side of you that’s ruled your entire life.”
“Says the girl who chose a werewolf. Says the girl who survived countless broken bonds. Says the girl who lost her mom, controlled a mountain lion since birth, and never once acted like the victim of circumstance. Says the girl who won’t quit on a man who doesn’t deserve her devotion. You’re fearless. Strongest woman I’ve ever met.”
She canted her head, rocked upward, then stood and padded silently over to him. Gently, she climbed on his lap and squeezed her knees around his hips, slid her arms around his neck, her touch as soft as a breeze.
“I have a theory.”
He gripped her hips and rocked her against him. “Tell me your theory.”
“I think I went through all of that so I could be built into the exact right shape to match your rough edges. I think I had to go through all of that to make me strong for you.”
Kade smiled. “Then I went through a lifetime of insanity to be strong enough to match you someday.”
“You never stopped trying, did you, Kade?”
He gripped her hips and rocked her against his hardening dick and shook his head. “Not even for a day.”
“Strong mate,” she whispered, brushing her finger down his cheek.
Felt good. Felt so fuckin’ good. He leaned into her touch, kissed her wrist, then latched his teeth onto it. Someday he was going to cut her hand, and ask her to cut his in return. Someday, when he knew he could be steady, after he took care of the threats from the Wulfe Clan. After he made sure she was safe from the world and from him, he was going to claim her. In his head, he already had, but she deserved the ceremony.
Trina Luna Chapman. His best friend, his obsession, his mate, his prey, his lady. She was brave enough to pick a monster and stick right there beside him no matter what. Even if it hurt her. Even if she’d been burned before, and that was the bravest thing—to give your heart to someone after being demolished.
She’d given him the gift of herself. She was medicine when he’d lived his entire life thinking there was no balm for the evil inside of him. He was changed from the inside out because she’d believed in him. She’d picked him and waited patiently while he rose up and fixed the shit that was hurting her. She’d never once made him feel bad for the wolf. She’d pointed at him and said, “Even if this is as good as you get, I accept you.” And she made it his choice to stay stagnant or rise up and deserve her love. To become a better man for her.
She deserved safety.
She deserved fealty.
Protection
.
Devotion.
To know that she was loved.
Trina deserved the world.
And he was going to work for the rest of his life to give it to her.
Chapter Seventeen
She really should let him have his space and recover, but Trina had been so scared at the thought of never touching him again or hugging him again that she couldn’t peel herself off him to save her life. So here she sat, straddling his lap, redoing the bandages he’d ripped off during his Change.
His fingers digging into her hips, pulling her closer, said he didn’t want her to go either.
The fight wasn’t over. War was coming, and she was scared because she’d done this before and knew how bad things could get. But for now, right now, they were okay. That wolf inside of Kade had saved him, and she loved his animal side more for it. Out in the living room, she could hear a football game on, and their friends and family in there cheering and bullshitting each other. They were safe in Kade’s room. He was okay. For tonight, they could just be. Just breathe and smile and touch.
Kade’s dick was swelling between her legs as she rolled her hips against him, and just for fun, she kissed him, nipping his lips because that always got him worked up. Kade groaned into her mouth as he pushed his tongue past her lips. She felt so good, he rammed into her faster, a short jerky rhythm that had his dick begging for release.
“Take your shorts off,” he murmured in her ear before he sucked on her lobe.
She gasped in response, meeting his pelvic thrusts. “But Kade, you’re half-dead.”
“My dick is zero percent dead, woman. Stick it in. I need to feel you.”
“Compromise,” she whispered, dismounting him and sliding her shorts and panties down to her ankles. “I’ll rub on you, and you stay still so you don’t get hurt worse.”
“I don’t feel a fuckin’ thing right now— Oooooooow,” he groaned as she pulled his Harley T-shirt over her head.
“Promise me,” she said.
“Anything you want, just come sit on me.” The way he said it while staring at her tits meant he didn’t even know what he was agreeing to.