by Celia Kyle
“Technically, I found you.” A smile teased her lips.
“I’m being deep and loving here.” He wished she could see better if only to feel the full weight of his glare.
“I’m sorry. Continue.”
“You’re ruining this.”
“Isaac,” her voice was soft and suddenly serious. “You’re not the only one who’s thankful. You need to understand that. Without you, finding you…” She shook her head. “I don’t even want to imagine life without you. You see me and even though you want to tie me to a chair and keep me safe, you let me fuck things up on my own. So, yeah, I just found you and I couldn’t live if I lost you.”
What a way to take the wind out of a man’s sails. “You gonna make fun of me if I tell you that after that mess with the hyenas, I didn’t think I’d ever find someone like you? Hell, I’d decided to leave to try and find a mate. Life is lonely when there’s no one to share it with.” He traced the gentle slope of her nose with his finger. “And then there was you.”
“No, I won’t make fun of you.” She turned her head and nuzzled his palm, her warm breath fanning over his skin. “You know, when you think about it, we’re both a little bit broken, huh? But put us together and then we’re only a little bumpy and bruised. We fit, Isaac.”
God. Damn. She knew how to wreck him.
“I love you, Kira. More than anything in this world.”
Her smile was blinding, bright, and filled his soul with happiness. “Love you, too. Ever since that first roar, really. You were so angry, and I broke so much, but you didn’t raise your hand to me, not once.”
Anger over her past treatment reared its ugly head, threatening to send him hunting Mitchell and finish the job Kira started. Instead, he took a calming breath and answered her.
“Well, I’m glad I’m the first guy you came across. Otherwise, who knows who you’d be mated to and I would have left without finding you.” His bear snarled at the idea and he reminded the animal that she belonged to them. She had their bite on her shoulder and that was forever.
“Now, you’ll take me with you. I know we agreed to stay, but Isaac, home is with you. It isn’t a house, it’s just you.” She grinned and he couldn’t dredge up the same emotion.
Things were so different now.
“Do you really want to go? I mean, to the Southeast Itan’s compound?”
Her smile slowly fled and she furrowed her brow. “You said you wanted to and,” she sighed, “I just want to be with you and I want you to be happy. If that’s with the Southeast Healer, then it is. If it’s here in Grayslake, then it is, though, I do want you to think about moving into my house. I can’t,” a shudder wracked her and he stroked her back, trying to ease some of the trembles. “I can’t stay here anymore.”
“But what do you want?”
“No,” she shook her head. “We’re not gonna be one of those couples who goes back and forth with the ‘I wanna do what you wanna do’ and then neither of us makes a decision.”
He almost grinned at her disgruntled expression. Almost. Honestly, it was a near thing.
“So, you need to settle in and think about this: where do you want to raise our cubs? Here or traveling throughout the territory?”
“I,” he sucked in a breath and then released it with a wheeze. “Are you saying…?”
Her pale blue eyes widened. “What? No. No. These are hypothetical cubs. At least, I think so. I mean, I’m assuming so.” She shook her head. “Focus. If there are hypothetical cubs in the picture, where are they being raised? On a plane traveling all over or here?”
A high-pitched squeal echoed up the stairwell, a stern feminine voice coming right on its heels and then a small, annoyed growl right behind that. Sophia, Mia and Parker.
He’d accepted the job because he was hunting for a family like Ty’s and now he’d found it, right where he’d started.
“Here. We’ll raise them here.”
“Good.” She pressed a kiss over his heart. “That’s what I want, too. I want to wake up with cubs jumping on our bed and go to sleep exhausted by their very existence. And with luck, we can occasionally pass them off to your parents.”
Her smile slipped then, easing from her lips until no hint of happiness lingered. “Mitchell said Alpha Asshole wasn’t my father.”
Emotions clogged Isaac’s throat, but he forced himself to speak. “No, he wasn’t.”
She didn’t react to his words, simply stared through him as if he didn’t exist. “He was telling the truth then. Do we know who was? Do I have a family?”
“Yes,” he squeezed her and shook her gently until she focused on him. “You have a family. Right here, in this house. You have three brothers, three sisters, two nieces and a nephew. And Kira,” he cupped her cheek, “you have two parents who would kill for you. The only reason Mom didn’t gut the bastard was because Ty kept her restrained. And let me tell you, she went after Ty with a wooden spoon after everything was said and done. She told him as soon as he was done healing the first bruise, she was going to give him a second just because she could.” He traced her cheekbone. “You have a family.”
“Then why…”
It’d been hard to listen to, but it was harder to put voice to the words. He wished Keen was nearby. Then he could have his brother tell the convoluted tale again.
Instead, he was alone with an emotionally strained and physically healing mate.
“Your father was the Alpha’s beta. He and your mom mated, but the alpha was against inter-species matings.” Isaac swallowed the bile that threatened to rise. “Your mother came from a rich family, but she was alone. She’d been an only child to aging parents and everything was left to her. When the alpha heard about this… He ended up named as your guardian in the event something happened to your mom and dad.”
Kira’s lids fluttered closed and a single tear escaped. “And something happened.”
“Yes. Then he became your guardian. He had control of your money until you turned eighteen,” he murmured.
She nodded. “That’s why it went to hell after my birthday.”
“Laws are pretty specific when it comes to switching packs and matings. It’s to make sure that someone can’t be forced to give up their money or possessions if something happens to them. It used to be easy to snatch a rich shifter, force them to join a pack and then encourage them to change their will. After that, their death insured the money went into the pack’s accounts. Hell, sometimes the wills were forged. It was just a matter of kidnapping, forging, and killing.”
“Oh God.”
“Until you were eighteen, you kept the alpha and his son flush with cash. Once you crossed the line and the trust went under your control…”
“I didn’t even know about it, though. But they had no use for me. Why didn’t they just kill me then? Why all the games? Why…”
He knew what she asked. Why had they tortured her? Because that’s what they’d done. Year after year, month after month, they’d tortured Kira. He hated the words he had to utter.
“The guidelines in place as part of the trust didn’t allow the funds to be passed to the Alpha unless you died of natural causes. Murder and suicide were not acceptable means of termination. It would be remanded to the national pack because your murder or suicide proved your pack wasn’t caring for you properly. They wouldn’t have deserved the money.”
“Termination. That’s one way to put it.” She snorted. “So, why the constant bouts of Carve, then? That wasn’t murder?”
“They would have claimed you were taking part in a medical study. It would have been your choice and it wasn’t anyone’s fault if you reacted poorly to the drugs.”
Kira shook her head and then rested her cheek against his chest. “At least I’m not truly related to them.”
“No, you’re not.”
Silence wrapped around them. Emotion clogged the air, but it wasn’t as oppressive as it’d been. Hopefully they could work through the rest of it and then focus
on the remainder of their lives. He refused to diminish the fucked up happenings that surrounded them, but he wasn’t going to let it rule them.
He’d done enough of that with a single fucking scar, hadn’t he?
Isaac reached up and traced the line, remembering more of Keen’s words.
“Want the rest?”
She shook her head. “No, but I probably should.”
“You know Zoey is the old hyena alpha’s daughter and Reid’s sister?”
She nodded.
“Zoey was sent to live with Alpha Asshole by Reid’s father. They were allies once upon a time and he wanted her gone. Heath—the hyena alpha—discovered her existence and found out that pack mixed and sold Carvrix. In exchange for not starting anything between wolves and hyenas over Zoey, the wolves would give the drug to the hyena pack.”
“Which is what scarred you.” Her voice was a mix between disgust and surprise.
“Yes.”
“Can our lives get any more fucked up?”
Isaac chuckled. “No, I figure at this point, it’s all par for the course. None of my brothers mated without a bunch of family drama. We just followed in their footsteps.”
Kira growled and it was wrong that he found that sexy. “What about Vanessa? The wolf outside the house?”
“Vanessa got Carve from ‘some guy’ she met. I’m assuming it was Mitchell. We believe it was Mitchell outside the house. After Vanessa, he tortured Zoey and then came here himself after she escaped.”
“I just…” She shook her head and he snuggled closer. “I can’t believe it all.”
Isaac buried his face in her hair. “You don’t have to believe anything but the fact that I love you. Everything else is noise.”
“You do?”
“I already said it twice now. If I say it three times, it must be true. So, I love y—”
“A-a-a-a-a-a…” The squeaky sounds cut him off, the familiar scream for him rising from the first floor.
Maybe if he was quiet, Sophia would forget him.
“A-a-a-a-a-a…”
Dammit.
“You’re being beckoned.” A laugh lived in her tone.
“Yeah. I’m rethinking the cub thing right about now. Just as an FYI.” Then her whole body shook, curves jiggling and rubbing against his body. The trembles had his cock waking up and noticing the soft body plastered to his. He tucked a finger beneath her chin and forced her gaze to meet his. “I am, however, not opposed to practicing.”
Kira’s lips met his in a passionate kiss, one that conveyed their love for one another, passing pleasure back and forth in a never-ending wave. He wanted to do this—and more—for the rest of life.
Yes, he loved Kira Kolanowski, KK to her friends and Colon to anyone stupid enough to utter the phrase in his presence. But he still had one secret he might share with her someday.
She may have fallen in love with him at first roar, but he… he fell for her with the first look at her ass. It sure as hell wasn’t romantic, so he’d keep it to himself for a while. Maybe forever. Which, coincidentally, was how long he decided to keep her.
The End
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By the way… here are a few links to help you hunt up the rest of the Grayslake series:
No Ifs, Ands, or Bears About It - http://bookbit.ly/noifszon
All Roar and No Bite - http://bookbit.ly/arnbzon
Roaring Up the Wrong Tree - http://bookbit.ly/roarzon
Love at First Roar - http://bookbit.ly/firstroarzon
About Celia Kyle
Ex-dance teacher, former accountant and erstwhile collectible doll salesperson, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Celia Kyle now writes paranormal romances for readers who:
1) Like super hunky heroes (they generally get furry)
2) Dig beautiful women (who have a few more curves than the average lady)
3) Love laughing in (and out of) bed.
It goes without saying that there's always a happily-ever-after for her characters, even if there are a few road bumps along the way.
Today she lives in Central Florida and writes full-time with the support of her loving husband and two finicky cats.
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Copyright Page
Published by Summerhouse Publishing. Grayslake, Book 4: Love at First Roar. Copyright © 2014. Celia Kyle. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.