“I-I’m not usually—” Penny’s voice was soft and husky and laced with enough hesitation to make Kann waver.
He cupped her chin and made her meet his gaze. He wasn’t going to go any further if she didn’t want this… “This goes where you want it to. Only there. I stop the second you say it. Do you hear me?”
She nodded and raised her arms over her head and waited. He pulled the thin shirt off slowly. She had a bra on still. A black lacy thing that cupped her beautiful creamy breasts and held them up for him to worship. He leaned down and kissed the top of each, then nibbled at her peaking nipples as they prodded the thin fabric.
He captured her mouth again, muffling the slight moans and whimpers coming from her thoroughly aroused body. Her scent filled the air. He was drunk on her. Every beat of her heart. Every sporadic breath.
He slipped his hands around to her back and unclasped the bra. It came loose and suddenly Penny stiffened. She pushed his chest with her palms and he immediately backed up.
“I can’t,” she said, sucking in deep gulps of air. “I’m sorry. I thought I could. But I just…I can’t.” She snapped her bra back into place and reached for the shirt he’d just removed.
Kann breathed slowly, willing his lion to back the hell off. His mate needed space and she would get what she needed. “Don’t apologize. I told you. This goes only as far as you want it.”
“I do want it, but I—can’t. It’s not fair to either of us. I’m not going to be here that long and if I get attached to you, I’ll just regret it later. And…” her voice trailed off and her eyes got a faraway sadness in them that made Kann want to kill whoever or whatever had wrecked her life. On one hand it’d brought her to Mystery, but he didn’t want her to live and stay here out of fear. He wanted her to choose to be with him. Choose to be his mate and stay with his tribe. Become part of his family.
“Hey, hey, hey,” he cooed out softly. “We can always pick up again later when you change your mind.”
She relaxed a little and he was pleased with the small smile curving the edge of her full mouth. “You’re so sure I’m going to change my mind?”
Kann smiled down at her, resisting the urge to move forward and touch her again. He wanted to touch her. Hold her. Feel her body against his again. His mind kept those thoughts circling over and over. Soon. He assured the impatient animal inside him. Soon we will have our mate. Give her time. “Like I said before, you’re my soulmate. Every fiber of my being calls to yours and yours to mine.”
“So, you’re saying it’s inevitable?”
“Destiny,” he said, smiling broadly. “Or some call her Fate.”
Penny bent and picked up her sweatshirt from the floor and pulled it back on over her thermal. “How can you believe that our meeting was predestined? I watched people die today. That’s why I ran…Today has just been...” Tears dripped down her white cheeks again. Twice now he’d seen his mate cry. And twice there had been nothing he could do for her.
He took a step toward her, every cell screaming to just pick her up and hold her. Comfort her. Anything to make the tears and sadness seeping from her body stop.
She held up a hand to stop him. “I just need to be alone. I’m sorry. I thought I could do this…I wanted to do this.” Her tears were worse than any enemies’ blade. There was nothing to fight. Nothing to fix. And they slayed him all the same. “But I can’t. I need you to go.”
“Penny.” His voice was tentative. He couldn’t leave her like this. She was coming apart. She shouldn’t be alone.
She wiped her eyes and sucked in a deep breath before straightening to face him. Her red rimmed eyes were cold and full of pain. “Please. Just go.” Her harsh tone left no room for debate.
He nodded and turned away. Each step felt as though someone were stabbing him in the heart. His lion paced and growled, furious that he was doing nothing. But he couldn’t go directly against her wishes. What kind of mate would he be if he didn’t respect her choice? Kann slipped through the cabin door out into the cold artic air. The snow was coming down harder now. Visibility was already shit. He stomped out to the truck and climbed inside.
He put the key in and turned it. Nothing. Not even a whirr. “Fuck,” he snarled, one of the first cuss words he’d picked up on Earth. It described everything he was feeling right now. Anger. Frustration. Overwhelming sense of failure. He wanted to protect his mate. Eliminate the something that plagued her. She’d mentioned people dying…had someone been trying to kill her too?
His lion was losing it.
Right now.
Kann hurled himself out of the truck and kicked the door closed just as he shifted into his lion form. He sank into the deep snow, bunched his back legs, and launched himself into the cover of several nearby trees. Hopefully Penny hadn’t been watching out the front window.
It would be an awkward conversation later if she had.
7
Penny stared at the empty cabin. Kann had left. She’d told him to leave.
She walked over to the bed and crawled to the middle. Then pulled the blankets up around her shoulders and cried. The avalanche of fear and anxiety and attraction and excitement all collided, creating a maelstrom of emotion.
Everything was ruined. Her life was over. She’d seen Jake kill people in the warehouse. It was only a matter of time before he realized what she’d seen, and he hunted her down and killed her too. She didn’t have a long happy life ahead of her. She had a short time to prepare for a fight that could very possibly end her life. Involving Kann and his friends wasn’t an option. She wouldn’t put more people into Jake’s crosshairs.
No matter how much she wanted to, getting involved with Kann would put him in danger. He was sweet and funny and strong, and he’d managed to make her smile on the worst day of her life. Finally, she’d found a man who actually seemed interested in her—not her abilities or connections—but her as a woman. No one had ever paid her attention like he had before. Everyone had an ulterior motive. But Kann just insisted that he was her soulmate.
The pillowcase was wet and cold under her cheek and her nose was stuffed up. Why couldn’t she believe in something like he did? Something beautiful like soulmates. Kann had called it Fate or Destiny that she’d shown up in Mystery. But he didn’t know who was coming after her. He didn’t know that the real fate coming for her was death.
Jake would never let her live knowing what she’d seen. She’d let herself believe for a moment that maybe she could win by coming out here. That maybe she had a chance like Kann said. But then the fear had crept back up and choked her.
All she really wanted was to have Kann’s arms around her again. He was nearly a perfect stranger. Who had kissed and hugged and cared for her more in the last couple of hours than any man ever in her entire life. She wanted him back.
But he had left. And he probably thought she wasn’t worth the effort. She’d started kissing him and it’d been wonderful and then everything in her brain just wouldn’t shut up. All the fear and anxiety had won. She was alone. She’d been alone for so long that she wasn’t sure she knew how to be with anyone.
But if Kann would give her another chance. She wouldn’t waste it.
She threw off the blankets and jumped from the bed. Hurrying across the room, Penny flung open the front door. “Kann,” she called out. The air was filled with flurries now. She could just make out the outline of the truck parked on the road. Elation lifted her spirits. He hadn’t left. Not yet. Her heart raced, and she sucked in a quick breath.
Darting down the steps, she slogged through the thigh deep drifts toward the still-parked truck. “Kann,” she called his name again. But the wind and the falling snow dampened her voice. He probably couldn’t hear her even if he was sitting in the truck. He probably could barely see her.
The snow was soaking through her jeans quickly. The cold dampness felt like burning ice on her skin. She rubbed her arms up and down. She hadn’t put her coat on before coming out here. But she wasn’t
giving up, even if she was freezing by the time she got to the truck.
Only a few more feet. She made it the rest of the way and tapped the window of the truck with her bare shaking hand. Her teeth were clacking now. “Kann,” she cried out again and hit the glass of the window. She wiped the flakes of snow off and peered inside. Her heart dropped in defeat. The truck was empty.
He wasn’t there.
“Kann, please, come back.” She turned around and peered into the whiteness. Nothing. He didn’t answer. Why hadn’t he taken the truck? Where was he? “Kann?” she called out again, her tone weak and thin. Her entire body was shivering now. Her jeans were wet through. Every part of her felt stiff and cold and slow.
She started back toward the open door of the cabin. She had to get the wet clothes off and warm up before she got too cold. He hadn’t been kidding about the cold being dangerous and her not being dressed appropriately. She shoved her numb hands beneath her armpits and trudged back the way she’d come.
One foot in front of the other. You can do this.
Her chattering teeth sounded like someone typing on an old keyboard. It was so loud in her head. The air was cold. It hurt to breathe. It wasn’t this cold earlier when he’d carried her inside. But the snow hadn’t been falling then either. The temperature had to have dropped at least ten degrees. A storm was coming and instead of stoking the fire and staying inside, she was wandering around half-dressed and letting all the warm air out of her cabin.
She made it up the steps and shoved the door closed behind her. Her breath still made a cloud in front of her face with every exhalation. Shit. Penny rushed to the woodstove and picked up a couple pieces of split wood from where Kann had stacked them. She grabbed the padded mitt, turned the handle and opened the hot iron door. Then shoved in three more pieces and closed the door back.
It was a lot warmer right next to the stove, but her teeth were still knocking, and she had to get out of her cold, damp clothes. She tugged off the sweatshirt and laid it over the back of the loveseat. Jeans were next. She peeled back her wet jeans, one inch at a time until they were down to her thighs. Then she sat on the edge of the couch cushion and unlaced her boots. Once those were kicked off, she slowly managed to get the jeans all the way down to her ankles and off. The jeans joined her sweatshirt.
Hopefully they would dry in a few hours.
Maybe. She could hope.
She shivered as she ran to the bed and grabbed the blanket off the top and the extra one folded at the foot. She tossed them onto the loveseat and used her hip to move the small-ish piece of furniture closer to the woodstove. Then picked up the blankets again and wrapped them both around her body as tightly as possible before curling up into the fetal position on the loveseat cushions.
The warmth of the stove soothed her trembling. Her skin no longer burned from the icy cold. Exhaustion—physical, mental, and emotional—swallowed her consciousness and dragged her down into a deep sleep. A sleep where she dreamed that she hadn’t sent Kann away. A sleep where she was safe from Jake. A sleep where soulmates were a real thing.
Kann loped up to the top of the hill. The snow crunched beneath his massive paws. He couldn’t see far through the snow flurries, but he knew the passing trees well enough to know he was going the right direction. The cabin he and the others rented from Douglas was hidden in a thick stand of spruce trees from this side, which meant he could walk up to the front door without anyone seeing him.
The other senses were a different story. Shifters had great hearing and an even better sense of smell, but the snow storm would negate most of that. It covered footsteps and knocked scent trails out fast. They would be expecting him though…Saul would’ve told them about Penny. He padded up to the door, still in lion form. No need to tramp around on two legs when four were much easier. Plus, his lion needed the exercise. Especially after having to walk away from Penny and her breakdown. It’d been the hardest thing he thought he’d ever done. Leaving her went against every instinct in his body.
He continued to run, stretching out in long strides, enjoying the soft powder and the freshness of the air around him. Even if it was negative thirty-degrees outside, as a lion he burned hot enough that it didn’t bother him for a long time. Nothing like Col and Naomi, though, whose inner dragon fire would literally melt the snow around them.
Kann stopped at the doorway to the cabin and shifted back, he could hear his friend’s voices inside. They were a tribe of leftovers. On Reylea, none of them would’ve ever spoken a friendly word to each other, but here…after they’d worked together to save Naomi. Now they were as united as any Tribe. As any family.
They were his family now—Col, Naomi, Tor, and Saul. Saul of course was from his original tribe, but they hadn’t known each other well. Saul had already achieved warrior status in the tribe where Kann had another year of training before he would’ve gotten his last set of stripes.
The door at the top of the steps opened, revealing Col’s mate—Naomi. Her brown curls danced around her round heart-shaped face. Her brown eyes sparkled with gold, just like a Reylean. Except that she was human-turned-Reylean. Only a month ago she’d been just like every other female on earth. She hadn’t known anything about Reylea’s exodus. Now she was their makeshift tribe chief’s mate and a dragon herself, but a dragon who was afraid of heights. He smiled up at her, laughing at the memory of her refusing to fly with Col only a few nights ago.
“What are you doing just standing in the snow? Where’s the girl? Didn’t you bring her over for dinner? From what Saul said, we thought we would get to meet her tonight.” She thrust her hands to her hips and stared down at him. “What did you do? Did you shift in front of her?” Her tone had taken on the scolding mother-sound.
“So many questions, Mahadhri,” he said, using her title of respect as their chief’s wife. He should’ve made a more concerted effort to sound like himself, but he just couldn’t muster up the will to smile for once.
“Oh, shit. What’s wrong? Seriously, Kann.” She moved out of the doorway and hurried him inside. She shut the door behind him and pushed him into their cozy living space. Col sat on the chair in the far corner reading a book. “It’s something bad. He called me the ‘mother’ name again.”
Col looked up over the edge of the pages at Naomi with a raised eyebrow and then peered at Kann. “You scared her, didn’t you? Naomi was scared at first. I kissed it out of her.”
Naomi smacked Col’s arm and they both chuckled. “Yeah, but I knew you were a dragon from the get go. So I knew the crazy I was getting into.”
“I didn’t scare her or shift in front of her. She is just…scared.” Kann released a sigh and let his body drop onto the massive couch in front of the woodstove.
“Did she tell you what is chasing her?” Saul asked from the other side of the room where he sat at the kitchen table sipping what smelled like a mug of Naomi’s special coffee.
Kann twisted his neck from side to side until several of the vertebra popped. “How did you know someone was chasing her? You barely spoke to her.”
Saul shrugged. “I’ve seen that look before. The one she had in her eyes.”
“What look,” Naomi asked, turning to face Saul.
“Prey,” the other lion shifter answered solemnly.
Kann growled low in his chest and clenched his hands into fists. He was furious at the thought of someone hunting his mate. Women should be loved and protected. Treasured. Not hunted like game.
“No ruining the furniture Kann!” Naomi called out as she spun on her heel to waggle a finger at him. “Didn’t you tell her that she’s safe out here?”
“Of course, but why would she believe me, Naomi. She doesn’t know me. She thinks soulmates are a joke. She feels the attraction. I can see it. Smell it. But she’s haunted by what she’s running from.” Kann pounded one of his fists into the palm of his other hand.
“Then you just claim her and tell her you will protect her.” Col focused back on the book in his
hands. “It is simple.”
Kann scoffed. “Not everyone is a big bad dragon, Vraka. Naomi never had a chance to not believe.”
Naomi burst into a fit of laughter. “I swear. Every time I hear you guys call him chief I think you’re calling him a bad name. Vraka!” She emulated Kann’s deeper voice and then disintegrated into giggles again.
Kann watched Col for a reaction, but the large man said nothing. In fact, only the very corner of his mouth twitched just slightly. He was trying not to laugh with his mate. Their ease with each other made Kann jealous and sad at the same time. Would he ever have that with Penny? Would she become part of the tribe and family or would she continue to push him away? Would she…or could she ever accept what he and his friend were?
“Trust Fate.” Saul’s deep voice rumbled, cutting through Naomi’s laughter. “She glows for you, does she not?”
Kann nodded and stood from the couch.
“You shouldn’t leave her. The storm tonight is supposed to be very heavy. If she were my mate, I wouldn’t leave.” Saul leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest with a sense of finality.
“She told me to. I was respecting her wishes,” Kann shot back then turned to Naomi—the only female and used-to-be-human in the room.
Naomi sobered up quickly and asked another question. “What did she bring with her?”
“Nothing. She carried a purse.”
“And you said she was attracted to you, but just chickened out?”
He nodded again.
“Unless she’s the super-strong-loner-type, Kann, I would go back. She’s probably scared out of her mind if someone really is hunting her. Maybe she thinks she’s protecting you by sending you away. We don’t know who’s after her. It could be any number of things. Hell, she could be running from the law.” Naomi crossed her arms and leaned against the arm of Col’s chair. “Are we sure she’s not a criminal.”
Kann growled and curled his lip in a snarl.
I'm Not Lion To You_Soulmate Shifters World Page 6