Fated (Forever Book 2)

by Regan Ure

  A flurry of excitement ignited in my stomach as he kissed me so thoroughly that my knees felt a little weak. I wanted him so badly. I tightened my hold around his neck, needing more of him. He lifted me by my waist, holding me against him as my legs encircled his waist. My hands threaded through his silky hair as I reveled in the feel of him. He laid me on the bed and covered my body with his, grinding his hips against mine. I gasped against his mouth at the feel of his body pushing against me.

  “I need you now,” I gasped breathlessly as I reached for the hem of his shirt and he helped discard it.

  He lifted up to help me dispense with my shirt.

  Beautiful, he said to me through the mind-link. I smiled as I reached for him and he bent down to kiss me again.

  My heart felt like it was going to burst from my chest as I allowed my feelings for him to come to the surface. There was no more hiding how I felt about him and, for the first time, I allowed the warmth of the love I felt for him to blanket us.

  I love you, I said to him through the mind-link. Now that I’d said it, I needed him to know just how much.

  He pulled away and looked down at me. The love and desire mixed together in his darkened eyes as he smiled at me mischievously.

  There go my plans, he teased, to stalk you until you gave in.

  I laughed, pulling him down for another kiss. His tongue slid into my mouth and I sighed at the feel of what he was doing to me. My body was coming alive beneath his touch.

  You planned on stalking me? I asked, still smiling.

  Yup, that was the plan, he replied with a mischievous glint in his eye.

  And what if that didn’t work? I played along.

  Handcuffs. I giggled.

  What are you going to do with the handcuffs? I asked, already knowing the naughty answer.

  Tie you to the bed, he revealed.

  I loved the lightheartedness of our interaction. Everything in my life had been so serious and heavy to carry, so for once it was nice to shut out the outside world and just enjoy the moment with him.

  Isn’t it better if you don’t have to tie me down? I shot back as I wiggled my eyebrows at him.

  He laughed. It was a deep rumble of his chest.

  We’ll have to try it out and see, he suggested as he wiggled his eyebrows back at me.

  “Come here,” I instructed softly, needing him closer than he was. He smiled and obeyed me, settling his body against mine as I opened my legs.

  The feel of his masculine body against mine awakened my physical need to be closer to him. I wanted him—needed him—so badly.

  “Please,” I breathed against his lips as he bent down to kiss me. I was trying to relay the need into words.

  “Say it,” he instructed as I put my hands to his bare chest.

  “I need you,” I told him, holding his gaze. I felt no shame in admitting that to him.

  “Anything for you,” he whispered against my lips as he kissed me one last time before he pulled away.

  In a hurry we stripped down and he loved every inch of my body until finally he pushed into me, sending me over the edge. I held him as he followed me. Breathless, he leaned his head against mine.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of you,” he whispered to me as he pressed a soft kiss to my lips.

  I knew I would never get enough of him. I would never get tired of this either. Smiling, I hugged his body to mine. He was all I would ever need. He shifted off me and lay beside me, still trying to catch his breath. I leaned my head against his chest as he wrapped an arm around me.

  “You're incredible,” he said as he kissed my forehead.

  “You’re not too bad yourself,” I shot back, and he laughed.

  A calm silence settled between us and I just lay there enjoying the feel of him against me.

  “Now that we’ve decided I’m going to join your pack, I need to go back,” he said, squeezing me a little tighter.

  I didn’t want him to leave but understood why he had to.

  “I need to wrap up things and talk to Cade about taking over my pack,” he began to explain. They’d already joined packs but it had only been a temporary arrangement, but now that Blake was going to join my pack, it would have to become a more permanent arrangement.

  “How long will you need to be gone?” I asked, already nervous about the fact that he would be leaving.

  “I don’t know, maybe a few days,” he replied.

  “I don’t want you to go,” I said, feeling vulnerable. Loving a person made you vulnerable to their actions and it was going to take some getting used to.

  “I wouldn’t go if I didn’t have to,” he explained as he hugged me.

  “I know.”

  It was important for him to tie up all the loose ends before he joined my pack.

  “I don’t want to leave you either, but I feel better now that you can shift,” he said. “But while I’m gone you are not, under any circumstances, allowed to leave the property.”

  I nodded my head.

  “I won’t,” I replied. There would be no reason for me to have to leave the safety of the property.

  “I'll be fine,” I assured him. I didn’t want him to be too worried about me, so he could do what he needed to.

  The sooner he sorted things out, the sooner he could get back. Now that I’d found him and we’d sorted out the problems that had kept us apart, I wanted to start our life together as soon as possible. Curtis and I had started putting plans into place to catch the traitor but we could handle that on our own.

  “I'll leave in the next hour,” he told me, and I nodded my head. I wished he didn’t have to leave but the sooner he left, the sooner he would be back.

  “Are you going to join me in the shower before I leave?” he asked, wiggling his eyebrows at me.

  “Did you even have to ask?” I replied, shaking my head at him.

  He slid out of the bed and led me by the hand to the bathroom. In the shower, under the stream of water, he loved me again and afterward I leaned my head against his chest.

  “I think I could get used to this,” I said.

  “I’m glad to hear that,” he said with a teasing smile.

  We both showered and quickly rinsed off before our raging hormones got the better of us again. If I could, I’d keep him locked up.

  I picked up my clothes off the floor as Blake dried off and hung the towel in the bathroom. He walked in and got his clothes. I watched him as he began to get dressed. My happy and satisfied feeling was being ruined by the nervous knot that had started to form in the pit of my stomach.

  I was nervous that he was leaving and it wasn’t only because I was going to miss him. It was much more than that. When he was with me, I could keep him safe; but when he left, I wouldn’t have any way to protect him and that made me scared. Loving him was the happiest I’d ever felt but I knew as quickly as it came it could be taken away. Losing someone you loved was crushing and I feared that losing Blake would be something I would never recover from.

  “Don’t look so worried,” he said, pulling me out of my thoughts as he dropped a soft kiss on my lips.

  “I can’t help it.” I shrugged, trying to shake off the feeling that something bad was going to happen.

  “I’ll be back before you know it,” he assured me with that signature sexy smile of his that made me want to kiss him.

  I tried to push the bad thoughts out of my mind as I followed him to his room so he could pack some stuff. But it didn’t help. I would be on edge until he came back.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Keri

  It was hard not thinking about him after he left. I felt like I was missing something important and nothing helped that annoying feeling. But there wasn’t time to mope around; I had things I needed to do. On my way to meet up with Curtis, I bumped into Kyle.

  “Hey, you,” he greeted with a knowing smile, and I glared at him.

  “What?” he asked innocently.

  “I’m not talking a
bout it,” I stated as I walked past him. I knew he wanted to talk to me about Blake but anything Blake and I shared wasn’t something I was willing to talk about with anyone else, even if I was starting to consider him a friend. He’d weaseled his way into my heart somehow when I wasn’t looking.

  “Eww,” he said as he followed behind me, looking disgusted. “Who said I wanted those details?”

  I just shook my head and continued my way to the medical center. Just outside the door, Kyle stopped me with a hand on my wrist.

  “I just wanted to tell you that you deserve all the happiness you’re getting,” he said in a more serious tone.

  “Thanks,” I said, feeling awkward.

  “He’d better make you happy or else I’ll make him sorry,” he told me, and I couldn’t help the smile that tugged at my lips.

  “He will make me happy,” I assured him. Despite everything we’d gone through, we’d managed to put it all behind us and get to the point where we were. We were mated and we were happy.

  “So where is he?” he asked.

  “He had to go back to his pack,” I informed him.

  “He shouldn’t be leaving you on your own with the whole crazy ex-beta guy still stalking around and trying to get his hands on you,” he said with a frown.

  “He needed to go back,” I insisted and I pulled my wrist free.

  “Why?” he asked, sounding a little angry now.

  “Because he needed to tell Cade that he’s leaving and joining my pack,” I explained, feeling annoyed that Kyle had automatically assumed Blake had done something wrong.

  “Really?” he asked, sounding a little shocked.

  I nodded my head.

  “He really is stepping up, isn’t he?” he murmured thoughtfully.

  “Yes, he is,” I replied, feeling uncomfortable at sharing this information with him.

  “I’m glad he’s making you happy. You deserve it,” he said, throwing an arm around my shoulder. “Come on, let’s go see what Curtis is up to,” he added as we walked into the medical center.

  Despite how hard I’d tried to keep Kyle at a distance, I now considered him a friend and it would be hard when he left. I would miss him.

  “Have you decided when you’re going back?” I asked.

  “Are you trying to get rid of me already?” he asked, faking offense.

  “No,” I replied.

  “Good,” he stated with a smile. “At some point I have to go back. My pack isn’t going to be able to run itself forever. But there is no way I’m leaving until Blake gets back.”

  I nodded. I appreciated it.

  “I have to come up with a new nickname for you,” he told me as we came to a stop outside Curtis’ office.

  “Really? What’s wrong with Cinderella?” I asked. I hated the nickname, of course, but I played along.

  “I think we should call you princess,” he stated, and I rolled my eyes.

  “Come on, think about it. You were a Cinderella but now that you’re going to get your happy-ever-after, you should be called princess,” he stated with such a serious face that I began to giggle.

  “It’s not funny,” he stated, pretending to be hurt.

  “If you start calling me princess I will start calling you Prince Charming,” I warned him with a smile. Two could play at this game.

  “You wouldn’t!” he gasped, indignantly horrified.

  “I would,” I stated in a serious tone, although the smile on my face was a dead giveaway.

  “Fine,” he relented.

  “Just think of how many girls you’ll land if I call you Prince Charming,” I teased as I opened the door to the office.

  “None,” he quipped back, shaking his head, and I laughed.

  “You’ll make your mate really happy one day,” I said while walking into the office that…was empty. I was surprised Curtis wasn’t already waiting for me, but I brushed it off. I’d give him a few more minutes before I went looking for him.

  “That’s if I ever find her,” he said, sounding a little sad. I turned to face him.

  “You will,” I assured him even though we tended to find our mates when we were younger and he was older than us.

  “Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”

  For once I got a glimpse into the more serious side of Kyle and it made me sad that he felt he was never going to find his mate. I wasn’t the affectionate type, but I reached for his hand and gave it a squeeze.

  “You’ll find her and when you do you’ll be so happy,” I stated to him like I could see into a crystal ball.

  “Thanks…princess,” he said, giving my hand a squeeze back. And with that one word we went from having a serious conversation to laughing.

  “You’re welcome, Prince Charming,” I shot back, giggling at the thought of him dressed like Prince Charming from a fairy tale.

  He pressed his lips together and gave me a playful glare. I’d never felt so lighthearted before and it was nice not to have to be serious all the time. My thoughts went to Blake and how much I was missing him already and it hadn’t even been that long yet.

  Kyle and I were still smiling when Curtis walked into his office a few minutes later.

  One look at his expression told me something serious was up.

  “What is it?” I asked, feeling the lightness of the moment disappear and I felt the weight of worry settle inside of me.

  He looked at me and then looked to Kyle, who had stopped smiling as well.

  “We have a problem,” he stated, sounding stressed.

  “What?” I asked. It came out more sharply than I intended because I was starting to feel panicky. Clearly whatever he was going to tell me wasn’t going to be good.

  “Remember the plans we put into place to catch the traitor?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I replied. “Did it work?”

  “Yes.”

  So we knew who the traitor was. Wasn’t that supposed to be a good thing?

  “Shouldn’t that be good news that we finally know the identity of the werewolf that has been feeding Richard inside information?” I asked, feeling a little confused at Curtis’ visible agitation.

  “Yes, it should be good news,” he mumbled as he sat down in his chair.

  “What is the problem?” I asked, starting to get a little angry that he hadn’t told me why he was so stressed.

  “We thought it was just one,” he said.

  Then my mind caught up.

  “How many?” I asked, feeling my heart harden at the thought that more than one member of my pack wanted me dead and Richard in charge as the new alpha.

  “At least two,” he answered, watching me for my reaction.

  It was a lot to take in.

  “How did you find this out?” I asked. We’d fed four locations to four different people and the fact that, according to Curtis, two had been compromised made me wonder how Curtis knew it was more than one. Richard couldn’t breach two different places.

  “Richard has breached one location and a group of rogues have breached another,” he stated as if reading my thoughts.

  “Rogues,” Kyle murmured, deep in thought beside me.

  “The same rogues that had helped my father,” I stated, reeling from the shock that so many werewolves were set on taking me down for the power of running one of the biggest packs in the country.

  “Where are they?” I asked, feeling my happiness fade away as I realized the danger we were in.

  “They are on their way,” he informed me. “Maybe half an hour, if even that.”

  Thoughts of Blake and everything else faded away as I tried to keep my thoughts focused on how we were going to handle them.

  I wanted to hold on to the hope that there weren't any more traitors in my pack, but I couldn't. The fact that two locations had been breached meant that there were at least two traitors, which shocked me.

  "How many rogues are there?" Kyle asked.

  "A lot," Curtis answered. "Around thirty.”

  That was a l
ot of rogues. Is that what Richard had been doing since the last time he'd attacked me? Building an army to be able to take control of my pack?

  I rubbed my temple as I tried to think through every scenario. While thirty rogues wouldn't be enough to take my pack, I feared that if there were more traitors in my pack, then I could be in serious trouble.

  The worried look on Curtis' face told me he'd already considered that thought. I shared a look with Curtis before I turned to Kyle.

  “You need to leave,” I instructed in full alpha mode. He arched an eyebrow at me.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he stated with a determined look.

  “I’m responsible for the members of my pack,” I began to argue.

  “I’m not leaving,” he stated fiercely, crossing his arms.

  I sighed and rubbed my forehead as I tried to think of another way to approach him.

  “I can’t guarantee something bad isn’t about to happen.”

  “I’ll take the risk because there is no way I’m leaving you,” he said with finality in his voice that told me there was no point in arguing.

  “What if I lose more members to Richard? I don’t know how many are going to swap sides, and if I don’t have enough pack members it’s going to be a slaughter,” I explained, trying to keep my emotions in check.

  “I don’t care. You’re my friend and I won’t leave you. We’re in this together,” he said and he turned to face Curtis. There was a look of respect that passed from Curtis to Kyle.

  I felt the added weight to my shoulders. I cared about Kyle and I didn’t want anything to happen to him but, as he’d stated, he was going to stay even if it meant certain death.

  “You’re wasting time. I won’t change my mind,” Kyle told me, and I let out a frustrated sigh. I turned to face Curtis. We didn’t have a lot of time to try and figure out a way to keep everyone safe.

  “Any suggestions?” I asked Curtis, trying to rack my brain for a solution.

  He seemed to be deep in thought as he rubbed his chin.