by T. S. Joyce
Kellen frowned at her, but nodded slowly, then strode toward the door. “Oh,” he said, turning. “We’re having a little celebration tonight for Brooke’s return. I’d be honored if you came. With me. As my…” He ran his hands roughly through his dark hair and sighed, then tried again. “I’d like it if you let me sit by you.” His nostrils flared as he inhaled slowly. “I mean, I want to feed you and take care of you.”
Okay, he’d been doing a good job of asking her to the party until the last part. Who said stuff like that? He wanted to feed her? Was it a fetish perhaps? But he was staring at her so openly awaiting her answer, and as strange as his combination of words were, they pulled at something deep within her. Something she’d long thought was dead. He wanted to take care of her. Even though he was paired with Brooke, he was still friend enough to want to show her how a man should treat a woman. “Okay.”
A slow smile crept across his face, and he approached her slow. “Yeah?”
“It’s not like I have that much of a choice, Kellen Cade Brown. You kidnapped me, remember?”
The smile faded from his face, and he crooked a finger under her chin until she lifted her gaze to his. “You can escape this place anytime you want. Your will is free here, Beautiful. Go with me because you want to. Not because I’m making you.”
She nodded once, and his eyes dipped to her lips. The humor she’d seen in his expression a second ago didn’t exist anymore. The air grew heavy around them, like it had in the truck, but this time, it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was warm like a blanket and settled her nerves. He touched her cheek, then cupped the back of her neck gently with his oversize hand. His thumb stroked circles into her hair, and with his other hand, he tucked a dark tress behind her ear, away from her face.
She was exposed here in front of this almost stranger, but for the first time in a long time, she felt like someone actually saw her. Her. Not what she could do for him, or how important her bloodline and children would be. Kellen was looking at her as if he knew her down to her bones.
Slowly, he lowered his lips to hers. She should run. This was wrong. They were promised and bound to others, but he held her in his gaze, and she was transfixed and helpless to flee. Angling his head, he pressed his lips against hers. She was surprised at how soft they were. He was scarred—a tall, wide, hard man who filled the air around him with dominance. His lips should’ve been demanding, but they weren’t. They plucked at hers with tiny, sexy smacking sounds until she leaned into him and stood on her tiptoes for more. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she opened her mouth to allow him to taste her. His tongue brushed hers in the softest touch, and a delicious rumble filled his throat. She’d done that, pulled that sexy noise from him. She nibbled on his bottom lip, and he gasped. His expression went completely blank, and he moved away as if to escape her, but then he leaned in again and held her tightly against his chest. Stroking her hair, he said, “I shouldn’t have done that. You aren’t ready, and you need to be alone to find yourself before a man touches you like that again. I’m sorry.”
Done what? Kissed her? Hell yeah, he shouldn’t have done that. He had a mate, and he was currently soaking the panties of another woman—namely her. But he was rocking slowly back and forth, crushing her to his sternum, and the guilt just kept piling up and up. He wasn’t worried about Brooke. He was worried he’d kissed Skyler while she was still traumatized by Roger’s abuse. This was all so confusing.
A lump formed in her throat, suffocating her as he squeezed even harder. Panic froze her as the repercussions of what she’d just done with him set in.
He hadn’t just kissed her.
He’d changed her.
“I think you should go,” she whispered.
Because she was definitely about to fall apart, and she didn’t want him to see her shatter into a million pieces of broken, messy Skyler. She was porcelain right now. Raw, fragile, and spider-webbed with cracks so thin they were almost invisible. But all it took was one more blow, and she’d be nothing but sharp edges and dust.
“You want me to leave?” he asked, sounding hurt.
“I need you to.”
His throat moved against her cheek as he swallowed hard. “I’m sorry,” he said again, then turned without another word and left her alone.
It was hard to keep her sobbing quiet. She knew what he was now, and it wasn’t a lesser shifter. He wasn’t a field mouse or an otter. He was an apex predator, born to sense everything in his territory. He’d hear her hitched breathing and quiet weeping, but she didn’t want to share this heartache with him or anyone else.
She wasn’t his problem. Her insecurities were her own.
She padded through the tiny living area and kitchen to the bedroom where a neatly made queen-size bed took up the middle of the room. Bracketed by two windows covered with pretty blue blackout curtains, the room was darker than the rest of the house. This was it. Her sanctuary. This was where her heart would break. And for the first time in months, it felt okay somehow. She hadn’t dared to shed a single tear in the cabin she’d lived in with Roger. He’d hate her even more for feeling anything at all. But here, for reasons she couldn’t understand, she felt safe to let her demons out.
Quietly though.
She curled up under the soft comforter, pulled a pillow close, and held it against her face as she screamed her fury at the world. At the people she’d been born to and Roger’s unfortunate attention. For what he’d done to her. The bruises on her face and the scars that Kellen wouldn’t see, because she’d never let him witness what Roger had really done to her.
When her throat had gone hoarse and felt lined with glass, her cries of anger turned to weeping for what Kellen had shown her. He’d given a broken girl a flower and a soda, just because he was a nice person, but he would never realize what he’d really done.
He’d made her want.
He’d made her need more from a pairing than a demanding mate who would hurt her in the bedroom someday. Who would strip her down to nothing but bone and marrow until she didn’t feel anything. Kellen had made her life unacceptable with a kind gesture. He’d kidnapped her, sure. But he’d done it because he honestly thought he was saving her. How could she resent him for that? Her own father hadn’t come to her rescue when she phoned him and explained the horrible things Roger called her. Roger had grabbed her arm so hard it had bruised fingerprints around the inside of her elbow for days. Dad hadn’t come. He’d told her to buck up. A mating wasn’t supposed to be easy.
But Kellen made her think that a mating shouldn’t be this damned hard.
That’s when her crying turned pitiful.
Kellen. She was drawn to him, had been since she watched him pick out flowers in the grocery store, but he’d never be hers. Not even close. He hadn’t taken her because he liked her, he’d kidnapped her because he pitied her, which was the worst part of all. She’d done a fantastic job of hiding her predicament from everyone, bar her father. She’d managed to live in her own private hell, wishing something would happen to free her from the mess she’d found herself in, and when her sexy, bear-shifter knight in shining flannel swooped in there, it had been scary, liberating, and empowering.
But he belonged to another.
God, she was pathetic. Pining for some strange-talking man she didn’t understand who was in love with another. He was a stranger. This had to be her heart’s desperate attempt at latching on to the first man to show her kindness.
Her tears ran dry, and she hiccupped and gasped until she couldn’t cry anymore. Her head ached, her eyes were swollen, and she probably looked like a psychotic raccoon thanks to her unfortunate decision to wear mascara this morning. But deep inside, she felt a little better. What was it about crying her eyes out that released all of that ache she’d been harboring? She should’ve felt like a weakling, but instead, she felt more clear-minded than she had in months.
Roger wasn’t it for her.
Her life had meaning.
All it had taken was
a few hours with a nice stranger to show her she had more value than a fertile womb and the bloodline that ran her veins. She inhaled deeply and hugged her pillow to her chest.
But…the banishment.
Her epiphany didn’t matter. She was utterly and unfailingly stuck in this lonely life.
Nards, the mouse, crept across the dark wood-laminate flooring, dragging his giant testicles behind him, and she couldn’t help a tiny smile. She wasn’t alone after all. Her gaze arced after him as he sped up and disappeared under the bathroom door. Her gaze met a pair of silvery blue eyes, simmering with emotion.
She gasped and sat up.
Kellen was crouched on the floor, weight shifted on one leg like he’d wanted to escape but couldn’t.
“Kellen! How long have you been there?”
He hunched his shoulders at the shrill pitch of her voice, but dammit, that sob-fest had been meant for a pathetic party of one.
“You were crying,” he said.
“I know. I wanted to do it alone.”
He dipped his chin and canted his head, eyes on the bed skirt beneath her. “No one should cry like that alone.”
“Yes, they should, if they want to be alone.”
He frowned, looking entirely baffled. “Oh.” He shifted his attention to the door where several tall, sexy-looking, sweat-and-dirt-streaked men hovered. “She’s okay.”
“You sure?” A stocky man with a shaved head and a tattoo down his neck asked. “She doesn’t look like she’s okay to me.”
“Who the fuck did that to your face?” A Nordic-looking man with slanted eyes and shoulder-length blond hair asked. He appeared savage in the dim light as shadows stretched across his furious face.
“Drew,” Kellen warned.
“No. Explain, Kellen. You brought a woman up here, and she’s all banged up and crying. We need to know what’s going on.”
“She ain’t just a woman. Not like Brooke was,” Kellen said, standing slowly. “She’s a shifter. Been beat up by her own kind.”
“That true?” Drew asked.
“The man I’m promised to”—she circled her finger in front of her face—“did this.”
“Why?” a sandy brown-haired man with a beard asked.
Kellen handed her a box of tissues, and she wiped her face and tried to smile. It hurt. “I wasn’t being a good enough mate.”
“Fuck that,” Drew said in a careless tone. “Who is he? We’ll fix him up right for ya.”
“No!” she rushed out. Lowering her voice to a more tolerable level, she repeated, “No. Kellen was nice enough to take me away to give me a little break from him, but I don’t want this starting some shifter war or anything. It’s fine. I’m…figuring everything out.” She licked her dry lips and said, “I’m Skyler.”
Kellen handed her a Dixie cup of cool water and said, “Skyler, meet the Ashe crew. We all work the mountain to the east of the trailer park together. That’s Drew.” He pointed to the Nordic-looking man. “Haydan is over there,” he said, and the man with the tattoo and shaved head nodded once in greeting. “Denison is the ugly one with the beard, and Brighton was born to the same sow.”
When he pointed to the two men with light brown hair and light facial scruff, she thought Kellen had to be teasing by calling them ugly. They were very handsome. “You’re brothers?”
“By blood. The whole crew feels like family to us, though,” Denison said with a kind smile. “We’ve been together for years. My brother over here don’t talk, but he understands just fine.”
“Hi, Brighton,” she said with a shy, two-fingered wave.
Brighton smiled, his green eyes crinkling, and he nodded. He pointed to her face, and the smile dropped from his face. He looked sad.
“It doesn’t hurt much anymore,” she lied. “It happened Thursday.”
“I’m Bruiser,” an imposing man with muscular arms the size of tree trunks said from the doorway. “We’ll get out of your hair, but if you need us to gut the man who did that to your face, just say the word. We’ve been itching for a fight since Connor and Jed—”
“Bruiser,” Drew said in a harsh voice.
The behemoth frowned. “Right. You probably wouldn’t want to hear about all that. If you need anything, just holler.”
The crew of disastrously good-looking lumberjack bear shifters shuffled from the room. Brighton approached and touched her shoulder, and Denison did the same before they left. She understood. Touch was important to most shifters, and it did make her feel comforted that these strangers didn’t seem to mean her any harm.
Apex predators they might be, but mindless hunters they were not.
Kellen jerked his head toward the window as his eyes took on a faraway look. “They’re back.”
“Who?” she asked.
A slow, stunning smile took his face. “Brooke’s home.”
Chapter Four
Dread slammed into Skyler like a punch in the gut. It was hard to draw breath as Kellen rushed to the door. “Come out when you’re ready,” he called. “I want you to meet her!”
The front door banged closed, and she imagined him and Brooke running toward each other and clashing into each other’s arms.
But she was an adult who’d only met Kellen this afternoon, and no matter what her traitorous heart was trying to tell her, she didn’t have feelings for him like that. He was an acquaintance, a friend at most—that was all.
And as his friend, she needed to support his relationship with a woman he obviously cared for deeply. With a sigh of determination, she stood and made her way into the bathroom. Nards was nowhere to be found, so she stepped up to the sink and stifled a yelp. She looked like hell on a hot day. The make-up she’d attempted to cover the bruises with this morning had run off. Her mascara streaked down her cheeks, the oversize flannel shirt she’d been hiding from the world in made her boobs look saggy, and her nose was red. With a strangled groan, she splashed water over her face until her make-up was completely gone, then shimmied out of her red flannel button-up. Underneath, she wore a red tank top with tiny black polka dots that hugged her slim figure. Roger never would’ve let her wear something so revealing in public. He’d said he didn’t like people seeing too much of her skin, but fuck it all. She was smack dab in the middle of a trailer park overrun by badass bear shifters. If Roger had a problem with what she wore here, he could take it up with their canines.
She knelt down, feeling the stretch of her favorite pair of black leggings, and re-tied the laces on her dark hiking boots. When she stood, she was determined to make a good impression on Brooke and the rest of the people here. She liked the Ashe crew. They didn’t know her from Eve, but they’d offered to go after Roger when they’d seen the bruises on her face. In those few minutes she’d conversed with them, they’d won her loyalty.
Running her fingers through the soft waves of her long, gnarled hair, she rushed to the front door. With a steadying sigh, she rallied her reserve, then threw the door open wide and hustled onto the small porch.
She’d expected Brooke to be beautiful. How could she not be to have caught the attention of a man who looked like Kellen? And she’d been right. Brooke stepped out of a silver Volvo in front of a trailer across the dirt road. It was hard to make her out through the crowd of men around her hugging her up tight. But through the shifting bodies, she could make out long, curled blond hair and animated green eyes. An easy smile and laugh lines. Kellen handed her a box of wine and the flowers, and she doubled over laughing before she side-hugged his waist.
Their interaction lacked chemistry. Skyler frowned. She’d expected to have to witness kissing and groping, but Kellen easily passed her off to Denison for a hug. A lean man with dark hair and blue eyes she didn’t recognize sauntered around the back of a black pickup truck and clapped Kellen on the back. They murmured something much too low for her to hear and laughed.
Then the man did something incomprehensible. He leaned over and kissed Brooke square on the lips. It was one of tho
se tender, romantic, all-in-with-the-feels kisses that made Skyler blush for witnessing.
Kellen jogged over to Skyler, but he stopped at the porch stairs, and his eyes went round. “You look…” He left the word unspoken as his eyes raked over the tight fit of her tank top, leggings, and her clunky boots.
“I don’t understand,” she said on a breath. “I thought Brooke was yours.”
Kellen angled his head and narrowed his eyes. “My what?”
“Your mate?”
“Brooke?” he sputtered. “She’s Tagan’s mate. She’s mate to the alpha. I care for her deeply. We all do. She’s the only female in our crew, and she’s the best of us. She’s my friend, not my mate.”
Skyler felt stupid and tricked. “But you bought her flowers.”
“Because she deserves them. And wine because she likes it better than the beer we drink here. She’s a real lady, and ladies deserve for men to do sweet things for them.”
Kellen looked innocent and baffled in the waning evening light. He also looked a little upset.
“I’m sorry,” she said, relief flooding her until she was lightheaded. “Every time you spoke of Brooke, I thought you were talking about her because you loved her.”
“I don’t have a mate.” Now he sounded offended. “I don’t deserve one, and it isn’t my fate to protect a woman like that. All I’ll have is Brooke, my friend.” His shoulders drew up near his ears, as if he was embarrassed, and a soft blush touched his cheeks.
“Hey,” she said, desperate to comfort him. His uneasiness was her fault for making assumptions. She jogged down the stairs and touched his hand, then looked up into his eyes, now churning silvery-blue again. “I made a mistake. I didn’t know.”
She squeezed his hand, and he looked down at where their palms touched with a confused frown.
“I’m glad she isn’t your mate,” she whispered.
His startled gaze crashed into hers. “Why?”
Uh oh. Okay, she shouldn’t have admitted to her feelings like that. She wasn’t in a position where she could pursue a relationship with anyone, much less with someone who felt as dangerous to her heart as Kellen.