Claimed by the Mate, Volume 1

by Kate Douglas

  It was her parents’ bedroom back in Seattle. Tora, tall, slim, beautiful with her straight auburn hair reaching down to touch the small of her back.

  “You’re a liar!” Penn had come through the bedroom door yelling at her. “All these years you’ve been lying to me about my own child.”

  Tora had stood straight, shoulders squared as she stared at her alpha. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “The hell you don’t!” he roared, storming across the room to get right in Tora’s face. “She’s marked and you knew! You knew she bore the mark of the goddess and what that means.”

  “No,” Tora had whispered, her eyes blinking furiously, hands fisting at her sides. “How did you find out?”

  “It doesn’t matter how I found out!” Penn continued to bellow. “I know now and I know exactly what it means.”

  “Penn, you have no idea what it means for her, for the future of the lycans,” Tora tried to tell him.

  “It means that she’s going to be powerful. In a few months when she turns twenty-one she’s going to be a powerful bitch that was made to rule. That’s what I know! And I’ll be damned if I let her go and rule some other pack.”

  Tora shook her head. “It’s not up to you,” she said quietly, and moved around the alpha to head out of the room. “Her fate has been sealed by the goddess. She will come into her power and she will seek her alpha, the one that has been Selected for her. And there’s nothing you can do to stop that, Penn. Absolutely nothing.”

  Kira gasped. Her father had known she was Selected.

  “You’re a liar,” she whispered before her temples throbbed once more and another scene flashed in front of her.

  “She’s going to tell her and then she’ll leave. You promised me to her, Penn. You owe me.” Dallas had frowned, his wide nose flaring with his words. “Tora has to be eliminated.”

  “I don’t know how this selection process works,” Penn had told him. “My family wasn’t big on passing down any of the stories of the gods, since all of them are controlling bastards that we’d kill if we could.”

  Dallas had stared at him for a couple seconds, his dark eyes assessing, calculating. “I have to claim her. On her twenty-first birthday I can claim her. Then I will rule the pack; the power stays right here with you and I.”

  “Are you certain?” Penn had asked, looking as if he hadn’t actually believed what the beta had said.

  “I can claim her,” Dallas had said, lifting his hands so that his deadly nails detracted with a clicking sound.

  Penn seemed to contemplate, only for a minute, because then Dallas with those nails had stepped closer to him, aiming the nails at his neck. Penn had immediately shifted, growling at the beta, but Dallas had only laughed. “I could have killed you at any time, you old fool. But I kept you alive. Last night when I snuck into Kira’s bathroom, about to make her see which beta should she be with once and for all, I saw the reason why I hadn’t killed you. That little moon hovering right over her fat ass was all I needed to know. The time has come for me to take my rightful place in this pack, and claiming your thick-assed daughter is going to be the one that puts me there.”

  “You bastard!” Kira yelled the second the vision faded, her eyes trained on Penn. “You killed my mother! You killed her so that you could give me to this beast!” She swung an arm catching him off guard, her lycan nails scratching his face the same way she’d done his arm.

  The “beast” being Dallas, who was just about to mimic her scratching motion with his claws aimed at Blaez as he leapt up off the ground. Of course Blaez was faster, reaching out and grabbing both of Dallas’s wrists, lifting him up off the ground, then tossing him even farther away.

  Blaez grabbed Kira then, pulling her close to his side. “You don’t want to do this,” he told Penn.

  For the first time in she couldn’t remember how long she saw what might be true emotion in her father or, rather, the alpha lycan who stood across from her. His mane of wild black hair stood up wildly, his fangs long and sharp as he opened his mouth to howl his response back to Blaez. His body surrounded in a gruesome dark haze depicting that of the evil and demented, sparks of red representing his deep anger adding to the mixture. She knew what it was she saw now, knew what she’d been seeing for the past couple of weeks. It was the lycan’s true form, his most inner emotions displayed on the outside for only her to see.

  With her heart pounding at what Kira realized must be the power she was promised as one of the Selected, she spotted Cody in her peripheral, charging forward. He too had looked red in the night, his quickness met by Phelan’s mighty growl as he crashed into the younger lycan’s chest full on, knocking him off his feet. As for the others, Kira heard growling and thumping in the distance and knew that they were fighting.

  Channing and Malec were battling to save her. Phelan had just taken a blow from Cody but was retaliating with double blows of his own, jumping on Cody as he fell on his back this time, growling with the full force of his beast in Cody’s face. That’s when Kira felt it, the pull and tug against her own skin, the ripping of her claws as they extended even longer. Unlike Dallas’s, hers weren’t poisonous, but they were still deadly and inches longer than the other lycans’. Her claws were like knives attached to her fingertips, and as her own fangs elongated she opened her mouth to match the growls sounding around her, rolling her head once more, this time feeling the immediate growth of her hair, the drooping of her forehead, and the bunching of her muscles.

  “Mine!” Penn said again with more persistence before reaching out to grab her arm.

  Dallas surprised them all by moving from his place near Blaez to stand in front of Penn. “No, old man. This is my bitch!”

  The air around her sizzled, like there was a lightning bolt or some strange sort of energy emanating in the area. The cool breeze that she’d felt the moment Blaez had opened the door picked up until even the trees rocked back and forth, the ground beneath her shaking so hard she stumbled forward, landing on her hands and knees.

  Cool grass ruffled beneath her fingers, the surface still vibrating as a familiar scent permeated her senses. That feeling of togetherness, of being two connected instead of one, washing over her immediately. It was strange and then again it wasn’t. A part of her knew exactly what was happening, exactly what needed to happen.

  And that’s when she saw it. Standing right next to her, with a body as tall and broad as hers, its fur a glistening white and gray, eyes sparkling sapphire blue. It was a wolf, the same one from her dreams. Its flanks moved in and out, in conjunction with her own breaths, its fur blowing in the breeze. There was a great power in this wolf; Kira felt it in the air around them and going deep down to the ground beneath. This was definitely the wolf she’d dreamed about. The one that now bared its teeth, leaning toward Dallas in a definitely predatory way, its power rippling straight through the earth, surfacing where she stood, and wrapping its protective aura around … her.

  Chapter 14

  The first bite was to his leg, knocking Dallas onto his ass, in a more permanent nature this time. The lycan fell back, howling in pain as Blaez, in his wolf form, climbed atop him, growling down into his face.

  “No!” Penn yelled. “Don’t!”

  “He tried to rape me and you still protect him!” Blaez heard Kira yell. He knew she was talking about Dallas and that’s why he’d bitten the lycan the first time. Now Blaez continued to growl, thoroughly enjoying how afraid and confused Dallas was looking up at him, just before he took a bite out of his other leg.

  There was no other lycan walking the earth who could turn into a full-fledged wolf. None who had the strength, the cunning and intuition that he had. They didn’t have the power of a god because the only blood that ran through their veins was that of Nyktimos with the wolf traits he’d inherited from Lykaon.

  Blaez had so much more.

  “You lied to me about my mother’s death and now you’re protecting him. You don’t give a damn
about me!” Kira yelled.

  “You belong to our pack; there’s nothing you can do about that,” Penn responded.

  “Not anymore. Not without my mother,” she countered.

  “She’s dead because she betrayed me and the pack. She should have told me what you were and she should have let me decide how to deal with you. Instead I let Dallas deal with her,” Penn continued. “I’m not going to let you destroy what I’ve worked so long and so hard to build. And I’m certainly not going to watch you join forces with this disgusting spawn of Nyktimos! I’ll kill you myself first!”

  Before Penn could do anything Blaez was on the move. In the back of his mind he’d heard her scream, even though her father had yet to strike. Blaez had felt her pain like shards of glass pelting his own skin. He growled loudly before leaping away from Dallas, to land on Penn, Blaez’s teeth sinking into the alpha’s neck with deadly accuracy to its jugular vein. And as Blaez knew Penn’s life was draining out of him he heard Kira’s growl.

  “You bastard!” she yelled. “You killed my mother, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”

  “She was as hardheaded and uncontrollable as you are. But I will control you, Kira. I will claim you and bend you to my will. With you I will leave the world of a lowly beta to transition to the most powerful alpha this world has ever seen,” Dallas informed her.

  The lycan must have begun healing from Blaez’s bites, enough so that he could get up off the ground.

  “Never!” she yelled, and when the wolf turned this time it was to see Kira, mouth wide, fangs sharp and glowing in the moon’s gaze, jumping on Dallas.

  This time the lycan did not fall but swatted his beefy arm just in time to knock Kira onto the ground. He jumped on top of her then, ripping at her chest with his deadly claws. The wolf saw the moment Kira’s body went still and growled before jumping on Dallas’s back and sinking its teeth into his neck, then quickly administering another bite to the back of his skull. The lycan growled loudly, lifting up off of Kira, arching his back with the wolf still attached biting into each of his shoulders and when he finally fell to the ground once more the wolf tore off his hands, rendering the poisonous claws defenseless and their owner dead.

  “We’ll get her inside!” Phelan yelled. “And we’ll take care of the others. You go. Go!”

  The wolf looked at Kira as Phelan lifted her still-paralyzed body from the ground.

  “Go! Before they see you too!” Phelan yelled at it once more.

  Blaez growled again, before taking off into a run into the forest, away from the house where the betas from Penn’s pack were obviously still alive. They couldn’t see him like this. If they did they would have to die. Nobody could know who and what he really was. That wouldn’t be safe for anyone.

  * * *

  “What time is it?” Kira asked, her throat and lips dry as she tried to sit up.

  Channing was sitting beside her, pressing hot, wet towels to her chest, which felt like somebody had taken a good punch at her.

  “Whoa there,” Channing said. “Let’s take this slowly. I don’t know what aftereffects those poison claws usually have.”

  “Dammit!” she cursed, lying back on the pillows with a thump and closing her eyes. Dallas had scratched her. In those moments she remembered the razor-sharp tips of his claws sinking into her skin, felt the heat of the poison seeping into her bloodstream only seconds later.

  He’d been on top of her, glaring down at her the same way he had the night of the last full moon when he’d tried to claim her. Tonight, even in lycan form, his dick had been hard, his heart beating wildly to match the look in his eyes. He was going to do it, right there in the open. He was going to attempt to claim her.

  But he would have failed. He was not whom she was Selected for. Kira knew that as certainly as she knew her own name.

  He’d bared his teeth to her the second he decided to cut into her with his claws. She’d lifted her arms, wanting to catch him in the face or somewhere else with her own claws first, anything to give her a few seconds to roll out of his reach, but that hadn’t happened. She’d been too slow and he’d paralyzed her. In that moment he’d thought he’d won.

  Except the wolf had been there. It had come soaring through the dark sky, its bright eyes and coat of fur like some type of god coming down from the heavens. It had killed Dallas, but Kira had not been able to get up and go to it or to even turn her head and see it before it ran off. She hadn’t been able to thank it … him … Blaez.

  “Where’s Blaez?” she asked quietly, her eyes still closed. She knew they were all there, could feel their steady gazes on her. But none of them spoke.

  She opened her eyes then, looking around to see that she was lying on the big sofa in the living room, the one she’d seen Channing, Malec, and that female leaning against a week ago. Channing was still sitting beside Kira, his hands seemingly frozen over the towel on her chest. Malec stood behind him, his face fixed in a grim frown. Phelan she had to turn her head slightly to see standing closer to the door. He was waiting for Blaez.

  “Will he come back on his own?” she asked Phelan specifically. He’d turned to her; his scar looked puffier, redder, than she recalled ever seeing it, his arms folded over his chest.

  “He always does,” was Phelan’s clipped reply.

  She blinked, took a deep inhalation, and was glad when she didn’t feel that deep pang of pain again, which meant she was already beginning to heal. “When?” was her next question.

  “When it’s time,” was Phelan’s reply.

  “Just relax,” Channing told her. “We’re here and we’ll take care of you.”

  “Penn,” she said in an almost whisper. “Where is he?”

  “Dead!” Malec snapped. “Him and that bastard that tried to take you!”

  There was definitely malice in Malec’s voice, laced with the anger that was still simmering around this room. So it was over, she thought with another slow blink of her eyes. Then why were they all standing watch over her like they expected something else to happen?

  “Cody and the others? Where are they?” she asked, but was met with total silence.

  She moved again, this time slowly, sitting the upper half of her body up, giving Channing a gaze that dared him to try to stop her. “I want to know what happened and I need one of you to tell me.” She put her hand on top of Channing’s, moving the towel from her chest so she could look down at it.

  Four jagged scratches showed, ripped flesh still raw and puffy but no longer bleeding on the tattered pieces of her shirt. She grabbed the pillow from behind her head, quickly putting it in front of her chest as she looked at them again. They looked tired but still lethal as hell, with muscles protruding and glares so angry and tight the tension just about radiated from their skin.

  “We had to kill them,” Malec told her. “There was no other choice.”

  “I don’t think the two we had saw anything,” Channing added, his lips drawing in a thin line after he finished.

  “They would have figured it out!” Phelan snapped. “We all know what that means. So they had to die.”

  She’d been looking from one to the other even as Channing took her hand in his. “They can’t know who or what he is, Kira. There’s too much at stake if anyone ever finds out.”

  He heart was slamming against her chest at this point, her mind whirling with the things that they’d been saying. “What … what is he? Why can’t anyone know? Tell me, Channing!”

  “It’s his story to tell,” Phelan said dryly. “When he wants and to who he wants.”

  “But I’m…,” she started. “I’m his—” she attempted to say, then stopped. She knew, without any doubt; at this very moment Kira knew.

  It was like a light, that bright light that she’d seen radiating around him that very first night in the woods, filling her completely on the inside. That light brought knowledge, a warmth settling over her as everything became clearer. Her. Blaez. The day she’d envisioned seeing him hurt. The drea
m of his wolf. It was all very clear and very meaningful.

  She had been Selected for Blaez. And whatever he really was, however dangerous he perceived that to be was why he continued to deny it, to deny her and their destiny. It wasn’t only what had happened to his family; it was his wolf that now stood between them.

  They all looked at her expectantly, like there was so much hanging on her next words. And there was, she thought clearly. Her next words, her actions, all of their lives—this pack that she was so ready to call her own and Blaez’s included—depended on what happened next.

  “I’m going to get him,” she said.

  She tossed the pillow down and was trying to move her legs to get off the couch, but Channing was still sitting there, blocking the way.

  “Where … you don’t know where he is. None of us do. We just wait. He always comes back; as soon as the moon is gone once more, he always comes back,” Channing told her.

  “This is the first time he’s killed like that,” Malec added as if that made a difference.

  “Like a wolf,” she said. “Blaez is a wolf.”

  The realization hit her just like that cool breeze of air had earlier this evening. She wasn’t shocked, but she knew she should be. “Why is he a wolf? None of us have a complete shift like that. Why does he?”

  “It’s his story!” Phelan yelled as if he was exasperated with her in particular.

  Kira didn’t care; she pushed Channing to the side and stood from the chair, stalking over to where Phelan was standing to get in his face. “Let’s be clear here, Phelan. I’m in love with him, whatever or whyever he is. I was Selected for him,” she said, feeling the truth of those words trickling into every pore of her body.

  None of them spoke for what seemed like endless moments.

  It had taken her a little longer than it should have for her to get up the steps, change her shirt, and come back down. She was still a little light-headed from the poison, but the scratches were continuing to heal and would most likely be gone within the hour. While she was in Blaez’s bedroom—the one she’d been sharing with him—Kira glanced at the clock to see that hours had passed since they’d first gone out to greet Penn’s pack. The sun would be rising soon. And Blaez would come back. That’s what Channing said.