Fated

by R. L. Mathewson

  “How’s the water?” he asked with a satisfied smile as he held his hands over the roaring fire that added a nice little touch to the cold winter day.

  Instead of answering, Kara simply stood there surrounded by bits of ice as her lips turned an interesting shade of blue and wrapped her arms around herself in a pathetic attempt to warm herself up. It wouldn’t work, but he didn’t feel like pointing out the obvious right now, not when they had other things to discuss.

  “So, are you ready to talk now?” he asked, knowing exactly how stubborn his mate was and that she was going to do everything in her power to avoid this conversation.

  Hence, the nut shot.

  He really should have seen that one coming, he’d cornered her, tried to make her talk without having a plan and he’d paid for it. Shifting had helped his poor balls. It had also given him time to clear his head and come up with a plan to make her talk. Granted, she’d made it easy for him when she’d made that detour towards the lake and dove in.

  It wasn’t something that he would have done, but then again, he didn’t have a secret that he was willing to freeze his balls off for. She apparently did, which gave him the upper hand. She wasn’t getting out of that lake until she’d answered every single one of his questions. Judging by the look on her face, she knew it as well.

  When she tried to casually shoot a glance over her shoulder, trying to judge the distance to the other side of the lake, he couldn’t help but sigh. It was the dead of winter. The water had to be freezing and most of it was covered with a thin layer of ice. If she’d been human, she’d probably be frozen by now, but thanks to her Alpha genes she’d be able to stay in the lake for a few hours before they should start worrying.

  “You’ll never make it,” he said, deciding to point out the obvious when she kept staring longingly towards the other shore.

  “You don’t know that,” the stubborn woman that drove him out of his fucking mind said, sounding as though she was willing to try swimming across the frozen lake just to prove him wrong.

  “Go for it,” he said with a shrug, having no problem killing a few hours by a roaring fire.

  Besides, he still had to set up their tent. With that in mind, he grabbed his backpack and tent and set to work, the whole time feeling her homicidal glare boring into his back. That was fine with him, because the longer that she stayed in there, the faster he would get his answers once the interrogation began.

  “Sex,” she suddenly said just as he finished driving a stake into the ground, which was fortunate since he would have probably taken off his hand if she’d said it a few seconds earlier.

  “What?” he asked as he continued to stare down blindly at the stake that he’d just driven into the ground, absolutely positive that he’d misheard her, because there was no way that she just offered to have sex with him if he-

  “If you promise never to ask about my old Pack or what I’m doing in Boston,” she said through chattering teeth, “then I’ll have sex with you.”

  Chapter 27

  “No,” came the firm response that she hadn’t expected.

  “No?” she said, trying to hide her surprise and failing miserably, because she’d honestly thought that he would have dove into the water, torn off her clothes with his teeth, bent her over and fucked her without any further questions, but apparently she’d underestimated his stubbornness.

  Again, he shook his head, not really seeming all that concerned or impressed with her offer, which was really fucking insulting since at one point he’d practically begged her to be his mistress and now he was acting like the thought of sex with her bored him. Insulted, she was tempted to storm out of the ice cold lake and go for a third nut shot, but since her arm was still on fire and the freezing cold water was somewhat numbing the pain, somewhat being the operative word, she decided to stay right where she was and try to figure out how she was going to get out of this.

  The answer came pretty quickly, she wasn’t getting out of this, not this time and they both knew it. Standing there, freezing her butt off, she watched him as she tried to figure out what to say. After a few more seconds, it was obvious that there was no right way to explain this, no way to defend what she did, so she didn’t say anything.

  “I can do this all night,” he said, biting back a yawn as he tossed another log on the fire.

  Unfortunately, she couldn’t.

  Knowing that staying in the water for much longer was impossible and that he wasn’t going to let this go for both their sakes, she slowly made her way to the shore, dragging her feet as she went and keeping her gaze downcast, not out of submission, but fear, because she had absolutely no idea how to explain this to him or what she was going to do once he knew the truth.

  He didn’t say anything as she joined him by the fire and she appreciated that. When a chill tore through her, she decided to take her clothes off. She pulled off her water logged clothes and tossed them over a fallen log by the fire with a wet plopping noise

  Once she was completely naked, she stood there allowing the warmth from the fire to settle into her bones as she tried to find the right words. But they wouldn’t come to her. She wasn’t sure how long they stood there for, but at some point Drew stepped up behind her, wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, sharing his body heat with her. He placed his chin on her shoulder, pressed a kiss to her neck and held her.

  “You’re not ready to talk about this yet, are you?”

  Terrified that he was just playing with her and not really sure that she could trust herself not to blurt it out all at once, she bit her lip and shook her head as she continued to stare at the flames nearly reaching the top of her head.

  “Then we’ll talk about it when you’re ready,” he said, pressing his lips against her neck as he took her hands into his and warmed them, careful of the mark on her arm that still hurt.

  Grateful for the reprieve, she allowed him to lead her to the tent, something that she normally would have fought against due to the fact that there were probably insects and rodents inside, waiting to devour her face with their little tiny claws, attacking her while hundreds of little legs ran all over her body.

  Oh, God…

  She couldn’t do this.

  She really just couldn’t do this, she thought desperately as she tried to back away from the tent, but the persistent bastard moved behind her and wouldn’t give her an inch. Trying not to whimper or let him know just how badly she did not want to commune with nature, she closed her eyes, swallowed hard and woodenly allowed him to lead her inside the tent that seemed a lot smaller now that she was inside with a six foot shifter pulling up the rear.

  When she saw the large sleeping bag laid out on the floor, she practically dove for it even as she prayed that she wasn’t about to get eaten alive by ants or infested with ticks. Deciding that leaving herself exposed to the elements like this was not a good idea, she quickly yanked down the zipper of the sleeping bag, did a quick check and practically dove inside all while the judgmental bastard that had forced her to commune with nature took off his clothes.

  Without a word, he joined her in the sleeping bag, pulled the zipper back up, enclosing them in the small space, which would have normally pissed her off and had her thinking about going for a nut shot, but since he was warm and the bugs would probably attack him first, she decided to just go with it.

  Closing her eyes, she slowly exhaled and prayed that bugs were repulsed by the blood of shifters with a sweet tooth. She wrapped her arms over Drew’s where they held her close and told herself that it would all be over in a matter of minutes. She just needed to close her eyes and thanks to Drew, that’s exactly what she was able to do.

  *-*-*-*

  Stop. Fucking. Moving, he begged the little bastard, but it wouldn’t listen to him. It was too fucking focused on the fact that it was so close to heaven. The damn thing kept getting harder and harder, bouncing in vain as it searched for a way to get closer to her, but Drew, with his teeth clenched a
nd his hips pulled back as far as the sleeping bag would allow, made damn sure that the horny little bastard didn’t cause any more problems for them tonight.

  Sex! his cock practically screamed at him, not understanding the problem. He needed sex, she could give them sex, sex with her would feel unbelievably fucking fantastic. He’d already tried arguing with his cock, explaining that they couldn’t just fuck her, but his poor conditioned cock only understood sex.

  His cock had dreamed of her for years, imagined sliding into her late at night for years when the women that he’d bedded hadn’t been enough to give him what he needed. He’d always thought that it was fucked up that just thinking about Kara while using his hand had always been immensely more satisfying than actually fucking some woman that he’d barely known.

  Now that he knew that she was his mate and his cock would only respond to her, it was a thousand times worse, because now he couldn’t even jerk off to get her out of his system. He wanted her so fucking badly. When she’d offered to bribe him with sex, he’d actually considered saying yes and telling himself that he should just be happy that he was finally going to find out what it felt like to slide inside her, but almost as quickly he realized that it would never be enough for him.

  He wanted her for more than her body. He wanted her in his life, in his bed, in his arms and he would never truly have that if she couldn’t trust him enough to tell him why she was here as an outcast. When he’d taken Boston out of his father’s control, he should have forced the old bastard to tell him the story, but he’d just been so relieved to have survived the fight and taken the Pack out of his father’s brutal hands that he hadn’t even bothered to ask about Kara’s situation before he’d forced his old man out of Massachusetts with his tail between his legs.

  Then again, if he was going to be honest, and why the hell not at this point, the last straw that had pushed him over the edge had been a comment that his father’s Beta had made about Kara, about whoring her out to get what they wanted. It was a brutal tactic that some Alpha’s used with their unwanted females to get favors, new females and settle old debts.

  As soon as he’d heard what they’d had planned for her, he’d made his decision. For years he’d contemplated going off and starting his own Pack, taking whoever wanted to leave his father’s fucked up ruling with him, but once he’d heard his father and his fucking Beta laughing about what they could do with Kara, he’d changed his plans in a split second and gone for his father’s throat.

  The old man had never even seen it coming. One minute he’d been laughing and talking about testing out Kara’s skills for himself before he traded her and the next, Drew had the old man pinned to the floor, his jaws locked around his throat and his claw above his heart, ready to tear it out. Just like that, Drew had taken over the Boston Pack and sent his father running with all his loyal assholes following after him.

  Since no one had ever dared ask him why he’d challenged his father and taken over the Pack, he’d never told a soul, not even Ryan the real reason he’d done it. Not that he would have told them the truth, because it was nobody’s fucking business why he’d risked his hide to take over the Pack. The only thing the Pack needed to be concerned with was that he would do a much better job at keeping them safe than his father had.

  But, none of that had ever mattered to him, he realized as he wrapped his arms around Kara and pulled her close, because on some level he must have known that she was his and he would always do whatever he had to in order to protect her.

  Chapter 28

  Oh, God, not here…

  Not now, she inwardly pleaded as her body went hot, turning every nerve in her body on and making every single one of them tingle with pleasured pain.

  Squeezing her eyes shut tightly, she did her best to breathe through it, slowly in and out, praying that this wasn’t happening. Licking her lips, she did her best not to squirm and push back against Drew and take what her body so desperately wanted. She wanted him, needed him so badly that she thought she’d die if she didn’t feel him slide inside her soon.

  This was not happening, she tried to convince herself, but she knew that she was lying to herself. The bouts of heat were coming faster and faster, letting her know that sooner or later she would be in full heat and there would be no escape for a solid two weeks unless she gave in and took what she needed.

  She couldn’t do that…

  She shouldn’t do that, she amended a few seconds later as she felt Drew’s large arm wrap around her from behind and pull her closer. When she felt the warm skin of his chest press against her back she nearly lost it. God, he felt so good.

  He shouldn’t feel good, because this was Drew, the man that had been pissing her off since she was fourteen years old, but no matter how many times she told herself that she couldn’t forget the way he’d taken care of her and protected her from everything and everyone, including herself. He could have taken advantage of her, demanded his right as Alpha and her mate to bed her after she’d returned his mark. There were so many things that he could have done, but hadn’t.

  The complete asshole that he’d lead her to believe that he was had been nothing but a farce. Well, that actually wasn’t completely true. He had been an annoying man-whore and probably would still be one if they hadn’t discovered that they were mated, but somehow over the past few weeks he’d changed.

  At least that’s what she told herself as she licked her lips hungrily and pushed her bottom back against his large cock, shifting against it and wishing that it was inside her.