Two Fates

by Kari Gregg

  “Risking your neck during an ascension hunt in the same spot Ian died to hunt the same predator that killed him isn’t smart.”

  Kenneth squared his shoulders. “I was making a point.”

  “That you’re arrogant? Reckless?” Jamie winced at the pain shooting up his side. “Congratulations. You’ve proven both in abundance.”

  “I was showing you, this pack, and the packs we’ve allied with that there is no part of this territory I, or anyone else, has cause to fear.” Kenneth scowled. “Except you.”

  “Lisa said she hadn’t seen me die in the fight.” Jamie waved down his nude body and the clawed gouges already healing. “She was right.”

  “Lisa.” Eyes suddenly rounding, Kenneth gasped. His chest expanded when he sucked in a shocked breath. “The prophecy.”

  Yet struggling with the anger, fear and alarm streaking through him that made his heart beat faster and his pulse sprint, Jamie tried to push away from Kenneth, but his mate resisted Jamie’s efforts. “What?” he asked with a disgruntled shove. He frowned because he might as well have tried to push the mountain. Kenneth was that unmovable. “What she saw has come to pass. No need to worry anyone. It’s done.”

  Shaking his head, Kenneth gulped. “Do you love me?”

  Jamie froze. The wrens and sparrows stopped singing or so it seemed to Jamie. The other hunters surrounding them abruptly quieted, none of them moving a muscle. “W-what?”

  Kenneth shook him. “Do you love me?” he repeated, his tone demanding and fearful all at once.

  Blinking, Jamie stared at him. Fought to process whatever had set off the mounting panic Jamie sensed through their strengthening bond. Kenneth wasn’t just scared. He was suddenly petrified, the terror Jamie recognized in him melting his own snarling anger like nothing else could. “Hey,” Jamie said, forcing his mouth into a reassuring grin. “It’s okay. You don’t have to worry anymore. I fought the cat. We’re going to be fine.”

  “Lisa prophesied a cat would attack you—when you loved me, Jamie.” Kenneth’s nostrils flared, as though sensing renewed danger. “If you don’t love me, then her vision has not yet come to pass and another cat—” He halted. Blew out a long breath. “Another cat—” he started and halted again, a deep V grooving his forehead as he scowled. “That doesn’t make sense. Cats wander into the high places, but once one stakes out a den, others avoid the area. With autumn arriving, the chance another cat would come here…” he mumbled, voice low and ruminating. He pinned Jamie to the spot with a piercing stare. “Lisa said you looked as you do now. In her vision.”

  “The cat was protecting a pair of cubs.” Jamie gulped. “Maybe the mother has a mate?” He thinned his lips, though, because he’d scouted the pass thoroughly and seen no trace or sign of another adult.

  The alpha from Bitter Creek stepped forward. “One of my people killed a male months ago and drove off the female with it who was reportedly nursing young.”

  “This cat was alone.” Kenneth’s shoulders sagged, but his grip on Jamie tightened. “There won’t be another cat, not this close to winter.” Eyes alighting with wonder, he gazed at Jamie. “You do love me.”

  Stunned, Jamie could only gape at Kenneth. Did Jamie love him? Jamie couldn’t deny they’d bonded. The echo of Kenneth’s heartbeat in Jamie’s mind assured him they had mated, as well as the bites they’d traded, and their sex, while fumbling and awkward in the beginning was as intense and addictive as any fated mating could ever be. Mating wasn’t just sex, though. It wasn’t bites or words. Mating couldn’t be forced by physiology or coerced by sharing a den, though Goddess knew Jamie had tried. Love comes in its own sweet time. That can happen quick and overwhelming like with Ian, but other times…

  Other times…

  “I’m not saying how deep your feelings are. I doubt you’ve figured it out yet or that you recognize what this all means.” He curved his lips. “You do love me, though. I sense it.” He released his grip on Jamie to tapped his own chest. “Here. In my blood, in my soul. It’s only a start, the beginning of what we will be, but it is a beginning.” He pulled Jamie forward to embrace him. “Don’t say anything. Never mind. The words can wait until you are ready. What’s important is that you’re right about Lisa’s prophecy and the cat. We’re going to be fine. You will be.”

  Epilogue

  DAYS LATER, Jamie collected the bones of the mountain lion that had tried to end him from an ant hill. He inspected the pieces to ensure the industrious insects had stripped the marrow and grunting his satisfaction, he stuffed the bones into his game bag, mind already whirring with what he would create. Jamie had already gifted Kenneth with a ritual knife that couldn’t be rivaled in significance. He recognized his limits. He could produce no better. An amulet marking Kenneth’s ascension seemed most appropriate, one presented to Kenneth and to each of the alphas attending the ascension ceremony, but the design eluded him.

  He paused in his work, listening to the wren’s song filtering through the leaves overhead.

  Jamie wasn’t as talented at reproducing human forms as he was at artistically replicating wildlife. Why not carve a portrait of each alpha’s beast? The task would demand hours of work, but with winter approaching, Jamie would be as den-bound as everyone else as soon as the deep snows fell.

  A bad-tempered growl from the surrounding brush thinned his lips. Jamie glared at the brambles. “You were supposed to stay in bed.”

  Weirdly, the injuries Kenneth had suffered from the cat had healed poorly and less readily than Jamie’s. Only silvery dots marred Jamie’s skin where the lion’s claws had punctured his flanks, but claws hadn’t just pierced Kenneth’s flesh. The cat had torn and ripped at him. That Kenneth was a lousy patient under the healer’s care hadn’t helped. In his wolf form, he’d nipped at the stitches holding the ragged cuts together so much Jamie had threatened to put a cone on him, about which Lisa hadn’t yet stopped cackling. Kenneth snarled and grumbled, refused to heed anyone’s directions about recovery, including his mate, but he’d stopped reopening the wounds at least.

  Muzzle high and proud, Kenneth’s beast limped from the surrounding forest and when Jamie scowled at him, his pricked ears flattened.

  “Don’t look at me like that. You need rest.”

  Lowering his head, Kenneth pawed at the earth.

  “I wasn’t hurt as badly as you were,” Jamie said, bending to stuff the rest of the small bones into his bag. “No reason I can’t work and I needed to fetch these before the whelps show up for shifter craft if I want to begin tutoring them in rudimentary bone carving to see if any besides Jason have a gift for it. Some,” he drawled, voice rising in wry amusement, “say I should have taken apprentices years ago whether or not any of the whelps had a genuine talent and interest in the trade.”

  Wolf or human, Kenneth’s snort chastised him, but Jamie would have none of it. “I won’t force those kids onto a path they don’t wish to tread. Jason is suited to bone carving and I’ve agreed to accept him as an apprentice. I’ll not apprentice another unless today’s lesson reveals a willing candidate eager to learn.” Jamie pointed a long bone at Kenneth before sticking it into his bag too. “Don’t hold your breath. Lisa better move along with testing the kids for a knack with her kiln instead of pushing her nose into my business too. She hasn’t selected an apprentice either.” Jamie scowled. “For that matter, neither have you. It’s not like I’ll birth the next alpha. Training your successor is so extensive, it generally begins immediately after an alpha ascends which means you’re behind schedule too.”

  Plopping to the ground, Kenneth glowered at Jamie and then finally shifted, a groan escaping him because with his injuries, the transition from wolf to human was neither easy or elegant. When he lay, panting in the grass, warm and naked, he forced a strained smile. “I have chosen my successor, thank you.”

  “Really.” Jamie glanced at his mate, satisfied the gashes the lion had ripped into Kenneth were knitting together at last. “Lisa had another pro
phecy?”

  Kenneth rolled onto his side. “I told you I had a hint of the seer gift myself.” He braced his elbow in the dirt and rested his chin on his fist. “You’d sense it too if you focused on our bond.”

  Brows furrowing, Jamie studied Kenneth. Surprise jolted through him like lightning. “No.”

  Chuckling, Kenneth waggled his eyebrows “Oh, yes.”

  “But—” Flummoxed, Jamie gaped at his mate. “Devon is raising him and the rest of his family at the cabin in the Between.”

  “I notice you aren’t denying Michael’s potential.” Kenneth grinned. “Devon is also particularly cognizant of how this pack failed you and Ian as well as what must be done to continue building Burnt Fork into a strong, healthy pack again. Anyway, they aren’t isolated from the pack as you and Ian were and the extra space allows us freedom to train without interference from the others, no matter how well-intended.”

  Ian’s nephew, the next pack alpha. Jamie gulped, but his chest also swelled because Ian would’ve been proud of Michael. So proud. “Devon knows?” Jamie’s eyebrow winged up.

  “Michael told his daddy that he would ascend to alpha after me once I arrived in the territory. I didn’t know until I’d been here for a couple of months. I dreamed of him, but Michael said he sensed his future role and responsibilities since his birth.” Kenneth’s eyes twinkled. “I told you he has some of the sight too.”

  “He never mentioned it to me, Ian…” Jamie frowned. “Da definitely would have said something if he’d known.”

  “That’s why Michael kept the news to himself. He’s young, still a boy, but he feared what the pack might do if they believed there were other alternatives that didn’t require them to make amends and repair past mistakes with you and his uncle.” Kenneth shrugged. “Considering he is a male seer your pack was unlikely to accept then and a child, Michael was also positive no one would have believed him.”

  Jamie certainly couldn’t argue that. “You would’ve believed him.”

  Kenneth waved dismissively. “Your father and Lisa were blinded by their guilt over Ian, but I sensed what he is capable of becoming before the dream the Goddess sent me.”

  “You’ve seen him ascending.” Eyes narrowing, Jamie studied his mate. “In your dream.”

  Cocking his head at a curious angle, Kenneth nodded. “Many, many years from now, when we are old and gray. Yes, I saw him leading our pack.”

  Anger flared inside Jamie and alongside it, hurt. “Then you knew I’d defeat the cat.”

  Startled, Kenneth jerked his shoulder. “Oops,” he said drolly. “I did tell you not to worry about the cat.”

  Jamie wanted to beat him with a stick. “Because prophecy had revealed Michael’s leadership abilities, you were also aware there was no rush for us to mate, that another alpha was waiting if the pack rejected your claim at ascension.”

  “Michael hasn’t reached his tenth summer.” Kenneth snorted. “He’s mature enough to apprentice, but hardly ready to take over managing Burnt Fork.”

  Thinning his lips, Jamie glared at him. “If they’d known, the pack would’ve—”

  “—made a mistake as catastrophic as rejecting a fated mating blessed by the Goddess.” Kenneth glowered. “No, Michael was right to keep quiet what he knew, as was Devon. And me. The pack would’ve tried, yet again, to circumvent the will of the Goddess to rush the boy into a position he was and is unprepared to assume.”

  “But we never needed to mate,” Jamie shouted, flinging his arms wide.

  “Yes, we damn well did.” Glaring, Kenneth pushed off the ground. Wincing because his injured side still pained him, he climbed to his feet and lurched over to Jamie, who seethed. He shoved his finger into Jamie’s chest. “To hells with the pack, I wanted you and, whether or not you’ll admit it, once you recovered from the worst of Ian’s loss, you needed me too.”

  Hardening his jaw, Jamie stepped back in retreat. “You lied to me.”

  “Was I not prophesied to be this pack’s alpha?” Stare glinting, Kenneth followed, grabbing Jamie by his biceps. “Not informing the pack or you of Michael’s future as alpha saved Burnt Fork from another self-inflicted disaster and won me the man I loved. I’ll never regret that.”

  Jamie opened his mouth to argue, but when he scrolled back what Kenneth had said, his mind stuck on one thing. “You love me?” he asked, voice trembling.

  “Of course, I love you.” Kenneth released Jamie to throw his hands in the air. “Loving each other is what mates do!” When Jamie only stared at him, his eyes wide with his astonishment, Kenneth planted his fists on his hips to scowl. “How could you ever doubt my feelings for you?”

  “You never said,” Jamie mumbled, glancing down. Happiness burst inside him, but also worry, both at once. As dearly as Jamie might crave Kenneth’s love, he still feared losing him, prophecy or no prophecy.

  “Words are just words.” Kenneth lifted Jamie’s chin with the tip of his finger to force his gaze to meet Kenneth’s, releasing Jamie only to tap his own temple “We have a bond, but as soon as you ripened for me, you could have shared what I felt.”

  Lost in Kenneth’s warm stare, Jamie could only whisper. “I was scared.”

  Kenneth sighed. “You still are.”

  Brow furrowing, Jamie rested his hands on his mate’s hips. Stiffening his spine, he met Kenneth’s gaze directly. “When I was a boy, Da taught me that courage isn’t lack of fear. Courage is going on despite your fear.”

  “Are we?” Kenneth dipped his head and their foreheads kissed. “Going on.”

  “I fought a mountain cat for you. How could you doubt my feelings?” Jamie snorted. “You’re the one who was talking about exploring our mating bond to sense each other’s feelings. Why haven’t you tried it?”

  Kenneth bit his bottom lip. “Maybe I’m scared too.”

  Smiling, Jamie arched an eyebrow at him. “Perhaps we can both try being brave.”

  “Now?” Chuckling, Kenneth returned Jamie’s grin. “Together?”

  “Sure, why not.” Jamie laughed. “Together.”

  Staring into Jamie’s eyes, Kenneth’s own glazed as he reached for the link binding them and Jamie felt the immediate kick in the quickening of his pulse as his mate slipped into Jamie’s senses. Jamie too concentrated, searching for their bond, wholly unsurprised to realize the tenuous links they’d forged with each other had deepened, strengthened. Sharing Kenneth’s thoughts, his emotions wasn’t difficult as he’d feared. Being with him was easy, warm, comforting.

  Sexy.

  Tipping his mouth up, Jamie caught Kenneth’s mouth in a wet, intimate kiss that his mate welcomed with the claiming sweep of his clever tongue and the vise-like grip of Kenneth’s hands grasping Jamie to yank him close. When their lips separated, Jamie panted. “You must feel it too so tell me. Are we going forward?”

  Kenneth’s answering smile, full of knowledge and hope, was radiant.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Epilogue

  Thank you

  Other shifter stories by Kari Gregg…

  One Last Try

  Stray

  Pretty Poison

  About Kari Gregg

  Also by Kari Gregg:

  Thank you

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  Other shifter stories by Kari Gregg…

  THE LAST EMPEROR

  The tribes were his to lose…and theirs to regain.

  History taught that rebels executed the impe
rial family, including young Prince Nika Marisek, and hid the bodies in an unmarked grave. History was wrong.

  Decades later, yarn shop owner Nick Goode reclaimed his identity to see his long-dead family decently buried. He’ll do whatever he must to persuade elders who now rule the tribes…even offer to abdicate. Some, however, seek to capitalize on Nick’s survival. Who better to drag the tribes from corruption into freedoms the rebellion had promised if not the prince who became one of the peasantry in exile?

  Arit hates politics. When Elder Benjic, his estranged sire, shows up with the celebrity prince to fulfill a pre-war mating pact, Arit refuses. He craves strength on strength, the challenge of an alpha mating another alpha. A damaged omega who knits won’t do. Arit will guide them on an adventure tour exploring their wolf instincts; that’s his job. But that’s all he’ll do.

  Except Nick isn’t an omega. He isn’t damaged. And if he seduces Arit to win Benjic’s support, Nick won’t give up his throne, either. He’ll risk everything to realize the ideals of the rebellion…and end his fate as the tribes’ last emperor.

  CONTENT WARNING: palace intrigues, mpreg themes, shifter knotting, and two stubborn alphas who must learn to work together to save an empire