Too Far Gone (Adirondack Pack Book 1)

by K. C. Stewart

  Sadie couldn’t form a coherent sentence. She didn’t even know what to say to him. They all told her that Fred was just a wolf. She had shared everything with him thinking that was the case. But he was human, real flesh and blood, upright on two feet. She had invited him into her house, let him sleep with her, and sang horribly off tune in the shower with him within hearing distance, changed…

  “You asshole.” She wrenched her hand out of his and smacked him. “This whole time you were…and I…I took you in…I was naked in front of you and you just sat there watching!”

  “And I thoroughly enjoyed that.” She lifted her hand to hit him again but he plucked it out of the air as she swung. In one quick tug, he had her in his arms. She didn’t think, she just wrapped herself around him like it was the most natural thing in the world. He nuzzled into her neck then impatiently pulled at the neck of her shirt until he revealed the bite mark. It had never done anything when anyone else touched it, but when Tyson laid his lips on that mark it warmed like it was happy.

  “Feel that?” he asked against her skin and she nodded. “That’s my mark. My claim on you.”

  She frowned. As if sensing her confusion, he lifted his head. “But I thought that Jack-”

  “He tried,” Tyson interrupted, threading his fingers through her hair. “But he had butchered it. You would have died had I not changed you.” She didn’t move her arms from around his waist but he moved his to cup her face. His eyes, Fred’s eyes, smiled at her like she just saved him. But he had done that. He came for her. He saved her.

  “Sadie, I won’t force you, but I want you. Please, be mine.”

  Everything he said made sense, it made the pieces that had been jammed together in a pathetic attempt to fit together, rearrange and suddenly work like they were supposed to. She reached up and felt his right earlobe. It was a double, just like the man in her dream. For some reason that was more of a confirmation of his story than anything else he had told her. Her wolf practically purred like a cat. She obviously approved. Sadie licked the dryness out of her bottom lip and nodded. She approved too. “Yes. I choose you.”

  *****

  They had mated in front of the pack. It was quick and very much like the pack ceremony Sadie had taken part in only an hour earlier. They created their own bond with their blood and had their wrists tied together with a piece of bloody cloth from Tyson’s cotton sweatpants. They would keep their wrists tied until they reached their bedroom. It was an old tradition but one that he remembered his mother telling him about. In perfect circumstances Tyson would have used the same cloth his mother and father had or one Jenny had made for the occasion but a bloodied piece of black cotton was all he had, and was strangely fitting under the circumstances.

  Sadie barely even noticed. It was clear to almost everyone in the room that she was well past overloaded. At this point she was nodding when appropriate and smiling without really smiling. He wanted to be alone with her. There was so much explaining he needed her to hear. This was the most wolves he had been around in a year and his nerves wouldn’t take much more of it. The fight had stolen much of his energy which allowed him to stay as long as he had but they were both looking pretty ragged.

  Owen silently stepped up beside him. Sadie was listening to a group of females talk about their matings. They were too caught up in their stories to notice she had zoned out. “So you’re back,” Owen said from beside him. Tyson punched him in his smug ass shoulder.

  “I can’t be. Not like I was. You know that.” This wasn’t his life anymore. Being feared of because of his position wasn’t something he could willingly do again. Too much had changed.

  “Yes,” he sounded frustrated but resigned. “I had hoped…well, nevermind. She needs a pack.” He nodded towards Sadie. “You know that’s true.”

  Tyson looked at her. She was almost his height so he didn’t need to look far. Pieces of her light, honeysuckle hair had fallen out of the ponytail and dangled near her face. With his freehand he tucked them behind her ear. She flinched but relaxed when she saw it was him. He had yet to kiss her and yearned for it. But not here. Not with all of them watching. He wanted her all to himself.

  “I know,” he said still looking at her. He wasn’t enough of a pack for her. She would need the others to learn from.

  “Well you are making this easy. Why can’t you always be this agreeable?”

  “Someone has to knock you off that high horse, you jackass.”

  “Insulting me after I went to all that trouble with the elders?”

  Tyson looked at him and tilted his head. “What this?”

  “Well, you know but have probably forgotten in all your travels that she cannot mate you if you are not in a pack. Either you are both in or both out.” Sadie turned her head just slightly so she could listen in. “But I am your Alpha and have your back. After very little discussion with the elders, I have enacted Friends of the Pack. It hasn’t been used in two hundred years but it’s still a law. It makes you extended family of the pack and allows you to mate Sadie while she keeps her position in the pack.”

  To say he was shocked would be a vast understatement. Tyson hadn’t thought about that when he decided to stay for her. All he knew was that he couldn’t be part of the pack but he did need her.

  Sadie spoke up before he did. “When did you do this?” she asked.

  “Three days ago,” he smiled obviously proud of himself. “I had a feeling you would show up. Cutting it close, weren’t you?”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Too Far Gone

  “I hope you don’t mind, I’ve sorta been living here.” Tyson hadn’t thought to tell her that before they reached the front door to her house. The ride there had been done in complete silence after an uninspired attempt at conversation on his part. As it turns out, “So yesterday was fun,” was not a good way to start a conversation with the woman he just mated and had been deceiving into believing he was nothing more than a wolf.

  Sadie had gotten three steps into the living room before she stopped. It’s not that the place was a mess or anything. Hell, if anything it was cleaner. He tried to be as unobtrusive into her space as possible but things did get moved and the couch did look like someone had been crashing there.

  “Is that why they wouldn’t let me come back?” she asked when she began to move again. Tyson closed and locked the door behind him and toed off the boots he had been wearing. He set them by the door like he always had and turned to find her frowning at him. She had put down her purse on the side table where she always left it but now stood staring at him with a deeply furrowed brow.

  “Yes. Well, I’m assuming so.” She was still staring at his boots by the door. “Is everything ok?” he asked hesitantly.

  “What? Oh, yeah. It’s nothing, just some silly thought.” Her head turned in such a way that the hair that had been tucked behind her ear fell and shielded most of her face. Tyson had seen the blush though. When her skin held a red tinge it could be seen for miles.

  “What is it?” he asked again now curious at that the thought had been.

  “Nothing. It’s stupid.” Sadie turned and headed to the bedroom where he heard the door close. Tyson rubbed a hand down his face. That could have gone better. Then again, any way he broke the news that her pet wolf was actually a man, probably wouldn’t have gone over too well. He had resigned himself to a night alone in the living room when the door opened again and the soft scuffing of her slipper clad feet came from the hallway. She had changed into sweatpants and a t-shirt. Without looking at him she walked past and began to fold the blanket he had left on the couch that morning.

  Tyson took this as the gift it was and went into the kitchen pulling out two beers from the fridge. She was sitting on the end of the sofa when he came back out. She accepted the bottle with a small smile. At this point he should have left well enough alone but he still wanted to know what her stupid thought had been. “What was that thought you had?”

  “What?” It t
ook her a second but she remembered. “Oh…you really want to know?” she asked looking up at him through her lashes.

  “Yes.”

  She took a pull of her beer and made a face. Beer obviously wasn’t her alcohol of choice. Regardless, she took another swallow. “It’s just that you were taking off your boots and I was putting my bag down and it hit me that we already have a routine down because we’ve already lived with each other.”

  Tyson sat down in the middle of the couch with only a few inches of space between them. “We do, don’t we?” Well, if she was accepting their routines that they didn’t even know they had then things might have been better off than he had previously thought. They both settled into silence again. Her silly thought aside, he hated how he couldn’t find the words to start. There was so much he needed to tell her but where did he begin?

  “I can’t drink this,” she said and passed it to him. He chuckled but took the nearly full beer and put it on the coffee table. When he relaxed back into the couch she had moved. Not much, but enough that her feet that were curled under the blanket now touched his leg. Her touch, no matter how buried under layers of cloth is was, settled him.

  “I owe you an explanation.”

  “Yeah. I think you do.” It wasn’t said with anger just complete sincerity.

  He still didn’t know where to begin. How much did she know about him already? He was sure that Owen and Lee had mentioned him. “Ever since Jenny,” from his glance he could tell she had been filled in at least that much. “I’ve been wandering. I knew I couldn’t outright kill myself for what I had done so I was just going to let the wolf have me. Then you showed up. I was pulled from my pending oblivion and thrust back into consciousness. Being near you gave me a sense of peace I hadn’t felt in almost a year. It still does.”

  The side of her mouth tugged up into a lopsided smile.

  “I stayed around because I knew what Jack was. He set up Jenny to take the fall for him. I couldn’t let him do that again. I had seen the way he looked at you the first time he saw you in the woods. His plans were clear as day.” He took a long pull of his beer. “So I stayed. I planned to leave everyday but always ended up hanging around. I don’t know what it is about you that calms the darkness but it was addicting.”

  “So you hung around because I was your drug of choice?”

  He pinched one of her toes through the blanket. “Shhh this is my story.”

  “I’m sorry. Please continue,” she said with a laugh.

  “When he almost killed you, I killed him. I asked Gaia for a gift and only had faith that she would grant it. If she hadn’t, you’d be dead too.” He hadn’t let go of her foot but pulled both of them across his lap so she could stretch out. The more they touched the clearer he head became. “I’ve been trying to leave ever since. Every day I would tell myself it was the last day I’d hang around, but then I’d see the pack males sniffing around and have to stay another day. Then it was Vince and his ‘I’m not interested in you as anything more than a friend’ bullshit. And please tell me you didn’t fall for that shit?”

  Sadie rolled her eyes. “I have eyes,” she responded. “He’s not a bad guy, you know? Not someone I would purposefully spend my life with but he’s friend material.”

  Tyson grunted in acceptance. “Anyway, this morning I woke up and made a bargain with myself. It was painfully obvious to me that I wasn’t leaving. I couldn’t be anywhere than with you. If I stayed, I would be all in however, I would not be in the pack. That…well, that just wasn’t going to happen. I’ve spent too much time alone to be able to be anything but a lone wolf. So, I went to Owen’s and was almost too late. I had wanted to catch you beforehand and lure you outside as Fred and then change.”

  “So I take it Owen and his almighty alpha powers of observation had seen and probably talked to you at some point in all this and decided to use me in order to get you to stay?”

  “Ah, yes. He is a conniving dickhead sometimes. I’m sorry about that.”

  “Well I’m not. Don’t get me wrong. I’m pissed about the whole “you must mate someone by Sunday” crap he laid down but I get it now. He was doing it for you. He knew you needed the push and that I cared for you. Care for you,” she amended. “I still can’t believe you are Fred. I mean, I believe it. I just...”

  “I understand.” He grabbed her hand. Their palms pressed together where they had hours before. The cloth had been untied earlier so she could drive but he still had it in his pocket. Sadie’s fingers curled around his.

  “So I know we are expected to consummate the mating and all that but,” she was looking at their joined hands. He rubbed his thumb over her knuckle allowing her time to get the words out. He had no intention of having sex with her tonight. She didn’t know that. It was probably cruel of him not to tell her his plans but part of him liked to watch her squirm with a beet red blush.

  “I can’t. Not…yet.”

  “I know. That’s why you will be going to bed while I camp out here.” He patted the couch cushion.

  Sadie frowned and sat up, pulling her legs off his lap. “I didn’t mean that. I want you to…I want us to…” she groaned in frustration. “Why do words not like me today?”

  He was trying not to laugh at her but she was just so damn cute when she was frustrated. “Sadie, do you want me to sleep with you?” he asked.

  “Maybe.” A smile flicked through the frown. “Yes.”

  “Do I only get the bottom corner of the bed like usual or will I gain a side now that I take up more room?”

  She snorted and stood. “Guess we are about to find out.”

  He grabbed her outstretched hand and allowed her to help him up. Just because he wasn’t going to have sex with her tonight didn’t mean he wasn’t going to kiss his bride. They had just gotten mated after all and this was technically their honeymoon. With her hand still in his he tugged her off balance so she stumbled into him. He threaded his hands through her hair letting the honeysuckle locks flow across his skin.

  “You may find this hard to believe but you saved me. By just being you, you brought me back from a brink that would have killed me. I don’t need you Sadie. I thought I did but need isn’t all a relationship is built on. I can honestly say that I want you. I want you in my life. I want you in my heart. I want you in my bed.” Tyson ran his thumbs over where they rested on her hips. He had pushed his fingers under the t-shirt so he could feel her skin. “I want to be more than just a lone wolf. For the first time in a year, I want to be alive. But none of that is why I love you.” He paused long enough for her eyes to widen and her cheeks to stain red. “I love you because I am the best version of myself when you are near me.”

  He stopped her before she could respond. His kiss started quick but ended with a long slow caress of their lips. It was chaste and clean and nowhere near the level of intensity his body was craving. It was also real and perfect. The way her hands fisted the sides of his shirt. And how her skin heated up under his fingertips. When she stepped into the last inch that separated them. Their first kiss whispered at the possibilities of life he had not planned, one he had not envisioned for himself but one that he was strangely ready for. Tyson had chosen this path over the one of destruction. He chose it for her. He chose it for himself. He wouldn’t let that choice be done in vain.

  When he finished and she was completely and thoroughly kissed, he walked her to bed and for once, crawled in beside her as a man and as her mate.

  Coming Soon

  Fault Lines

  Adirondack Pack, Book 2

  “You open this door right now or I will bust this sucker down!” Mira yelled. “You can’t avoid me forever!” Her fist rapidly pounded on the door. “I mean it Sa—who the hell are you?”

  A man, broad, brutish and bronze, opened the door. He eyed her as if she was a little piece of lint on his shirt, fuzzy and cute but an annoyance none the less. “I was about to ask the same thing?”

  “None of your business.” Had
she gotten the wrong house? A quick glance at the house told her she at the right place. “Where’s Sadie?”

  He crossed his arms over his massive chest and gave her a look that told her just how eager he was to answer her questions. “That is none of yours. Now, I’m going to ask you again. Who are you?”

  “I’m the woman here to kill Sadie. Now if you’ll excuse me.” She had no time or patience for this. Mira had just driven four hours to kick her sister’s ass and she was not going to be deterred by some guard dog. So he was big, she was used to people being larger than her. This just meant she could use her short stature to her advantage. The guard dog blocked the doorway but he stood a foot or two inside the house. If she was fast, and she had been state champion back in high school at 12.54 seconds in the 100 meter dash, then she could slip inside before his mountainous form could catch her.

  Mira however had miscalculated his attentiveness.

  “Where do you think you’re going Little Rabbit?” His hands snagged around her middle and to her surprise, lifted her off the ground. He held her as if she was a doll and weighed no more than a feather.

  “Oh hell no, I am not a rabbit.” Tigress, definitely. Rabbit, no.

  “Not with a mouth like that you aren’t. But you’re little like a rabbit and soft like a rabbit.” Soft? Right, her fat could be considered soft to some. She preferred the term rubenesque. The word always made her feel more beautiful and less bountiful.

  Mira was done with pleasantries even if the brute was a handsome one. Besides she had a sister to kill. “Let go of me you Neanderthal!” She kicked and squirmed hoping to wiggle her way free of his grip. He only tightened his hold.

  “What have you caught, Owen?” Mira stopped fighting just long enough to look up at the new man. He was a shaggy haired blonde with the most striking eyes she had ever seen, and he was incredibly pissed off, eying her with hostility and no sense of welcome.