A low rumbling growl echoed through the space. Julian stopped speaking and turned toward the barn entrance. Several of the horses nickered nervously, and the kenneled dogs on the other side of the barn started a chorus of barks.
Kate looked around Julian’s shoulder. A dark gray wolf with a streak of black running from nose to tail stood there, lips curled in a snarl, hackles straight up, eyes flashing with gold. A shifter. And one who was pissed as hell. Ryan? She hadn’t been around him as a wolf, so it took her a moment to be sure. Scents were altered in their animal forms, so he wouldn’t smell like his human self when he was all furry. But the magickal signature was unmistakable and the mate pull was as inviting as icing on a birthday cake.
She took a step toward him. “Ryan.”
The wolf didn’t give her time to speak again before running off. She hurried to the doorway, but he was already halfway to the woods, a wild howl cutting the air.
Julian walked up beside her and slipped a comforting arm around her shoulders. “It was him?”
“Yes,” she whispered, then clutched her head as pain rippled through her brain, down her spine, and all the way to the tips of her fingers and toes. She crumpled, but Julian held her upright.
“What’s wrong?”
Kate fought to breath. Fought to think through the blinding pain. She’d felt this way before, but it had never been so strong. “Alpha,” she croaked out.
“Fuck!” Julian shouted and stepped in front of her, putting his body between her and her family—her alpha. “Kate is my fiancée,” he snarled out. “Leave us alone.”
“You’re a fool, VonBrandt. You’re all self-entitled assholes. You think everything is yours for the taking. Well, she’s not. She’s part of my pack. I own her and she will bond with the man I choose.”
Her grandfather was approaching rapidly. She could feel the waves of his alpha magick surround her now. Another man walked at his side. No. She squinted into the bright sunlight. It couldn’t be. And her grandmother was with them too. Shit. Shit. Shit.
“Kate Quade, I’m disappointed in you,” her grandmother said. “I was informed my granddaughter had taken a fiancé. Which is unfortunate since she’s already promised to another.”
The grey-haired alpha grabbed Kate’s arm and yanked her away from Julian’s grasp.
“No!” She yanked and twisted, but the pain in her head and her body only increased. Philip Quade always got what he wanted.
Everything had been for nothing. Meeting Ryan. Trying to get the job with the Trewitts. None of that would matter now. She’d been doomed to this fate the second her grandfather had decided it was hers—just as all the female Quades were subject to her grandfather’s whims.
She heard Julian yelling through the fog in her mind. Her grandfather shoved her backward and she crumpled into her grandmother’s arms. Then she heard the familiar words of the bonding spell. “No. Grandmother, please. Stop.” Fear clawed at her insides, like a thousand tiny knives all stabbing her at once. “Please. Don’t do this.”
“Stop fighting, Kate,” Christian’s voice carried to her through the din of the shouting. “It will be easier for both of us if we just do what he says.”
Her wolf snarled inside, pushing to the surface.
The pain stopped just as suddenly as it had started. Flesh and bone crunched into each other. Not hers. The scent of Julian’s blood floated in the air. He was fighting for her. She wrenched away from her grandmother. The spell wouldn’t work without a physical connection between her and Christian. She glanced down at her wrists. Nothing was there yet.
“Kate, shift and get out of here. The spell won’t work if you’re a wolf,” Julian shouted and ducked an angry right hook from her grandfather.
“Stop,” her grandmother said, her voice hissing like a serpent in a horror flick.
“Kate, please,” Christian said, begging her.
Kate turned to face him. “I’d rather die alone and miserable than be stuck with you for my entire life. Can’t you see that? I’m sorry for what he did to you…it wasn’t right…but I’m not going to stand by and let all of you ruin my life.” The air shimmered around her body and her clothing ripped and shredded, falling to pieces on the concrete floor.
“Run!” Julian’s voice carried over everyone else’s yelling.
She glanced back at Julian and caught his gaze for a split second. Her grandfather had already given him a black eye. His glasses were missing. And his eyes were flashing with gold.
Go. He mouthed the word.
She dodged grab attempts from her grandmother and Christian, though he managed to come away with a hunk of fur, and leapt through the barn doorway into the bright sunlight of the morning. Her wolf caught the scent of the male who’d been here only a few minutes earlier. Her mate.
Kate followed the smell across the corral. Into the trees. She ran, her paws barely touching the ground. Leaves and branches whipped at her face. The smells of pine and earth were strong, but nothing close to the draw of her mate. He was her only focus now. About a half mile in she realized he was headed for the shifter cabins. She picked up her pace even more, not stopping to verify the trail.
She needed Ryan.
Now.
Chapter Seventeen
Ryan shimmered back into human form in mid-stride and collapsed onto the ground in the forest behind the shifter cabin. His insides felt like they would rip in two. Smelling Kate’s scent entwining with that of the damn VonBrandt jackass had been…
So much pain.
He slammed his eyes shut and let the pain rip through him. Pounding his fists on the damp earth, he allowed himself an inhuman wail. His grief cut the air, almost as loud as his howl would have been.
It had been stupid of him to think he could bear seeing Kate with another man. He’d hated it the previous night at the bar. But seeing her with Julian, with a ring…it was just…
His pack could be a bunch of bloodthirsty, crazy animals, and his life’s ambition was to keep them from hurting and killing each other. He’d wanted that more than he’d wanted to have his mate.
Until he’d lost her.
“Dammit!” he yelled, pounding his hands again on the forest floor. Kissing her in the library had been a mistake. That was the moment when his desire had first ignited out of control. If he’d just been able to forgo touching her. Kissing her. Maybe he would have stood a chance.
Maybe not.
He climbed to his feet, dragging himself toward the house. There was nothing he could do about it now. His plan had worked, and Julian had been bluffing at the bar last night. This shouldn’t hurt so much. He’d gotten what he wanted.
Ryan dragged himself up the back steps of the big shifter cabin and pounded his fist hard into the wood railing along the stairs. He gripped the wood in his hand, leaning against it for support. Magick was nothing to fool around with. Somehow, without realizing it, he’d become so attached to Kate that he couldn’t even see her with another man without feeling unimaginable pain. The mate pull was something he’d never experienced before, so he didn’t know much about it. His parents had been a Fated match, but Ryan had never really understood what it meant when he was a kid. He’d never seen the start of a Fated match up close until Dee.
Gods. Dee.
If she felt like this around Will, he had been way too hard on her. If Ryan had been in human form when he’d seen Kate and Julian together, he would have bonded her that very moment.
The protectiveness—the complete certainty—had been so deep.
I know she’s mine.
Yes. There was no getting around that. No way his wolf would be hurting him this much, begging him to rip through the forest to find her, claim her, if they weren’t Fated for each other. But Ryan needed to leave. He couldn’t be around the ranch if he’d have to see Julian and Kate together like that. Bracken was technically still the alpha. Ryan could beg off and go home and prepare for his term.
His one consolation was that the VonBrandt
s would unquestionably handle Kate’s problem with her pack. She’d marry Julian and accept Aaron as her new alpha, and there would be no reason for her to take the job in Ryan’s office.
He fisted his hand and punched the wood railing again.
Dammit if he hadn’t been half looking forward to fighting his attraction to her, having her around. Being near her every day, whatever the cost to his sanity. As hard as it would be, he’d prefer to be with her—even if he had to stay celibate—than to be away from her.
Fuck. My. Life.
Ryan walked in through the back door, trying to calm himself and ease the pain in his chest with a couple of deep breaths. His mother had always insisted that worked, but Ryan had never needed to try it before. He’d always been pretty even. Rodeo had been his outlet—the place where his adrenaline could come out and play.
But it had been three months since he’d done a rodeo event, even for practice. That had been a sacrifice, no question, but he’d consoled himself with the fact that he was taking one for the team. That the pack would be stronger because of his sacrifice. That he’d been born to lead.
All that seemed hollow now that he was faced with giving up Kate.
He called out, but no one answered. The place was massive, and members of all three out-of-town packs were sleeping in various places, but it was like a ghost house in the cabin.
Ryan strode toward his room, his mind racing. The window was still open and a little breeze wafted through the space, though it was considerably warmer than it had been that morning. Every part of him wanted to go back for Kate. Mark her as his own. Bond her. Fuck her.
Every part was wrong.
He threw on some boxer briefs and gripped the bedding hard in his fingers, trying to control the anger that kept sweeping over him in waves. Anger at himself. At his father for being such a massive ass and pouring fuel on the fire consuming the Oklahoma pack.
Damn his father and his stupid pride.
Ryan grabbed the plaid shirt that he’d worn the previous night. It still smelled like the bar. And like Kate. She’d forced a few of his buttons open, and the fragrance of her touch remained, just enough that he could get a faint whiff. He held it up to his nose.
If he was this crazed over her now, what would it have been like if they’d actually had sex? Or if she’d managed to get the rest of his buttons open and he’d lost control. Or if she’d reached for his dick instead of his lips.
The scent of her body intensified, and he pulled his nose away from the shirt. That wasn’t coming from the fabric. It was drifting into his room. What in the actual fuck?
He whirled around and saw her padding quietly through the living room, covering her breasts and the light thatch of hair between her legs. A possessive growl ripped out of him.
“What are you doing here? Naked? Dammit, Kate.” He ripped his fingers through his hair and stared at her, trying not to acknowledge how hungrily his wolf growled.
She opened her lips, but her voice didn’t come out. Her face and eyes were red, and she reached for him, uncovering her breasts. With a choked sound, she whispered his name, and he was a goner.
Ryan blurred toward her and caught her just as she was about to collapse. It felt so good, so right, to have her in his arms. Like the world hadn’t made any sense until that moment. But she was sobbing into his chest like someone had died.
“What? Kate? What happened?” He pulled her back to look into her eyes, but they were blurred with tears. “Are you hurt?”
“Julian, he’s—”
“Holy mother fucker, if he touched a hair on your head, I will—”
“No.” She pulled at his neck, burying herself in his chest. “No. He didn’t. It was… It was my grandfather.” Her sobs just about broke him in half, there was so much emotion there.
“What? Kate. You have to tell me what happened. Please, baby. Just tell me.” He walked her back toward the bed, almost carrying her, and sat down, letting her sprawl across his lap.
Unfortunately, the sight of her breasts was starting to affect him, and he had a boner to beat the fuckin’ band. This wasn’t the time or the place, though, and he tried to shift her away from contact with the damn thing, but she kept wriggling closer. And dammit if her sweet little thatch wasn’t just fragrant as a rosebush. He wanted to stick his face in it and sniff and suck and…
Focus. Dammit.
There was only one way that was going to happen. He slid her onto the bed and grabbed a gray Sooners T-shirt and some matching shorts. Might as well show some pride while he was covering her up. Dammit, she would have made a sexy cheerleader.
Okay, is this what FOCUS looks like? Fuck.
“Kate. You have to tell me exactly what happened,” he said, pulling the shirt over her head while the tears continued to fall.
“I shifted in my clothes. They’re in complete tatters on the ground in the barn.”
“Why the hell did you shift so fast?” he wondered, pulling the shorts up her legs and getting another noseful of her rosebush. Dammit, he wanted to…
Will you fuckin’ focus?
“My grandfather…he was trying to…” She sniffed and climbed back into his lap. “Gods, Ryan. It was awful.”
He slid his hand down her back, stroking like she was an animal in need of comfort. It was the only thing he could think to do that didn’t involve his boner. She seemed to be safe, and he really…really…really wanted to kiss her.
But he shouldn’t.
“I need you to tell me exactly what happened so I know how to protect you.” He kept up the rhythm on her back and her tears seemed to subside. But there was still so much tension in her body. She was wound tighter than a tin string on a new Gibson. One pluck, and she would shatter.
The rhythm of the circles on her back seemed to soothe her, and she settled against him, heaving in shaky breaths.
“I have to shift back,” she said. “Julian said my grandfather’s alpha magick won’t work on me if I’m a wolf,” she said with a shudder. “He can’t make me do anything.”
“What exactly was your grandpa trying to make you do?”
She shook her head, burying it deeper into the crook of his neck, and he opened his arms so she could fall against him. Her body was flush against his chest, and she was practically straddling him.
Well, shit.
“I need you, Ryan,” she whispered against his neck, and dammit if he didn’t just about lose control right there.
His entire chest filled with hot emotion and he choked it back so he could speak. “What do you need from me, Kate?”
“Take me away,” she said. “I need to get away.”
He glanced at his bag, which he’d been filling with his stuff. Like they were having the exact same thought. No matter what his plans were for the future, no matter what Julian meant to her, no matter what his alpha would do to him, Kate needed him.
And he was going to give her whatever she needed.
Even if it killed him.
Chapter Eighteen
He wasn’t pushing her away. For once. He wanted to help her. But she couldn’t tell him about Christian. Not everything. She needed him to choose her because he wanted her, not because he was saving her from an asshole. The last thing she wanted was to be saddled with a man—even a Fated mate—who might regret their connection.
Gods, he felt so good though. She wasn’t sure how she’d ever be able to let go of him. His scent filled her. Her skin tingled at every point of contact. He was hers. Her wolf had been able to track him without even thinking.
Then she’d walked into the house behind him naked and...he’d looked at her. All of her. And he wanted her. His erection was prominent against her ass even now. Didn’t matter that he’d dressed her.
She nuzzled her face into his neck again and breathed deeply, calming her racing heart. It’d been so close. She’d almost lost everything. Her damn grandmother had even shown up to help. And they must have known she’d try to escape; they’d brought
Christian along to the summit. The damn man just went along with whatever they told him to do.
Tears burned trails down her cheeks, wetting Ryan’s warm skin.
“Kate, tell me what’s going on. Please,” he said, his hand rubbing gently up and down her back. He was still sitting, cradling her on the side of his mattress.
Her top half was flush to his body, but it didn’t feel close enough. She wriggled a bit more, shifting her leg across his lap so that she completely straddled him. The heat of her core pressed against the base of his stomach through the cotton of the shorts. His erection still nudged beneath her ass, reminding her that he really did want her. He couldn’t ignore the mate bond.
She nipped at the side of his neck, reveling in the taste of his skin beneath her lips. “My grandfather was going to take everything away from me. My freedom. My heart,” she said slowly. “I need you, Ryan. I don’t want anyone but you.”
He cupped her face and pulled her mouth away from his neck. Their gazes met and his bored straight into her. “Tell me what he did.”
“I would’ve lost you. Forever.” It would’ve killed her. She would have been empty on the inside. Broken. She’d rather live alone than be bonded to the wrong man, especially if it was someone she couldn’t respect.
She leaned forward and kissed his mouth, biting the edge of his bottom lip. Then, angling her mouth across his, she thrust her tongue in deep. He groaned into her and his hands tightened on her waist, then slid beneath the T-shirt he’d used to cover her nakedness. Up her back. Down her back. Up her stomach until the tips of his fingers reached her breasts. Gods, they ached for him. Her nipples tightened the closer he got. Her core clenched and throbbed. She was so damp from need it was rapidly going to become obvious.
Then his hand moved just a little further, cradling a breast. Kneading it gently before rubbing the pad of his thumb over the rock-hard peak. She gasped into his mouth as fire shot straight from her breast to her center. More. She wanted so much more.
His left hand joined in and cupped her other breast. He lifted his forearms, snapping the shirt front up high enough that she was exposed to the cool air of the room, and leaned down to suckle one of her breasts.
Rodeo Wolf: Fated Mates of Somewhere, Texas (#2) Page 12
