“Kate,” he said, his voice breaking. “Please. I owe them an—”
“That, that word. Owe. That right there is the problem, son. You don’t owe this pack shit. You don’t owe Bracken anything.” Rosalee rose from her chair.
“I deserve better, Ryan. We may be mates, but you’re breaking my heart worse than Christian ever would have. At least with him I knew what I was getting.” Tears poured down her cheeks, burning as they fell. “He never lied to me. But you’ve given me everything in one breath and taken it back in the next.”
“Kate—”
“No. I need you to go.” She backed away from his outstretched hand to stand behind Rosalee. Her voice slid into a bitter tone that made her soul hurt. This wasn’t her. This was what she’d tried to avoid. She’d tried to leave so he could become alpha. Ryan had taken that choice from her. She was trapped now.
She’d forever feel him no matter where she went. Always want him. How could he have done this to her?
“I’m not leaving you,” Ryan growled, stepping closer to Kate and his mother.
“She asked you to go, Ryan.” Rosalee moved to block her son.
Kate wanted to melt into the floor. Or run. Running was an option too. Instead, she just stood there, frozen in place.
“I said I’m not—”
“You, come with me. Right now.” Rosalee crossed the room and disappeared into the kitchen. Ryan followed her in, and the slam of the door made Kate jump.
She was alone.
After all Ryan’s promises, and all his bond spells, and all the sex…she was alone. Again.
* * *
***
* * *
Ryan followed his mother through the kitchen door, through the front door, and all the way out into the yard. He couldn’t process anything, couldn’t think. Kate’s emotions swirled through him and he wanted to fix the whole world for her. But he couldn’t force his pack to accept him as a mated alpha. He owed them an explanation.
His mother whirled on him as soon as they were out in the dark morning. “Joseph Ryan Travis the third, you are the most pigheaded jackass I have ever met, besides your father.”
“This isn’t the time for name-calling,” he said, trying to wave her off.
“This is exactly the time for name calling. Sometimes it’s the only way to get through to you.” She smacked his arm. A good, solid thud that stung. “Didn’t you even bother to look at those marks on your wrist? Don’t you know what they mean?”
He lifted his arm and studied the green tattoos seared into his skin. Double bracelets. Bonded.
“I know what they mean,” he said.
“I don’t think you do. Because I’m pretty damn convinced you have no idea what’s going to happen to that poor girl after you abandon her.”
“It’s only temporary, Ma.” But Ryan’s chest constricted. This was the first time they’d been physically separated since the bond, and he could already feel the lack of Kate. How much worse would it be when she was miles and miles away from him?
“Being forcibly separated from your mate is…” His mother turned her back on him, shoulders raising in tension. “When your father died, it almost ended me.”
“But you’ve been strong,” Ryan said, shaking his head, moving toward her like he would comfort her. “You’re a survivor.”
“Maybe it seems that way to you.” Her dark head shook back and forth, denying the truth of his words. “And it’s true that I had no other choice. But it has been torture, every night, with him gone.” Her voice hitched and Ryan closed the distance between them, taking his mother in his arms. “Once you know what the mate bond can be like, living without your mate is…the worst torture.”
He held her, so tight, trying not to remember the night Pops had left to handle the situation with Donny. He could still remember…sitting on this porch with his mother, watching Pops walk down the stairs with his jaw set like he’d decided the fate of the world. He’d come back bloody.
Two days later, he was dead in a ditch.
The pressure in Ryan’s chest stopped his breath and he held back what felt like a tide of emotion. “I should have stopped him,” he whispered into the dark morning air. “I should have kept him from leaving that night.”
He’d never said those words out loud before.
Ma pulled out of his iron grip and took his face in her hands. “Ryan. Honey. Why would you say that?”
“I could have stopped him. His pigheaded…he wouldn’t listen.”
“Your father was right, sweetheart. His methods may have been wrong, but he was right. And you couldn’t have stopped him…not even if you’d stood in front of the truck.”
He swallowed down his argument. So she had seen that. He’d always wondered.
Ryan had gone after his dad that night. Kept arguing with him for a solid minute. Gotten a swift punch in the face for his pains.
He’d tried to get to his feet. Tried to jump in front of the truck, but Pops had been too fast for him. Ryan had believed so strongly that the families should be one pack, he’d actually considered throwing himself in front of the truck anyway. Giving his own life for it.
“I wish I could have stopped him, though. Or stopped Uriah. For you. So you wouldn’t have to feel…” He almost couldn’t say the word out loud. “Tortured.”
“You couldn’t have stopped your dad. You couldn’t have stopped Uriah. Honey.” She pressed her hands tight on his cheeks like he was a little boy, one who’d messed up royally. “You’re only one man.”
But there was still a part of him—the part that had been preparing to be the alpha for most of his life—that believed it was his responsibility. Wanted it to be his responsibility. Knew he could make a difference.
His mother’s laugh made him look down at her. Her lips were pulled to one side, and she was shaking her head like she knew exactly what was going on in his mind.
“You don’t see it, do you?” She stepped aside so that the path back to the house was open to him.
“See what?”
“You’re doing the same thing to Kate that your father did to us.”
He drew his brows together, backing away from her. “What are you talking about?”
“You are. And it’s worse, because you’re hurting yourself too.” That disappointed look hadn’t left her face.
“I’m just trying to do what’s right.”
“You’re torturing that poor girl so that a bunch of dumb assholes who don’t like each other can pretend to like each other—because you’re paying them to.”
He pushed air through his nose, hard. “No. That’s not it.”
“That’s exactly it. Those families don’t like each other, Ryan. They never have. And you’re prepared to sacrifice Kate, and yourself, on the altar of stupidity because you believe more in some twisted sense of pack loyalty than you do in Fate.”
“That’s not true.”
“Oh, it is.” His own mother snorted at him.
Ryan walked backward for a moment, away from the house, away from her accusations. Back toward where he and his father had made their last stand.
Small families couldn’t fend for themselves. If the other offshoots of their pack didn’t get an infusion of cash from somewhere, they were going to lose their farms. And where were they going to get that cash? It couldn’t be from their own coffers. Most of them had nothing at all.
His family was the one with the earning potential. They were the ones with the business that could be grown.
But it wasn’t his place anymore.
And yet, there was still this certainty in his heart that he was supposed to do something for his pack. Lead them. Be their alpha.
His failure to them, to Bracken, weighed on him.
“What’s going on in that head of yours, Ryan?”
He bit his lip, not wanting to say the words out loud. He knew it was his to own, but somehow, saying it out loud would make it real.
“I failed, Ma.” He took
a long breath, staring out into the navy sky that was starting to show signs of light. “I was supposed to bring the packs together, and I failed. And I think part of my wanting to take Kate to Kansas is…” He swallowed, hard. “I don’t want her to have to see that.”
“You have to believe that Fate brought her to you for a reason, Ryan.” His mother’s hand was on his shoulder, and her words sliced straight through him. They were the same words Bracken always used when he talked about their responsibility to the families. The ones whose Trewitt blood was so diluted they no longer bore the name.
Fate put us in this position for a reason, Bracken would say. And Ryan knew he was right. He believed in the grand design. Didn’t he?
“I don’t know what I believe anymore.”
“The only thing we can know for sure is when Fate speaks like this. She’s been pushing the two of you together for your whole lives, and this is the time she chooses to bring you together. You can’t tell me there isn’t a purpose there. Just as you’re about to face the packs, she brings you Kate.”
“But I have to…” He paused. He had to go in front of his family and tell them he couldn’t be the alpha anymore. Only, it wasn’t his failure. He’d chosen. Sure, there had been a moment of pure lust, but it hadn’t been just that. He had chosen.
Kate.
Her intrepid hopefulness. Her beauty. The way she’d given herself to him, even before he’d given himself back. She was so much more than he deserved.
His mind drifted back to the meeting with Aaron VonBrandt, where he’d talked about his wife, and her contribution to his alpha reign. How she grounded him. How she completed him. That’s what Kate did for Ryan. If only his pack could understand.
Even if they didn’t, he couldn’t ignore the fact that Fate drew them, and continued to draw them. Taking her to Falcon was a cop out. A cover, so he didn’t have to think about her while he handled his pack. While he handled her grandfather. But if Aaron was right… Everything inside Ryan knew it. Kate belonged at his side.
Ryan turned to his mother, emotion crowding his throat. “I have been such a jackass, Ma.”
“You’re your father’s son, honey. It would’ve made you a great alpha. But don’t make Bracken’s mistake. Go get your girl.” She kissed his cheek, pushing him back toward the house. The sun was rising somewhere behind it, and it gave the house a halo, like all the hope in the world was beaming out of it. And it was.
It came from Kate. She was his hope now.
He returned his mother’s cheek-kiss and ran up the porch steps, taking them in one big leap. The front door banged behind him as he ran inside, calling her name.
Ryan took the corner at a run, needing to see her. Feeling the absence of his mate in such a real way, he needed to feel the touch of her hand to know that everything would be all right.
But the living room was empty.
Kate was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ryan reached out through the bond, feeling her move away from him. He pushed his way through doors, moved through the rooms of the house, determined to find her.
Have to make her understand.
Purposeful, he kept striding through spaces where she wasn’t, following the bond that would always allow him to find her. If he had to chase her to the ends of the damn earth, he was going to get to her. He needed to make her understand how much she meant to him. How much he needed her.
Ryan was out on the back porch in a few seconds and his eyes scanned the horizon. But she wasn’t there. She was closer than that. Where?
He looked off to the side of the yard, where he’d felt her, and saw her sliding into one of his old swings on the swing set. Relief flooded through him and he jogged toward her, bare feet plodding through the dew-heavy grass.
Kate sat down in the black rubber swing and her body weight pulled her along the ground slowly, her back to him. She leaned her head against the metal chain that held it up and he felt something constrict in her chest through their bond.
Ryan crossed the grass and she sniffed as he came closer.
“Don’t,” Kate whispered. “Please don’t say anything.”
He gripped the cool metal and came around to stand in front of her. She wore a gray T-shirt with Boomer Sooner in maroon on the front, and he couldn’t help feeling pretty turned on by the sight of her in his shirt. It was like he’d marked her all over again.
“This hurts, Ryan.” She pressed a hand to her chest. “You didn’t have to bond with me. If you didn’t want me, you should have let me go.”
She wasn’t looking at him, and he wanted her to. But he didn’t want to push her. Didn’t want to force her. And he deserved everything she was going to unleash on him.
“Now, I’m trapped again. Just like I would have been with Christian. Only, now, I want…” She trailed off, turning her head to look off toward the sunrise. “It’s worse to actually want you.”
Ryan tried to come up with words that would prove to her that he had changed, but the enormity of what he’d done weighed on him. He’d tried to make decisions for her, not with her. He hadn’t treated her as a partner. With burning nostrils, he knelt in front of her, holding the chains.
“What are you doing?” she asked, aversion in her voice. But she didn’t touch him.
He lowered his head to her lap and exposed his neck. It was a gesture that only a predator would understand. Only a wolf.
The sound of her hard-caught breath made emotion burn through him. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I can’t…I’m so sorry, Kate.”
She sat there for a long moment—unmoving, unbreathing— and Ryan had no idea what thoughts were going through her head. He could feel some burning in her chest, like she was holding something back, and he wanted so badly to make her sadness go away.
“I was only trying to keep you safe.” He kept his cheek pressed to her thigh, holding himself so he didn’t put too much weight on her. “I want to protect you, even if I have to protect you from myself.”
“What brought this on?” she asked in a tight voice.
“I put so much stock in Fate when it came to pack matters, but I ignored the fact that Fate wouldn’t have matched us if there wasn’t a reason. I wanted to make up for my father’s mistake…so much…too much.”
“Suddenly, you believe that Fate really matched us?”
Ryan pulled himself back on his heels and looked up into her stunning blue eyes. “Of course I do. I’ve always known that. I just…I tried to deny it at first, like an idiot. I never considered what that would do to you. Gods. I care about you too much to be away from you even long enough to handle this stuff with my pack.” He swallowed, looking down at his useless hands. “My mother called it torture. She said it would torture you.”
Kate’s fingertips snaked across his cheek and she stroked his face, sadness in her eyes. “You care about me?”
“Of course I do,” he said, all urgency, but he forced himself to stay leashed and on his knees. She needed to understand that he realized what a complete and utter dumbass he’d been…and that he was eager to make up for it. “Gods, Kate. It’s been all I could do to keep myself from pinning you up against every single wall since the library.”
She took in a breath and licked her lips. “It has?”
“Shit.” Ryan slicked his hand across his scruffy stubble, where her fingers had touched him. “All it takes is one look.”
A shiver ran through her and she shook out her hair so it flowed down her back. “Ryan. Ryan Travis Joseph or whatever…”
“Joseph Ryan Travis. The third,” he added helpfully. “It’s my you’re-in-trouble name.”
“Well, I’d better learn it, then.” Her smile was small, and half-hearted, but it was a smile. He’d move the moon to see a big, satisfied grin on her face.
“You can call me whatever you want when you’re mad.”
She crooked up one side of her mouth and looked at the sky. “Jackass?”
“Yup.”
>
“Jerkface?”
“Absolutely.”
“Douchefuzz?”
He snorted out a laugh. “I’ll answer to that.”
“Douchecanoe?”
“Your wish is my command.” He gave a little bow and she finally cracked that smile he’d been hoping for. But it only lasted a second, and she was back to looking somber. It was such an unusual look on her, and he hated that he’d put it there.
“You hurt me, Ryan.”
“I know I did. I was a jackass and a douchefizz.”
“Douchefuzz,” she corrected, touching his shoulder like a queen knighting a soldier. Or a lady comforting a servant. He would take whatever he could get, given what he deserved.
“I don’t ever want to hurt you again,” he said, a dark rumble in his chest. “I mean that. I don’t know how I can prove it to you, but I really do mean it.”
“I can feel how much you mean it,” she said, moving her hand back to her own chest. “With the bond, I can feel what you feel.”
His mouth went dry as he considered, really considered, what being separated would have meant for them. Knowing that Kate was in pain, and so far away. He never would have been able to stand it. Especially knowing he was the cause of it. No matter how short a time he’d assumed it would be, he couldn’t hurt her like that.
“I had no idea how much it would hurt to be apart,” he said, feeling his voice break at the thought of being separated from her. “Even just being separated from you now, I could feel the lack of you. I don’t ever want you to feel that.”
“Oh, Ryan.” She took his face in her hands. “I don’t want you to feel that pain either.”
“You need to know, Kate. I don’t regret bonding with you. The only thing I regret is that I didn’t listen to you sooner. We should have bonded immediately and figured out the rest together. It was wrong of me to make plans behind your back” He shook his head, leaning back on his heels again. “I just…I didn’t realize what an idiot I was being.”
“Your mother did warn me about you being stubborn,” she said with a little laugh.
That sound was like music. As much as he hated these hard moments, he knew a lot more of them were coming. They would have to deal with her grandfather. His pack. But he hoped there would also be more of her laughter, because if there was a way to make her laugh all the time, every day, for the rest of their lives, he was going to make it happen. He loved her laugh.
Rodeo Wolf: Fated Mates of Somewhere, Texas (#2) Page 19
