And that was the bitch of it. She had hurt him.
Crazy, that.
He was a biker for one of the most renowned MCs in the area. The Nomads’ territory was vast, hard won, and ferociously defended. He’d helped fight in a world war, could shift into a bear that had torn another man apart, and this little woman, with her hurt eyes and soft lips, could wound him with a few words.
How the mighty fucking fall.
He shook his head and sighed. “Okay. That makes sense,” he told her.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she whispered, apparently picking up on the fact that her words stung.
“No, I’m sure you didn’t.”
“But I did?” It was her turn to sigh. “Kiko, do you want me to be honest with you?”
In the darkness of the bedroom, where the walls were covered in shadows that were only broken up by the glare of headlights from a random car riding out along the distant highway every few minutes or so, it seemed easier to talk. Easier than earlier, at any rate.
“I always want you to be honest with me,” he countered. “And by that rote, I will always be honest with you too.” He would as well. After all he’d been through in life, the many things he’d seen and learned, he’d seen how lies could tear worlds apart.
He had no intention of finding his salvation only to lose it because of some stupid misunderstanding or falsehood.
She murmured, hesitant again, but her accent was thicker, and he could sense she was worried what his reaction would be. “This might hurt you, but you have to understand my side of things. Maybe then it will be easier to move forward. I-I know what you must want from me. I’m not a fool. I have seen Annette with her Mars, and even the new lady, Christie, with Mundo.” She cleared her throat. “They are all very noisy.”
His lips twitched because she wasn’t wrong. They were noisy, and it had been torture having those sounds ring out all around him when his mate was in the building but might as well have been back in the Ukraine for how much distance was between them emotionally.
“Noisy is the word,” he murmured softly, laughing a little when she huffed.
“I don’t know much about Shifters, only what my Baba, my grandmother, told me from what she’d seen in the war. But there are things you must understand about me. Where I lived in the Ukraine, it was a small town. Our farm was on the outskirts, closer to another village really, but I went into Azovske a lot when I was young. It was market day, and I had some money saved up for a dance that was happening within the month. I wanted a new skirt. There was a group of boys who cornered me, and...” Her words became mangled sounds. “All four of them.”
Tension, worse than anything he’d ever known, spilled through him like napalm. His bear roared so loudly, he felt certain it would shatter his skeleton with the force of withholding the noise. If he roared, she would be frightened, and after...
Four.
She’d been gang raped.
Dear God. No wonder she’d fought and conquered the mate bond.
He closed his eyes, trying to hide from the fact his mate had been brutalized because he didn’t know how to cope with it. He wanted to kill them. He wanted to let his bear out, wanted the creature to tear them limb from limb, rip their hearts to shreds in their chests.
Oh, how the need for vengeance slammed through him.
“You are quiet,” she whispered, agony in her voice. “Are you not interested now you know I am used goods?”
A snarl escaped him. Her words triggered it. She thought... she thought? He couldn’t contain the roar, now. It flushed through him, bringing with it an immediate release in tension that once dispersed, immediately started to gather again. The roar sent electric charges through the air as the magic of the shift slipped through the atmosphere.
She couldn’t not feel it. But he couldn’t sense if she was scared or not, because he was too far gone. His bear had wrestled control from him. The creature knew the men were far away, long gone, but that didn’t take away the rage, the hatred, the need to hurt… to show his mate he was strong, he would always protect her, always keep her safe.
The bear mourned the loss of his mate’s innocence.
Not her virginity, her innocence, because those men had stolen that from her. They’d made her frightened of her own shadow. He’d seen the hurt in her eyes, the tremor in her lips, the way she hunched her shoulders to hide herself. The way she watched the world was as though she knew a bomb was waiting in the wings, and she was seeking out the explosion before it happened.
That was what he mourned for.
And to compound it all, there was the way she’d arrived in America—gang raped then trafficked.
“Mischa,” he whispered her name, his own torment at her suffering making his voice break.
Something in his words had her scuttling off the sofa. He figured it was from fear, and he mourned that too—mourned the fact she was frightened of him when he was reeling with what had happened to her, when he was grieving for her.
He half expected to hear the door opening and her footsteps scurrying away, but he didn’t hear that. Instead, he felt the mattress depress, and then hesitant hands pressed his leg.
“It’s okay, Kiko,” she murmured, soothing him, repeating the words over and over again, as though he were the one in need of comforting.
Her hand swept up to his shoulders, the other to his cheek. He could scent her wonderful essence, but also her surprise and wonder at how he was reacting. She seemed to sense that he wasn’t mad at her, that he wasn’t upset at the fact she was ‘used goods’—he snarled again at her use of that hideous phrase—but that he was suffering for her.
She hushed him under her breath then started humming a soothing little tune as she stroked him.
He didn’t even know how long it took him to gain back his control. It was embarrassing to realize that his mate had been tending to him like a cub, but he felt her ease, felt how she’d lost herself a little to the pleasure of being able to touch him. It was a fact that both pleased him and broke his heart.
By the time his bear released him, Kiko felt sweaty with the exertion it took not to shift. It wouldn’t be the first time one of them shifted indoors, but it was a bitch to get the repair work done. Even though the clubhouse had been built to spec, with reinforcements for a bear’s weight just in case accidents happened, it was best not to shift. And even though his bear would hurt itself rather than hurt her, he was relieved his control had held.
Letting out a shuddery breath, he realized she’d moved his head onto her lap and was stroking his hair. He blinked up at her, stunned that she’d maneuvered him about without his awareness. It scared him that she’d been able to do that. It told him that yes, his control had held, but it had been a closely won battle.
“I’m so sorry, Mischa,” he whispered, the skin around his eyes pinching as the anger hit him once more.
The left side of her mouth twitched up in a half-smile. “You have nothing to be sorry about.”
“I wish I could make them pay for what they did to you.”
She shook her head. “Vengeance would get us nowhere.”
“It would satisfy me.” He clenched his jaw. “I’m sure your father felt the same way.”
“He’d died the year before. My grandfather did though. My grandmother and mother had to work very hard to get him to stay at home.” Her mouth quirked. “He was a very old man, even then. They would have eaten him for breakfast.”
“They should have let him loose. No man likes to think one of his cubs has been hurt, never mind sexually brutalized.” A breath hissed from between his lips. “I will never allow any harm to come to you, Mischa. Never. I vow this to you.”
“I know,” she told him, utterly serene at that moment. “That’s one of the reasons I can accept that you’re a Shifter and that I’m your mate.” She pursed her lips. “That makes me sound very... what’s the word? Mercenary? Yes, that’s it. But I’m not, not really. You represent safety, Kiko
. I realized that when you told me what I was to you.”
Did that truth sting? A little. But in her circumstances, with her history, how could he blame her?
Kiko couldn’t. He wouldn’t.
He would keep her safe. She would never even scent a whiff of danger. Not if it meant he had to leave the MC to keep it from her. She’d endured much, but now she was his, and she would always be protected.
“You need never be afraid again,” he vowed to her, his voice urgent.
A curious smile played about her mouth. “When we were talking earlier, I realized that. But when I saw your reaction to what happened to me... and then I remember something I heard about Christie and Mundo... I’ve come to see that there is much danger in the MC.” He started to sit up, but she pressed at his shoulders. “Relax,” she murmured. “I’m not going anywhere. There is danger everywhere, but nowhere with as many protectors as The Nomads. Plus, you are more than just my bodyguard.” She tapped a hand to her chest. “I can feel the connection growing already.”
He stared up at her, longing for her curling throughout his veins. But he curbed it, because this was too important to fuck up. His bear wanted to soothe his mate. The man wanted to help her, show her that there would be nothing but tenderness between them, to show her that what she’d known then was night compared to the day their love for one another would be.
“I won’t touch you, Mischa. You have my word. But sleep with me? I... It will help me to have you close.”
She bit her lip. “I know you must be finding this difficult. I just don’t think I’m ready for you... for us to—”
“I swear, I don’t want sex. My bear needs to feel you close, Mischa. Please. It’s about comfort and connection rather than sex.” He urged her to understand, desperation making his voice hoarse. “I can wait for that. I want you, sweetheart, but I want more. It won’t be worth it unless you’re totally at ease with me, totally ready to be my lover, but I need you close. You say you can feel the connection starting? For me, it’s utterly implanted in my being. Keeping my distance from you has been so hard, but I did it. I waited for you to come to me, didn’t I? I will wait until you are ready to be claimed. I’m a man of my word, mate.”
She blinked then stared at him for what felt like forever until finally, she nodded. Once. She picked up the top right corner of the sheet, raised it high, and burrowed underneath it.
His bear immediately settled down, knowing and giving thanks for her proximity. It didn’t matter that she was hugging the side of the bed, that he could feel her tension... He knew that when she eventually fell asleep, she’d be at peace as he was because being close was exactly where mates needed to be.
***
Mischa’s eyes popped open quickly when she realized she wasn’t alone in bed.
As had been the way for the past five days, she still felt stunned by her location. And as usual, what astonished her the most was the fact she was the one hugging Kiko first thing that morning.
He wasn’t spooning her—she was spooning him!
The buzz of it still had the power to make her tingle. That this big, strong man willingly allowed her to be dominant in their relationship put her at such ease that she could feel the mate bond unfurling within her on a daily basis. And every time she felt it settling deeper inside her, she felt such a level of peace that she wasn’t certain how she’d coped without it before.
It was becoming an intrinsic part of her. She could sense that now, where before, fear had shielded the endless possibilities from her.
“Good morning,” came the rumbled greeting from her mate.
He never said anything about their position, never mentioned that she was hugging him, clinging to him like some groupie terrified of letting go of her favorite band member. If anything, when she sensed he was aware of his location—in her arms—he seemed to breathe easier.
Because he was turned away from her, she never saw his face. She kind of wished she could. There would come a time when she would watch him sleep just to see him at peace. But for now, she still huddled into bed at nighttime, cautious but no longer afraid of sleeping beside this large creature for the whole night.
“Morning,” she murmured in reply, her voice husky with misuse. She’d gone to bed earlier than him last night. There’d been a Council meeting—a rendezvous between the MC’s most powerful members—and her mate was second-in-command with many responsibilities to keep him busy.
She’d drifted off to sleep in the bed they had started sharing, not even awakening when Kiko had returned after the meeting.
“How was the Council meeting last night?” she asked, deciding to say to hell with it and keep on hugging him the way she was. It would have been too awkward to let go of him, too noticeable, and the truth was, she didn’t want to let go.
He smelled good—like strength, like earthy sandalwood, like warmth.
Like hers.
She nuzzled her face between his shoulder blades as he said, “Stressful.”
“Why?”
“Dissent in the ranks.” He tried to speak dismissively, but she heard his concern. Could feel it.
“What kind of dissent?”
“We weren’t always the way we are now, Mischa.”
She clucked her tongue. “Don’t make out your boy scouts, Kiko. I know what you ship. Your men spoke quite freely in front of me because they didn’t realize I could speak English.”
“Little sneak.” She stiffened a little at the phrasing then heard the teasing affection in his tone. “It’s a shame they have to know you speak English. You’d make a good spy.”
“I heard enough,” she retorted primly.
“Yeah, you did if you know what we move.” He snorted.
“Aren’t you concerned that I know?”
He shrugged, and the move jostled his shoulders, rubbing her nose against them. “Why would I be? You’re my mate. The whole idea is to be together, not to be apart. You’re not going to do anything that would send me away.”
He was certainly sure of himself, wasn’t he? But then, what defense did she have when she was here, snuggled into him like they’d known each other a lifetime, only a few days after he’d told her she was his mate?
She let out a sigh. “Know it all.”
His chuckle made her lips twitch. “Thing is, we’re still transporting, but that’s pretty much it now. It’s not as lucrative as some of the business ventures the old Prez had us involved in.” When she stiffened, he relented, “Of course, that business involved transporting humans about. Jackson only involved some of his close allies, though, and they’re the ones who are stirring shit. They weren’t bothered about what kind of cargo we were moving, and they’re still not. They see dollar signs. That’s all that matters to them.”
“What are you going to do?”
Kiko tensed then turned around, moving over so he could face her. “Not traffic humans, if that’s what you’re thinking.” He cocked a brow at her. “And we both know you were.”
“Money talks,” she retorted stiffly. “And the MC is a business, even though I know now it’s more than just a biker gang.” When he just stared at her, she clarified, “You know—a place for you and the other bears to come together.”
His smile was warm, congratulatory. “A Clan,” he prompted.
“Yes, this is the word I was looking for.” She frowned. “Is that why you all came together? Or was it motorcycles first then the fact you are all bears.”
KIKO (MC Bear Mates Book 3) Page 7
