Shadow Of A Mate

by SA Welsh

  Kyle’s eyes strayed over to where Jay’s body had been laid on the bed and the thick blanket that was barely keeping Jay from shaking. The medical staff had all jumped on Jay the second they were allowed back into the hall. Jay would have hated all the fuss if he’d been conscious, but his mate still lay unresponsive.

  Despite all warnings, once the staff had declared they couldn’t do anything for him, Kyle had picked Jay up and left the hall, carrying his mate to their room. There was nothing medicine could do for magic.

  When they’d found out about Jay having powerful, old magic in his blood he’d been sneaking to the library to study the old books he and his father had tracked down about magic. He’d since spent every spare minute poring over old texts and learning everything he could.

  Logan’s guess that Jay had less than four days before the spell completed its work did little to comfort him. There was no time to search for other answers. Kyle had to go after the only hope they had. He had to kill Logan’s mother, Katrianna, the witch who’d hurt Jay.

  Or die trying.

  If Kyle closed his eyes and concentrated he thought he could feel the tiniest spark of something through their mate bond, but it was still so new, so fragile that there was a big probability that it was wishful thinking. Mate bonds were unpredictable.

  The mere thought that Jay could be gone completely was so tragic that Kyle had not even a shadow of a doubt that if Jay died, he would shortly follow. His jaguar would simply give up.

  “All is not lost yet, son. We can get him back.” Papa’s words should have startled him. Kyle had been so focused on Jay, he hadn’t realised anyone else had entered the room. But instead he turned away from his mate, swallowing the anguish threatening to overwhelm him.

  Tryst and Mack were getting ready, too, refusing to let him go after the witch alone. He knew his betas were thinking they could stop him from going over the edge if the worst happened. Sadly that just wasn’t true. Anyone would think Kyle had been the one spelled because he was cold. Someone without a mate bond wouldn’t understand.

  “Not we, me and my betas,” Kyle corrected, turning to meet his father’s eyes.

  Papa frowned and Kyle could see him preparing to argue.

  Holding up a hand, he tried to put this in a way that wouldn’t throw what Papa was offering in his face. As an alpha, the need to protect the pack, to be the strength of the pack was in every breath he took. Yet his father was pushing that aside to be a good dad instead.

  “You’re needed here.”

  “You and Jay need me more,” Papa pointed out.

  Kyle couldn’t refute that. Going up against a witch, especially one as strong as Katrianna was terrifying. But he didn’t have a choice.

  The last thing he wanted was to leave the pack unprotected after everything with the hunters. “Jay can’t come with me like this, it’s too dangerous. I need you to watch over him. You and Mam, no one else.” Leaving Jay behind was going to be torture. All his instincts screamed at him to reconsider and stay here with Jay. But if he did then he was admitting there was no hope left at all.

  Staying wasn’t an option.

  “Kyle...” Papa came forward and pulled him roughly into a hug.

  He leaned into his father, shuddering as he struggled to restrain the need to cry. Crying wouldn’t help Jay.

  Papa held him up easily with strong arms. When a deep comforting rumble erupted from his father Kyle went limp. The sound vibrated through him, and like a cub, he yielded and let Papa lead him over to the bed and sit him down. They hadn’t sat like this since Kyle was thirteen. Jay had been the reason he was upset then, too.

  It had been around the time when Jay had started avoiding him like the plague, dodging his calls and Frank had refused to give any messages or let Kyle in to see Jay when he went to the house.

  “I can’t lose him, Papa.” His words were calm despite his racing pulse.

  “You won’t. I’ll look after him here and you’ll go and end this evil spell. You are strong and capable. Look how you rescued Nikko. You can track, hunt, fight better than most experienced alphas and you need to trust your training. Failing isn’t an option. You’ll end the spell and bring my other boy back to us.” Papa gripped his shoulder firmly, shaking Kyle to make the point stick.

  Papa and Mam had claimed Jay as their own straight away.

  He knew Jay was still cautious and maybe a bit distrustful about it, but his mate stood taller every time Mam or Papa called him son.

  “And when Jay wakes up we are throwing him straight in the deep end of training,” his father growled, turning to look at Jay.

  Kyle almost smiled as he imagined breaking the news to Jay that he was going to be put on a gruelling training schedule of running drills through the forest and worked hard until he sweat a river and ate dirt. Papa didn’t hold back on training. Arthwr was a big believer in everyone being capable of defending themselves and others if they were forced to.

  “He’s going to hate that.” He reached out to touch Jay’s blanket covered foot, reassuring himself that Jay was actually still there.

  “Yep, and we’ll never hear the end of it. I remember when you started training. Such a whiner.” Papa shook his head and made a mock disappointed face, ducking when Kyle swatted at him half-heartedly.

  He took offense at that. “Hey! I was nine and you had me practicing the monkey bars in the rain.”

  “Yes, I did and the next year you got into trouble climbing a tree in a storm that was far too high for you when a branch broke. You were able to hang on until I climbed up after you to bring you down because of that training.”

  Kyle didn’t dignify that with a response. He didn’t have to. They both knew Papa was right.

  Sitting here with his father talking about what would happen when Jay was himself again, safe again, helped Kyle find some balance and his jaguar calmed a little at his father’s confidence.

  “Logan told me what he told you, that it will be easier to sneak up on his mother with a small group so I won’t insist on calling in the cavalry just yet. That being said, I want you to take this.” Arthwr held out a mobile phone. “In here are six contacts. You call any one of them and say Arthwr CathFawr’s calling in a favour and they’ll be at your disposal. Under each number is a name and run down of their specialties. It will get signal anywhere except one hundred feet underwater.”

  “I thought you called in the favours you had left to go after Nikko,” Kyle said with a frown.

  “There are always more favours to call in, Kyle. I did what I did for a long time before I met your mother and settled down,” Papa said enigmatically, not offering any more information. Kyle knew his father had basically been part of a team that didn’t officially exist, but it still freaked him out a little. He wasn’t sure he even wanted to know anything more about it.

  “It’s creepy when you do that, you know.” Kyle felt like he was talking to a completely different person.

  “I know. You may have to explain to Jay that I wasn’t actually a businessman in the city before I came to Pack Valley.” His father shrugged as if it were perfectly normal. Hell, Kyle thought it had been until he’d seen Jay freaking the fuck out when the pack geared up for war.

  “Yeah, I’m so not going to be the one breaking that news.” Kyle took the phone anyway and gave a cursory look at the contacts. Explosives. Medical Evac. Weapons. Tracer Transport. Retrieval (get out of jail). Rain.

  Rain? “What’s rain?”

  The others were vague, but at the same time mostly self-explanatory.

  The tracer, he assumed was someone like Uncle Smith—he had a few of those—who had gotten them the locations on the facility that held Nikko. The get out of jail was exactly what it said. If Kyle and the others got picked up by any law enforcement, all he had to do was call the number and they’d be released within the hour. Papa had given him this one when he turned eighteen. Just in case, Papa had said.

  “That one is a last resort type of thin
g. If you can’t get to the witch, evacuate anyone within a mile or so if you can and call that number. Do not use it unless you have to. Promise me.” Papa’s eyes were deadly serious and Kyle had the urge to drop the phone. This was serious shit.

  “I promise.” He wouldn’t break his word.

  “Since you’re right, I can’t come with you and leave the pack defenceless, I’m going to send you out as strong as you can possibly be. That means we’re going to force you to come into your alpha power early.” Papa paused and took a steadying breath. “To do that you’re going to have to challenge me and win.” Arthwr sat there, staring back at Kyle calmly as if he hadn’t just dropped a bomb of information on him.

  He didn’t know what to say. In truth Kyle was in shock. What Papa was suggesting was insane. “But...I don’t understand. I can’t beat you...” That was only one of the problems with that idea. He couldn’t even count how many more there were.

  “You don’t have to, you just have to come close. If you pin me and I submit, the dominance high should trigger your alpha side and force the powers to manifest early. This is dangerous and if you ever tell your mother I even suggested it, I’ll tell her you used her camera to take intimate photos of you and Jay.”

  Kyle flushed red. He thought he’d deleted all of those photos.

  His father must have read his panicked expression because he smiled at the threat of blackmail being spot on. “Yeah, you missed one. I didn’t think Jay was that flexible.”

  Holy shit. Kyle knew exactly what photo that was, they’d only taken a handful and if Jay ever found out he’d missed one, Kyle’s life would not be worth living. His mate would rip him a new one for sure.

  “Oh, God.” Kyle hung his head in his hands and collapsed sideways onto Jay’s legs, beyond embarrassed.

  “Yes, that looked to be what Jay was saying. You’re lucky I used the camera before your mother did otherwise she’d probably have gotten it printed on a t-shirt or something and used it as a teachable moment. Either that or make me try it and I’m just not that bendy.”

  “Lucky? You’re blackmailing me!” Kyle’s embarrassment gave way to anger. His cat didn’t like being threatened by anyone, even his father.

  “Yes, and I hope you learned your lesson about erasing the memory card thoroughly or using your own damn camera.” Papa’s eyes crinkled at the edges with amusement.

  “Mine doesn’t have a tripod stand,” he mumbled even though that wasn’t really the point.

  Papa laughed again and Kyle sat up, glaring at his father.

  “Fine. I won’t tell Mam anything and you won’t tell Mam anything. I still don’t know how this will work.” There was no way this was going to work. An alpha came into his powers in his late twenties or mid-thirties usually.

  Alpha powers were unpredictable and wild. It was more than just simple enhancements of senses and strength. Even after learning about being an alpha since he was a cub, Kyle still didn’t fully comprehend the magnitude of alpha powers. But he knew they were dangerous and unpredictable when they first manifested.

  “You pin me, assert dominance and your jaguar will do the rest.”

  “How the hell do you expect me to assert dominance, you’re far stronger than me. Your jaguar won’t let me pin you, even to help me. It’s not how our cats are wired, Papa.” Kyle could see what his father was saying, the plan was a good one. Kyle drove his hand through his hair angrily, tucking the annoying strands in front of his face back behind his ear.

  “I can control my jaguar long enough for us to give this a shot.” Papa’s face was serious, jaw clenched and the faint lines at his mouth and eyes appearing stern and resolute.

  Kyle weighed up his options before coming to the conclusion that he didn’t really have any. If there was even the smallest chance this would work, it could mean he would be able to find and defeat the witch and save Jay.

  “Don’t kill me.” That was the only warning he gave his father before he shifted and tackled the alpha, knocking them off the bed and to the ground.

  They struggled and exchanged punches, neither one of them using their full strength.

  Rolling across the floor, trading places, his father came out on top with the bigger body mass.

  “Pin me!” Papa snarled in his face and Kyle gave in to his jaguar and threw his father down to the floor. They wrestled, each getting the upper hand before the other took it away. Kyle couldn’t afford to let it happen again this time. His father’s control could only last so long.

  “Pin me or your mate will die,” Papa breathed in his ear, grabbing him by the scruff roughly when Kyle hesitated.

  Those words short-circuited his brain. Kyle struck as quick as the cat he was and sank his teeth into his father’s throat. Hot blood rushed into his mouth, speaking to his beast and awakening a side of him that wanted to bite harder and get rid of the threat and be king of the pack.

  Papa roared, pained and furious, but Kyle kept his hold until his father slowly relaxed.

  “Oh shit,” he whispered as he drew back, horrified by what he’d done.

  Before he could apologise or do anything else something like lightning snapped up his spine. He could feel it on the edge of his consciousness, potent and scary. Kyle ignored the survival instinct telling him to pull back and forge ahead, mentally smashing through the walls that stood between him and the source of the power inside him.

  The last barrier crumbled and Kyle tried to scream, but no sound came out. The power rushing through him was astounding. He’d never felt this strong. Kyle’s jaguar stretched his claws slowly, testing himself.

  The electrical shock struck again and Kyle watched as his paw morphed between human and jaguar. Back and forth the shift went as his body became accustomed to the new power. It was like he’d swallowed the equivalent to rocket fuel.

  Everything was brighter, sharper, louder, and clearer. His hearing was more acute than ever as he tilted his head and heard Tryst and Mack getting ready next door, Mam and Nikko talking softly downstairs and Logan drawing something with a pencil on paper downstairs.

  Kyle could even hear the graphite nib scraping over the coarse, uneven surface of the paper as Logan sketched. He could perceive it as clear as if he were Logan himself.

  “This is very weird.” Understatement of the century, but the best he could do.

  His attention snapped back to his father as the alpha got to his feet cautiously, watching Kyle as if the shifter thought Kyle might attack. “Yes. Control it, harness it. You don’t have the luxury of taking it slowly, you’ll need to learn as you go.”

  Arthwr reached up to touch his neck and Kyle realised the bite he’d left was oozing a steady stream of blood down his father’s throat.

  Kyle rushed forward to help. “Let me—”

  Papa’s arms were glued to his side, fists clenched and tense as the alpha breathed in a slow, controlled manner. “I’m fine. Now go.”

  Kyle wanted to stay and see to the bloody bite on his father’s neck but he froze when he noticed the focused, intent look in Papa’s eyes. The alpha jaguar was stalking him, looking at him as prey.

  “Papa,” Kyle whispered brokenly as a cold spear shot through his heart.

  “Go.” The order was more of a roar than any sound a human could make.

  Kyle spared his father and Jay one more look before racing out of the room hoping that he would be able to make Jay whole again and that his relationship with his father wasn’t broken forever.

  Chapter Four

  Kyle ran out of his suite as if the hounds of hell were on his heels. That may not be an exaggeration if his father’s control snapped before he left.

  He had no idea how his father had managed to keep the alpha jaguar restrained and let him win the pseudo challenge. It was self-control on an epic level.

  “Tryst, Mack. We need to leave. Now.” His urgency must have come through in his voice because his betas burst from their room and followed him without a word as he ran toward the stairs
and vaulted over the banister.

  They all landed easily at the bottom, dispersing the impact from the three-storey fall by bending their knees. For a cat it was like stepping off a curb. He looked around, noting the few surprised faces of the people loitering about from visiting the injured shifters. One or two had found their mate. He could smell it on the air.

  Kyle spun and faced the old oak doors to the offices just as they opened.

  Logan came out of the office in a rush, carrying his backpack and what looked like a hand drawn map segment pasted over a road map. “This is where we have to go.” The wolf offered the map to him anxiously, stepping from foot to foot.

  Kyle took the papers and focused on the rough lines, memorising the indentations where Logan had marked out streams and elevated areas. “We’re going to need a plane.”

  Unusually quiet, Tryst and Mack stared at him. Kyle could feel their stares as if they were physical touches on his back. He turned to meet them and neither beta could match his gaze. He was about to give them a brief explanation when he recognised the last two people he wanted to see coming closer.

  Cash and Damian exited the medical hall. His father’s betas sent him wary glances and Kyle knew he had to get out of there fast. The experienced betas could feel his newly awakened power even if they didn’t quite know what it was. Tryst and Mack stepped forward, standing between him and the other betas.

  They stood unaffected as Damian growled a warning. Damian was the most vocal, but Cash was the really dangerous one, coming from the same team his father had before becoming alpha of Pack Valley.

  Both his betas angled slightly more toward Cash as the silent puma shifter took in the scene, analysing them in the way Kyle recognised as sizing them up as a threat. Tryst and Mack must have seen it, too. Tension in the air rose significantly. It was the first time Cash had viewed them as predators instead of cubs.

  When Mack and Tryst didn’t stand down and Kyle didn’t tell them to, Cash and Damian froze. Both sides waited, for once evenly matched in strength and seriousness.