Filed to story: The Wolf Prince’s Fated Love
I didn’t even have time to process all that before Kane’s arms were around me, spinning me so that his back-his naked, naked back-was between me and the crowd of nosy wolves.
I buried my face in my hands, perhaps in the childish hope that if I couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see me, and this would all just vanish when I next looked up. But Kane’s fingers were persistent, and they ever-so-gently pried my hands away from my face and tilted my chin up. A little thrill shot through me when his eyes met mine. So few people ever had the privilege, and before him, I certainly never had as the lowest she-wolf on the pack totem pole.
But his eyes were warm and vibrant green, gold flecks sparkling in their depths and sucking me into his gaze. They were utterly gorgeous, and staring into them had a piece of my heart chipping and falling off, right into his waiting palms. Hopefully he didn’t crush it to dust, because I was helpless to take it back.
I didn’t want to take it back. I wanted him.
“These are mine,” he whispered, grazing his calloused fingertips lightly over the skin of my hip, sending a forest fire’s worth of heat sparking through my veins in their wake. “And I admit to feeling jealous at the idea of my pack mates and a bunch of other wolves seeing them with me for the first time.” His fingers skimmed up, up, up, under the hem of my shirt, stoking that fire to molten, liquid heat.
“Mmm, your wolf likes it when I’m a caveman, huh? I can’t wait to see her. I bet she’s as beautiful as you are, with those deep brown eyes and all this irresistible skin.” He dropped his mouth next to my ear, and I couldn’t help arching my neck toward him, bared for his fangs like a good little mate. Goddess, who was I? It was a brazen invitation, the crowd of wolves utterly forgotten as my world shrank to just us. Brielle and Kane.
Fated mates.
Kane ran his nose up my neck, the tiny touch electrifying. When he reached my ear, he whispered low so the onlookers couldn’t hear, his lips brushing against the tender shell of my ear. “I can smell your arousal. Are you wet for me, Brielle?”
My knees shook as my wolf whined, and he chuckled, low and dark. “I can’t wait to feel you, baby, but now is not the time. The first time I take you, it will be just us. I’ll make sure you forget every other wolf but me. But now… will you let me see these marks? My wolf is dying to get out and howl about how lucky he is to have the most beautiful she-wolf there is as a mate.”
I nodded and almost self-combusted when he pressed a hot, open-mouthed kiss on my neck just below my ear.
His other hand slipped under the hem of my shirt as well, one anchoring me at the hips as the other lifted the T-shirt. All thoughts of embarrassment fled as his hot eyes met my flesh, inch by painstaking inch. He growled low in his throat when the full mark was exposed, bisected by the thin strap of my panties.
His touch over the beautiful blue swirls was reverent, tender. His wolf’s green eyes shone through, proving he was as on edge as I was.
How could I have thought he didn’t want me? The look in his eyes right now would swallow me up, drown me in his passion, if I let it.
Gentle strokes vanished, he stopped toying with my shirt. He pulled it quickly off over my head, and his eyes darkened another shade when he saw my bra, lacy and sheer, with my pebbled nipples poking against the thin fabric.
“Goddess, Brielle. You are utter perfection. How did I get so damn lucky?” His hands skimmed up my sides, leaving goose bumps in their wake, every inch of me aware of his heat, his closeness, and how little clothing was still between us. The wicked thought that maybe he’d follow me to the ground right here and take me right now, seal this bond between us, if I reached for his boxers and slid them down, nearly overwhelmed me.
When his hands brushed the underside of my breasts, I nearly came unglued. They’d never been terribly sensitive with any past lovers, but Kane didn’t even have my bra off, and I was ready to beg him to touch, hold, taste. He traced the bra around to the back, deftly flicking the hooks apart. When it fell away from my chest, I closed my eyes and hissed out a breath, unable to take any other sensation as my bare breasts pressed up against his chest, skin on skin for the first time.
I clawed him against me tighter, and his hot erection pressed against my belly, his boxers doing nothing to disguise his arousal.
Goddess, he’s huge.
He rumbled contentedly and stroked from the nape of my neck down to the band of my panties, long and soothing strokes.
“Are you ready to run? Most of the pack left without us.”
“They did?” I leaned back just far enough to peek around his large biceps, and sure enough, the clearing had emptied while we were lost in our own world. Leigh and Shay waited in wolf form just inside the tree line with Gael and Reed, all of them studiously looking elsewhere to let us have a private moment, and a bit beyond them were a few curious stragglers who weren’t the least bit shy about staring. Dread pooled in my stomach, dampening some of the liquid heat Kane roused there when I recognized Shane as one of the waiting wolves.
Ugh. It was bad enough to have to tell Kane that I was a weak wolf, but to have the other arrogant alpha watch would make it all a thousand times worse.
That was the rub, wasn’t it? Why Kane thought we weren’t compatible.
My weakness would paint a big, fat target on his back.
I swallowed hard, trying to clear the sudden lump blocking my throat, blocking the words I needed to tell Kane.
“Baby, what’s wrong? Did I push you too far? I’m sorry, I just wanted to make sure you knew where I stood, and that’s the best way I know to-“
I pressed up on my toes and kissed him, my nipples dragging tantalizingly across his chest, racking me with a shudder.
“Not too far,” I answered, hoping he could see the heat in my eyes like I had in his. “There’s something else I need to tell you.”
TWENTY-TWO
Kane
Ididn’t like that tone in her voice, the one that said she was about to tell me something awful. Like she was a cat person.
“What is it, baby?” She worried her bottom lip between her teeth, clearly not excited to spill it. “You can tell me anything, my beautiful mate.”
She drew in a deep breath, pressing the perfect mounds of her breasts tighter against me, and then finally blurted it out.
“I can’t really shift. Well, I can. A little. A few times a year, for a few minutes. I don’t know why, but if I try to stay in fur for long, I pass out. Most full moons, I can’t run with the pack at all, so I just stay in my lab and work.” She stopped herself, and I could practically see the wheels turning as she forced herself to stop, grinding her teeth together to wait for my reaction.
And I was shocked. My mate couldn’t shift? I’d never heard of such a thing. The wolf was as much a part of who we were as the man. To have one but not be able to access the other? My skin crawled at the idea.
It was a miracle she wasn’t mad. Feral wolves couldn’t come back to skin, but I didn’t know of anything that could cause a shifter not to be able to go to fur, save an injury too grave to survive.
Yet here she stood, whole and flawless, and telling me she couldn’t shift.
“Has your Alpha tried to help you with it?”
She shrugged one shoulder, looking away and down as if embarrassed. “Once or twice, but it’s easier to just not. I don’t know, he wasn’t able to figure anything out the few times he tried to force my shift, and I never followed up with any neighboring Alphas. It’s… not common. Nobody knew what to do.”
Her cheeks bloomed red, her sweet, mouthwatering scent took on a sour note of shame, and my heart nearly broke for her.
“Well, luckily for you, I’m the second-most powerful alpha in the world, and my father is the most powerful. If I can’t help you, he can for sure. But first, I think I need to see you shift. Are you ready? I promise not to let anything happen to you, even if you do faint.” I kept my voice even, though the idea of her unconscious made my wolf pace anxiously.
She nodded once, still not meeting my eyes as she stepped out of the panties I’d be dreaming of for the next decade. They cupped her round ass cheeks in see-through purple lace, and I wanted to tear them off her with my teeth. Or steal them and keep them in my pocket.