Blood Magic by Laken Cane

Chapter Five

I told him about my meeting with the county master as he drove, and I could tell by the way he squeezed the steering wheel and clenched his jaw that he was not a happy man. “Stay away from him, Kait.”

“One of his children came to me for help. She says Axton is doing some kind of experiments, and that he’s learning to control humans beyond just shading them to feed.”

“No,” he said flatly. “None of his people would ever betray him that way. You misunderstood, or she’s attempting to pull you into a trap.”

I shook my head. “You weren’t there. Trust me, Alpha. There’s some shady shit going on there. No pun intended. And I’m sure my client’s wife is somehow mixed up in the whole mess.”

“Stay out of it.”

I stared at him, angry. “You may be alpha, but you don’t have to be an asshole. I’m not a child, and I’m for damn sure not your child. So fuck off with your orders, Jared.”

“I’m not ‘an alpha,’ Kait. I’m your alpha.”

I shivered at his low, growly voice, angry at myself for being so attracted to him. “Maybe,” I agreed, finally, calmly, “but I’m not looking for a man to dominate me.”

He looked at me, his eyes glittering and mysterious and just a little dangerous in the shadowy closeness of the car. And maybe a little amused. “Okay.”

I stared out my window and didn’t say another word until we reached the woods of Shadowfield, the little town of wolves. Jared’s town.

My pack’s town.

“We miss your mother,” Jared told me, as we left the car and walked toward the woods.

“I wish she hadn’t left just yet,” I said. “I worry Adam Thorne will make another attempt on her just to get to me.”

“Why does he want you now, Kait? He cast you out, but now he’s trying to get you back. Why?”

“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. But I think it’s because he found out you were going to free my wolf. He doesn’t want me shifting. I…” I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

“I warned him that you and Susan belong to me now. If he bothers you again, I will make him regret it.”

I pressed my hand to my chest. “Jared. Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” he said, his voice soft but full of a very dark threat. “I take care of my pack. Adam Thorne doesn’t want a war. He’ll leave you alone.”

I wasn’t so sure, but I did believe that the next time Thorne tried something, he’d come directly for me and leave my mother alone. “I wish she would have stayed here,” I said.

“I told her that when she grows tired of living without her pack, she’s welcome to return to Shadowfield. As are you.”

“I appreciate knowing I have a place to come to should I need one.”

“But…”

“But my home is the city.”

He didn’t argue. The pack still wasn’t ready to accept me. Most of them believed I was a demon. And I wasn’t ready to forgive them for the mistreatment I’d received at their hands. If I moved into Shadowfield, there would be constant conflict.

The second I entered the deep, dark woods, everything else melted away. I was no longer thinking about buried vampires, angry masters, or even missing humans. My wolf woke up and pulsed eagerly inside me, ready to come out and play.

My alpha was there, and it was safe.

I could shift, run, eat, whatever I wanted. I could be a wolf.

Undressing in front of him would have been even more awkward now because of my not-so-subtle physical attraction to him, but like a gentleman, he turned his back when I began to remove my clothing.

He discarded his own clothes, quickly and casually, not caring at all that I watched. When we were both naked, he turned slightly toward me. “Do you need help, Kait?”

“Yes,” I whispered. It was just so hard. I didn’t know why. When the full moon came, it would help me shift. In a few nights, a spectacular hunter’s moon—and a blue moon—would rule the skies. With all that power, I thought it might have killed me if I’d still been hobbled when it arrived. But even though Jared had freed me, without the full moon, I needed his help. For now. “Bizarre. Fucking bizarre.”

“When I was a kid,” he told me, “my father’s warriors stuffed one of their own into a tiny metal box. The box was layered with silver, and that made him weak and sick.” He stopped talking for a few seconds, remembering, and there was something in his voice that made me want to go to him and wrap my arms around him.

“They left him folded up in that little box for three days before I finally got up the nerve to break him out. When I did, I pulled him out…” He shook his head. “He couldn’t move. Couldn’t straighten his limbs or stand or even shift. I told my father if he didn’t bring that man’s shift so he could heal, I was leaving. I was done with a pack where our own people were treated so very badly. Everyone was afraid of him and his warriors. By me, even, simply because I was the alpha’s son. It was a pack ruled by fear and the day I took over, I swore I would be a different alpha. A better one.”

I had only ever known alphas to rule by fear. My ex-alpha, Jared’s father…

“You’re different,” I said. “It’s obvious.”

He blew out a breath. “Sometimes I wonder. Anyway, my point was, you are like that man in the box. It’s going to be a while before you can figure out how to shift. You were hobbled for twelve fucking years. It’ll come, Kait, and I’ll help you until it does.”

“Why didn’t you help me then?” I didn’t mean to say the words, honestly, I didn’t. It wasn’t the time, and I didn’t want to sound like I cared. But there it was, out in the open, and I know he heard the rawness in my voice.

“When my father refused to take you and your mother in? I was young. But even I knew that if we’d accepted you into the pack, you and your mother would have been tormented constantly. It was better for you to leave.”

I nodded. He wasn’t lying. I understood when I’d been harassed, disrespected, and even abused by his warriors in the last few weeks how it would have gone if my mother and I had stayed in the pack when I was a child.

“The twelve years after,” I said. “Why didn’t you offer to free my wolf?”

“I told you before,” he said. “I didn’t know I could. When an alpha hobbles his wolf, only he can break those chains, Kait. You know that.”

“And yet,” I said, “you broke mine.”

“I did. I don’t know how or why.”

I sniffed, then nodded, and finally, I reached out to squeeze his bare, muscular arm. “Thank you, Alpha.”

He smiled. “Are you ready?”

“Soready.”

He yanked my wolf out of me so quickly it was both excruciatingly painful and insanely pleasurable, and more than a little disorienting. The last time he’d helped me shift, my wolf had been half mad and had carried all the rage, grief, and pain I’d shoved inside her over the years. She’d gone after her alpha and had torn him up.

Ihad. I’d gone after my alpha. I’d lost control, as my wolf. I wouldn’t do that again. I could control my wolf because the wolf wasn’t stronger mentally than the woman. I was aware, and when her feral rage erupted, I redirected it to something else.

I ran and explored, and I was a wolf. Free, wild, and filled with joy. Surely there was nothing better than this. I could stay as my wolf forever. The alpha was in a playful mood and he chased me, mock attacked me, hunted with me.

I couldn’t help but howl, pointing my nose into the night sky, paying homage to the beautiful silver moon that decorated that velvety dark vastness. Then I sprinted across the littered floor of my woods, acknowledging and discarding scents as I sifted through the chaos of overwhelming smells to investigate the ones that interested me.

I was ravenously hungry. I caught a small animal’s scent before I saw it, and there was nothing more important than catching the meal that had been put before me. I leaped, catching it between my teeth, and even as part of me watched in horrified silence, I ate. I devoured. It wasn’t enough to satisfy me, and with my alpha at my side, I hunted and ate until I was satisfied, and I ran until I was happily exhausted, and then I plopped down on the ground to rest.

Such a simple, beautiful life.

My alpha stretched out a few yards from me, his face turned away as he quietly listened and watched for danger. I didn’t remember a time when I’d ever felt so safe. But I remembered hurting him, and that dimmed my joy.

I climbed to my feet and trotted to him, and when he gave a tiny grunt I lay beside him, my body touching his, and shoved my face against his side, and I slept. The wolf was content.

When I woke up, the first thing I realized was that I had shifted back in my sleep, and I was no longer my wolf. My naked body was pressed against the alpha’s, his arms were around me, and my lips were pressed against his warm throat.

He wasn’t asleep. I felt the tenseness in his body, and something else. His erection pressed against me, hot and hard. It was completely normal, of course. He was naked, I was naked…

Lust flooded me and I stiffened, but I suddenly realized something I hadn’t thought about before. We wouldn’t have sex. I was his wolf, and the only way he’d screw one of his wolves was if he had the intention of making her his mate. To do otherwise would cause too many complications. He would see it as disrespecting me, hurting me…

Because he would choose a mate—my mother had told me one had been chosen for him when he was a baby. I didn’t know her name. But if we had sex, grew close, and then he took another as his mate, how painful that would be.

For both of us.

But If I were his mate, I would be alpha of the pack right alongside him.

And neither of us was ready for that.

He rolled away and stood, stretching, and I had to close my eyes to blot out the sight of his bare, gleaming body before I said to hell with logic and consequences and made a complete fool of myself.

“How do you feel?” he asked, his voice soft and deep.

I laughed, but even I heard the shakiness of that laugh. “I feel…everything,” I said, finally.

And I thought maybe I’d take a page out of Lucy’s book and find myself a distraction for the night. I was in dire need of some relief.

He leaned over and held out a hand, and when I took it, he pulled me to my feet. For a second, my body brushed against his, and I gasped as heat flared once more between us.

He stepped back. “Kait, this thing between us will dim. It’s natural that your wolf would be…attracted to me, and my wolf to you. I am all your wolf knows. I freed her. There is…” He hesitated, swallowing, and I felt a flare of satisfaction that I was not the only one so affected. “I will not act on it. It would be like a teacher taking advantage of his student. You are safe with me.”

Oh goody. Yay.

“I need to get dressed and get back to the city,” I said, and I didn’t look at him when I said it. “If we can find our clothes.”

“I can find them.” He started to take my arm, then thought better of it, and simply turned and walked away, leaving me to follow.

When we returned to our belongings, I hurriedly dressed, then checked my phone. I had a voicemail from Max, checking on me—with a smirk in his voice—and a voicemail from the detective not saying much of anything. But there was something in his voice that made me worry.

“Kaitlyn,” he said, almost reluctantly, “just touching base.” That was all.

“Tomorrow night,” Jared said, as we loped from the woods. “Come see me. Don’t deny your need to shift.”

“Why not?” I snapped. “I seem to be denying myself everything else.”

I’m pretty sure that when he turned away from me, it was to hide a smile.

By the time I got back to the city, my office was locked up and dark and Max and Joe had gone home. I said goodbye to Jared, climbed into my car, and despite the hour, I went to see Detective Moreno.