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“You said I was destined to be alpha with you as my second, by my side.” I was riled all over again by his composure. How dare he be so calm! “Now I’m agreeing to bonding, and you’re backing away.”
“This isn’t how I envisioned it,” he said simply, with a shrug to punctuate, as if that was all it’d take to satisfy me.
“Right—the way you envisioned it. You marking me. Me subservient to you.” I crossed my arms, ready to glare out of the window all over again.
“Is that really how you think the mating bond works?” He pushed himself to the edge of his recliner then leaned forward, forcing me to focus on him and only him. “Is that really how you think I work?”
My mouth gaped, my thoughts instantly shifted to my dreams and the span of his fingers across my ass. My cheeks heated. “Um…that’s exactly what you’re—”
He gripped the back of my head and pulled me close. His eyes swallowed me. His scent tickled the back of my throat and made my mouth water. His heat blasted the cold in my heart, blowing my anger away in an instant. “In the bedroom, yes, I will always dominate.” He nipped my bottom lip, and I melted, oozing desire out of every pore. “On the training field, yes, I will push you, demand more.” He kissed along my jaw, and I shivered, jolts zinging along my nerve endings. “But not as my mate.”
My brain was on fire. My body ready to blaze. I leaned closer, wanting so badly to climb into the seat with him. “Then it shouldn’t matter how it happens,” I whispered, my voice rough.
He pulled back with a sigh, breaking the spell between us so suddenly that I almost tumbled forward. “You don’t understand.”
He looked out of the window, and I quickly righted myself, embarrassed all over again for almost face planting in his lap.
“When we were pups, our mother would tell us about these fantastical creatures, female warriors who led fiercely and commanded loyalty.” I’d heard this story already, but there was something in his tone that kept me quiet. “She told us that there was a prophecy about the rise of a female champion, one who was whispered about among the other females. She was coming. Actually, my mother believed she was already born and destined to change our world for the better—a savior for every female who had been neglected, abused, murdered.” He ran his fingers through his hair, still staring out of the window. I knew this was easier for him, but I wanted him to look at me while he was telling me about my destiny. “She told me that it could be my destiny to bond with this warrior. That if I devoted myself to building my strength and my power, I would be the one to bolster her, protect her flank, stand at her side.”
Look at me!
This was important. It was meaningful to him. He was staring at the clouds when he should have been staring at me. I was supposedly his queen and yet…the sinking sensation in my gut told me that I’d blown it. I’d changed the story. My bite wasn’t part of his plan. It wasn’t what he’d built his life toward. In one spontaneous moment, I’d shattered his dreams.
And there was more…
“When I told her that wasn’t the way things were done, that it was the other way around, the female would support the male, she’d looked at me sternly and said that my bite would ignite an unstoppable change, that it was vital for the other males to see my mark on the warrior queen’s skin so that they would know that my claim, while absolute, would be all the more meaningful when I stepped out of the way of her, my warrior queen, and supported her rule.”
Fuuuck. His words sank like a boulder in my gut.
“So, you see, if you mark me, you’ll gain control over the pack, yes…” He finally turned his head so that our eyes met. His weren’t on fire anymore. They were subdued…withdrawn. “But I fear that you’ll set the Duke clan up in the eyes of the other packs as weak.”
“So, they’ll underestimate us then we’ll show them we’re not weak!” I tried for cheerleader and sounded about as pathetic as I felt.
I’d fucked this up for Kane. I’d destroyed his dream, and I was asking him to rewrite his destiny. No matter what, I still couldn’t agree to his bite. I couldn’t. It was against everything I’d ever believed. So fitting that I found a man who shared the same dogmatic beliefs about the way of our worlds but he was on the opposite side of the spectrum.
“Charlie, we live in a world dominated by powerful men. All I’m saying is that it might make sense to meet them in their world first, then yank them into a new one—not for the sake of the alphas who you can clobber and bite into submission, but for the pack you adopt who you won’t bite, who come to you by proxy. We’re talking thousands of wolves potentially. You can’t mark them all.”
I wanted to argue, but I knew he was right. He’d been thinking strategy, and I’d been working on emotion.
“I’m not trying to perpetuate the male dominance narrative, but my bite carries weight. I’ve made sure of that, and it’s meant—has always been meant—to bolster you. I can’t turn my back on that concept, not even in the face of ancient evidence that suggests the mark needs to be reversed. I just…don’t feel like we have the full story.” He turned back to the window, shutting me out again. “So, I say again, I’m not ready. It’s too much for me to accept right now.”
The silence hung once more. The pit in my stomach grew. I’d marked Levi and Johnny. Had I made them vulnerable by ignoring the legacy of power that the patriarchy held? Had I ignored the natural laws of our kind, somehow?
No. My gut said no. Just because it wasn’t how Kane pictured didn’t make it wrong. And yet, his words rang true. There was something to be said for playing the game as it was meant to be played then hitting them when they least expected it.
I leaned my head against my hand and turned my gaze back out of the window. Heavy thoughts circled my brain, threatening to pull me under.
My gut said he wasn’t wrong—but he wasn’t right, either.
Chapter Eighteen
Charlie
We landed in Toronto and got to Ruby’s house as quickly as possible, which was pretty fast, given that Levi had arranged everything once we landed. There was no scrambling to find a car or dealing with traffic, because the driver of our SUV knew all the ways to bypass congestion and got us to Ruby’s place in record time.
Kane was updated repeatedly on the flight about the situation on the ground. Jared had been dealt with. I wasn’t asking how, but I had a feeling he wouldn’t be showing up on Toronto streets ever again. It was brutal, but whatever they did to him would have been far more humane than what he was heading toward as the full moon grew closer.
Ruby, thank fuck, was secured. So, when I barged into her small apartment, I was amped up, yes, but not in a scared-for-my-friend’s-life kind of way. It was more like a fuck, how am I going to explain this sort of thing.
