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I wished you’d be more like your aggressive self right now. I wished you’d rail and beat your chest. I wished you’d threaten to punish me with your hands, your mouth, your body.
I wished you’d take what was yours.
Instead, you had regret in your eyes and poison on your tongue.
“I have to go. I have to find the truth before we do something irreversible.”
You plead with me to let it be…to let you go. Not with your words but with your body. Keeping me at a distance with the tension that rolled off you, a hazy heat surrounding your body.
“Kane, no, you don’t understand.” I lunged for you, my arms outstretched, desperate to get closer, but the shadows swirled around me, keeping me from touching you. Like I needed protection from you. “This is the way. The right way. You don’t understand because you don’t feel it yet, but you will.” I motioned him to move closer. “Take my bite, and you will.”
I knew I sounded like a temptress, luring Kane to his doom, and I knew that he felt my siren call like a pull he didn’t want to battle. His big body swayed toward me. I could just, with another inch, touch his skin with my outstretched fingers.
“No. Not yet.” Kane pulled himself back with strength I knew cost him peace. “I have to find the truth, and you have to let me go.” He lowered his eyes, his shoulders slumped. “You have to let me see this through my way, Charlie. You have to let me go.”
Before I could form the words, the protest sitting heavy on my tongue, you came at me, fangs bared and fists clenched. “You have to let me go!” you roared, searing me with your anger.
The shadows pulled me back, sucking me away from your rage and the lava spewing from your eyes. But it was you, Kane, not a threat…not a monster.
As if to contradict my thoughts, your eyes sparked danger, and your fangs grew longer.
“And don’t…” You ripped through the ether, somehow getting to me, despite the protections my world was making. You grabbed me by the back of my neck, hauling me closer, your anger so vivid that I wanted to close my eyes and wish myself awake.
This wasn’t you…not the Kane I’d come to know.
“Don’t you dare come looking for me.”
Chapter Thirty
Charlie
I woke up with an ache between my legs and in my heart. Kane was gone. I knew by the silence all around me, his presence a physical feeling in the mansion that I’d never realized I’d miss until now.
I wanted to sob.
I wanted to scream.
I didn’t have enough time with Kane. I felt like he was acting rashly, impulsively.
Running from me and what the prophecy said. A prophecy that he believed in.
A pulse of warmth ebbed through my connections to Levi and Johnny. Their souls were consoling me, trying to repair the damage that Kane had done. We were bonded on a level that I didn’t understand but that felt like a warm hug.
Johnny’s arm was thrown over my body, pinning me to the mattress. He was sound asleep, snoring lightly. It was totally cool that our bond would work even when he was unconscious. I couldn’t help but laugh a bit. Of course Johnny would be capable of so much support, even just lying there. His glorious body, naked with his ass to the sky, candy to my roving eyes, was the best view to wake up to. That alone was enough to distract me from my angry, sad, what-the-fuck thoughts of Kane.
We’d fucked all night, into the early morning hours until my dreams had claimed me, and Kane had torn my heart out.
Now I lay there, back in my head, not really knowing what to do. Kane had left. He was gone. I wanted to chase after him, but his command to stay put had me debating against my own impulsiveness. I knew what my beastly instinct said—find him, bite him, complete the circle. But maybe he was right. Maybe my instincts were the problem. I listened to his concerns on the jet. I’d listened, but had I heard him? He wanted tradition. He wanted what he believed the legacy demanded.
The three-bite thing had taken this whole situation to another level. Complicated was now the name of the game.
“What’s wrong?” Johnny’s sleepy voice pulled me from my thoughts, his power of distraction once again saving me from myself. He tightened his hold on me then kissed my shoulder. I wanted to sink into him, to lose myself in his touch.
“Kane—” I choked on my next words.
Johnny sat up, shaking off sleep and coming to life in an instant. “He’s gone.” His hair was a mess of tangled knots dropping down his back, almost reaching his ass. The cut of his muscles, the vee down his back, the dimples just above his ass, made my body stir like we hadn’t banged all night.
There was a knock at the door before either of us could do or say anything more. “Johnny, Charlie, get dressed. We need to talk.” Levi’s voice was resigned. He must have known that Kane was gone, and I hoped to fuck that he had a plan.
