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He lifted his chest off the bed, his eyes bright gold and his fangs bared as a growl so loud it made the bed shake ripped from his throat. His gaze fixed on the soft skin of my right shoulder, but I pushed him back down, my palms against his chest. “Not today, Wolfie,” I said, staring him in the eye.
His skin was hot under my fingers, and I knew he could overpower me if he wanted, but he settled his head back against the pillow, accepting my command. His golden gaze watched me through hooded eyes as I drove us closer to our release.
He lifted his hips slightly, driving himself deeper again, and it all became too much. Light exploded behind my eyes as pleasure erupted in my body, the feeling so intense, so freeing, that I gasped, overwhelmed by the flood of sensation. Tingles swept through my body as Kade spilled his own release into me, and I felt as though I was floating. Like for the first time, the weight of the last ten years had been lifted from my shoulders, and all that was left was the pleasure.
As the feeling subsided, exhaustion pulled at me, and I slumped onto Kade’s heaving chest, my own breathing still rapid, my heartbeat loud in my ears.
“You will be the death of me, Mahare,” Kade said softly in my ear and kissed my temple. I peered up at him to see his eyes were blazing gold in the dim light.
He wasn’t wrong. I thought of how the last time we’d been in his bed, I had tried to stab him. But then I thought of Cara. Of the invitation I’d found in his drawer only a few steps away, and my expression sobered.
He frowned as he watched me. “What is it?”
I hated to ruin whatever moment we were having, but I had to. I rolled off him onto the mattress.It was just sex. Damn good sex, but still just sex. It can’t be anything else.Steeling myself, I said, “Ten years ago. What happened to the villagers who were taken?”
Kade’s lips formed a thin line. “Same as the time before,” he said. “They turned into monsters and joined houses, became part of our world, our society.”
My heart began racing again as I realized this was the first time I might actually get the answer to the question that haunted me. My whole reason for going there. “A girl was chosen who was only sixteen at the time. She has mousy brown hair and wide brown eyes. Do you know what happened to her? Her name’s Cara.”
Kade didn’t answer straightaway, and I held my breath.
“We weren’t in charge of selecting the last round of humans or putting them through the trials,” he finally said, and I released the breath I was holding as disappointment washed over me.
“But I watched all the fights during the Week of Orash,” he continued. “The newbloods all joined houses, and most of them found mates. I don’t know of anyone who went by the name Cara.”
My shoulders sagged, and my mind went to the night Cara had been taken. Had she given the monsters a different name, or was it possible she hadn’t competed in the Week of Orash?
“Who is she to you?” Kade asked.
I swallowed the lump that had grown in my throat. “A friend.”
“Are you sure your friend was selected?” Kade said, his gravelly voice soft as if he had some understanding of what Cara meant to me.
My mind whirled. The image of Cara being led forward into the mouth of Procus was burned into my mind. She’d walked through the portal. I just had to find out where exactly she had gone.
Kade lifted his arm and shifted closer to me, tucking me against him, and I didn’t fight it. My eyes had grown heavy, and for the first time in years, I let myself fall asleep with a warm body by my side.
CHAPTER 24
~ Locke ~
IwatchedKade,whowas busy sharpening one of his swords, his muscled arms sliding the long blade back and forth along a whetstone. When night had come, he’d exited his room, used the washroom, and without even acknowledging Asher, Darian, and me, had set about sharpening his sword.
Raine had entered the washroom after him, wearing nothing but Kade’s shirt and with her leather outfit tucked under her arm.
Kade knew we’d smelled her on him. Before he’d entered the washroom, her scent had clung to him in a way that could only mean one thing. Not that we didn’t already know by the moans that had come from his room. Moans that’d had my pants tightening uncomfortably while I’d tried reading the book that was propped on my lap.
“Well, I, for one, think we need to revisit whose room our lovely Raine sleeps in during the day,” Darian drawled, sipping from a goblet of wine even though the night had only just begun.
“I second that,” Asher added with a mischievous grin.
I watched my wolf brother curiously, noting the way his eyes glowed brighter than I’d seen them in decades, and his lips twitched up slightly in a half smile. That was right,a fucking smile.I was glad he was happy. Kade had beaten himself up about his family for too damn long. Shadows still clung to his eyes, but it was there. The spark of something else. Something other than guilt. The wolf shifter I used to know was rising back to the surface. Maybe not entirely, but it was there. Still, I couldn’t explain the annoyance that had my jaw clenching as I thought of him with Raine.
“You can’t claim her,” I reminded him, my voice cold. “None of us can.” We didn’t know what monster she would become. Mates had to be of the same breed. Not to mention we didn’t belong to a house. Not that she’d want us to claim her. We had nothing to offer. We were broken. Shunned. We were powerful alphas who had run from the duties we had to our houses. It didn’t matter if we all had our reasons. All that mattered in this fucking place was power and those who wielded it.
“I’m not an imbecile,” Kade growled.
“Could have fooled me,” I replied, my voice devoid of emotion.
