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"Can't say I blame you." Rowan leaned forward in his seat and start poking Kai's reddening cheek. "I mean, look at him. The kid's adorable."
"No, I'm not." Kai pouted, which only served to make him look more adorable. "And I'm not a kid. I'm a grown man in my twenties."
Rowan's head fell back in a laugh. "Kai, I'm nearing fifty. To me, you're a baby by comparison."
That statement served to make Kai pout even more. It was to the point that his cheeks puffed up like a gerbil stuffing nuts in his mouth. The mental image had me snorting profusely.
Kai glared at me. "What are you snickering at over there?"
I tried very hard to quash the smile off my face and failing epically. "Nothing."
"Are you laughing at me?" Kai whined.
Mother Moon, help me. My cinnamon roll mate was too cute for words. "I would never laugh at you, baby."
"I call bullshit."
Good, because it totally was bullshit. I couldn't help it, the laugh burst out of me like a balloon. When Rowan joined in, Kai's face scrunched up into the deepest frown I'd seen on him, which made him look even cuter. There was no way he was winning this argument, and he knew it. He didn't like it, but he was doomed to accept it. When we finally decided to show Kai mercy, we went back to talking while I drove us around. Rowan wanted to know about my life before Kingsrose, so I told him about growing up in the Blue Moon Pack. I talked about Julliard and my job as a dance choreographer. I also mentioned the time I was kidnapped by wolf hunters, but Del and my brother worked together to rescue me.
"You've really lived a full life," Rowan said.
There was no denying that one. I could say a lot of things about my life, but dull was not one of them. "I did. It wasn't easy, but I managed to pull through the hardships."
"And you will pull through this one as well. Both of you."
I stole a quick glance to Kai to get his reaction to that last statement. Like I thought, he sank deeper in his seat. This was another reason why I didn't mind having Kai along. I wanted to check on him and see how he was doing after revealing to us about the Berserker Wolf, and how everyone thought he was the monster from my vision. Admittedly, there was a part of me who also thought that after seeing the glowing red eyes of his. I didn't like the idea of one of my mates becoming one of our enemies, even if it wasn't intentional. But then I remembered Atropos' vision, and how I saw Kai's dead body along with the others. Unless being a Berserker Wolf meant he could split himself into two people, there was no way Kai was the monster who killed everyone. But I didn't think about the possibility of someone killing Kai to steal both the berserker rage and the Wolf Moon's gift from him. That must've been what happened in my vision. Whoever that Lycan was, he must've targeted Kai first, then went after the others.
But who was he?
I reached out and patted his knee. "How are you holding up? You know, after everything that happened yesterday."
After all the fun we had on the road, it sucked to see him going silent on us. I didn't push him to respond. I wanted him to talk when he was ready. About thirty seconds later, he muttered, "Not so well."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
Kai shrugged. "There's no point in keeping quiet about it now. Everyone already thinks I'm a monster."
I swerved the truck off to the side of the road and hit the brakes, parking near a thrift shop before unbuckling my seatbelt and turning to face him directly. "Now, that is not true!" I said in a clipped tone. "Nobody thinks that about you, Kai."
"Oh, come on, Rosie. You heard what Del and Roxanne said back at the lodge. They all think I'm the killer Lycan from your vision."
"They thought your Berserker Wolf was the killer from Rosie's vision," Rowan corrected, taking off his seatbelt too and scooting closer. "They also know you can't control what it does when it takes over."
"But it's still me," Kai huffed out, throwing his hands up. "Whether or not I'm in control makes no different. I'm still a Berserker Wolf."
"No, you're not," I argued. "You and your wolf share a body, but you both have separate consciousness. Your wolf's actions and thoughts are different from yours. You and your wolf are separate entities."
Kai looked so confused by my statement. I didn't know why since it was common knowledge among shifters, but then I remembered him saying that he grew up not only knowing he was a shifter until he shifted for the first time. And after that he was still living with human foster parents for a good chunk of his childhood.
"What Rosie is saying is the truth," Rowan said, taking over for me. "When we first shift, we feel a mental thread that connects us to our wolf. We know that spiritually they are a part of us as individuals, but we also acknowledge that our wolves are their own being. One with the power to think, rationalize and take action all on their own. That’s why we learn to work together with our wolves, to think and feel as one. So, they can assist when we need them or warn us of any appending danger looming around."
"They're like another sibling," I added. "That's why my wolf was going crazy when we couldn't feel Joaquin through our bond. Logically, I knew going after him would do more harm than good, but all my wolf wanted was to go after him."
"I never thought of it that way," Kai spoke softly, the gears in his mind turning with this new knowledge. Hopefully now he could see that he wasn't the monster he painted himself to be. Kai was a victim, not an offender.
"Our wolves are powerful and intelligent beings, but they also depend on us just as much as we depend on them. It's an eternal partnership." Rowan said.
Kai's hand rested against his heart, his eyes drifting into space. "If what you guys are saying is true, then my wolf must be suffering from the effects of the berserker rage."
