Chapter 5

Karter

A fter spending most of the night in the woods with Kade, I lumber back to Fortune Falls mentally and physically exhausted. I never wanted to be Pack Alpha, but after last night’s council, I know the pack needs me to be exactly where I am.

Sauntering up to the house in my bear form, I shift as my front paw hits the weathered wood porch. Naked, I stumble into the bathroom to take a hot shower, my brain already shut down for the day. I’m not sure why I felt compelled to sleep in my bed today, when normally my bear likes to sleep under the full moon, but as soon as her scent hit my nostrils, I knew the Fates sent me home to meet her.

Mate . Could it be possible? And why a human considering all the drama within the pack? It’s as if I manifested her with my answer to Siren last night… “If the Fates bless me with a mate—shifter or otherwise—I’ll be eternally grateful.”

I didn’t think they’d answer my pseudo-prayer instantly.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” My father asks Valery—a name I’ve yet to hear from her plump lips.

“I’m fine, Kevin.” She chuckles, and I imagine she’s patting his hand in a placating manner. “Unless there’s something you’re not telling me?”

“Uh, no. My son is a gentleman… when he’s lucid.” The trepidation in his voice hits me in the gut. He doesn’t fear for her. I mean, normally I’m a decent guy. His concern is solely for me. We both know what’s at stake. My bear has found his mate, a human no less, which means the clock is ticking and the odds are stacked against me.

If she doesn’t choose me, then what? Do I let my bear take hold and leave the pack in exile, abandoning everything I hold dear like my mother did? Or do I go the way of my father, living as a human amongst a community of shifters? Who takes over my position in the pack?

Siren?!?! Over my dead body.

Mate. Mine. My bear growls again as I slide my wallet and keys into my pocket.

Yeah. I heard you.

His growl was so loud earlier, I had no choice but to spin my naked ass around and retreat to my room, if for no other reason than to avoid arguing with myself in front of her. His growl is still loud, almost drowning out the conversation my father is having with Valery in the kitchen right now.

I make eye contact with him from the foyer, his furrowed brow and watery gaze brimming with concern. He hands Valery an insulated travel mug and escorts her to the front door where I’m waiting.

“Are you positive?” he asks while handing me my own travel mug.

Coffee—yes, thank you, Dad. I’m going to need a lot of it today.

If my father still had the ability to speak telepathically, we could have a full conversation about the matter. Unfortunately, he lost it shortly after the last time he shifted.

Another thing I miss.

“Pretty positive,” I mumble, my gaze coming to rest on Valery’s face. She’s a beautiful woman with shoulder length dark curls framing her round cherub face. Long, dark lashes set off a pair of stormy blue, almost gray, doll-like eyes, and the coy smile spreading her heart-shaped lips makes a set of dimples pop in her cheeks.

I offer her my hand. “I’m Karter.”

“Valery.” Her voice is smooth like whipped honey, and she looks up at me with an air of expectation.

Does she feel our fated connection too?

Is that even possible?

“Are you ready to go, Valery?” I like the sound of her name on my lips.

“Sure. See you later, Kevin.”

I swing the screen door open and usher her forward. “After you.”

“Call me later.” My father mumbles, but I hear him just fine with my shifter hearing.

“We’ll be home in no time, Dad. Go work on the transmission. You can use the distraction,” I say over my shoulder as I point Valery toward my lifted 1978 International Scout that I salvaged and restored when I was sixteen. My instinct is to put my hand on the small of her back while escorting her to the passenger side, but I fight the overly familiar urge to touch her.

One deep inhale—she smells like sun-kissed jasmine and sweet shortbread—and I know my bear is right. This overwhelming urge to mark and claim is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. Kade explained it, but I think he undersold the amount of control he had to have around Dinah before revealing who he was.

How the fuck am I supposed to do that during a full moon?

Didn’t Kade do it during a full moon?

I grab the latch and swing open the passenger door. “Do you need help to climb up?”

She sets her travel mug on the floorboard and grabs the doorframe, hoisting herself up, her round ass temporarily eye level and so tempting, all I can think about is biting it. “I got it. Thanks.”

“Yep.” The word comes out strangled as I hide my elongating teeth.

Fuck me.

Are you fucking kidding me right now? Chill the fuck out!

Mate! My bear roars.

I heard you. But she’s human, so it can’t go down like that. Pawing and chasing her around isn’t going to work. Let me be in control or I’m sending her far away and committing us to an asylum. Got it?

He chuffs and plops down on his rear, completely disgusted with my lack of predator-prey drive. Whatever.

I glance up to find Valery staring down at me with an amused arch of her brow. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Ready to go?”

She pulls on the seatbelt she strapped across her lap when I wasn’t paying attention to emphasize her point. “Yes.”

“Right.” I shake my head and close her door, rounding the hood and jumping behind the wheel. We drive past the diner and general store, and I’m thankful we see no one as we exit town. That’s all I need is certain members of the pack to see me with an unknown human female in my truck.

Not that it matters in the long run—they’re all going to find out soon enough.

Within minutes, we’re heading east toward Great Falls with one hundred and forty miles of roadway ahead of us.

“So…” Valery hedges. “Maybe you should tell me a story to make this less awkward.”

I glance at her, my inner turmoil scrambling my brain. My bear is going crazy—desperate to get to her—and I can barely hear her over his roars. “Again, I’m really sorry.”

She giggles, looking out the passenger window. “Your dad says you sleepwalk?”

“That’s an oversimplification of my problem, but otherwise it’s hard to explain.”

“Have you pinned a lot of women against walls with your big, naked body?”

A blush hits my cheeks and I scratch at my beard along my jaw. “No. You’re the first.”

“Hmmm. I guess I’m special,” she says with a teasing lilt, and I swear she’s enjoying my embarrassment.

“You have no idea.” I flash a grin in her direction, thankful she’s got a sense of humor about this. “I’m a pretty boring guy. Small town and all that. Why don’t you tell me what brought you to my part of the world?”

“Oh, well… that’s a long story.”

“We have two hours of driving ahead of us, and another two hours to get back. Tell me everything I want to know, Valery.”

“Where to begin?” She sighs, the smile falling from her lips. “I’m a junior marketing executive turned homeless digital nomad intent on traveling the country and visiting all the national parks to check off my dead parents’ bucket list.”

Each word gets more biting, her voice strangled as she struggles to get each syllable out. I can feel the tension rolling off my mate in waves, but it’s the silence hanging in the air that tells me she’s doing everything she can to hold it together.

“I am so very sorry, Valery. I know how hard it is to lose one parent, but I can’t imagine losing two.” I don’t fight the urge to touch her and slide my fingers onto her knee—if for no other reason than to let her know I’m here for her.

“Sorry.” She lets out a shaky breath. “I haven’t worked on my ‘what brought you here’ spiel yet. I guess it needs work.”

“I don’t mean to cause you pain, but we don’t get a lot of visitors out this way, so of course I’m intrigued. If you want me to shut up, I will.”

Valery shakes her head. “No. I need to talk about it. I’ve always been very good at compartmentalizing things, but this was hard.”

“I can imagine.”

“You lost your mom?”

“Yeah, she… I was fourteen when she left.”

“Left or died?”

“Honestly, we don’t know.” I lick my lips, warmth infusing my chest when she rests her hand on mine, curling her fingers to join us together. “She lost a baby, and it sent her into a deep depression. One day she wandered off and never came back.”

My dad couldn’t even feel her through their mating bond. None of us could. It was like she switched frequencies and tuned us out. But I can’t explain that to Valery without getting into everything else.

“Oh God, Karter. I’m not sure which is worse. At least I know what happened to my parents.”

“Both are pretty terrible. What happened to your parents?”

She draws in a deep breath, holding it until she can’t anymore, air rushing out of her lungs in a whoosh. “A semi on I-90 sideswiped them. I guess a little sports car played leapfrog—zooming in and out of traffic in a fit of road rage. They slammed on their brakes in front of the semi and caused the trucker to lose control. His trailer jackknifed and knocked my parents off of a bridge. The police say they were killed instantly. I can only hope that is true. The idea of their suffering is almost too much to bear.”

“Was this recent?”

“Three months ago.”

“Sweet Fates, Valery. I am so sorry.”

“Yeah.” She let go of my hand to swipe at the tears rolling down her cheeks.

I reach into the glove box and pull out a wad of napkins, handing them to her. “Here.”

“Thanks. I really wish I’d stop crying about it,” Valery says while dabbing her eyes.

“You need time to mourn and heal. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“I’ve never been a touchy-feely person. I mean, I’m an only child and while my parents and I were close, I’ve always been kind of aloof. So I’ve been struggling with these uncontrollable emotions I’ve been having lately.”

“Well, I am a touchy-feely person, so experience all the emotions you want with me.” I reach out and squeeze her knee again, unable to stop myself.

Thankfully, she smiles and grabs my hand, squeezing my fingers. “I’ve noticed you don’t have many boundaries.”

Again, a hot blush hits my cheeks and I try to remove my hand, but Valery holds it down on her knee. “No. It’s okay. I kind of like it. It feels nice coming from you. You have a comforting effect on people. Has anyone ever told you that? Maybe I need human contact a bit more than I realized.”

Human or shifter, either way—with the way she’s reacting to me—I’m definitely her fated mate. I have the windows on my International cracked, a cool breeze diluting the mating pheromones my bear is pumping through my pores, but she’s responding, nonetheless.

My heart breaks for her—losing her parents so suddenly and tragically. She’s on a journey, but how set in stone are her plans? What can I do to become part of them?

“My sister says I’m a good listener, but my brothers think I’m a pain in the ass. Of course they are terrorists, so what do they know?”

Valery laughs. “Your father mentioned you have a large family. One girl and how many boys?”

“There are six of us. I have an older brother, Kade, who you’ll meet in a couple of hours. Kash is my twin, and then there is the terror trio—Kason, Kit, and Koran.”

“Your poor sister.”

“Pretty sure she agrees with you. You’ll meet her later today.”

“Peter—I guess he’s your cousin—said she’s in her twenties?”

“Twenty-two. She’s great. Her name is Kylian and she’s going to love you.”

“Why is that?”

“Well, as you can imagine, she is in need of positive feminine energy, and your wanderlust spirit will be like catnip to her.”

“Does she want to travel?”

I sigh. “She’s restless and I worry about her.”

“Awww, you’re a good older brother.”

“Maybe.” I shake my head, the pressures of the pack and taking care of my family weighing heavily on me at the moment. A fated mate changes everything for me, and by proxy, my family. “Let’s talk about something more cheery. Where are you from?”

“I was born and raised in North Bend, one of the smaller suburbs outside of Seattle. I was working and living downtown when my parents passed.”

“When do you have to be back?” I glance at her, taking my eyes off the road that I know like the back of my hand.

“Back?” She raises her brow.

I shrug. “I assume you have a job or a boyfriend waiting for you.”

“I quit my job and I haven’t had a serious boyfriend in a long, long time.” She smiles and glances down at our joined hands. “What about you? Is there a girlfriend waiting to kick my ass for taking you away all day?”

“Absolutely not. Considering the way we met this morning?—”

She chuckles and cuts me off. “Yeah, I’d be mad if you pressed your naked body against a woman who wasn’t me too, even if I understood the sleepwalking thing.”

“That will never happen.” I shake my head adamantly.

“How can you be so sure?”

“It’s hard to explain, but I promise that will never happen with anyone else.” I glance at the clock and the mile marker. We have at least another hour before we make it to Great Falls, and not a lot between here and there. My mind is singularly focused on taking care of my mate and outside of a cup of coffee, she hasn’t been cared for this morning. “You haven’t eaten yet. Are you hungry?”

She shrugs. “I could eat, but I’m not particularly starving at the moment.”

“I’ve got to stop for gas, so I’ll grab you a snack at the station, but I’m afraid there’s no proper food between here and the parts store. There’s a great diner on the way to Broken Falls, but that’s a couple hours from now.”

“I’ll be fine waiting. I usually only eat one meal a day, anyway.”

“That’s unacceptable. You have to take care of yourself, Valery, or at least let me take care of you.” Every biological instinct I have says I must pamper and protect her. As my mate, it’s my job to make sure I tend to her every need and desire. Not only when she asks, but before she realizes she even wants it.

She laughs. “Are you always so hospitable to your stranded customers?”

“Honestly, no.”

“Back to me being special,” she teases.

“You have no idea,” I say again, this time under my breath while quickly switching topics. “What kind of music do you listen to?”

“A bit of everything, but I warn you, if you turn on the radio I’ll sing along.”

“Do you wail like a cat being submerged in a bubble bath?”

“No.” She smacks my hand. “I can carry a tune.”

“Then I don’t see the problem.” I pull a wired plug from under my dashboard, connect my phone to the car audio, and bring up an app. Ten seconds later, Classic Rock from the 60s through the 90s is pumping through my speakers.

“Oh, I love Alice In Chains.” She sighs and sinks back into her chair, her eyes on the open prairie and trees beyond.

“Are you going to sing for me?” I like the sound of her voice—it soothes my bear and is the only thing shutting him up.

She starts by humming and then sings along to the tunes. The miles melt away with each passing song. Before I know it, we’re pulling into the parts store parking lot and I’m disconnecting my phone from my car stereo.

A notification appears on my screen, a missed message from Kade from forty minutes ago.

I hear you’re heading my way.

How’d you know that?

Dad, who else? Want us to meet you and your MATE at the Silver Fox Diner?

That would be great. We’re at the part store now. Forty-five minutes?

See you there.

I escort Valery inside and walk to the counter, giving Dave a head nod. I’m only here once every few months, but he’s been working here for over a decade, so we know each other. “You pulled some things for us?”

“Yeah,” Dave says, turning and grabbing a crate full of parts off the ground. “I thought your dad was coming to pick these up?”

“I decided to come instead.” In my peripheral, I catch Valery with her head down, rifling through her bag and pulling out her wallet.

Dave’s eyes slide to her, his gaze slowly giving her the once over before coming back to me with an approving grin spreading his lips. “I bet you did.”

My bear doesn’t like his insinuation—even if it’s one hundred percent accurate—or his lustful perusal of my mate, and a low growl rumbles in my chest. “Eyes on your paperwork, Dave.”

“Are you okay with me paying for the parts here, or do I need to pay back at the shop?” Valery interjects, oblivious to the tension building between us. Dave is human, so he hasn’t a fucking clue the landmine he’s running blindly through right now.

“Put your money away, Val.” I grab the crate and turn to face her. “We have an account and pay online monthly.”

Not that I’d let her pay, anyway. Money might be tight right now, but she’s my mate and we take care of our own.

“Oh.” She purses her lips and stuffs her wallet back into her bag, her eyes scanning the store. “I’m going to use the bathroom before we hit the road.”

“I’ll wait for you by the front door.” Watching her traverse the shelves and slip into the one stall, unisex restroom, my protective instinct roars to life as I clock every potential threat in the store. Dave behind the counter, two guys and a clerk discussing replacement parts for a 1994 Cadillac, a guy dropping a case of oil into a shopping cart while bitching at someone via the Bluetooth attached to his face.

This is crazy. Is this the rest of my life—my bear wired tight as he frets over every look, word, or action lobbed against our mate?

How is this sustainable?

“Take care of yourself, Dave.” I toss over my shoulder as I head toward the glass doors, embarrassed by my territorial pissing, and yet too on edge to apologize.

Fuck me twice.

Valery comes out of the bathroom with a fresh coat of gloss on her perfect lips that spread into a smile as she gets closer to me. “Everything okay?”

I nod and hold open the door. “I texted my brother. He and his mate are going to meet us at Silver Fox Diner, which is halfway between here and Broken Falls.”

“Mate?”

“Uh, fiancée.” I lick my lips and mentally kick myself for the slip while setting the crate down so I can open the passenger door for her. “Dinah is his fiancée.”

“That’s the third time I’ve heard you use the word mate.” Valery climbs up and turns her blue-gray eyes on me. “You said it when you had me pinned against the wall.”

“I did?” I feign ignorance and turn away, closing her door and popping open the back so I can stow the parts crate before jumping into the driver’s seat.

Valery smirks and watches my every move. “You did.”

“Hmmm.” I choose not to explain myself. I’d rather keep the lies I’m going to have to fess up to later to a minimum, considering time is not on my side. My bear is grouchy and tired, but adamant in what he wants.

Her.

And something tells me he’s not going to shut up until he gets her.