Chapter 50

Chapter 50

One Month Later…

“Are you okay?” Marc asked, throwing her a questioning look as he reached for another cookie.

“I’m fine,” Ashley promised even though she was wondering the same thing.

This morning, she woke up feeling…off. There was no other way to describe it. Before she opened her eyes, she knew that something was wrong. One minute, she was burning up, and the next, she was freezing. For about an hour, she lay in bed, alternating between wrapping every blanket that she could get her hands on around herself and shoving everything away until she couldn’t take it anymore.

That led her to taking a shower with the hot water turned all the way up, but it hadn’t been enough. It had taken her longer to finish her shower, mostly because she hadn’t been able to stop trembling, but once she was done, she really regretted using the one hundred percent Egyptian cotton towel to dry off. It felt like a Brillo pad had been dragged across her skin, leaving her with no other choice but to stand there and wait until she was done air-drying.

That decision had been quickly overturned when she began shivering again. That had been followed by muttering quite a few profanities when she was forced to dry off with a towel before she raced back into her bedroom and dove beneath the covers where she encountered a new form of torture.

Kale’s scent.

It drove her crazy. As memories of all the things that Kale had done to her the night before played through her head, her breaths came faster, goosebumps raced over her body, her skin had tingled, her nipples had hardened, and she’d-

“When is Kale coming back?” Marc asked, thankfully stopping her mind from going somewhere that she really didn’t want it to go, not when she knew that Kale wouldn’t be back for a week to do anything about it.

“He’ll be back in a week,” Ashley grumbled pathetically, making Marc chuckle as he popped the last bite of cookie in his mouth and chased it down with the glass of blood that she’d heated up for him.

“You don’t have to stay here by yourself. You can come stay with us at the mansion,” Marc said, finishing the rest of the blood before helping himself to another cookie as she did her best to bite back a wince because the last thing that she wanted to be was surrounded by Sentinels.

“If I went to the mansion, then you wouldn’t have anywhere to hang out every day,” Ashley pointed out as she focused her attention on the game of Monopoly that they were playing and found herself debating putting a house on Park Place.

“True,” Marc murmured in agreement, nodding absently as he waited for her to make her move.

The day after he’d met Cuddles, Marc showed up on their doorstep with a shy smile and a promise that he wouldn’t tell anyone about her. He’d been back every day since, keeping her company, watching movies, playing video games, and sneaking extra frosting to Cuddles whenever he didn’t think that she was watching, and telling her all about the occupants of the mansion down the road. For the first week, he’d kept his distance from Kale, watching him anytime he was in the room, and then, little by little, he became Kale’s shadow, following him everywhere.

Kale was so good with him. He was patient, kind, sweet, and…

God, she wanted him, Ashley thought, biting back a groan even as she couldn’t help but wonder why it was so hot in here. Maybe she should turn the thermostat down again, Ashley wondered as she found herself shifting in her seat again, wondering why it felt like she was about to come out of her skin. It had to be the full moon coming.

Or maybe she just needed blood?

“Ashley?”

“Hmmm?” she murmured, looking up to find Marc watching her.

“Are you sure that you’re okay?” Marc asked as he helped himself to another cookie.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said, forcing a smile only to frown when she watched Jacob walk into the room, his normally baby-blue eyes were silver, his jaw clenched tightly, and-

“Hey, Marc, it’s getting kind of late. Why don’t I give you a ride home before your parents wonder where you are?” Jacob suggested, his gaze never leaving hers as he swallowed hard.

Nodding, Marc shoved another cookie in his mouth, grabbed a bowl of frosting out of the fridge for Cuddles and a handful of cookies for himself as he headed for the door with a mumbled, “See you tomorrow, Ashley.”

Absently returning his nod, Ashley watched as Jacob stood there watching her for another minute before he turned around and walked away, leaving her wondering what that was all about when the first tremor hit.

* * *

“Gotcha, you little bastard,”Kale said, sighing with satisfaction as he watched the rest of the surveillance feed as the little bastard that he’d been hunting for months made his way through the five-star hotel lobby towards the bank of gold-plated elevators.

He knew that it would only be a matter of time before the little prick got sick of roughing it in the woods and went back to his old ways. Kale checked the time stamp on the surveillance video, noting that the video clip was only a few hours old before he sent a quick text message to his contact to make sure that Vane hadn’t left already. A minute later, he had his answer and was one step closer to finally putting an end to this bullshit.

It looked like he was heading back to New York, which meant that he needed to move his ass before Vane decided to move his son again. He was done playing this fucking game. He was going to end this thing once and for all, collect the bounty on the little bastard, and get the bounty off his fucking head so that he could finally walk away and spend the rest of his life focusing on the only thing that mattered to him.

Keeping his promise to Aine.

Every night, long after the fire had burned through the twigs they were forced to use to stay warm because the English prick wouldn’t let them touch his trees for firewood, he’d held Aine in his arms and told her stories about home. He’d told her about how green the grass was, how sweet and plump the berries were, and how beautiful the sunsets had been, anything to get her mind off the hunger pangs that kept them up at night. Right before she finally closed her eyes, he’d promised her the world. He’d promised her that they would have a home of their own one day and more money than the English prick so that their home could never be taken away from them again.

Then, as she lay dying in his arms, Kale had made that promise one more time. Only this time, he’d promised her that he would destroy the monster that killed her. After he’d escaped, he’d immediately set to work to keep his promise. He’d taken every job that he could get his hands on, working for food and a place to lay his head at night until he reached his immortality, and when he did…

He broke his promise to Aine.

It was the last thing that he wanted to do, but he couldn’t let Logan go off on his own. Logan had been too fucking kind and too fucking trusting for his own good. He’d saved his life, had been his best friend, and he’d fucked that up. He should have told Logan the truth about Elizabeth before that day, should have stopped his best friend from making the biggest mistake of his life, and he never should have turned his back on his promise that he made to his sister.

He’d paid the price for that mistake, lost his best friend, barely survived the attack, but once it was over, he focused on those promises that he’d made to his sister. He did whatever it took to keep those promises. He’d taken every job that he could get his hands on, saved every coin that he’d earned, learned everything that he could to give himself an advantage, and focused on his goals, but it was never enough.

God, it was never fucking enough.

He took job after job after fucking job, never resting, always telling himself that it was almost enough, but it never was. He could have stopped a long time ago, but it was never enough. It was always just one more job and he’d be done, pushing himself past exhaustion, but it had never been fucking enough to bring Aine back and then…

He fell in love with a Pyte.

Now, he wanted something else and he wanted it with Ashley. After he finished this job, he was finally going to be able to walk away and do all those things that he’d promised his sister. He was going to settle down with his mate, buy her a large house and fill it with children and spend the rest of his life making her happy, but first, he had to put an end to this.

He also needed to find out why Jacob was calling him, Kale thought as he answered his phone and-

“You need to come home now,” came the greeting as Kale tossed his iPad on the passenger seat.

“What’s going on?” Kale asked, starting the car and throwing it in drive, knowing that the shifter wouldn’t tell him that he needed to come home unless there was something wrong.

“It’s Ashley,”Jacob said, making his stomach drop.

“Is she okay?” Kale asked, tearing out of the parking lot that he’d pulled into so that he could check his email and headed back the way that he came.

“She’s in heat.”

“What?” Kale asked, frowning as he tried to make sense out of what he was saying.

After she didn’t go into heat within the first few weeks, they’d assumed that her Pyte side had overridden that part of her shifter side, but now…

“She’s in heat, Kale,”Jacob repeated hoarsely. “I can’t stay. I had to get out of there.”

“Don’t fucking leave that house until I get there!” Kale bit out, panicking at the thought of his mate being left unprotected right now.

“I can’t fucking stay, Kale!”

“It’s almost the full moon, asshole. If you leave, she’s left unprotected,” Kale snapped, trying not to think about what would happen if another shifter came across her scent right now.

This close to the full moon, it would draw shifters and keep them close by and when they finally shifted, they’d know that there was something different about her blood and they’d tear her apart. It didn’t fucking matter that she’d survive, he would never allow anyone to hurt her.

“Then call the fucking Williams mansion and get help! I can’t stay! You have no idea how strong this is. I have never scented a female in heat like this. Her scent is so fucking sweet,”Jacob finished on a groan.

Biting back a curse, Kale said, “I’m on my way now.”