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Killian stepped out on his porch and stretched. A sense of relief, and freedom, was finally starting to settle in. It had been a long time, if ever, since he’d felt this free. The stars were plentiful and there was a chill in the air. The winter solstice was just around the corner.
After reaching his cabin last night, he shifted, went inside and showered, then passed out on his bed. He had run over a hundred miles and his body was sore.
He hunted prey along the way to keep his fuel recharged, dipped in a few chilled springs to keep him focused, and continued to flee until his nose no longer smelled the putrid scent of death.
Relaxation. True, free rein. He now had the ability to do what he wanted, when he wanted, without the fear of his father reining Hell down on him any chance he had.
He thought of his brother, Lucian, and wished things could have been different with him. He wanted nothing but happiness for his brother, but with the strain between them, it would have been impossible to leave if he mentioned any of this to him.
His father would have bound him in a cell and starved the truth out of him, then beat him in the ring pit, all while Lucian was forced to watch.
There was no enjoyment in watching your brother have the life beat from him, his skin barely clinging to what was left of his body. Thankfully, neither Lucian nor Killian ever experienced a beating of this magnitude, but they’d witnessed them more often than not.
The first one he witnessed still gave him nightmares. Watching a man be tied to a pole, his clothes stripped from his body, and as the lashings started, the man cried out in pain, wishing for death. He was all but a bloody stump by the time his father was done with him. He left his body out to rot in the woods. It was wrong, so very wrong.
He sucked in a shuddering breath and pushed the memory away. He was free.
Then, it all changed when he inhaled. His eyes widened and pupils dilated. He sniffed the air again. He didn’t recognize the smell, but he wanted to follow it. The scent was feminine, alluring, intoxicating.
Reaching for some of the wood on the porch while he inhaled the scent once more. He carried an armload of the cuttings into the cabin. Setting it in the corner near the fireplace, he sucked in another deep breath. The fragrance grew stronger, tickling the inside of his nostrils and making his head spin.
“If I didn’t know any better, I would wager Sirens.”
He recalled the speech about destiny that his mother told him when he was just a small boy.
“It’s been said when destiny knocks on your door, always be willing to take a chance, because you never know how perfect something, or someone, could be.”
He missed his mother. What would she think about what his father had done to the pack? He went back to the porch once more and, closing his eyes, he inhaled the sweet scent of the female that was in his territory.
He thought of his mother’s advice about finding his mate. “You’ll know your mate is nearby when you’re able to pick up on her scent.”
Killian’s heart leapt when he heard the crash in a nearby tree, then his mind went on high alert when he heard the female scream. Not just any scream, though, no, it was the yelp of a shifter. He knew the difference between a two-natured beast and a wolf. The barks, the yelps, everything was louder, more pronounced, and if close enough, the voices could be heard in the nearby mind, almost like a soft whisper.
He jumped off his porch and ran to where he heard the scream, sniffing the air and looking around wildly. There, in the distance, in the mud from the past snow that melted, lay a beautiful, white, two-natured female.
Killian ran harder, faster, until he reached the woman and slid on his knees toward her. “Are you all right?” he yelled and took her head in his hands.
Her pain-filled blue eyes looked up at him before they rolled into the back of her head and she was out.
He checked his surroundings to see if she were possibly being chased or followed. He sniffed the air and couldn’t pick up on anything else. There was only this woman, in her shifted form, passed out in his arms.
“Shit,” he whispered. Scooping her up carefully, he pulled her against his body. Her scent filled his head and it was like an aphrodisiac. He wanted to bathe in it, slather it across his body, and never lose the smell.
As he carried the she-wolf into his home, he kicked the door closed behind him. Carrying her through the cabin, he stopped at the main bedroom and paused.
Do I lay her down in here or put her in the guest room?
What happens when she wakes up?
Who is this woman?
Why do I feel a connection to her and I have no idea who she is?
He stepped past his bedroom and started toward the guest room when he heard her groan in his arms, followed by a whimper. He looked down at her face full of white fur. Her fur was caked with mud, leaves, and debris, but a bath would come once she was awake. He tried to imagine what she looked like in her human form.
Killian opened the door to the guest room. Suddenly, she turned slightly in his arms, then licked his chest. He stopped and stared at the beast in his arms.
What the...
He lifted his brows and wondered if the woman was half awake and this was her way of thanking him, or if she were dreaming and the kiss, err, lick was an accident.
With a sigh, he left the room and made his way back toward his bedroom. When he walked through, a photograph of his mother was on his nightstand. It was as if she were staring at him with an “I told you so” look.
He could just hear his mother now, if she were still alive. “See? There’s your mate. Right on your doorstep. I told you destiny would knock.”
It was a good thing he didn’t make his bed. He laid the shifter in his bed and his left arm was still under her body. He didn’t want to move her any more than necessary, so he lay down next to her.
Her body lay facing his and he pulled the covers up over their bodies. He ran his hand over the fur of her face and whispered, “You’re all right. You’ll be just fine.” He inhaled her scent, then continued. “My name is Killian Blackcrown. I don’t know if you can hear me, but once you wake up, we can talk and see why you were running so hard. There’s a creek just outside my cabin. We can fish there, wash up, or hell, shower. I do have plumbing, but we’ll figure all this out.”
He continued to brush her fur with his hand and the female inhaled sharply, then she opened her eyes.
The bluest hues stared back into his and he swore she saw directly into his soul. Something passed through him in that moment, like the weight of the world. It was so heavy, it was too much for one person to care for, but it was also weightless. He was tethered to her in a way he had only ever read about.
Images of a woman with long, silvery blonde hair running through the forest on long sleek legs flashed through his mind, and she had an intoxicating laugh. Just as she slowed in her movements, she began to turn toward him. He only saw the outline of her body and face before the vision stopped.
He gasped and the woman blinked once, then closed her eyes. A soft whine escaped her and she let go a long breath.
“What the fuck was that?” He closed his eyes and knew exactly what had just happened. He cradled the female closer to his body until her head was on his chest. He rolled to his back and continued to run his fingers through her fur.
My mate.
Then, slowly, ever so slightly, her body began to shift. His eyes widened and he looked down at the wolf in his arms.
The hair began to retract into her body, the four limbs shifted into arms and legs. The pads became fingers and her snout was replaced by the face of a woman that took his breath away.
Her hair was the same color from his vision. Her naked body shivered in the bed next to him and he pulled her closer, wrapping his body with hers. He tugged the blankets closer around their shoulders and he felt her sigh into his neck.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He blinked.
He recalled waking with women in his bed from drunken nights after a fight his father setup, or just a night at the bar with his brother, Lucian, but going to sleep with a woman he’d never met before, but knew, without a doubt, was his mate, threw him through a different kind of loop. It was one he’d never experienced before in his life, and the realization of this fact scared him.
A lot.
He ran from responsibility of becoming the Alpha of his father’s pack. It wasn’t his intention to find his mate along the way. But now that she was here, what the Hell was he supposed to do?
