Kye's Heart (12 page)

She saw Kye cringe. “I wasn’t thinking, all right. I was a bit…distracted trying to handle something else at the time. I didn’t mean to ruin the surprise.”

“From the looks of you and Michaela, I’d say you two worked through your distraction,” Miles said with a laugh. “I assume congr—” He stopped talking and reached down to rub his leg under the table and looked over at Jaden. “What did you kick me for?”

Jaden glared at him, giving an almost infinitesimal nod in Michaela’s direction. “Dad, you don’t want to say something that will embarrass Kye’s
girlfriend,
do you?”

Michaela’s gaze shot over to Miles. There was no way he could be Jaden’s father. He didn’t look much older than her. And the way Jaden had stressed the word “girlfriend,” Michaela thought it a bit strange.

“Oh, sorry,” Miles quickly said in return. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

Jaden nodded, then looked at Kye. “It’s okay about you telling my dad about me being pregnant. I wasn’t upset by it.” She glared at her husband. “Not like someone else.”

Leif held up his hands in surrender. “Hey, don’t look at me like that. I only thought you might want to wait until you were a little bit further along. You’re only four weeks pregnant.”

“So? I might not go around telling the whole world, but I had planned to tell my dad.”

Leif ran a hand over his face. “I think I’m just going to shut my mouth now, since every time I open it, I seem to bury myself in deeper shit.”

One minute they were all chuckling over what Leif had said, and the next, everyone, except for Michaela, instantly quieted. They appeared to sniff the air, and a low animalistic growl rumbled out of them, except for Jaden and her. Michaela couldn’t overlook the sound this time, as she’d managed to do every time Kye had done it.

She stiffened when a group of men suddenly arrived on the lawn a short distance away. They moved so fast Michaela had a hard time tracking them. It definitely wasn’t normal.

All the men and Saskia shot to their feet as one man from the other group stepped forward and spoke. “Did you think you could just drop us like we were crap on your shoe, Miles, and think we would just walk away?”

“Leave, Curtis, or this is not going to end well for you and the others,” Miles snapped back.

Curtis laughed. “You think we’re afraid of you and a few Protectors? You promised us that once you had the foretold one in your possession things would be different in the packs. That we, the lone wolves, would have all the control. Just because it’s your daughter doesn’t mean we don’t want what you’d said we’d get if we joined you.”

Miles snarled his lip and snapped his teeth. “The foretold one being my daughter
does
change everything. She has also opened my eyes to the path my life had taken—one that would’ve ended in my destruction.”

Curtis slowly clapped his hands. “Ah, isn’t that sweet. But that doesn’t get me the status or money you promised us.”

Michaela felt a scream lock in her throat as Curtis and the men behind him turned into wolves. At the scrape of chairs being violently pushed away, she looked at the others around her as they too, one by one, became wolves. She couldn’t pull her gaze away as Kye’s eyes glowed mutedly just before his body shimmered and blurred, taking on the form of a wolf with very light brown fur.

The two groups of wolves launched themselves at each other. Michaela found herself unable to move, her mind having a hard time processing what she actually saw. A large hand wrapped around her arm and pulled her away from the table.

“Get back,” Leif shouted. She turned to find him and Jaden close by. He let go of her and cupped his wife’s face in his hands. “Promise me you won’t shift.”

Jaden shook her head. “It’s still early enough in the pregnancy that I can without hurting the baby.”

“I don’t care, Jaden. I don’t want you in the fight. You’ve never had to face anything like this before. Just do as I ask. Please.”

Jaden closed her eyes for a few seconds and nodded. “All right. Just be careful.”

Michaela couldn’t hold back a startled yelp as Leif too became a wolf in a matter of seconds, then ran off to join the fray. “What…what are you people?”

“I’m sure this isn’t how Kye wanted you to find out, Michaela, but we’re all werewolves,” Jaden said.

“You’re one too?”

“Yes.” Jaden looked toward the battle that took place on the lawn. “God, they’re outnumbered. If anything happens to Leif or my dad, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Seeing how upset Jaden was, it helped to bring Michaela out of some of the numbness that had descended over her. They were two women with no way to protect themselves as a group of wolves tore into each other with teeth and claws.

She looked around for something that could be used as a weapon, or at least as a deterrent. They might be werewolves, but they were still just wolves with the same weakness as the wild variety from the looks of it, though they were slightly bigger. Relying on her training from the zoo, she knew she should never confront an aggressive animal empty-handed. It was too bad there wasn’t a tranquilizer gun nearby.

Michaela spotted the metal straight-edged rake that leaned against the brick wall of the house. She ran over to it and snatched it up. It wasn’t much, but its points would hurt. She’d just turned around to go back to Jaden when the other woman screamed.

“Dad! No!”

Looking in the direction Jaden stared, Michaela saw a white wolf being pinned by a darker one who had his jaws around the back of his neck. Now that she’d convinced herself to think of them as just normal wolves, her fear evaporated. Having dealt with larger and potentially more dangerous animals at the zoo, she had no qualms about going in to help the white wolf she’d seen Miles shift into.

Running up to the pair, she swung the rake at the darker wolf’s head, knocking him away from the white one. He turned and snapped at her, but she shoved her makeshift weapon in his face. “Don’t even try it. I’ve faced down a pissed off tiger before, and you’re nothing compared to that.”

Michaela hovered over the white wolf as he slowly got up on his feet. His assailant looked as if he wanted to try and come at her again, but a loud howl preceded a form covered in light brown fur launching itself at him. The fight between them was vicious and over quickly with the second wolf being the victor. After that the battle wound down.

“Thanks.”

Michaela turned her head to see Miles once again human and standing where the white wolf had been. He bled from a number of places. “You’re welcome.”

“Weren’t you afraid? Most mortals would think twice before wading into the middle of a werewolf fight.”

She shrugged. “I’m an animal keeper at the zoo. I deal with wild animals every day.”

Miles threw back his head and laughed. “I have to say you’re the perfect mate for a werewolf.”

At the sound of her name being called, Michaela looked over to see Kye standing over the defeated wolf in human form. He had a few bite and claw marks on him, but he looked relatively unharmed. Dropping the rake, she ran into his open arms.

“It’s okay,” he said as he held her close. “It’s over.”

“I should be losing my mind right now, but during the fight, all I could think about was what I would do if something like this ever happened at the zoo. And that I needed a tranquilizer gun.”

Kye laughed. “I hope you didn’t want to tranq my ass.”

She leaned back in his arms and looked at him. “Werewolf, huh?”

“I had planned to tell you later tonight.”

“Too late for that.”

“Come on, let’s go talk.” He looked around them. “The others seem to have everything under control here.”

Seeing what was left of Curtis’ men and him being tied up, she nodded and let Kye lead her away. She didn’t say anything as he brought her into the house and up to his room. Nor did she speak as he continued on into the bathroom and shut them in.

“I’m going to make this short, since Miles is still here and I don’t want him to learn some of what I’m about to tell you. Besides being a werewolf, I’m over a thousand years old. I’ve waited a long time for you, my mate.”

He then proceeded to tell her what it meant to be his, how the mating bond formed between them the first time they’d made love, and how with it in place, they wouldn’t be able to bear being apart.

“Now this is the part Miles can’t ever know,” Kye said. “As far as he knows, Jaden is the foretold one. She isn’t. Roxie is. That’s why we’re her Protectors. Miles at one time wanted to control the foretold one to rule over all the werewolf packs himself, using her as a figurehead. The way it has worked out with Jaden taking on the role for his benefit, he no longer wants that. But it doesn’t mean we can’t be any less vigilant when it comes to Roxie.” He paused. “Being what she is, she can do things others of our kind can’t. One of them being, she can use a spell to turn a mortal into a werewolf.” His gaze locked on Michaela’s. “Do you know what I’m saying?”

She blinked a few times as understanding settled over her. “You want Roxie to use the spell on me, so we can be mates in every sense of the word.”

“Yes, but I won’t push you. But just let me tell you that Eli, Ansley, Jaden and Braelyn already made the choice to be like their mates.”

Michaela searched Kye’s eyes, seeing the hope there that she would agree to the spell. Did she want to become a werewolf? Looking at the man who had come to mean so much to her, the thought of having a couple of thousand years with him instead of what she’d have as a mortal, was more than she could’ve ever imagined.

Somehow, all she’d learned wasn’t freaking her out. She wanted to accept it. Slowly, she nodded. “I’ll do it. As long as I have you at my side, I can accept this new way of life.”

He dragged her into his arms and crushed her against him. Kye kissed the top of her head. “You are my heart, Michaela. I’ll make sure you never regret this for the rest of our days.”

With all her heart and soul, she believed him. “And you’re mine, Kye.”

About the Author:

Marisa Chenery was always a lover of books, but after reading her first historical romance novel she found herself hooked. Having inherited a love for the written word, she soon started writing her own novels.
After trying her hand at writing historicals, she now writes paranormals.
Marisa lives in Ontario, Canada with her husband and four children.

Check out Marisa’s website at
www.marisachenery.com
. She would love to hear from you, so drop her an email while you’re there.