Lone Wolf (The Westervelt Wolves, Book 8) (2 page)

He leaned close as he spoke. His warm breath caressed her face and she shuddered. Gabriel had spoken the truth. She’d never been afraid of him, not even when everyone told her she should be. “You don’t scare me, but you do make me nervous.”

“I make you hot.” He ran a finger down the side of her cheek. “You still haven’t answered me. Does Tristan need to die?”

She shook her head. “Please don’t kill your brother.” She leaned forward until their mouths almost touched. “I’m your mate. I know it now. I don’t know why I didn’t earlier.”

“Everything in its proper time. Today’s a good day to fulfill destiny.”

His mouth fused to hers and her knees buckled. Gabriel grabbed her arms, holding her up. Carrie didn’t know if the earth actually shifted beneath her feet, but it certainly felt like it did.

* * * *

Something tickled Carrie’s nose. She sneezed and opened her eyes. Gabriel sat next to her holding a rose against her face.

Her cheeks immediately heated. Had he been watching her sleep? Did she snore? “Were you tickling me with that flower?”

He nodded, once again rubbing her with the petals, this time over her chest. She took the rose from his hand. “What are you doing here?”

“I missed you.” He breathed out his words on a sigh.

“You saw me.” She looked up at the sun streaming through her window. “Two hours ago. We were up all night together. You have to let me rest, or I’m going to look like hell for you.”

He looks so cute
. Her wolf crooned.

“I know.” He stood. “And I’m not exactly proud of needing to see you this much, but I do.”

“It’s not like I don’t think about you too.” Should she tell him? “I could hardly go to sleep for thinking of you.”

He raised a dark eyebrow. “Really? Tell me more about this trouble sleeping.”

She reached out to stroke his face. He had a small amount of stubble on his chin and she loved how it felt against her hand. “I guess I was thinking about this, about what a strange miracle it is that I can touch you whenever I want to.”

“You think it’s a miracle?” He tugged her up against him. “I’ve waited for you so long. Spent an infinite amount of time thinking of you, imagining you, wishing I could be with you when you wake up in the morning.”

“Gabriel Kane.” His words made her insides tighten up and a warmth pooled between her thighs. “You make me want to break pack tradition and let you into my bed right now.”

“Would you?” His eyebrows rose so high she thought they might fly right off his face. “Because you know no one has to know. It can be just between the two of us.”

He kissed her and she moaned against his mouth. From their first kiss to every stolen one after the heat between them had expanded exponentially. She couldn’t get enough of him and doubted she ever would. Her body ached for completion that only Gabe could give her.

“Easy, baby.” He stroked her breast through her shirt. “I’ve got you and I want it too.”

It would be so easy to tell him yes, to lie down with him and do what her body begged her to do.

She swallowed. “We can’t. Generations of our people have done it the way we will. It’s important. It’s tradition.”

He sighed loudly before sitting back and taking his hands from her body. She immediately missed his warmth. “If you think there aren’t some of our ancestors—hell, some of the people living around us right now—who didn’t have their mating before their ceremony, then you are really adorably naive.” He scooted to her left. “But we will wait because you want to.” Pulling her against his chest, he kissed the top of her head. “Go back to sleep. I want to hold you while you do.”

“If my father catches you here, Gabriel, you’ll be killed before we ever can.” Some of the fathers were old-fashioned, but not Carrie’s. He only had old-fashioned ideas.

“Your dad will never catch me. I’m fast. I’ll go out the window. Did you forget who you’re mating?”

She snuggled against him. “I’m never going to be able to sleep now. You’ve gotten me all worked up.”

“Sleep, sweet lady. Listen to my heart. It beats only for you.”

Carrie did as he asked, concentrating on the way his heart sounded. Eventually she drifted to sleep with the thought that she’d truly been honored by the gods to spend eternity with the best shifter she’d ever known. He smelled like the woods. Nothing could ever be better.

* * * *

Gabriel couldn’t believe he’d finally gotten to his mating ceremony. The weeks of planning, of knowing Carrie wanted him above all others, that she agreed they should be together for eternity, had filled him up in places that had been cold for so long.

“Are you doing okay, son?”

He turned his gaze on his father. At some point while Gabriel had been distracted, his father, the Alpha, must have donned the traditional mating ritual attire. In his hundred-some-odd years of life—he’d stopped counting when he’d reached one hundred; it seemed futile after that—he’d watched his father bring together so many couples. Somehow he’d never really believed he would be among them.

“I’m fine, my Alpha. Thank you for your inquiry.”

Other wolves got to pal around with their dads, to joke in preparation for the event. Not Gabe. No one joked with Kendrick. Gabriel would stand in front of the pack and swear his unending devotion to Carrie. Then they’d go off and be together for the first time. His groin leaped at the thought. The last weeks of anticipation had been horrific. Years of wanting her from afar had been nothing in comparison to knowing it would actually happen … and soon.

“You are the first of my boys to be gifted with a mate. You know what that means, don’t you?”

“No, sir.” He turned his full attention to Kendrick. “I’m afraid I don’t.”

“Always so dense.” The Alpha shook his head. “Thank the gods you’re as talented a soldier as you are.”

His words burned Gabe’s soul, pushing away the sweet anticipation he’d had since he’d risen earlier in the day. His father always did that, forever reminding him how stupid he was in comparison to his brothers. How seemingly worthless in all but battle.

Don’t let it get to you
. His wolf hushed his fury.
Today isn’t about him
.

“If you want me to know what it means, sir, you’re going to have to tell me.” His words didn’t express his anger. Years ago, he’d learned how to hide it, how to make his face a mask of nothingness. No one could hurt him on the outside and what went on beneath the surface of his walls was no one else’s business.

Except Carrie’s
. His wolf reminded him.

Except her. In about twenty minutes from now
.

“It means the gods think you’re the best.”

Gabriel highly doubted that.

His father continued. “It means you truly were born to be my heir.”

“Michael’s your heir, the next Alpha.” Had Kendrick lost his ability to count? Michael, the firstborn, would be presumptive heir to Westervelt. And if not Michael, it would not be Gabe. He didn’t want to be Alpha any more than he wanted to drown in the lake surrounding Westervelt Island. Tristan would be a fantastic Alpha, if he could get his head out of his books to acknowledge it. Besides, none of them would challenge Michael.

“He’s a fool.” His father bent over close to his ear. “And you know it.”

Come. Go get mated. Get out of here. Something has gone wrong with our Alpha. I don’t even want to lower my eyes. He smells wrong
.

Gabriel moved away from his father to head out into the clearing. He’d had enough of that kind of talk. Lately, Kendrick only wanted to discuss succession. Why bother talking about it when it had been decided by birth?

He shook his head. Kendrick’s smell followed him and he stopped moving. If the Alpha wanted to follow him, then he had to stop and speak with him.

“Good luck tonight.”

Okay
. “Thanks.”

“Things have to change. You realize that, don’t you? We can’t stay like this forever.”

“Sir?” Gabriel didn’t know where this conversation had come from.

His father spoke off into the distance. Gabriel might be the person Kendrick technically spoke with, but the way he looked out in the early night air told him anyone would do.

“I made a decision a very long time ago to do what had to be done to keep this pack strong. I have to do it again. She’s right.”

“I’m not sure what…”

Kendrick’s eyes turned back on him. “Never mind, son. Enjoy your mating ceremony. We only get one, you know. One. For all of eternity.”

“Right.”

His wolf huffed.
When you come back from your mating time with Carrie in a few weeks, I think you should talk to Michael. Talk to Tristan. Talk to anyone about what happened here
.

He swallowed, his mouth dry.
To do so would be treason. We don’t talk about the Alpha behind his back.

Even when you think the Alpha may have lost his mind?

All thoughts of his father’s mental state were pushed aside as Carrie walked into the clearing. She wore a light lavender dress, the same one her mother had worn fifty years earlier. He’d watched her mother wed and never dreamed he’d see his own bride wearing the same clothes. On Carrie they were ethereal. He took a deep breath. It was the nature of his life to watch generations go by with no change in his own life and then suddenly be overwhelmed by how fast everything moved.

She walked toward
him
. He loved the way the air shifted around her when she moved. Birds singing their last songs for the night ceased to make a sound when she passed. Carrie didn’t even know these things happened in her presence.

Watching her for so long had given him so much knowledge about her, things he thought she didn’t even realize about herself. She twisted her hair when she tried to work out a problem. No one would ever be a more loyal friend than Carrie. Her fighting skills left something to be desired when she tried it on two legs. Four legs? She radiated strength and ability. Her wolf could handle anything thrown at her.

Carrie took his hand. “Woolgathering again?”

“Maybe.” He sighed. “Nothing overly important. I’m not solving the world’s ills tonight.”

She scrunched her nose and he wanted to bend over and kiss it. The pack had started forming around them so he resisted the urge. There would be time for kissing—and lots of it—later.

“Tonight is our mating. You can contemplate deep problems some other time.” She shrugged. “Unless, you know, it requires your attention this instant?”

“No. It’s probably nothing.”

Liar
.

He ignored his wolf. “Let’s go be mated.”

Her grin spoke volumes. The woman wanted this as much as he did.

Chapter 2

Carrie sighed as Gabriel pushed a strand of hair away from her face. Her wolf had gone noticeably quiet since the mating ceremony. The pack had dispersed to leave them alone. All that remained were Gabriel, a warm night breeze that seemed to have been handpicked for their mating, the privacy of the Westervelt woods, and her. She swallowed.

It’s all good and fine to be so confident about the whole thing until it comes time to actually
do
the mating
.

Her wolf didn’t answer.
Nothing like being ignored during nerve-racking times
.

Her mate, and even thinking of that term still made her heart jump, kneeled down in front of her. He kissed the top of her nose.

“Looks like everybody cleared out.”

She swallowed through her dry throat. “Looks that way.”

It had been one thing to daydream about being with a Kane when Gabriel had alerted her to his feelings, but another thing to acknowledge her own. Her wolf had been ecstatic. Now? Reality descended on Carrie’s shoulders. How would she ever be enough for a prince of Westervelt? Kendrick both terrified and confused every wolf he came in contact with. Would Gabriel get to be like that as he got older?

“You’re thinking about something and it’s making you nervous. I can smell it.”

She jumped. Gabriel’s deep voice resonated in her head. The mating ceremony had given them both the ability to communicate telepathically with each other. Some of the Kanes were strong enough to do that with the whole pack anytime they wanted, but Gabriel had never done that before.

“Have you always been able to speak in my head?”

He took her hand in his. “No. Dad can do that. Tristan can, but he doesn’t. Michael has a little bit of that ability. I guess he’ll have more after he’s Alpha. Me? No, I don’t have a lot of magic, not really. I’m pretty run-of-the-mill on the powers scale.” His dark gaze met hers. “But I have you, so I’ll always possess something the others can only, for now, dream about. You’re such a gift to me, Carrie.”

“I’m nervous.”
She didn’t need to tell him. He could scent it as much as her nose told her that possessive adoration floated through his pores. It seemed polite to at least acknowledge the truth. Besides, he had spoken in her mind. She needed to see she could do the same to him.

The sensation of being able to send her thoughts to his mind warmed her blood. A bonding that hadn’t taken place even during the ceremony snapped into place between them.

Magic. She didn’t need her wolf to tell her what had begun. Mates were connected in all ways. What happened to cause this stayed secret between mates. Unattached wolves didn’t know why their family and friends went into the woods one way and came out another. But everyone wanted it, craved it from the time they were old enough to understand it. Mating, childbirth, and the induction of the Alpha were sacrosanct. Up until that very second, Carrie hadn’t really understood the magnitude of the moment before.

Her body tingled and he’d barely touched her yet.

“I’m always going to take care of you. I promise you that. From this moment forward, for the rest of my existence, your safety and well-being will be paramount to me in all ways.”

She rubbed her cheek against the rough callus of his hand. “That sounds like a vow.”

“It’s a night for vows.” His gaze bore into hers, the bright light of the full moon making them look as if they glowed.