The Rift (29 page)

“I can handle it from here,” Jed said, his
words clipped, his voice gruff.

Thad walked out and closed the door behind
him. Jed sat down next to me on the bed. I lifted a bite of eggs to
my mouth and chewed slowly. Thad was right, as hungry as I was, my
stomach was rebelling, and I really had to concentrate just to
swallow down that one bite of egg. I looked at Jed’s face and
realized something was seriously wrong. “What is it? Is it
something about Thad?”

“You said this isn’t going to work,” he said,
his eyes searching my face. “Did you mean us?”

I almost laughed, but he looked so worried I
swallowed my amusement. “No, I meant I can’t just lay against you
and fall asleep. It’s too distracting and all I want to do
is…anything other than sleep, but it hurts to move so I can’t…you
know.”

His expression cleared, and he smiled. “Oh,
thank god,” he said. “Laying there like that was killing me and I
wanted to touch you and kiss you and…” He touched my face. “After
you eat, I’ll sit in the chair so you can sleep.”

“Just until I feel more like myself. What’s
with Thad anyway?”

Jed’s smile widened. “I think it has
something to do with Tessa,” he said. “They’ve been in her room for
the past three days, only coming out to eat.”

“Good for him.”

Jed’s smile faltered for just a moment. “You
aren’t jealous?”

I was concentrating on swallowing another
bite of egg, and I didn’t understand his question. “Of who?”

“You and Thad seemed to be very close…”

I almost choked on my egg, my laughter came
so suddenly. “Oh, you think I’m jealous of Thad? No, no, he and
I…we might have had something once, but whatever it was…it’s gone.
I feel nothing but friendship for him, brotherly love even, and I’m
pretty sure it’s the same for him.”

He nodded, and I felt suddenly very tired. My
stomach was twisting and working hard to digest the eggs I’d eaten,
and the thought of eating anymore made my throat go dry. I took
another big swallow of water and handed him the tray. “I need to
sleep.” He put the tray on the floor and helped me to lay down,
rearranging the pillows for me, and I went back to sleep.

Each time I woke, I was able to eat a little
more and my muscles felt a little less sore. Every time I woke, Jed
was there. When I finally woke up and found I could move without
agony, it was dark in the room. Jed was on the bed next to me, his
breathing even and his eyes closed. My stomach growled with hunger,
and I climbed out of bed to find something to eat. I tiptoed toward
the door but a board creaked under my foot, and Jed shot up, his
face creased from sleep, his eyes wild. I sat down next to him.
“Sorry. I was hungry, and I didn’t want to wake you.”

He swallowed hard and shook his head like he
was trying to shake off sleep. “Wake me up, Kelsey. I need to know
where you are all the time.”

“Why? What’s going on? Did some of Wraith’s
pack get away? Are the reapers targeting us?”

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair.
“No, it’s nothing like that.”

“So what’s the problem? I was just going to
the kitchen.”

He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it
and shook his head again. “Let’s get you something to eat, then
we’ll talk.”

He swung his feet around to the edge of the
bed and to the floor, but I didn’t move. “You’re freaking me out
here, Jed. Please tell me what’s going on.”

He put a hand on my thigh and my mind went
completely blank for a moment, my hunger for food replaced by an
entirely different hunger. He looked into my eyes and whatever he
saw there made him put his hand back in his own lap. My brain
cleared, although the lust didn’t go away. “This has to do with me
more than you, Kelsey.” He stood and stretched, his shirt rising
just a bit to reveal his sculpted abs. I had to clasp my hands
together not to reach out and touch him. He stepped away before I
grabbed him.

“Oh, it’s about you,” I said. “Okay, I won’t
worry, since I don’t care what’s going on with you or that you
might be in danger. Let’s go eat. Great idea.” I stood and followed
him to the door.

He smiled and wrapped an arm around my waist,
pulling me tight against his side. “I’m not in any danger, but I
think you should hear this on a full stomach.”

My stomach roiled with anxiety. “I can’t eat
while I’m wondering what’s going on. There’s something about you
that means I can’t walk around the house by myself. What does that
mean? Do you have to leave? Did Varius find out about us? Or do you
not trust me to keep our secret? What is—”

He covered my mouth with his own and stopped
my words. My knees went weak and I was pretty sure I would have
collapsed onto the floor if he wasn’t holding me up. His mouth
still on mine, he walked me back to the bed and pushed me down onto
it. There was a desperation and a need in his kiss and in his touch
that ignited an equally intense desire in me. I wrapped a leg
around his waist and pulled him tighter against me. He groaned and
pressed his hips into mine, then he sighed and pulled away. He sat
down on the bed next to me and dropped his head into his hands.
“I’m sorry, Kelsey, it’s just so hard to maintain control with
you.”

“It’s okay. Clearly I didn’t mind what you
were doing.” I sat up and moved close to him so that we were
touching from knee to shoulder. He sighed and leaned into me. “In
fact, if you want to lose control some more, I’d be totally fine
with that, too.” I fought the urge to climb onto his lap and finish
what he’d started. I needed to find out what was going on.

“You don’t understand what you’re agreeing
to. When I was…dying, Angelica’s magic held my soul in my body, but
did nothing to heal me. My body was as good as dead and my soul was
trapped inside. Doctor Veronica stitched me up, and Wraith gave me
some of his blood. Even so, the only way I survived, the only
reason they were able to heal my body, was because I’d been bitten.
Wraith performed a ceremony and fed me…. Some stuff you don’t want
to hear about and I…It…it made me a wolf, Kelsey. Wraith forced me
to shift into the wolf form once my heart was beating again and I
had a sufficient amount of blood. That was the only way I
survived.”

My breath hitched for a moment, but I was so
glad he was still there with me and alive that I didn’t care how it
had happened. We would deal. We would make it okay. If Henry could
handle having a dead man for a boyfriend, I could handle having a
werewolf for mine. “Okay, so you’re a wolf, now. Who cares as long
as you’re alive?”

He smiled and his shoulders relaxed just a
bit. “There’s more. New wolves have a harder time controlling their
emotions, their actions, and their shifts, and because I was
changed under such traumatic circumstances, I’m even less stable.
The part of me that’s wolf has…has chosen you as his mate and if
I’m away from you, I become overwhelmed and I…lash out at whoever
is around. I…um, I tried to bite Thad, but Henry stopped me. He’s
really good at calming me down, because I know he isn’t a threat of
any sort to…me and you.”

“And Thad is? He would never—”

“Not that kind of threat, Kelsey. A sexual
threat.”

“Oh,” I said, letting that sink in for a
moment. “Okay, but this doesn’t last forever, right? I’ll stay with
you for now and, as you get more comfortable as a wolf, I’ll be
able to go to the kitchen alone to get something to eat,
right?”

His smile widened, but worry lines still
edged his eyes. “That’s the hope, yes, but this mate thing, Kelsey,
is forever. The wolf part of me sees you as a mate and the human
part of me is…” he met my eyes and my heart ached. “I’m in love
with you, Kelsey. No part of me wants to be separated from you for
any length of time and the wolf makes my reaction to your absence
more violent. I don’t think that will ever go away.”

My heart thudded in my chest and my mouth
went dry. I was crazy about Jed, but what he was talking about was
pretty binding. I swallowed hard. “Okay, well, we can handle this.
Let’s just not over think it. Right now, we both want to be
together and we’re in love with each other, so it’s fine. If that
ever changes, we’ll just worry about it when it happens,
right?”

Jed was staring at me, the goofiest grin on
his face. “What did you say?”

“I said we’ll take it one step at a time and
try not to freak out about it.”

“No the other thing.”

“What other…Oh, yeah.” I leaned into him and
let my forehead rest against his. “I love you, Jed Forrester. I’m
pretty sure I’ve loved you since the first time you pinned me in
the garage.”

Just when I thought it wasn’t possible, his
smile widened. “I’ve loved you since you said you hated
babies.”

“I never said—” Then his mouth was on mine
and I forgot what we were talking about. I forgot that I was
hungry. I forgot everything except the feel of Jed’s lips on mine,
his warm hands sliding under my t-shirt, the press of his body
against mine. Someone had dressed me in the t-shirt and shorts I
usually wore to sleep in, and I wasn’t wearing a bra. I started to
help him pull my shirt over my head and he stopped me. I lay back
with a huff. “What now?”

“Um, if you take your shirt off, I’m not sure
I’ll be able to stop. I don’t have much control and—”

“I don’t want to stop.”

“Good. But the thing is, if we have sex, the
bond between us will be strengthened, and I’m not sure what will
happen. Wraith thought it would probably be a good idea to wait
until I had more control over my wolf.”

“Did he?” I asked, sliding my hands under
Jed’s shirt and running a finger along the waist of his jeans.

He shuddered and glared at me. “Kelsey, I
can’t handle this right now. I think we need to think about this
and when you do that…I can’t…”

I sat up and slid my hands up his back,
pulling him against me for another kiss. He groaned in my mouth and
I broke the kiss only long enough to pull his shirt over his head.
Warning bells were going off in the back of my brain and I knew I
should probably listen to them, but it was Jed and I’d wanted him
for so long. I was pretty sure I stopped thinking with my brain as
soon as he kissed me, and the moment felt too right for me to
question it. After the past few months I’d had, his warm skin
against mine, his hard body waking up all of my soft spots, was
exactly the kind of therapy I needed.

He actually growled, and I wondered if I
should be scared. What if he lost control and…he put his mouth on
my right breast and swirled his tongue over my nipple, and I forgot
what I was worrying about. Then he pushed his hand down between us
and rubbed me in just the right way, like he’d known my body for
years, and I gasped and bucked against him.

“Kelsey, I’m sorry, I can’t go slow. I want
to.…I just—” He growled again and that time I felt no fear, only
liquid heat and desire.

“Don’t go slow,” I said and I meant it.
There’d be time for slow later, at that moment I just wanted to
feel him inside me. I loved the passionate need that was flowing
from him. I was so ready that, when he pushed inside me, it took
only one more thrust to push me over the edge. I screamed his name
and his motions became harder and more frantic. “Mine,” he growled.
I clung to him as he pounded into me, his eyes locked with mine,
the love and desire and need in his gaze warming me and pushing me
to a second climax. He watched me as I came and smiled down at me
as he reached his own climax.

He pulled me in and held me tight, and there
was nowhere else I wanted to be.

I didn’t want to move from my comfy spot, my
head on Jed’s chest, his arm tight around me, but my stomach
growled, and I was starting to feel a bit light-headed from hunger.
“You need to eat,” he said, looking at me with more solemnity than
the occasion warranted.

“Yeah, I’m starving.”

“I know,” he said. “I mean I really know. I
can feel it.”

I sat up and looked down at him. “What do you
mean?”

“I mean I can feel your hunger like an echo.
It’s hard to explain, but I know I’m not hungry. I know you are and
you’re…” his expression softened and he smiled. “You’re happy.”

“All of that’s pretty obvious, Jed. Are you
sure you aren’t just worried about this wolf thing and imagining
it?”

He stared at me for a long moment. “It
doesn’t bother you,” he said. “It doesn’t bother you that I might
be able to sense your emotions.” His smile grew. “You trust
me.”

I rolled my eyes. “Of course I trust you. I’m
still not convinced you can feel my emotions, but if you can it
will save a lot of time and hassle. Now, you’ll always know when
I’m mad and how to fix it. Can we go eat?”

He nodded and rolled off the bed. We both
pulled on clothes and he wrapped an arm around my waist and walked
with me to the door. “Is our relationship a secret?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Not from anyone here, but
I’d rather my mother didn’t hear about it. She could still use it
against us, even if I’m not working for her anymore. When I became
a wolf I lost my telekinesis. I’m no longer the man my mother wants
to mate you with. In fact,” he released me and turned me to face
him. “I’ve been released from my contract for the time being, until
I get this wolf thing figured out and we decide if I’ll be useful
to Varius in my present form.”

“That was her reaction to you telling her you
were turned, wasn’t it?”

“She was furious. Turns out this whole deal
with Wraith was meant to make me jealous and protective enough to
agree to mate with you and take you back to Varius with me.” He
frowned and a cloud passed over his eyes, but it was gone as
quickly as it had appeared. “You’re missing the point. We’re free,
Kelsey. Wraith has agreed to take me on as a member of his pack,
and you can get out of your contract with Varius by joining him,
too. We can be together all the time.”