Claimed by the Mate, Volume 1 (41 page)

He smirked. “That would be predictable, wouldn't it? You expect everyone who looks at you to say that first. Not that you really care about what they think, but you expect it.”

Again she realized that this one saw too much, at all times. It was her turn to frown.

“Just meet me in the gym at noon. Every day. I'll show you how to be stronger, not skinnier,” he said tightly.

“And now that we have that settled, you wanna come into the kitchen and talk about what we can have for dinner tonight, Kira?”

Of course that was Channing interrupting, with his sexy-ass grin and baby blue eyes. He wore jeans and a T-shirt, which seemed to be the general attire of this pack, and he'd come to stand so close to Malec that Kira had raised a brow at both of them. The vision she'd had just moments ago of Malec watching Channing had been startling as well. As for Malec, he'd continued to frown, until he figured it made more sense to walk away.

“He likes you,” Channing told her. “So he'll get used to having you here.”

Kira didn't believe the first part of Channing's comment for one minute. If Malec liked her he sure had a funny way of showing it. “He doesn't have to like me. I'm used to that,” she told Channing.

“Some people are specially selected to be picked on,” Channing said, draping an arm around her shoulders. “My mother used to say, ‘You were picked out to be picked on.' I didn't know it then, but now I believe that meant I was special. Very special.”

Kira couldn't help but smile as she looked up at him. “You're special all right,” she said, pleased that she was able to joke when it seemed like everything around her was spiraling out of control.

“And so are you. Don't argue with me,” he warned before she could open her mouth to reply. “Us special people are able to recognize each other. Now, like I was saying before, I think you and I should put our heads together and come up with something fabulous for dinner!”

Kira walked with him, but before they made it to the kitchen she stopped, placing a hand on his arm, and said, “I didn't come here to be your alpha female. That's not what I want to be.”

His smiling eyes sobered a bit as Channing stared at her. “What if you were Selected to be something more than you ever dreamed of, something beyond what your mother or any other lycan could explain?” he asked. “Would you want to run from that too?”

*   *   *

Three nights later Blaez had been staring at his laptop for hours as he searched for the proverbial needle in the haystack. Phelan's announcement of a problem when he'd interrupted Blaez and Kira in the library had been an understatement.

In the days since she'd been here Blaez had searched her name not only on the Internet but also using the CIA classified networks that he, as a contract operative, still had access to. He knew everything about her—everything that appeared in the human world, that is. That's how he'd found out about her pack. Penn Radley had been listed as her next of kin. Tora Radney, her mother, was deceased. Because that death had been so recent and Kira's admission to him last night about her past had made it seem like most of her trouble with the pack had started after Tora's death, Blaez had sent a message to Phelan this morning to look into the lycan's death.

What Phelan had found out—through his own research and from another Devoted pack that lived in the Seattle area—was that Tora Radney's death had been ruled accidental, although no autopsy had been completed. That was no surprise to Blaez, since the alpha of the pack would have been certain to ensure that there was no chance of the humans finding out about their kind. Penn Radney would have declined any investigation and he immediately buried his mate nine feet beneath the earth's surface, three feet deeper than a human body in the hopes of avoiding anyone mistakenly stumbling across the body.

So Tora Radney had been shot dead in the forest, her body found by Dallas Muldron, one of Penn's pack mates. Dallas, the beta who had attacked Kira. Blaez had immediately stiffened, rage brewing just beneath the surface.

Phelan had not noticed the flaring of Blaez's nostrils and clenching of his fingers as he'd continued to talk once Kira had left the library. “When Penn Radney reported this incident to the authorities he said his wife had been accidentally shot and blamed it on possible illegal hunting in the area. You know about the conservation and management of the gray wolf species in the northern Cascades and Eastern Washington regions.”

“The Radneys lived on a houseboat in Seattle. What was she doing all the way out there running?” Blaez asked, trying desperately to keep his voice steady, his mind focused on receiving all the information before reacting.

Only minutes ago, Kira had sat right beside him telling him how she believed that her father had lied to her about her mother's death and that she could never forgive him for that. And now Phelan was confirming that the documented circumstances surrounding Tora Radney's death might well have been a lie.

“Penn claimed she loved it in the mountain region and would often take weekend trips there, alone. He called it her ‘me time' in the report written by the forest rangers.”

“How did you get a copy of that report?” Blaez asked Phelan.

“That Devoted lycan I mentioned before, he works in the ranger's office as a janitor and was able to scan and send me a copy this morning.”

Blaez nodded. “I presume that Penn would have sent one of his betas to watch over Tora on this trip. Since Dallas was the one to find her and brought her back to Penn, I'm assuming that was him. So how did the rangers know about the shooting at all? And why would they travel all the way to Seattle to question Penn?”

“This is how,” Phelan said, pulling a folded sheet of paper from his back pocket and handing it to Blaez.

Blaez accepted the paper as Phelan slipped his hands into his front pockets.

“What the hell is this?” Blaez asked after reading the words of what looked to be a photocopied letter.

“It's an anonymous tip that the ranger department received about the murder,” Phelan informed him. “The same Devoted lycan that's been helping me actually witnessed the murder, and even though they were Hunters, or maybe because they were, I'm not sure, he wanted the rangers to know the truth.”

“So he sends a tip to the human rangers that Penn Radney killed his wife? But Radney wasn't even there.” As Blaez spoke, more facts began to click into place. “Dallas was with her. Dallas is Penn's second in command. So did Penn tell Dallas to kill his wife? Why would he do that?” Blaez wondered.

“That's a good question,” Phelan had said. “Another question I had for the lycan was why he wanted Penn Radney picked up by the human police. Didn't he know that a Hunter in captivity—for whatever reason—wasn't going to turn out well for the lycan breed? He said it was one less Hunter for them to be on the lookout for. No regrets there and not a lot of common sense when it comes to how lycans react to things like bars, handcuffs, and restrictions.”

Blaez had agreed, but as he'd told Phelan before leaving the library, their priority was to figure out why Penn would have wanted Tora dead. An alpha could no more kill his mate than he could kill the members of his pack. It just wasn't what they did. They were leaders through thick and thin and killers only when they needed to be. Had Penn found a reason to kill his mate? And if so, how would all of this affect Kira when she found out?

For the next few days Blaez had thought a lot about alphas and their mates. About the selection process and the probability of whether it was true or not. And even though he'd told Kira about what had happened to his family in the hopes that she would understand why he'd made the decisions he had to live the way he does, he still couldn't stop thinking about being with her. About how soft her lips had been on his and how tempted he'd been to fold her in his arms and take that kiss deeper, to take whatever was happening between the two of them further.

Keeping his distance from her for the past days had been one of the hardest things Blaez had ever had to do, but he felt like he owed her that much. After all her father and his pack had put her through, Blaez had no business messing her life up even more with his desire for her, the desire that he could never act on. That distance had come to an end earlier tonight as they shared a meal alone because the others had gone into town for the evening.

Do you like it?” she'd asked as she was taking her seat at the large table in the dining room.

It was made to seat up to ten people, with Blaez always sitting at the head with his back facing the steps. The guys usually sat on both sides when they shared meals. Since Kira's arrival, Channing and Malec had each moved down a seat, allowing her to sit on Blaez's right side. Tonight, however, she'd set her place at the opposite head of the table, where the alpha female would sit, but Blaez suspected that was because of the distance he'd been putting between them.

For endless seconds he'd watched her there, picking up her napkin and placing it in her lap. Moving her glass just a little farther away from her plate. Then picking up her knife and fork, holding them in hand as she waited for his response.

“Well?” she prompted him. “The food, Blaez. Do you like it?”

With a frown he snapped his own napkin in the air before letting it fall to his lap. He picked up his knife and fork and cut through the meat and noodles, putting a bite into his mouth and chewing.

“Channing said you favored Italian, so I took a chance when I decided to make this. He also said you guys weren't big food fanatics like he was, so even if I wasn't a great cook you'd probably scarf it down without any complaint. But I'm hoping you actually taste it and that maybe you might really like it.”

He'd heard her talking and seen her mouth moving as he chewed, but his mind had been elsewhere and so when he spoke he feared he might have confused her. “That's a lovely color on you,” he'd said. “I like you in dresses.”

She'd blinked. Confused, just as he'd thought. Then looked down at her clothes and back up at him again.

“Channing again,” she said with a shrug. “I only packed three outfits, figuring I'd buy more things when I got settled with my mother's family. He said that was ridiculous and we shopped online. I have credit accounts, but he suggested I not use them. A good idea, I guess.”

“So he paid for your new clothes?” Blaez asked, already not liking how much interaction she'd been having with Channing.

“Oh no,” she told Blaez, shaking her head as she cut into her own pasta. “He used your credit card, since I'm your guest and all that.”

When she looked up at him again, food in her mouth as she chewed, eyes alight with humor, Blaez felt something deep inside. It was peculiar and yet a part of him felt like it should have been expected. The Moirai, he thought with a slight start. If Kira was a thread in his life's fate, each time they created another stitch together he would know. Until eventually there would be absolutely no doubt.

“That's fine. You can buy whatever you need,” he told her.

“Really? So if I need a car to get me across the country instead of moving about on foot, would you buy me that?”

“I had wondered why you were running on foot instead of taking a flight or a bus to your destination,” he said.

She shrugged. “I've always loved to run and after my mother's death I felt even closer to her when I did. So I figured I'd do a combo of running through the mountain areas, then finding a bus or train to take me the longer stretches.”

He nodded, admiring the way she thought. “To answer your question, if you needed a car to take you back and forth into town I would make sure you had one.” He took another bite of his food, sitting back in the chair and watching her as he chewed. He preferred her to be closer, he thought with a start.

Her shoulders were bare but for the thin straps of the dress she wore. It was a beautiful blue color that stretched tight across her heavy breasts, clasping her waist even tighter before falling straight to her ankles with slits up both sides. He'd seen naked women and women posed in lingerie and thousand-dollar dresses. None of them had come even close to how sexy Kira looked tonight in a simple dress with her hair piled high atop her head.

“So you really plan to keep me here,” she said quietly. “How long?”

“Excuse me?”

She gave him a direct look. “How long do you want me to stay here?”

Blaez lifted his glass of wine, sipping it slowly, enjoying the warm bitter taste as it slipped down his throat. “Until it's safe for you.”

Blaez took another bite of his food, chewing as he contemplated all that he'd just found out about the pack she'd left. Penn Radney had ordered his wife killed and then attempted to give his daughter to the lycan who had murdered for him. But Kira had run. She had no idea how much danger she had put herself in by doing that and no idea the lengths Blaez would go to keep her safe. He hadn't been able to save his family, but he'd be damned if he lost her too.

“This is really good. Did you know that I love Italian food?” he asked, pushing the darker thoughts from his mind.

She blinked. Then she smiled and the room grew warm and much lighter.

“Uh-huh, I knew. I make a scrumptious lasagna too. I'll have to write down the ingredients so Channing can get them for me. Tell me what else you like, Blaez?”

He could tell her so many things. Most of them would probably frighten her, like the fact that he wanted to tie her up again. He wanted to watch her spread wide open for him and then take her to the brink of ecstasy, listen to her beg him for release, before he would finally let her come all over. No, not all over, into his mouth, he thought while taking the final gulp of his wine. He wanted every drop of her release in his mouth, slipping down his throat like the thickest, sweetest honey.