Reclaiming the Wolf (Cascade Shifters Book 1) (5 page)

Chapter Four

Kaya stared at Sy and tried to make her mouth work, but his words just kept repeating inside her head.
I was young, and had fucked up, but I loved you and tried to make it right.

The way he’d said it, full of anger and a little pain, put a crack in the wall she’d built around herself on the way here to make her feel nothing for Sylas Murray.

Her uncle had never supported Sy as her choice of mate. When she’d brought him to the autumn celebration all those years ago and introduced him as her boyfriend, her Uncle Frances had taken one look at Sy and turned away. The majority of her clan had followed his lead.

But Sy had kept her close to his side the entire evening. He’d even managed to tease a laugh out of her as they danced in the middle of the room with her clan watching, their glares not fazing him one bit. If anything, the stares and looks had made him draw her tighter against him.

To this day, that had been one of the happiest days of her life, and all because of the man now standing less than a foot away from her.

His eyes were hot and angry, burning straight into her, and Kaya decided to put aside her visit to DarkStalker’s land for a moment. She needed to know his side of the story, and this might be her only chance to get it. While she’d investigated Sy after he’d left, she’d never come across one of his letters. Even after he had come back from his tours in Iraq, she’d kept her distance, afraid to see him happy with anyone else.

But she needed to know if he was telling the truth, and she couldn’t do that without more information.

She held his gaze, took a deep breath, and said, “I never knew about the letters.”

He frowned and took a step back. “You’re lying.”

She shook her head. “No.” She stepped toward him and looked up into his eyes. “I. Never. Received them.” She should leave it at that, but she burned with curiosity. Before she could change her mind, she forced herself to ask, “What did they say?”

His face went expressionless and she instantly knew he wasn’t going to elaborate.

It shouldn’t matter what his decade-old letters said, as they were both different people now. Hell, she was in charge of an entire clan. But her inner wolf didn’t like the unknowing. Answers would allow the wolf to forget about the cougar and sniff out a new, stronger mate who would look after their pups.

Before Kaya could repeat her question, something flashed in his eyes. But it was gone before she could tell what it was. Then he said, “I didn’t come here to talk about our past, and what might’ve been. In case you’ve forgotten, there could be crazy wolf-shifters roaming the land, ready to infect your people. I’ll work with you because my brother asked me to, but once this is over, I think it’s best if we go back to avoiding each other.”

She narrowed her eyes at his harsh tone. To think she’d been questioning his assholery. “Of course I’m aware there might be infected shifters roaming the mountains.” She poked him in the chest. “My people have spent the last two days combing our territory, but they haven’t found anything. That is the only reason I’m going to step foot on DarkStalker’s land. If there’s information there, I want to know it.” She moved away from the cougar-shifter and turned toward the door. “I have a few things to do, so have your people ready to go in an hour.”

When Sy said nothing, she refused to look back at him. It wasn’t like he had a choice—he would accompany her to his clan’s land.

Still, as she exited the sentry shelter and instructed her people of her plans, Kaya couldn’t quite push aside the curiosity nibbling at her mind. Why wouldn’t Sy tell her about the letters?

And if he was telling the truth, who had blocked her from receiving them in the first place?

~~~

Clenching and unclenching his fists, Sy watched Kaya shut the door behind her. Their conversation hadn’t gone the way he’d planned. If anything, things were even more fucked up between them. There was no way Kaya was going to let this go. If there was ever a person as stubborn as him—or more, for that matter—it was Kaya Geraldine Alexie.

She seemed sincere in her declaration that she’d never received his letters. His memories of their love wanted to believe her, but Sy the man and former soldier wasn’t so easily swayed. When he’d known Kaya, she’d always gotten the information she was after. Even if, and he didn’t want to believe it, someone had kept his hundreds of letters from her, she would’ve found out eventually.

Wouldn’t she have?

No.
He didn’t have time for this. He’d spent years getting over Kaya; he might still be attracted to her, but he couldn’t afford to hope she still felt the same. He would do his job and go back to the way things had been for the last decade. End of story.

The doorknob turned and he schooled his face into his usual easygoing appearance. His clan members might’ve heard raised voices while waiting outside, but he hoped the GreyFire sentry shelter was insulated. He sure as hell didn’t want to deal with any of his friends’ meddling. His brother and his brother’s wife did enough of that.

Dani strutted in and said, “Catch.” As he caught the cell phone, she said, “It’s just a cheap phone, but Kaya wants you to call your brother. Apparently, we’re leaving in an hour.”

He opened the cheap flip phone, but didn’t dial. Instead, he said, “And just an FYI—Kaya’s coming with us.”

Aidan frowned. “Why?”

He shrugged. “Beats me. I’m about to pester my brother and see why I have to be the one to show her around.”

Aidan grinned. “I hope he makes you do it. I’d love to watch.”

Dani plopped down in one of the armchairs. “If that does happen, can I be reassigned? It’s going to take me days to get the wolf smell out of my nose as it is.”

Sy gave them a look. “Gee, thanks for the support.”

Aidan kept grinning and Dani shrugged. If this was how two of his friends and fellow guardians acted, he didn’t want to think what his twin brother would do. No doubt, his older-by-five minutes brother would enjoy watching him suffer around his ex-mate-to-be.

He dialed his brother and waited. On the fourth ring, Kian answered. “Hello?”

“Kian, it’s Sy.”

“I was wondering when the hell you were going to call. Kaya mentioned you punching one of her sentries in the face. I’m assuming you had a reason.”

“They were going to send me home, and you’d asked me to stay. Besides, the wolf-bastard was a little too sure of himself. Apparently, any type of ‘cat’ should be collared and spend his days chasing mice.”

He could hear the smile in Kian’s voice. “You could’ve just told him to chase his tail, but that’s neither here nor there. When are you coming back? I hope soon. The situation with the strange wolf-shifters has deteriorated.”

Pushing aside his irritation at his brother, Sy switched his mind into work mode. “What happened?”

He listened, and once Kian was done explaining, Sy cursed. “I’ll see if I can hurry Kaya and get there as soon as possible. With your permission, I’ll bring her straight to the main conference room.”

“I don’t mind her, but I need you to convince her to leave the two wolves accompanying her to wait in the outer waiting area. At this point, my trust only extends so far.”

Sy was surprised Kian trusted any of the wolves at all after the poacher incident six years ago, but he would trust his brother’s judgment. “Will do.”

After hanging up the phone, he looked at Aidan and Dani and answered the question in their eyes. “They just found another infected wolf, but this time, she came with a message.”

~~~

Standing across from Erika, Kaya steeled herself for another round of doubts from her second-in-command. And, as expected, her friend had thought of yet another reason why she shouldn’t go to DarkStalker’s land. “Even if you trust the cougars, I highly doubt they’ve disinfected the place. The crazy purple-eyed wolves may not be contagious to the cats, but I sure as hell don’t want you coming back in a black body bag.”

Kaya rolled her eyes. She’d humored her friend long enough. “Erika, I get that part of your job is to protect me, I do. But my word is final, and I’m going. So let’s talk about what needs to be done in my absence, okay?”

Erika might be protective, but Kaya was still in charge. By giving a final command, her friend could do nothing but obey. Erika let out a sigh. “Fine. But can I make a suggestion?”

She gave her a wary glance. “What?”

“Before you go, will you let one of our researchers draw blood from each of the three cougar-shifters? I’d feel a whole lot better if we were at least working on a cure, just in case you, or anyone else for that matter, become infected. If the cats are immune, our researchers might be able to find out why.”

She nodded. “That’s a great idea.” One she should’ve thought of herself if she hadn’t been distracted by Sy’s revelations inside the sentry shelter.

Kaya picked up her phone and dialed. After contacting Donovan, one of her infectious diseases experts, and telling him about Erika’s plan, she hung up and focused back on her friend. “My assistant can give you my schedule for the next few days, but the only major thing that needs to be done is to turn in the paperwork on my desk to the US Bureau of Shifter Affairs. It’s due in two days. But don’t hesitate to contact me if you have questions or need an answer on any of my other appointments. If I don’t pick up my cell, call Kian Murray and he’ll find a way to get me the message.”

Erika raised her eyebrows. “You seem to trust the cougar-shifter leader more than I would’ve expected.”

Kaya shrugged. “He could’ve sent the infected wolves out for testing and used the virus against us later. Instead, he asked us for our help. I’d say that’s something.” Kaya went to the door and looked over her shoulder. “Anything else?”

“Just be careful. You say you’re over Sylas Murray, but I’m not convinced. Spending a lot of time with him could end up hurting you in the end.”

Erika didn’t know the half of it, but she was clan leader and needed to be strong, so she shrugged. “I doubt anything could be worse than him not showing up to our mating engagement ceremony. If he annoys me, then I’ll remind him of that fact. He should get cooperative fast after that.”

Before Erika could say anything else, Kaya exited the room and headed for her private quarters. Just mentioning that memory made her heart squeeze. While engagement ceremonies were usually jolly, happy times, hers had been as lively as a funeral procession. Almost no one, not even most of her friends, had approved of Sy. Then when the bastard stood her up and left her standing alone, all dressed up and ready to proclaim him as her future mate, everyone had given her looks of pity, as if she’d been a child who had finally realized what everyone else had known all along.

Kaya took a deep breath. Just like back then, she wouldn’t cry in front of others. She would be the strong example her clan needed.

In that instant, she decided that even if Sy had written the most groveling and romantic letters in the history of the world, she wasn’t sure she would’ve been able to forgive him. He’d promised to always be by her side, but when she’d needed him most, he had abandoned her.

She reached her quarters, and as she packed her things, she pushed every memory of her and Sy into the corner of her mind and locked them away to focus on the bigger picture. She needed to make sure there wouldn’t be an epidemic. She needed to ensure the members of her clan wouldn’t die. She also needed to strengthen the truce between DarkStalker and GreyFire.

To accomplish those things, she wouldn’t allow anyone to get in her way, most especially a thirty-year-old cougar-shifter with a heart-melting grin.

Chapter Five

Sy decided that spending an hour trapped inside a small, enclosed space with Kaya was his version of a personal hell.

Even with him upfront driving and Kaya in the middle row of seats inside the SUV, he could smell the earthy grass scent that had always driven him crazy as a teenager. He’d never really thought about how memories could be compromised of more than sights or sounds, but right now, his cock remembered what it’d been like to have that scent surrounding him as he’d taken her from the front, from behind, and from any which way they had come up with.

He was just starting to remember where her scent was strongest—when he’d licked between her legs—as they finally reached the turnoff for DarkStalker’s public entrance.

Thank fuck.
He pulled down the last stretch of dirt road, parked the car, and was out of the SUV as fast as he could undo his seatbelt and open the door.

As he drew in deep lungfuls of fresh air, he heard the sounds of the rest of the shifters disembarking. With his head mostly cleared of the effects of eau de Kaya, he turned around so he could lead the GreyFire leader inside, but spotted his sister-in-law, Trinity Perez-Murray, striding out to greet them.

He narrowed his eyes. Trinity usually didn’t greet guests. He wondered what the hell his sister-in-law was up to.

She reached them just as Sy caught up with the group who had gathered to the side of the car. Trin smiled, glanced to Kaya and then back to him. “Care to introduce me?”