The Wolf's Mate Book 1: Jason & Cadence (28 page)

He wanted to comfort her, to tend her wounds
and say he was sorry a thousand times over, and he cursed his lack
of control. He’d been so consumed with possession, so turned over
to his beast that he couldn’t help himself and then it dawned on
him. He’d not felt right since the full moon, since he hadn’t
hunted because he’d been so worried about her being safe in the
house. Growling internally, he cursed himself again because he’d
been so careless. He should have been more aware that the shifting
and hunting helped Weres keep their beasts in check. He’d basically
lessened his ability to take care of her. No wonder he was acting
so tied up in knots about Gray. Shifting alone wasn’t enough.

He moved to run his tongue across the marks
on her hip and she winced and jerked. “No, Jas, that makes it
worse.” Her voice was a bare whisper. Had she screamed herself
hoarse? Had she begged him to stop? He couldn’t remember and now he
felt even worse.

Groaning with effort, she rolled onto her
side and put her arm around his neck and her eyes shuttered as she
drifted down into sleep, making those quiet crying sounds when the
tears were gone but the reason for them isn’t. He should have
rested but he couldn’t bring himself to sleep when she was making
little pain noises every time she moved, so he paid careful
attention to his body until he was strong enough to shift to human
form, and then he cleaned and bandaged her wounds. It bothered him
that she didn’t want him to lick her wounds, that was a totally
wolf thing to do, but he could understand that unlike the mating
marks, the claw marks were jagged and deeper. To deny him something
she knew he wanted to do meant she was hurting more than he
realized. And like the mating marks these would be permanent which
meant they were healing unfortunately slow. Her beautiful body was
marred now, and while the beast in him appreciated the marks for
what they stood for, the man in him was horrified that he’d hurt
her in the throes of passion. He only ever wanted her to know
pleasure and safety in his arms and he’d just blown everything all
to hell.

“I don’t fucking deserve you, sweetheart,” he
whispered, tucking a strand of her hair around her ear. Somehow, he
would make this night up to her.

He slept soundly enough that he didn’t hear
her get up. Or take a bath. What he did wake up in time for was to
see her limping from the bathroom to the closet and catch a glimpse
of the marks. She’d taken off the bandages, and the claw marks were
surrounded by bruises as they healed. He’d like to rip his claws
out!

“Are you rested enough, Jas?” She asked from
the closet.

“What?” He sat up.

She came out of the closet pulling a long
sleeved plain tee over her head. “I asked if you got enough rest. I
tried to be quiet when I got up.”

“You’re not seriously worried about me,
Cadence, are you?”

She rummaged in one of the smaller dresser
drawers before pulling on a pair of what she called boy-short
panties and these were black and white checked with red hearts.
Giving him a smile, she limped over to the bed and climbed up next
to him. “Of course I’m worried about you. You’ve been all tied up
in knots the last week or so, and we were really fucking hard
earlier, and you shifted and I know that takes a lot out of you. I
just want to make sure you’re okay.”

He couldn’t even respond. She was limping
because he’d kept his promise to himself to fuck her so hard she
couldn’t walk right. Not to mention the bruising and the clear fact
that she couldn’t wear clothes because of the marks. He wanted to
tear his own throat out.

She looked at him expectantly for several
moments and he managed to finally say, “I’m good, sweetheart,
thanks.”

“I’m starving. Eggs okay?”

He lurched for her as she tried to get off
the bed. She laughed and shoved at his arms as he pulled her back
towards the pillows. “No offense, but I’m a little sore. Maybe
later?”

Holy hell would she actually let him do
anything to her so soon? Did she think he was a total barbarian?
She was too agreeable for her own good. “Sweetheart, I just want
you to rest and I’ll take care of breakfast.”

She arched her brow as if he was joking, but
he was most definitely not. Folding her hands across her stomach,
he kissed her temple and made her promise to rest and he jerked his
jeans on and jogged downstairs.

Not a man that cooks so much as grills, he
was fairly lost in the kitchen. But he could make toast and he
could try not to dry out the eggs.

Fifteen minutes later, he had a passable pile
of scrambled eggs on a plate along with three of the eight slices
of bread he’d toasted, the least blackened of all of them, and a
cup of coffee.

“What are the ice packs for?” She asked as
she accepted the coffee first and spied them under his arm.

Resting the plate on the bed, he lifted up
the sheet and put the two ice packs that had come home with her
from the hospital across the worst of the bruises, which between
the claw marks and the fang marks, was a draw.

“It’ll help with the bruising, love.”

She cocked her head to the side. “You’re
adorable, you know that?”

He said the only thing he could think to say
then without sounding like a total jackass. “Just because of you,
Cades.”

He spent the day trying very hard to pamper
her, even though he was totally out of his element with that. She
eventually snapped at him for hovering, but he couldn’t help
himself. The night before his wolf had been clamoring in his skull
to mark her so that no one would ever doubt she was single again,
and now, his wolf was whining to hold her and touch her.

“Where are you?” Michael snapped his fingers
in front of his face a few times Monday morning and Jason
blinked.

“What?” He leaned heavily on the front
counter.

“I asked you if you had a chance to order the
parts for the Collins job. And then I asked you where you are.
You’ve been staring into nothing for like ten minutes.”

He lowered his voice slightly, “I marked
Cades this weekend.”

“What, again?”

“No, I,” he flushed with embarrassment, “my
claws came out and I gouged her hips and I bit her like four times
to mark her. I barely got away from her before I shifted. I could
have really hurt her.” She was still limping and sore, so he'd left
the house while she was in the shower, taking her car keys with
him. When she'd called his cell, he told her to stay home for the
day and feigned a business call to get off the phone from her. She
hadn't been happy when he hung up.

Michael’s curious look shifted to anger. “Is
that why she’s not here today? I told you that you shouldn’t have
skipped hunting. It was foolish, J.”

Michael’s sudden disrespectful tone made
Jason’s wolf bristle. “Watch it, Michael.”

Michael’s normally jovial good-time behavior
morphed into anger as rapidly as turning a faucet from cold to hot.
“Hey, she’s our alpha, you fuck. You could have shredded her with
your claws! You’re supposed to be better than that.”

He made a fist and planned to shove Michael’s
teeth into his brain, but he knew he was right. He
was
supposed to be better than that. Relaxing some, at least enough to
let go of the fist, he put his head in his hands, “The worst part
is she thinks it was normal. That it was some kind of extra mating
marks or something. I mean I could have pulled her hip out of
socket or caught an artery with my fangs. I just, I didn’t put two
and two together until I shifted and then I realized the mistake
I’d made.”

“She actually thinks that wolves claw each
other up when they have sex?”

“Yeah. She trusts me not to hurt her and I
did.”

“Well, I’m not exactly an expert on women,
but I do know Cadence. If you tell her now, that you fucked up and
what you’re going to do to make sure it never happens again, then
she’ll forgive you. But if you let it go, what happens next summer
when we’re hanging out at the lake and Callie catches a glimpse of
those marks and tells her it’s not normal unless the male is
over-the-top possessive? She’ll skin you alive.”

“I didn’t hunt because I was afraid to lose
her again. I can’t get it out of my head.”

“Then next full moon, and however many more
after that, we’ll hunt in shifts. You know the females would stay
around her, they accept this part of her because of how strong she
is. You need to hunt, man. What if she was pregnant? You can’t
manhandle a half-human like that, man. Even for a full female wolf
it would be close to the edge. Think it through.”

“You’re right.” That thought had not even
crossed his mind and now it compounded his guilt. “Keep it between
us, Michael.”

He shrugged, “Keep what between us?”

That’s why he hadn’t killed his brother over
the years. Because no matter the trouble he caused or the way he
grinned when he was causing it, he was a true and loyal friend and
would march right against the gates of hell to help someone that he
loved.

Later that night, when they ate the take-out
he’d brought home and she made him swear he wasn’t going to take
her keys and strand her at the house again, he told her
everything.

All too quiet, she looked at him for several
minutes and then she finally said, “It was the closest I ever felt
to being a real wolf.” She shrugged. “I knew you were rough, I knew
you marked me because something else was going on. I am yours, Jas.
Scars or not. You can’t deny yourself because you’re worried about
me. I’m not made of glass.”

“I could have really hurt you. More than I
did.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Cades,” she stopped him with a finger on his
lips.

“You. Didn’t. Let it go, Jas. I have.” She
kissed him, softly, the way that she did when she seemed to still
wonder if it was all real between them. He imagined that her first
kiss had been something like that, nervous and careful.

He took her to bed, but only to hold, and she
needed him that way, and he needed her, too. She asked him to put
it behind them, so he did. In the end, he was once more grateful
that his sweetheart was forgiving of his many, many faults.

She cried when Jake left. It was part of the
reason that he had them meet privately together instead of in front
of the packs. She’d make herself sick trying not to cry in front of
the others and after everything else she’d been through, he could
do this for her.

Renee gave her a box of things that had been
family heirlooms, jewelry and trinkets, and Cadence clutched the
box like she could stop herself from crying if the corners bit into
her skin hard enough to distract her from the emotional pain. A
caravan of moving trucks and vehicles left Allen, Kentucky for
parts south. The town he’d grown up in was changing drastically. He
just wasn’t sure what to make of the town now, and being alpha
meant it was very much up to him.

The following week they picked out wedding
bands and she insisted on getting a plain white gold band just
slightly smaller than the one he decided on, even though he was
more than willing to get her one of the flashier ones. He was
pretty sure it didn’t have anything to do with the cost of the
other ones, but just that she liked the plain band and that was
what she wanted.

The next weekend, she went shopping with his
mother and Callie for a dress and whatever the hell else women need
for the honeymoon. He made sure she knew that he expected there to
be a great deal of nudity in the cozy two-bedroom cabin that they
were renting. It was nestled in the woods and had a hot tub on the
back deck, and his biggest desire was to make up for everything
she’d endured for the last couple of months, not to mention all the
shit she’d put up with from him over the years.

In the winter, there was not much to do in
Pigeon Forge, most of the big attractions were closed for the
season, and he didn’t care. Although they were planning to go out
to dinner occasionally and drive up the mountain and over into
Cherokee, North Carolina, all he really wanted was an uninterrupted
week with his sweetheart so they could get to know each other
better.

He and a handful of wolves packed up his
trailer and moved everything into Cadence’s house while she was
shopping. The parents of two younger wolves who had graduated
school this past year bought the trailer from him for nearly what
he paid for it. While he would have taken much less just to have it
off his hands, he didn’t try to haggle them down. He’s not an
idiot, after all.

He heard laughing and he found Michael and
Linus getting ready to hang up one of his beer-girl pictures. “What
the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Michael grinned, “Sprucing up the dining
room.”

“She will part your head from your body,
man,” he cautioned.

Michael angled the picture towards him to
show the picture he was going to hang up. “Except for the color of
the hair, this girl looks like Cades.”

That was why he’d gotten it. A poor
substitution in any case. “Michael, you can’t.”

“Afraid she’ll ask if you used to play your
pipe to it?”

His face heated. “No.”

Michael grinned further, “Aw, worried she’d
beat up your little bro?”

“No, I’m worried that you’ll be long gone by
the time she gets home and then I’ll have to deal with the
fallout.” He laughed, but it was true. Plus, it was disrespectful.
And Cadence would definitely hand him his ass if Michael put an
unnecessary hole in the wall and hung a picture of a half naked
woman on it.

“Fine, I’ll take it off your hands then.”
There was something about the way that Michael looked at it that
made the hackles on Jason’s neck stand up. He crossed the room and
yanked it from his hand.

“No way. Now go finish unloading the
truck.”