Claimed by the Mate, Volume 1 (40 page)

She was right up in his face, her body pressing against his, not sexually—although his dick was getting hard because, like she'd sort of just said, there was something strong between them—but close enough to act as a barrier if he should try to move past her.

“There's nothing—” he tried to say, but decided to start over. “I told you it was about protection.”

“But that's not all, is it?” She pressed. “I can see it in your eyes when you look at me. I can feel it each time you walk into a room I'm in. I'll admit that right about now I don't like it any more than you do, but at least I'm not trying to deny it.”

“The only reason you aren't trying to break out of here anymore is because you know it's impossible,” he said, hating that on top of her confronting him, he could still hear Channing's warnings last night, as if the two were somehow working in tandem.

“That's not the only reason,” she said, this time pressing against Blaez in a
very
sexual way.

Blaez cupped her ass in his palms. “This,” he said, leaning so close he could lick her lips if he wanted to, “is the needing.”

She surprised him by being the one to go for it, moving in to tug on his bottom lip with her teeth. It was as close to a kiss as Blaez had been in he didn't remember how long. He couldn't understand why she'd done it or why he'd just been thinking about doing it a few seconds ago.

“It's not simply the needing and you know it,” she whispered.

It was like a taunt, a dare for him to tell her what this really was between them. For Blaez, however, actions had always spoken louder than words.

He moved quickly, lifting her into his arms, until she'd wrapped her legs around his waist. Turning, he pressed her back against the bookshelf, grounding the thick bulge of his erection into her. She was wearing jeans today, the denim giving to every curve of her ass and thighs. Thrusting a hand between them, Blaez had the jeans unbuttoned and unzipped before she could whisper his name.

“This is what you wanted, right?” he asked, pressing his hand down between her legs. She sighed the second he touched her mound, moving farther to separate her plump folds. Wet and hot and waiting for him. Blaez almost shivered with that knowledge.

“You want me to fuck you right here in this library; amidst all this history and knowledge you want to scream my name,” he told her.

She shook her head, surprising him yet again today. “That's not what I want,” she told him.

He clenched his teeth. “Then say the word. Say what's necessary to make me stop.”

Until that moment he would continue to stroke her, loving the feel of her thick juices dripping onto his fingers, the quick suction when those fingers moved farther back to her core, sinking deep inside of her. She swallowed, lacing her arms around his neck, her eyes wide open and tinged with desire.

“Is this all you plan to give?” she asked him. “You want to make me come. You want to come. And then you walk away. Is that all you have, Blaez?”

He growled.

Couldn't help it. Her words pissed him off. Her pussy felt too good.

He pulled his hand out of her immediately, letting her stand on her own feet once more, and turned to walk away. He wanted to give her more. Blaez could close his eyes and think of laying her on this floor, licking her pussy until she was sated with pleasure, until he was crazy with needing to be inside of her. Only then would he get what he wanted, sinking his length as deep inside of her as he could go, to the point where he felt like they were one.

He gritted his teeth again and went totally still when her hand touched his back.

“Don't do that,” she said quietly. “Don't walk away from me again, Blaez. You're a better person than that, a better alpha.”

She said the words and, like what Channing had said and the simple fact that she was here, now, Blaez wanted to believe them. He wanted to accept that she was here for him, that maybe, just maybe, this was his destiny. But that was a dangerous thought, one that he wasn't certain he was ready to have.

“My mother's name was Kharis. My father was Alec, Nyktimos's grandson; first-generation blood runs deep and fresh in my veins. The more descendants that spun from him, the more diluted their blood became, the less power they possessed.” Blaez began talking slowly, his eyes closing as he refused to turn around and look at her.

She kept that hand on his back but did not say a word. She would listen intently to what he had to say, but would she understand?

Blaez took a long, deep breath, letting it out slowly before continuing, “Zeus wanted to rule Arcadia. To do so he needed Lykaon and all of his descendants out of the way. The egotistical god thought he'd done that, but Gaia saved Nyktimos. It was not until Nyktimos claimed that mortal and they began to procreate did Zeus realize his misstep. He began his search for Nyktimos and all of his offspring, but as the bloodline became diluted it was harder for Zeus to find them all. So he focused on the pure bloodline, the same way the Hunter packs began doing. When Zeus learned that my father had not only claimed someone but had produced children, he was angered once more. He sought them out and had them killed. My parents, my brothers, and my sister.”

Kira gasped. “Oh, Blaez, I'm so sorry.”

He shook his head, not really knowing what to do with her sympathy.

“When I came back,” he continued, now since he'd started down this path, the words coming out softly, “I came home from the service and they were gone. All I had were my memories. My brothers' playful tendencies. My dad's quick wit. My sister's smile and rich laughter. My mother's words of wisdom.”

“Blaez,” she whispered again, both her hands moving along his back now.

“I didn't want this. I wanted my family to live and to be there the way they'd always been. I would have done anything, everything, to protect them from him, to save them. But I didn't know. I didn't realize that he would come for them. So I wasn't there to save them. By the time I arrived there was nothing I could do,” he said, finally turning to face her.

“Nothing but continue on. My mother was a believer in destiny and for a while I'd believed in it too, but how could my destiny include so much pain and grief?” He gritted his teeth. “There are threads to our lives, you know. The Moirai made it so. They piece those threads together and so our destiny is already planned. That's what my mother taught me. So my destiny was to form a pack. I came here and I decided to do my part, to live the way they wanted me to. But that was as far as I planned to take that destiny trail. I decided that if I was going to give up everything I'd wanted to live the way my parents and the Fates so deemed, I at least deserved one thing for myself. I deserved not to endure that type of pain or loss ever again. No emotional or intimate attachments, ever. Unlike my father and Nyktimos before me, I would never claim anyone, never bring another life into this dismal world that we've been forced to live in. Not ever.”

For a brief moment Kira looked as if his words had caused her great pain; then her facial features had relaxed, her gaze softening as she said, “So instead of running like me, you'll just hide. Here in this beautiful mountain region, you'll stay with the pack that can fight almost as well as you; each of you will stay here with the vow to protect each other. But nothing more.” She lifted a hand to touch his cheek as she finished.

Blaez almost pulled away, but the warmth of her palm felt too good. It felt too right.

“I'll do whatever I have to do to keep them, and now you, safe,” he vowed. “That's what I was meant to do. I know that without a doubt now it's my purpose. To protect. But I don't have to subject myself to anything more. I won't.”

She gave a slight nod. “And what's my purpose, Blaez? Am I a part of your destiny? Maybe I'm another part that you refuse to accept.”

If he believed in praying to the gods he would have, right at this very moment. He would have prayed that his answer to her could be yes. But there was so much more she didn't know and could not possibly understand.

“Kira,” he began, searching for the words to end this conversation, her questions, everything, in the hopes of getting back to what he'd decided was his normal life.

When she came closer, cupping his face in her hands, and tilted her head up to touch her lips to his, Blaez didn't know what to do. For the first time in he didn't know how long, he didn't know how to react, how to proceed, what to say or feel. She kissed him again, her lips soft against his, her tongue just barely brushing across the seam.

“Ki—” He'd been about to say her name, to tell her this was a colossal mistake, when he heard another voice.

“Blaez,” Phelan said from somewhere pretty close to them. “We have a problem.”

Kira jumped as if she, or rather they, had been doing something wrong. And Blaez cursed.

He turned to face Phelan, giving Kira a moment to refasten her jeans.

“I'll be there in a moment,” Blaez said, glad that Phelan had turned his back to them.

“I'll wait up front,” the beta said.

“No need,” Kira told them, coming from behind Blaez. “I was just leaving,” she said, moving hurriedly toward the front of the library.

Phelan had turned around at her words, staring at Blaez when she left them alone with a knowing and disapproving look.

“I should change that to say we've got
another
problem,” he said, and only frowned when Blaez growled his response.

*   *   *

“Headache?” Malec asked, his voice just shy of being raspy, and all the way sexy.

Kira stopped massaging her temples, letting her fingers run through her hair instead as she sat back on one of the sofas in the living room. She had no idea how long she'd been sitting there after leaving Phelan and Blaez in the library. But as she'd walked down the hallway it had happened again and this time what she saw had taken her breath away. She'd had to sit immediately to get herself together. Only now, however long afterwards, she still felt edgy, like there was something about to happen, something big that would change everything. And she had no idea what it was.

“No. Just thinking,” Kira replied.

She looked up slowly to see the lycan with the great washboard abs leaning with his arms crossed over his bare chest against one of the wooden beams in the living room. She flattened her palms against her thighs, keeping perfectly still as they stared at each other. Malec looked good— that was obvious—and he was powerful; his muscled legs and arms and his overall demeanor told her that. He would be one hell of an opponent to another lycan. But he was sad. That she could also see by the look in his eyes and the blurry yellow haze outlining his form. That was what had her holding his gaze so intently.

“Are you thinking about how to tell your Hunter pack to attack us? Maybe you're reconfiguring your original plan now that you've been on the inside for a while,” he said.

She relaxed as the haze that had been surrounding him ebbed, slowly disappearing. “Is that really why you keep this place secured like Fort Knox, because you're afraid of the packs coming to attack you?”

“We're not afraid of Hunters. So if you have any contact with your pack, let them know that the moment they step onto this property their asses are mine!”

His lips had peeled back with that statement, his sharp teeth baring. For anyone other than a lycan, and perhaps other than a stubborn and tenacious alpha female, such as herself, that little display would have been frightening. But Kira stood up, taking a few steps closer to where Malec stood.

“You don't trust me,” she said when she was standing only a few feet away from him. “You think I'm here to set you up.”

“Your pack is no match for us,” he told her. “So whatever your reason for being here, it won't end the way you think.”

“You know it was not my choice to stay here and yet you still think my intentions are corrupt. That tells me either you have trust issues with everyone or your senses aren't worth a damn. Either way, Blaez should watch you closely, because in this state you may be more a danger to him than I could ever be,” she told him.

“Blaez wants you here, so you stay,” he told her. “But you're right; I don't trust you.”

“Fine,” Kira replied. “I don't trust you either.” Which wasn't exactly a lie. It wasn't him she didn't trust per se, but more like what she could see was really bothering him instead.

“Fine!” he snapped in return, pushing past her.

She stumbled back because she'd been so busy trying to decipher that rapid glimpse of Malec standing at a window watching Channing with an unknown female that she hadn't really been paying attention to the Malec that was directly in front of her.

When she thought he had left her there alone, his voice had her turning to see that he'd stopped, looking over his shoulder.

“You need to strengthen your inner body. One of the reasons he caught you, outside of the fact that he's an alpha, is because you weren't prepared. You're not strong enough to fight on your own, without a pack. I can teach you how to fix that in the gym.”

Each of his words was clipped, like he was being forced to say them, his body being held in that spot against his will. Yet what he was saying was an offer, one that he shouldn't have been offering if he really thought she was here to set them up.

“Are you saying I need to lose weight?” Kira asked, her hackles immediately rising as his words caused unwanted feelings to surface. She'd endured Dallas and the other betas of Penn's pack insulting and berating her because Penn had never did anything to stop them. As the alpha he should have demanded respect for his daughter. Since he didn't, she hadn't. Not until she'd had enough and left. This time around, with this pack that wasn't hers, in this place where she hadn't asked to be, there was no way in hell she was letting anybody get away with disrespecting her.