Feral Awakening (The Feral Series-Book 2) (13 page)

 Ronan clenched the
steering wheel in front of him. He could feel Kat’s eyes on him as they drove. Could
she feel the bond now? Why was she looking at him so strangely? Memories of her
waking up in his arms this morning plagued him. He had been so close to taking
her right there in the bed of the truck. His beast had howled at him to mark
her neck and complete the bond with his mate. He feared he might have, had the
sound of that car coming down the road not brought him to his senses.

 He needed to get her
to his pack before he did something stupid. They would welcome her with open arms
and she would be able to be with her own kind again. She would be safe there. Due
to her age she would be immediately mated to another male. Something would have
to be done since she was already entering her first cycle. Maybe she would be
mated to his brother Teagan now that he was next in line to lead the pack.

 The steering wheel
began to bend under his tight grip. The thought of her mated to another male,
even his own brother, made him want to shift and break things. Realizing that
the old steering wheel wouldn’t take much more he forced his fingers to relax. He
had to get control of himself. He had made his decision and that was just the
way it was going to have to be. He didn’t have anything to offer a female like
Kat. He was doing this for her. She would be better off without him.

 “Do I at least get to
know where you are taking me?” Kat’s soft voice interrupted his dark thoughts.

 “I am taking you to my
pack.”

 “What does that mean,
your pack? Do you mean like your family? I really could use a little more
information here. Do they live in caves and eat babies for dinner?” Kat
couldn’t help it. She was feeling a little snarky after the way he had been
treating her.

 Ronan snorted and Kat
was surprise to see the hint of a smile lift his lips. The sight filled her
with a jolt of happiness for a moment, that was until she reminded herself that
he was still a crazy, werewolf kidnapper.

 Ronan found he enjoyed
Kat’s sense of humor in light of the situation. He supposed the least she
deserved were some answers to her questions. “The pack lives very much like the
humans do. We have our own pack territory were several families live. Each
family has their own home but there are shared community areas where we gather.
My father is the pack alpha, or leader and my mother is his mate. I have a
younger brother Teagan who is next in line to lead the pack. There are other
packs and each have their own territory. Sometimes there is fighting amongst
the packs over territory, amongst other things. Some of the packs form alliance
to offer them more protection.”

 Kat listened in
fascination. Oh my god. He had actually talked to her and answered her
question. Amazing.

 “And these packs. The
people there are all Lykan?”

 “Mostly yes. Most of
our children are born males and there are not enough females to go around so our
pack leaders have allowed some of the men to take humans or half breeds as
mates.”

 Kat held her breath
and stared at him. For some reason she could feel her heart drop into her
stomach. Oh my god, she hadn’t considered that he might actually have a mate
and family of his own. She really didn’t know a thing about him he had been so
closed lipped about everything. It would explain his reaction to her. Dear God,
maybe she had just kissed a married man. The thought of him married made her
feel sick.

 “So do you have a mate
and a family waiting at home for you?” Kat was surprised to see his grip clench
on the steering wheel again and the muscles of his arms flex in sudden tension.

 “I have not claimed a
mate and I no longer live with the pack.” Ronan’s answer came out in the tight
growl Kat had come to expect from him. She almost sighed in disappointment at
his sudden mood change but she found herself deeply relieved at his answer. Apparently
question time was over and the old Ronan was back.

 Ugh. She just wanted
this to all be over. She wanted to go home. Even though she was supposed to be
taking some time off, she was sure Patrick had realized she was missing by now.
God, first her friend Ava and now her.

 She wanted to check in
with the police and see if there was anything new on Ava’s case. Kat almost
snorted out loud. She wondered hysterically what the odds were that Ava had
also been kidnapped by a crazy werewolf man. Poor Patrick was going to be beside
himself. She knew that at the speed the police department had moved on Ava’s
case that there was no way anyone would pick up Ronan’s trail and come to her
rescue either. She was on her own here and if she couldn’t convince Ronan to
let her go she was going to have to find a way out of this mess on her own.

 Several more miles of
silence want past before Ronan’s voice surprised her. “What of your family?”

 Ah so the big werewolf
man wanted to ask some question of his own now. She couldn’t resist answering
in Ronan style just to see how he liked it.

 “Don’t have any.”

 Ronan raised his brow
at her short answer. Any other time the woman wanted to jabber his ears off. All
she was going to say was “don’t have any”? Dam it this was important. He needed
to know what had happened to Moria. Trying not to let her see how important it
was to him he tried again.

 “What of your mother?”

 Kat sighed and then
answered him. “Gone.”

 Ronan could see the
sadness enter her eyes at the mention of her mother and it pained him. Looking
back at the road, he shook away the strange feeling and tried to focus on getting
her talking again.  Why did she always have to be so difficult?

  “What happened to her?”

 She didn’t know how
Ronan did this. She was boring herself with the one word answers. With a roll
of her eyes, Kat caved.

 “She disappeared seven
years ago. It was like she went out to run an errand and just never returned. I
was finishing up my freshman year in college and had called her several times
on the phone. When I couldn’t track her down I left school and drove to her
house. Not a thing was out of place. They found her car later, abandoned in an
alley, but they never figured out what happened to her. I may never know.”

 Ronan could feel her
pain through their shared bond and it made his beast prowl just below his skin.
He didn’t like hurting her but he needed to know.

 “What happened to your
father?”

 “I don’t really
remember him very well. He died in a car accident when I was three. Somehow my
mom and I were thrown free of the car and survived. I don’t really remember
much. I just remember being terrified and seeing the giant fireball as the car
exploded. It was pretty much just me and my mom after that. We moved around a
lot at first but mom home schooled me so at least I didn’t have to start over
in a new school each time.”     

 Ronan’s mind ran over
the information she had just given him. Moria had faked their deaths. If she
and Katianna were in trouble, why in the hell wouldn’t she have come to him for
help? She had been resistant to bonding her daughter to him in the first place
for reasons he understood. He had been resistant to the bonding himself. Perhaps
she felt that she couldn’t come to him because of the O’Connell’s blaming them
for her mate’s death. It sounded as if Moria had been on the run, moving from
place to place. What would make her leave the safety of her own pack?

 The loud growl that
rumbled from Kat’s stomach almost put one of Ronan’s to shame. Kat rubbed her
flat belly trying to get it to behave. With a groan, Ronan realized they hadn’t
eaten this morning. Just another example of why he would never make her a good
mate. He couldn’t even remember to feed her.

 Pulling off the
highway at the next exit he pulled into the parking lot of the rundown gas station
and stopped next to one of the pumps. They didn’t need gas but he figured he
would top it off as long as they were stopping. The tiny gas station was rather
deserted except for the attendant he could see standing behind the counter
inside.

 He could tell by Kat’s
posture that she was plotting something. She had become tense and had gotten
quiet. After placing the pump in the truck Ronan came around to the passenger
side and opened her door. Reaching in he took her arm as though helping her out
of the truck. Lowering his head to her ear he spoke quietly to her. “If you try
anything in here you will be putting an innocent man’s life in danger. There is
no one here except the attendant and if you try to get his help in any way you
will be signing his death sentence. You know that there is no way in hell one
tiny human can protect you from me.”

 Kat fumed and jerked
her arm out of his hand. Stupid jerk had known exactly what she had been
thinking. Unfortunately he was right too. The little man inside didn’t stand a
chance up against Ronan and there was no way she would endanger someone like
that. She would have to come up with something else.

 “I’m going to the
bathroom.” Flipping her tangled locks over her shoulder Kat walked ahead of
Ronan into the tiny gas station. After using the bathroom they picked up some
packaged donuts and bottles of water and paid for the gas. Kat made small talk
with the attendant and made sure she looked him in the eye while they talked
and Ronan fumed. She wanted to make sure that when her face finally showed up
on the milk cartons that the man just might remember seeing her here.

 As they walked out of
the gas station Kat spotted an old pay phone in the parking lot and her heart
skipped. Coming to an abrupt stop, Ronan scowled at her and reach for her arm
to tug her along again. “Ronan, wait.” He looked at her questioningly,
wondering what she was up to this time. “I want to call Patrick.”

 “No, absolutely not.” Ronan
was sure she was up to something. No good could come from her calling her
friend.

 “Please Ronan. I just
need to tell him I’m okay. You can listen the whole time. We just lost Ava and
now he will think something has happened to me too. Okay, scratch that. Well,
something did happen to me… but… but… just let me call him. I swear that I
won’t tell him a thing. He’s all the family I have left. Please let me talk to
him.”

 Ronan groaned at the
doe eyed look she gave him. Dam it, how did all females know how to do that. It
wasn’t as though he was really kidnapping her. He was just trying to keep her
safe. Perhaps he could allow her this one thing as long as she stuck to the
rules and didn’t give away anything that would lead anyone to them. “Fine.” He
grumbled and was rewarded by one of her blinding smiles.

 Almost skipping over
to the phone, Kat borrowed change from Ronan and placed her call. Kat could
feel her disappointment growing with each ring and then Patrick’s answering
machine picked up. Deciding to leave a message she simply said that she was
fine and for him not to worry and that she would call him back in a few days. The
problem was though that now she was worried about
him
. He always had his
cell phone on him and rarely missed a call. She hoped everything was okay.

 After eating yet
another meal out of a cellophane wrapper Kat leaned against the door of the
truck and went through her options. Okay she had tried reasoning with the man
but that had failed. Apparently he had convinced himself that she was a rare
female Lykan who was in grave danger living out on her own. Stupid male. Let’s
ignore the fact that she had been surviving just fine until he had come along.

 She had already tried
the smash and run with minimal success. Granted it had been very satisfying
feeling that skillet slam against his thick skull. Still she had been easily
captured and hog tied to boot. Not one of her most shining moments.

 Escape plan number
three where she screams and yells “save me, save me” and some poor unsuspecting
pedestrian comes to her aid only to be pummeled by a fully shifted werewolf
wasn’t sounding like a great idea either.

 Kat stayed like that
for the next couple of hours, looking out the window of the door until a wave
of queasiness suddenly washed over her. She squinted her eyes as she watched
the world blurring past the window outside. God, how long was he going to keep
her in this truck? She was really coming to hate this truck. She wiped the
clamminess from her brow and leaned her head back for a minute with her eyes
close. Ugh. Still not helping. Bouncing along in the old truck for the last day
combined with sleeping outside last night and her cellophane wrapped meals were
beginning to get the better of her. Dam it and now she was getting car sick.

 With a groan she
wrapped her arms around her stomach and tried to focus her eyes on the horizon.

 Ronan watched her in
concern. She had gotten awfully quiet again. What was she up to this time?

 “Kat?”

 “Hum?” Was the only
answer she was capable of giving him at the moment.

 “Kat, what’s wrong?” Her
face had gone pale and her brow was scrunched up in misery.

 “Oh god. Ronan can you
pull over?”

 “What?”

 “Just please pull
over!”

 She almost didn’t make
it. God could this situation get any more humiliating. Ronan didn’t even have
the truck stopped before Kat had the door open. Not sure what she was doing, he
grabbed for the waist band of her jeans, afraid that she was about to jump out.