Page 22 of Fated to the Alpha Warrior (The Wolf’s Forbidden Mate #1)
Aurora
The days on the road are starting to blend together, the faces of new shifters becoming one and the same. Each night feels similar to the rest: I go to sleep alone with him mere feet away and a never-ending pain in my chest.
At least tonight there’s a bed with a nice mattress, a fresh set of sheets, and best of all, a mechanic around the corner who will hopefully be able to help me fix up my bike.
I step into the shower in the guest room wishing I could spend all evening under the warm steam, but there’s work to be done.
I dry off quickly, get dressed, and grab my notes. Alpha Thorin invited us to dinner tonight, so I want to be prepared. As I flip through what I’ve written down so far, I can’t help but notice one thing I haven’t been paying attention to: Kieran’s behavior.
He’s been acting increasingly… weird. One moment he’s cold and distant, the next he’s protective, almost possessive. The way he’s been acting with Emmett today has been driving me mad, reopening old wounds I thought had long since scarred over.
Kieran has no right to step up and pretend like he’s my mate after everything he’s said and done. We haven’t even seen each other in years, haven’t spoken a single word face-to-face since he rejected me. To have him snarling and growling, standing between me and another man—it just feels wrong.
At the same time, part of me can’t help but admit that it feels oh-so-very right. He’s meant to be at my side, the broken mate bond insists. Each time he comes close enough for me to smell, to touch, to look into his ice blue eyes, that old wound reopens and flares to life.
But there’s no time right now for me to sort through all my contradictory emotions. I focus instead on the task at hand: the madness the fae are spreading faster and faster by the day.
Now that we’re somewhere with cell phone service, I fire off a quick text to Carrie and Dana. Carrie gets back quickly, promising to “…find whatever information may help you, XOXO Gran.”
Dana, of course, sends me a series of questions like: “Have you chopped his nuts off yet?” and “tell me you chopped his nuts off.”
“Not yet,” I respond to her, “but I’ll keep it in mind.”
No one hates a woman’s ex quite as much as her BFF. When it comes to hating Kieran, Dana has a graduate degree in inventive ways to cut off his body parts.
Based on all the notes I’ve taken, and the things I know from Gran, it seems like the fae are searching for a foothold in our world. Specifically on the pack lands. But questions remain, like why they’re doing it, and how it is that they’re spreading the madness so quickly.
Questions I’m hoping I’ll be able to answer soon.
I head out of my room with my notes tucked under my arm and almost immediately feel a stabbing pain in the left side of my chest. I don’t have to turn around to know that the footsteps I hear behind me belong to Kieran.
“Headed to dinner?” He doesn’t wait for me to respond, just strides up to stand beside me, so close that his scent tortures me with every inhale. “I’ll escort you.”
Shooting him a glare, I point out, “I’m perfectly capable of walking down a hallway by myself.”
“Of course you are—I’m the one who needs an escort.” He gives me a sheepish smile that shouldn’t be so charming. “I have no idea which fork is the salad fork and which is the entree fork.”
“Really?”
“Well, that and I may or may not have offended Alpha Thorin when I was here all those years ago.” Kieran rubs the back of his neck with his hand, one of his more obvious nervous tics that I thought he’d outgrown. “He kind of heard me insulting his cooking. And also I got into the liquor cabinet.”
I whistle. “Your dad must’ve loved that.”
“Thorin never told him. Didn’t want me to get in trouble.” Something shadowed passes over Kieran’s face. “Anyway, he probably doesn’t remember it, but I didn’t want to go to dinner solo just in case.”
“I’m not sure how I help you look more presentable. After all, I’m the pack outcast without a wolf,” I point out to him. “The only thing I’ve got going for me is some very sketchy research and a few things Gran told me about the fae.”
“That’s more than I’ve got going for me. Besides, don’t sell yourself short,” he says, “you’ve also got a waterlogged motorcycle.”
I elbow him in the side, and we share a laugh—one that I quickly cut off with a wince. The broken mate bond throbs inside me, a reminder that no matter what he says now, Kieran has already judged me and found me wanting.
If I were enough for him, this pain would be gone.
We enter Thorin’s dining room to discover a long oak table covered in assorted dishes that make my mouth water.
Thorin is standing on the other side, right in the middle, leaning between two shifters sitting next to each other.
He says something that makes them laugh, then straightens as Kieran and I enter.
There are at least a dozen shifters sitting around the table, all of their plates empty. They’re talking in low voices and glancing around, almost as if they’re waiting for someone to enter. I look over my shoulder, wondering who’s going to take the seat at the head of the table.
If they’re waiting for someone important, at least that means I won’t have to go over my research tonight. I can wait until I’ve talked to Gran on the phone, make sure that?—
“You’re here.” Alpha Thorin’s deep, masculine voice interrupts my thoughts. I look back at him in horror as he gestures toward the head of the table. “Aurora Blackburn, we’ve been waiting for you to arrive. Please, take a seat—your escort can sit beside you, on the left.”
A prickle of unease shoots up my spine. Surely he didn’t just call Kieran my escort…? But the alpha-to-be seems unfazed by the designation, and takes his seat like he was made for it.
Thorin, meanwhile, is pulling out the chair at the head of the table and looking at me expectantly.
I have an out-of-body experience as I walk his way. Suddenly I’m floating above the long oak table, watching myself as I take the seat. I distantly hear the sound of my voice thanking Thorin. Then he takes a seat to the right of me, and looks over in anticipation.
Kieran reaches for a spoon stuck in the bowl of mashed potatoes right in front of me, only for Thorin’s level glare to make him snatch that hand right back faster than if he’d been slapped.
He was right. He did need an escort.
Now, so do I, because I have no idea what I’m going to say. Everyone here is expecting me to be some kind of expert at the madness, at fae lore, but I’m no Gran. I haven’t even seen a fae up close, much less fought one to death, like her. As soon as I open my mouth they’ll figure out?—
A pinch to my side jostles me out of it. I look over to find Kieran staring at me, his brows slightly furrowed, head cocked to one side. He snatches his pinching fingers away before I can break them, then gives me an encouraging smile.
“Aurora knows more about the fae than just about anyone I know,” he says in a clear voice tinged with what I would swear was pride, coming from anyone else. “Like how their magic works.”
I wonder, with a bittersweet taste in my mouth, if this is what it feels like to have a mate. Someone who always has your back, who’s there for you when you don’t know what to say or what to do.
“Right. Their magic.” Taking a deep breath, I turn toward the assembled warriors and their alpha and launch into an explanation of the fae.
“Fae magic is different from the magic that makes us shifters. It’s even different from the magic witches use.
With fae magic, consent is the key, which means… ”
Once I get started, it’s easy enough to keep going.
Especially when I get asked questions. There are a few that I can’t answer, but to my relief, no one seems upset when I tell them that I don’t know why the fae are spreading the madness, or where they’ll spread it to next.
They’re satisfied to have someone to give them advice—even secondhand advice from Carrie.
“But I don’t know how to fight the fae,” I admit to them. “At least, not head on. I only have theories and stories.”
“Aurora is selling herself short.” I blink at Kieran, who’s eaten at least two plates of food by now and has mostly left the talking to me.
“She held her own against a whole army of water spirits yesterday. Tell them about that—or, no, I will, while you grab some food and water. It all started when we came to this lake that wasn’t supposed to be there… ”
I’m almost as riveted as everyone else as Kieran launches into the story of the water spirits. He makes it sound much more drawn out and dramatic than I remember. Instead of a brief fight that ended in us cold, wet, and exhausted, he describes a swashbuckling tale of near-death heroism.
One he makes me the star of, much to my secret pleasure. The way he describes me fighting makes me as confident as I feel when I beat Dana. It’s clear that he truly respects and admires me—and all the warriors seem impressed, even Alpha Thorin.
I almost feel like I’m one of them. Almost.
“It sounds like you’ve got quite the fight in you,” one of the man warriors says, giving me an appreciative look. “We could use more like you in Pack Sapphire. Did I hear Alpha Thorin correctly when he said your surname is Blackburn?”
“Yes, you did,” I answer, knowing what’s coming next. Blackburn is one of several surnames that are given to shifters who don’t know their lineage, so I answer his follow up question before he has a chance to ask it. “And yes, I was adopted into the pack as an orphan.”
“Then you should join Pack Sapphire. We wouldn’t leave you without a name to call yourself by.”
I’m opening my mouth to reply when Kieran cuts in with a growl, holding his knife and fork tightly in his fists. “Aurora is a member of Pack Jade, and in no need of a new pack. She won’t be going anywhere.”