Chapter 2: Mate

Kieran: 

Kieran had been running patrol for hours when her scent hit him like a fist to the chest.

It stopped him mid-stride, his massive paws skidding in the dirt as his wolf threw its head back and howled inside his mind. The sound was primal, desperate, triumphant...a cry that echoed through every cell in his body until he thought he might split apart from the force of it.

MATE.

No.

That was impossible.

Kieran shook his massive head, trying to clear it, but the scent only grew stronger. It wrapped around him like silk and smoke, sweet and wild and utterly intoxicating. His wolf was going insane, clawing at his control, demanding he find the source now.

He'd been patrolling the northern border of their territory....the side that bordered the old cottage their father had kept hidden for decades. The place none of them were supposed to go near until the debt came due.

But the debt had come due two months ago when the old woman died.

And now someone was there.

Someone who smelled like heaven.

Kieran's lips pulled back from his teeth in a snarl that was half warning, half anticipation. He took off running, his powerful legs eating up the distance between him and that scent. The full moon burned overhead, flooding the forest with silver light and making his wolf stronger, faster, more feral than usual.

Full moons were dangerous for his kind. They brought out the beast, stripped away the thin veneer of humanity they wore during the day. Control became a suggestion rather than a certainty.

And right now, with that scent filling his lungs and his wolf screaming MINE MINE MINE, control was the last thing Kieran had.

He burst through the tree line into the clearing where the cottage sat.

And froze.

There.

In the backyard, bathed in moonlight, lying in a hammock like she didn't have a care in the world....

A girl.

No. A woman. Young, delicate, with long dark hair that spilled over the edge of the hammock and skin that seemed to glow in the moonlight. She was curled on her side, fast asleep, completely unaware that she was being watched by a predator who outweighed her by at least two hundred pounds.

Kieran's wolf surged forward, and he let it, stalking closer on silent paws.

She was tiny. Human, by the look of her...no supernatural signature that he could sense, no pack scent marking her as claimed. Just soft skin and vulnerable flesh and that scent that made him want to bury his face in her throat and never let go.

His father had called her a debt.

A payment owed to their family for protection given decades ago.

But this woman didn't look like a transaction. She looked like she'd wandered into a fairy tale and fallen asleep in the wrong forest. Innocent. Breakable.

Mine, his wolf growled.

Kieran moved closer, his massive body blocking out the moonlight as he loomed over the hammock. Up close, her scent was even stronger...wildflowers and something earthy, something that reminded him of rain and growing things. And underneath it all, something other. Something his wolf recognized even if he didn't.

She stirred in her sleep, her lips parting on a soft exhale.

Kieran's gaze dropped.

And that's when he saw it.

The book.

Lying open on her lap, its title printed in large, cheerful letters across the cover:

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DOG

For a moment, Kieran could only stare.

Then, despite everything, despite the mate bond screaming through his veins, despite the full moon burning in his blood, despite the fact that he was standing over a sleeping woman in his wolf form like some kind of monster from a nightmare...

He laughed.

It came out as a low, rumbling sound, more growl than anything else, but it was unmistakably laughter. His sides shook with it. His tail....his gods-damned tail...actually wagged once before he caught himself.

How to train your dog.

She had no idea. No idea what she'd just walked into. No idea that she was lying defenseless in the territory of three Alpha Kings who'd been waiting their entire lives for their mate. No idea that the "dog" standing over her was about to turn her entire world upside down.

The sound must have woken her, because her eyes suddenly flew open.

Kieran went perfectly still.

For a heartbeat, they just stared at each other...her wide-eyed and frozen with shock, him looming over her like death incarnate.

Then she opened her mouth.

"G-good... dog?"

Dog.

She called him a dog.

Kieran's wolf exploded inside his head, a tornado of rage and disbelief and something dangerously close to amusement.

KILL HER. RIP HER THROAT OUT. SHOW HER WHAT WE ARE.

No, Kieran snarled back. She's ours. We don't hurt what's ours.

THEN MAKE HER UNDERSTAND!

But he couldn't.

Because she was looking up at him with those huge, terrified eyes, clutching that ridiculous book like it was going to save her, and her scent.....gods, her scent was wrapping around him so tightly he could barely breathe.

She thought he was a dog.

A dog.

The audacity. The sheer, breathtaking nerve.

Kieran took a step closer, his massive head lowering until he was eye-level with her. He could see her pulse fluttering wildly in her throat, could smell the fear spiking through her scent....but underneath it, something else.

Curiosity.

She wasn't screaming. Wasn't running.

She was looking at him.

And then....gods help him...she slowly sat up in the hammock, the book tumbling to the ground forgotten, and reached out one trembling hand.

"It's okay," she whispered, her voice shaking but soft. Soothing. Like she was trying to calm a spooked animal. "I'm not going to hurt you."

You're not going to hurt ME?

Kieran wanted to laugh again. Wanted to shift right here and now and show her exactly how wrong she was. Wanted to grab her by the throat and make her understand that she was the one in danger, not him.

But he didn't.

Because her hand was still extended, hovering in the air between them, and his wolf was suddenly, desperately curious about what would happen if she touched him.

Don't, he warned himself. Don't let her.....

Her fingers brushed against his fur.

The world exploded.