Chapter 4 - A Bloodline Supposed To Be Dead

Kane's Pov

She doesn’t tell me her name in return as she stares at me like a deer caught in headlights, lips pursed and a brow raised as though she’s having an inner conflict with herself which is understandable considering I just turned her down.. 

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” I say again, candidly. “I’m really doing it for your own good.”

She blinks, snapping back to reality as she wears a wry smile. “You can leave.”

“Huh?”

“You said you need to leave, right? So go. You already made your point clear that you don’t want me,” she says calmly, eyes set in a glare, but I can hear the strain in her voice as she walks to the door in the bedroom and opens it. She stands by it, one hand by her waist. “Leave. We can just pretend we never met, but you should never have kissed me.”

I say nothing as I stare at her. Even while angry, she still looks beautiful.  

I clear my throat and force my gaze away from her eyes before I make another mistake or say something that would probably flip her off even more.

“Right,” I finally muttered. “I’m sorry for kissing you and thank you for dragging my unconscious, half-dead, body to your apartment.”

I reach for my shirt pocket out of habit, forgetting that my shirt isn’t on me and is probably a shredded corpse somewhere. I check my trousers pocket instead, but it’s empty. No phone. No keys. No wallet. I’d left everything in the car with Karl before the rogue attack earlier.

I glance back at her, a small smile tugging at my lips as I ask, “Can I just… borrow your phone? To call my beta?”

She doesn’t blink. Doesn’t even flinch as she replies. “No.”

“…No?”

“No,” she repeats firmly, tone curt, like I asked her for one of her kidneys. “I don’t want you going through my personal things. I don’t even know you.”

“I’m not stealing your nudes,” I say dryly.

Her eyes narrow. “Good, because I don’t even have any to begin with.”

“Well, great,” I say awkwardly. “That’s great. But can I borrow your phone?”

“No,” Her answer remains the same. 

“C’mon you kissed me and we barely even know each other, what harm would it be to give me your phone for just a second?”

She says nothing as she gestures toward the door again, the universal sign for get out of my house before your corpse joins my shirt wherever it is.

Fine. “I’ll just mindlink him,” I mumble.

She nods like she already knew I should’ve chosen that option in the first place

I step outside of her room and she leads me through the living room and out of her apartment and into the cold night air, which instantly makes me regret every life decision I’ve ever made that led me to this moment because I’m topless, freezing, and… ‘mate-less.’

The wind hits me like nature personally has a grudge against me and I clamp my arms around myself. I am an Alpha. I don’t get cold. I shouldn’t get cold. I can’t get…

Holy shit, I’m freezing.

‘Karl,’ I mind-link my beta, jaw chattering. ‘Get to my location. Now.’

There’s a pause, then I feel a mumble in my head. ‘Alpha?’ It’s Karl’s voice, agitated. ‘Why do you sound like a stuttering car?’

‘Just get here,’ I mind-link back, teeth clattering. 

‘On my way,’ Karl replies before shutting off the link between us.

Karl has been my beta, and my best friend for almost a decade since I became Alpha King of the Kingdom of Dyana. 

An exasperated sigh leaves me as the cold continues to bite into my skin. I glance behind me to see my mate… well…rejected mate still standing behind, the door slightly ajar as she stares. I raise a hand at her as I try smiling, but she glares at me immediately and shuts the door with the finality of a guillotine. 

Not even a goodbye. Just then it dawns on me that I don’t even know her name. 

However, I can’t help the ache in my chest at the fact that I am cutting her out of my life without even accepting or rejecting the mate bond. But it’s for her own good. In another world where things were normal for me, I’d have loved to know her better. She’s feisty, beautiful, and nice enough to bring a stranger to her apartment even though I wasn’t going to die. And she… kisses well. 

A few minutes pass before a black SUV pulls up in front of me and Karl steps out dramatically. He stops dead when he sees me.

“Why are you shirtless?” he asks, horrified. “I thought you told me you could handle the rogues on your own?!”

I glare. “They got my shirt while they barely made it out alive,” I reply, leaving out the part where two of the rogue werewolves managed to dig their claws into my neck. “You really didn’t think I’d lose a battle against ten rogues, did you Karl?”

His lips twitch. “I never doubted you for a second, Alpha. But I must say, you look like a male stripper right now.”

“Karl…”

“Like someone hired you for a bachelorette party then canceled while leaving you to the claws of the cold.”

“KARL!”

He laughs, finally sobering up and hands me a jacket, but not before giving me one last pitying once-over. I yank it on without thanking him because I refuse to acknowledge my own suffering.

“Your men and I trailed the forest where you were attacked,” Karl begins, shifting into Beta mode as we walk towards the car. “We didn’t see you there, but I could sense you were alive so I didn’t really bother.”

“Yeah, I made it back to town and lost my strength in an alley.”

“Figured. But there were rogue scents everywhere. Coordinated.”

That pulls me up short as I stop walking. Karl stops too. “Meaning?”

“They were hunting you,” he says.

Hunting me? My jaw flexes. It’s been almost two decades since I’ve had to deal with rogues. “Anything else?”

Karl nods and reaches into his pocket, pulling out something small. “And we found this in the forest.”

It’s a silver necklace.

A delicate chain with a large locket attached to it. He places it in my hand, and immediately I can tell it’s personal.

I flip the locket open. 

My heart stutters. Inside is a picture of my mate. The girl who dragged me out of that alley. The girl who tried stitching me up. The girl I kissed. The girl I refused.

But it isn’t the picture that makes my blood run cold.

It’s the symbol engraved beneath it. A crescent moon wrapped in thorns.

My grip tightens around the locket.

Karl notices immediately. “You know that crest?”

For a moment, I can’t speak.

Because only one bloodline carries that mark.

The Stormriders.

And they were all supposed to be dead.