Chapter Twelve
Caine rubbed his eyes and reached to the back of his neck to try and make his head feel better.
He had left her there and he already hated every ounce of himself for doing it.
He should have made love to her again.
Caine wouldn’t have had to restrain or subdue or force himself inside this woman. Her body had understood his hands. It had understood his kiss. Her skin had memorized his touch within seconds of the very first one.
But there were things that he had to tell her before her body was allowed to know the rest of him. And there were things that she had to know about herself as well.
His hands weren’t able to purge the sight and smell and thought of that woman and he wasn’t able to tell her the truth any more than he could have stopped Lee from transforming back into a man most likely the minute Caine had gotten Chloe out of the bathroom.
It had been a close call kind of day.
And Caine was exhausted.
But at least it was over. Almost, that is. Now that he had taken Chloe home and broken every rule of his kind and pack and self-control that he could think of, all Caine had to do after he got home was go to Luke’s house to make sure the bastard wasn’t planning on disobeying his orders not to touch Chloe, and then check on Lee.
That first part was the one that really had him worried.
As for Lee, it was well known that wolf hybrids sometimes had a hell of a time during late puberty. Male hybrids had to learn to control the urge to transform just like they had to learn to control every other urge and impulse that guided their bodies and minds. It was because of this bizarre form of puberty that Caine’s kind went through that had made him less concerned than he would have been at any other time of Lee’s life were he not able to transform. The fever, however, had frightened him enough for him to put himself and Chloe into a less than ideal situation with Luke.
Caine was just glad his little brother hadn’t been born a little girl. Had Lee been a female, his first transformation would not have taken place until the loss of his virginity. Although Caine knew of no she-wolves himself, he had heard that the trauma over such a thing taking place when the young woman should be enjoying something so precious and memorable was sometimes enough to make the she-wolf kill her mate during the act.
Caine had never even considered trying to locate a she-wolf for himself. In his opinion, human women could be just as dangerous in bed as the animals Caine had only heard tales of from his ancestors.
At least he bet that Dr. Chloe Evans could be as dangerous between the sheets as anything Caine’s great-great-grandfather had supposedly had the pleasure of mounting. Especially if she would let go and admit what gave her the greatest pleasure.
As for his own pleasure, Caine’s plans for the night had gone nothing like he’d imagined. Nor had they gone according to Luke’s expectations either. Lee’s fever had altered the entire night. And Chloe Evans quite possibly had altered Caine’s entire life, he suspected.
He brought his fingers to his mouth.
He would know she’d been there after weeks of showers and nights and dreams of her. And every time he found her scent, Caine would think of how badly he wanted to please her again. And of just how pleasing she could be to him. It was wonderful to imagine. And it felt good for him to think tenderly of a woman again. After two years of grief and pain and loneliness that no sibling or parent or friend could sway, Caine wanted this. He was ready for this again. He wanted to share as one can only share with a mate.
He wanted to love again.
It was insane and improbable and most likely going to cause Caine more pain than he had ever imagined when she ended up just like all the others. All except one. The only one.
Tonight, he didn’t want to think that way. He didn’t want to consider what was going to happen to his heart and that tiny glimmer of hope when Chloe knew the truth.
Still, there were things Caine had to consider. Namely, Luke. The man wanted to breed. Caine understood that perfectly. Caine himself wanted to breed. And he still needed to because of his pack. He knew it was his duty.
But he wanted the female willing. And he wanted her to enjoy their breeding efforts as much as he. He couldn’t deny that fact.
And he wanted Chloe to be his mate.
The bitch had already done it with her sass and her smile and that dimple. Not to mention the way she’d reeked of pheromones he suspected only his nose could ever truly understand when he’d touched and loved her. And when they’d spoken of the family history that Caine recorded for his books, even though she’d denied believing them, the woman’s body had all but reached out to him with its excitement over such tales.
The fact that his work aroused her so, made Caine have to fight an urge he never thought he’d feel. It was an urge to tell her everything right away. The urge to be completely honest with her about what he and his father and brothers were.
But she hadn’t been able to be completely honest with him about the way she felt about such things. And Caine had learned long ago that fact and fiction were worlds apart in most people’s minds. From the few fan letters that did manage to track him down, Caine had determined that although people loved to be scared and most liked to be reminded by literature and art that their lives were expendable, very few were ever brave enough to accept the true reality of that concept. Caine’s books were successful because reading about such lurid things was the most dangerous way most people were willing to live.
And unfortunately, Dr. Chloe Evans would most likely be much too down to earth to accept what Caine needed to admit to her if she was to be his willing mate.
True, she had been excited by what she had thought was Luke more roughly making love to her. But Caine suspected that she was merely another adrenaline junkie with a slightly higher tolerance. And he suspected that if he did admit who and what he was, her craving for fear would quickly turn on the man giving it to her. She would think he was nuts, first of all.
And then, when he proved his claim, she would be repulsed by what he truly was.
For Caine on the other hand, admitting that he’d basically fallen in love with her the minute the wolf in him had smelled her months before was the most frightening thing
he
had ever let run through his mind.
Hell, Caine was still working on breaking that news to himself. He didn’t want to love another woman because of the pain that love had once caused him. But, just as Caine had been helpless to fall in love with Meagan, it would seem that the chromosome for being an idiot when it came to women was well ingrained in the Caine family gene pool.
Caine thought about his twin and how his own life was affected by the same factors as his. At least Caine had been given the choice to openly love a woman when he’d ascended to the alpha position. Luke hadn’t been given that option. And even though Caine was being very liberal with his allowing his brothers the chance to breed, it was still under his control and subject to his approval as long as they were in his pack.
Ultimately, even Chloe’s breeding was up to him as long as she was in his territory. It was an ugly thing for Caine to remind himself of, but it was true nonetheless. Caine would give the situation every opportunity to work itself out, but if it didn’t, and if Chloe wasn’t able to accept him, Caine would be forced to let his more primal instincts take over for the sake of his family.
He only hoped, for his sake and for Chloe’s, that she could be what he needed her to be.
What she needed to be for herself.
Caine looked up as he pulled back into the drive of his parents’ house. Lee’s light was still on and so he decided to check on him first. Luke’s house was dark as were the other houses where Caine’s aunts, uncles, and grandparents lived. The difference was that Luke’s house looked cold. Uninviting. And like somewhere Caine was not allowed to go, despite the fact that every house on every inch of the property was part of his territory.
He had thought about suggesting a way for he and Luke both to have what they wanted and it not interfere with the ways they had been raised to uphold, but for only a second before that possibility hurt him too badly to even consider.
There was always the option for his brothers to leave the pack and become alphas in their own packs. It was unthinkable in Caine’s opinion, even with the anger and hard feelings between himself and his brother. The human in him even made this normal and rational remedy to having two such domineering males in one pack very hard for him to consider. He suspected that Luke felt the same way as neither man had ever brought that consideration to the table.
They loved each other. As brothers and pack mates should.
But Caine also loved Chloe now. And both men needed to mate.
It was the same nightmare all over again. His love for his family and his twin being pitted against his love for a woman. The wolf in him versus the man in him.
Sometimes Caine understood his twin much more than Luke would ever know. He hoped someday to let Chloe know how much he understood her as well.
Caine also understood the very distinct noises coming from his youngest brother’s bedroom as he tiptoed down the hallway of his parents’ house. He couldn’t stop the grin that came upon his face as he silently opened the young wolf’s door and peered in at his now fully transformed human brother.
“You’re going to grow hair on your palms.”
Caine had never seen a quicker reaction in his life to being busted while jacking off to the sweet, mellow sounds of Nine Inch Nails. Lee’s expression went from shock and embarrassment to helplessness as Caine had come upon him, in a manner of speaking, just seconds away from his joyhood.
Caine pulled the door closed in front of his face and silently cackled as he gave his brother time to compose himself.
“Everything come out okay?”
“I hate you.”
Caine chuckled again and laid his head against the still closed bedroom door. “Are you feeling better?” he whispered around the door before peeking in. He grinned again as Lee slung Miss February across the room to let her slap against the wall she would most likely be plastered to with thumbtacks by morning. Caine approached his brother and smiled. “We all do it.”
“Some of us have to.”
Caine felt Lee’s words hit something inside him. He tried to ignore the bruise they left.
“Luke go to bed?”
Lee twirled his drumstick without speaking and avoided Caine’s eyes.
“Lee?”
His youngest brother’s eyes watered. It was an odd sight, even for a young man as affectionate and sensitive as Lee. Caine felt his insides cringe even harder than they had just moments earlier at Lee’s words. When the teenager looked up at the alpha of his pack, to speak to the brother he loved only slightly less than the boy loved Luke, Caine felt that cringe turn into a full-fledged twist.
“Don’t let him hurt her.”
* * * * *
Caine hit the ground on four legs. He hadn’t bothered to strip and his clothes quickly became tangled and torn by the briars and limbs that reached out for him as he hit almost forty miles an hour across the forest floor. The wolf in him wasn’t built to sustain this speed for long distances.
It was the man in him that made his body endure the exertion for almost seven miles.
In the distance, he heard a howl. A mating howl. But from a throat he couldn’t recognize in his panicked state. Luke would know better than to give his intentions away with such a blatant call. But it would be just such the thing the man would do if he’d already conquered the female he desired.
Caine reached the cabin and slowed only long enough to work around his body with his mouth to tear the remaining clothing from his torso. His paws were bloodied from the cuts and gashes he had sustained due to not feeling the rocks he was running over in order to get to Chloe. White foam bubbled around his mouth and his chest panted and heaved with his having pushed himself so hard. He glanced back only as an afterthought as he noticed the bloody footprints he was leaving behind on the deck steps.
The glass door that he had used the night before was locked. Caine eyed the glass and then peered inside to see if he could spot Chloe or his brother.
She was sleeping. Naked once again, despite the cold. The sheet was pulled down just enough to allow one breast to show.
The one that Caine watched Luke lean over and lick carefully enough as not to wake her.
Luke was also naked. And aroused in the way that Caine was when he had made love to her.
As a man.
Caine’s canine eyes and the human eyes of his twin locked when his brother looked up. Luke sat gingerly on the side of the bed and smiled at Caine through the glass door. Chloe shifted lazily and Caine heard her moan in her sleep. Luke turned to watch the same.
If Caine hadn’t fallen in love with her, this would have been much easier for them both. He could have gone in and mounted her again and then allowed Luke to take his own pleasure from her. Caine was quickly learning that it really didn’t matter to the animal in him how many males in the pack had her so long as he mated with her first and sired her young.
Once again, the man in him was enraged by one of his own thoughts.
If only he could let the animal in him be his more controlling force with this woman. There would be no tension between him and his brother if he could. And Caine would never have to consider the thought of splitting their family up in order to appease their individual appetites if he was able to better control the weak, emotional side of himself.
It was Caine’s own selfish craving, his craving to love this woman, that was interfering with his life, his family, and his ability to make sound decisions for the pack. Luke was right. He should have fucked her the very first time he’d smelled her.
Just like he should have fucked Meagan the very first time he’d laid eyes on that bitch.
Experience would seem to dictate that Caine’s luck would fare much better if he simply bred without his emotions. But as he watched Luke move carefully to pull the sheet down and expose the other breast of the woman Caine would continue to love, hoped to someday marry, and wanted to spend the rest of his life with, he knew that the possibility of that happening was as dead as his beloved first wife.
Caine growled and thumped his paw carefully against the glass to get his brother’s attention. This was not how he wanted to tell Chloe what they were. He didn’t want to pound on the door hard enough to wake her so that she caught him and his brother at her cabin again in the middle of the night. And Caine’s transforming back into human shape to stop Luke was a bad idea as the thought of Chloe waking to see two naked, twin men with their hard cocks flailing about between them wrestling and fighting on her bedroom floor was most likely not going to be arousing to her in the least.
Would
it
?
Caine shook that naughty, long ago bad behavior from his now mature and less sexually impulsive wolfish head and pawed at the door again. Luke grinned but didn’t look up as he gently pulled the sheet down farther, still careful not to wake her.
Caine sat down and whined. He didn’t know what to do. It angered him that this was his pack and his woman and he had no earthly idea as to what to do in this complicated situation.
But that was the man in him as well. And the man in Caine had never been able to back the man in his twin down. Caine was simply too loving and too soft hearted a man to be the son of a bitch he would have to be to accomplish that.
Had they been normal men, Luke would have dominated the relationship. Caine was more emotional and playful and less apt to act on his instinctive nature than his brother. Caine thought about what he did. He was methodical and intent. Caine usually reasoned his way through things with his human mind and emotions and used the wolf in himself only when he had to.
Luke was more brutal and much more passionate about everything he did, even those things that seemed cruel and inhumane at times. He rarely used his human mind to decide when to use his canine strengths. He listened to his instincts. And he used his strengths to make those instincts reality.
But then again, the man devoured child molesters because he detested them. Wolves don’t have the capacity to hate. Only men do. On the other end of the spectrum, Luke had loved Meagan as if she had been his wife. Caine had always known that deep down.
And animals supposedly don’t love.
Caine wondered if with the right woman to balance him out, Luke Caine wouldn’t have made one tough bastard of a man.
But he wasn’t allowed to have a woman of his own. Not in Caine’s pack without Caine’s approval. And Luke wasn’t a man. He was a hybrid. As was Caine.
And Caine was the alpha.
And Caine would breed when and with whomever he saw fit. As would Luke, as long as the wolf was in Caine’s pack.
Caine fought to remind himself that it was only the alpha in him that should make his decisions when it came to matters concerning the members of his pack. Although he was still clueless as how to make better decisions concerning the beasts of the world that were truly the most powerful, he knew that Luke’s behavior was unacceptable, regardless of how well Caine understood the urges he felt. Caine listened to this internal message, despite the sound of his human emotions that pitied his twin, as he stood up and pawed the door firmly one last time. His brother looked up from his investigation of Caine’s naked, sleeping mate.
Intelligent but less intuitive human eyes met the canine eyes of a creature that even the toughest and most passionate of full-blooded men couldn’t subdue without the use of artificial force.
Luke looked at him defiantly for a moment longer. He breathed in, hatefully. And then lowered his head.
He too was helpless to completely ignore what they were. Even as badly as he wanted to forget.
Caine stood his ground and watched his brother sit beside Chloe for only a moment longer. The woman stirred again and Luke glanced to look down at her. Tenderly, if Caine was seeing correctly through the darkness and glass.
Caine’s twin covered his brother’s mate as carefully as he had uncovered her.
And never looked back at Caine as he quietly left by way of the front door.