Claiming His Fate (11 page)

“Give me a minute to rest and I’ll make sure you don’t think about that soreness for another second.”

She chuckled. “What, you can’t just keep going? Shouldn’t you have insta-boner, like every seventeen-year-old boy out there?”

“I’m a long way from seventeen.” I nibbled her ear and ran my nose along her cheek. “Though I think I’ve gotten better with age.”

She sighed and arched her back. “Maybe, but those seventeen-year-olds have a quick recovery time.”

I pressed my hips against her ass, letting her feel how hard I already was for her. How hard I always was when around her. 

“Shifters are quicker.”

TWELVE

Cherry

Two hours and six orgasms later, I was thanking every higher power I could think of for shifter recovery times. Or the almost lack thereof.

I pulled a comb through my hair, having just finished showering. Reb was still in the bathroom, his fourth orgasm taking a bit more out of him than the previous ones. Of course, that one happened in a steamy shower while he had to hold me up against the tile wall. Not that he didn’t have the strength for it. But the balancing act took a bit of concentration on his part and flexibility on mine. The poor guy was probably exhausted.

I pulled on my jeans, still sans panties, and yanked Reb’s T-shirt over my head. I didn’t want Julian to realize I was wearing a man’s shirt, so I pulled the extra fabric to the base of my spine and tied a knot. When Reb came out of the bathroom, he leaned against the door and watched me. His eyes were dark, his face serious. 

“Why are you staring at me?” I finally asked after several tense seconds of silence.

Reb strode across the room, all confidence and sin wrapped up in a pair of light-colored jeans that hung unbuttoned from his hips. The frayed hems brushed the floor with every step, and the worn-out knees looked ready to tear. Yet they clung to him in a way that was almost indecent, every soft, blue inch a testament to the muscles underneath. 

“I love these jeans,” I whispered as he finally reached me. I ran my fingers along the edge, dipping into the open fly and swiping my knuckle against the head of his dick. He did the growling thing that sounded like a purr and stared into my eyes.

“Come with me.” 

I stopped, my hand still resting against the soft denim. I couldn’t move, could barely breathe. 

He ran his hand up my arm to rest against the side of my neck. “I want you to come on the road with us. With me.”

I licked my lips, my heart pounding through my head and making the words I wanted to say a bit fuzzy. “I can’t.”

His face fell then grew hard, his eyes boring into me. “Why not?”

“I can't just leave my life behind to jump on the back of your bike.”

He snorted. “Your life? Working at a strip club? Wearing your underthings to attract the attention of men you don’t want?”

My ears burned and my stomach dropped. I’d been judged for my job before, but I hadn’t thought he would be one to look down on me. He’d been in the club, at a private party. Hell, he’d bought me! And now he wanted to put his nose in the air as if I was the bad one for trying to earn a living and support my brother. 

I stepped away from him but he followed me, herded me, trapped me against the wall. A move like that would have been welcomed before he’d opened his big mouth. Not so much anymore.

“Come with me.” He nudged my thigh with his knee. “We'll ride with the brothers most of the time, but we can get a house, make a home somewhere. I can keep working to protect the secret and you can be with me.”

My blood roared in my ears as I spoke through clenched teeth. “And do what?”

Reb furrowed his brow and backed up a step. “Huh?”

“And what would I do? Be your biker bitch? Be your mate and nothing else?” I dipped under his arm and stalked across the room. “That's not enough for me, Reb. I'm not someone who’s going to wrap my life around yours and hope to be happy about it. I have plans. I have a degree. I work at the club because the money is good and I need it while I'm taking care of my brother. But he's fifteen. He’ll go off to college soon, and then I can go back to working with computers. I can use my brain instead of my ass.”

Reb watched me pace for a moment, and then he shrugged. “Okay, we can take your brother with us.”

I shook my head, wanting so badly to knock some sense into the man. “You're not getting it. I’m not going anywhere. My brother has school, and he needs a stable home life if he has any hope of getting the grades he needs to get into a good college. I'm here, in Milwaukee, for three more years before I can even think of going elsewhere.”

“What about us?” He moved from one side of the room to the other lightning fast, standing in front of me before I could even blink. The growl in his voice made my heart leap, but I had to resist the pull. Sex wouldn’t solve this issue. 

He pushed my hair over my shoulder and rested his hand beside my neck. “You're my mate, Charlotte. My chosen one; I don't want to be without you.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “And I don't want to give up my entire life for some guy I just met. I need time to get to know you and give my mind the chance to catch up with my lust.”

His eyes practically glowed as they met mine, his anguish obvious. But his words were fierce, imbued with certainty and promise.

“I have waited over two hundred years for you to come into my life. I have hoped for this day, dreamed about it. But never did I think my mate would deny me.”

His words and tone were like another slap to the face. Shocking and unwelcome.

“Asking for time to get to know you is not denying, Reb. It's being reasonable and realistic.”

He snarled and twisted, punching the wall. “You are the mate of a wolf shifter, Charlotte. Realism went out the window the second my wolf chose you.”

“And what about the man?” I asked. His confused look told me more than and any words could. I didn’t want to finish my question, but I needed to. I had to know the answer. “Did the man choose me as well? Or is the human side of you still on the fence?”

Rebel shook his head. “It doesn't matter. You’re my chosen female; my wolf would not choose wrongly.”

My heart shrank as a feeling of nausea swept over me. He didn’t want me. His wolf did, but he didn’t. And while I had no experience with wolves or shifters, I knew enough about men to hear the words he wasn’t saying. He didn’t care about me, had no feelings for me beyond the lust brought on by some mystical mumbo-jumbo. Lesson learned.

Fighting back tears, I grabbed my purse and headed for the door. “When you can stand there and tell me the man has chosen me as much as the wolf has, then we can talk.”

He followed me across the room. “Where are you going?” 

“Back where I belong.” I opened the door and stepped into the hall, Rebel right behind me.

“Charlotte, you’re my mate, the one fated to be mine. You can’t just walk away from me.”

I spun, my chest burning with the rage his words brought out in me. “I am not yours! I am my own person with my own will. Just because your wolf rules you doesn't mean it can rule me. I don't want to ride off with you to some unknown location. I don't want to be left behind while you traipse about with your club brothers and do dangerous things. I don't want to give up everything I am because your wolf decided at some point that I was fit for breeding.”

He stood stock still, his hands clenched into fists and his face wearing a terrifying expression. He was pissed. But that was okay, because I was pissed as well.

I stepped up to him, right under his chin so he had to look down to meet my gaze.

“I am not yours, nor am I your wolf's. And I am not running off with some man I just met, who doesn’t truly care about me, on the hope we can get along enough to make a life together. I am human, and humans need time to learn about each other before they make those kinds of commitments.” I turned and walked away, pausing as I reached the stairwell to take one more look at the beautiful man who had broken my heart. He hadn’t moved. His hands were fisted at his sides and his mouth hung open. But his eyes said it all. There was no love there, only anger and confusion. And that would never be enough.

“Goodbye, Abraham. Tell your wolf to quit looking for love in strip clubs. There’s nothing real there, it’s just the playground of lonely men and greedy women. Look for something real instead.”

THIRTEEN

Rebel

“Feral Breed Four Corners, what say ye?”

A shifter other than Jameson stood to answer, causing a bit of a ruckus as other shifters began speculating what happened to the former president. Rumors abounded, everything from death by government agency to a massive breach of the secret of our existence. Not that it mattered much to me. Nothing really mattered anymore other than my denmates and my bikes.

I stood at the back of the room and ignored the drama, my jaw clenched against the dark mood surrounding me. Three months. I'd left Charlotte behind three months ago, and my anger over the situation only grew hotter and more deadly with each day. She was my mate. In earlier times, that was considered an honor amongst the humans who knew the secret. Young ladies and men would line up every year to meet with the shifters who protected them, hopeful and excited at the prospect of becoming a mate. A chosen love. 

But modern times had forced the shifters into hiding, making them something of myth and legend. No longer was being mated to one an honor. No longer did the human world believe in my breed, in the strength of our bonds, in the fated matings. Charlotte had proven that with her refusal of me.

My wolf remained silent, refusing to participate in much since being rejected by his mate. It was a harsh blow to the normally powerful beast within. I wasn't sure if he would ever recover from the loss. And while the lack of contention between the two sides of my soul should have been a welcomed respite, peace refused to settle over me. Instead, I remained twitchy and uncomfortable in my own skin. Especially since I’d arrived at Merriweather Fields. Charlotte was close, closer than any other time since I’d left Milwaukee three months before. I could feel her, sense the pull between us growing stronger as the distance lessened. And it made me want to rage. 

“Feral Breed Great Lakes, what say ye?”

I stood and cracked my neck in an attempt to calm the rage burning inside of me. “No losses. Membership strong.”

Blaze raised an eyebrow at me. “I understand you’ve found your mate. I am surprised to see you here, Rebel.”

Biting back the growl building in my chest, I shook my head. “My wolf chose his mate, yes. But it didn’t work out.”

The room fell silent. Mate refusal was the stuff of nightmares, of stories told to young shifters to scare them. The dark fairy tales of the shifter world. Rejection of the mating bond wasn’t supposed to happen in real life.

Except it did. My wolf and I were proof of it.

Blaze cleared his throat and shuffled his papers. “I see.” 

After a pregnant pause, which set every wolf in the room on edge, he cleared his throat again. “I am sorry for your loss. Let's move on. Feral Breed Heartland, what say ye?”

I sat down and curled my shoulders inward. That was what I’d hoped to avoid—the speculation and the rumors as each den heard about poor Rebel. President of his own den but not enough wolf to keep a mate. Their jabbering would piss off my denmates and cause friction within the club. That sort of attention undermined my authority and created chaos. I didn't want to deal with chaos.

“You're a real idiot, you know that?”

I growled at Pup, unable to stop my lip from curling at the younger shifter. He’d been at Merriweather Fields since we carted his ass back from Milwaukee. It had taken weeks for his strength to return, and then he had to go through physical therapy because of nerve damage in his chest. While working on his recovery, he’d started taking lessons with Half Trac on ancient fighting styles under the direction of Gates. The young shifter had grown, both physically and mentally. He would be ready for his own patch and road name soon. 

But his mouth was about to get him knocked on his ass.

I grabbed my beer and glared at him. “What do you know about it?”

He leaned forward, his eyes intense as they met mine. “I know I fucked up and put your mate at risk. I know I’ve been working to make sure I never fail you like that again. And being almost two hundred years younger than you, I know Charlotte made the right decision.”

I snarled, attracting the attention of the shifters around us. Inside, my wolf lifted his head and glared at the younger Anbizen. But Pup just waved me off.

“I'm not saying you don't deserve a mate.” He leaned back and rested his shoulder on the wall, the picture of ease as my wolf dreamed of ripping his throat out. “But you handled finding her horribly. You asked her to make a commitment to you, to your way of life, without discussing what mating truly means. And you never gave her a chance to tell you what she needed to feel comfortable with bringing you into her life. I think you should’ve given her what she asked for instead of walking away.”

I snorted as my chest nearly imploded at the memory of those last few minutes with Charlotte. “And what, you’re some kind of expert on women all of a sudden?”

“Not all of a sudden.” He took a deep breath as he looked me in the eyes. “I fucked up that day at Amnesia, and I promised myself I would never let that happen again. I would never let another mate get hurt while on my watch.”

I glared back at him as his words swirled in my mind. My head tilted of its own accord when they finally created an image I could understand.

“You’ve been keeping an eye on her.”

Pup nodded. “I will never fail another mate of my brothers again.”

I sat back, unable to come up with a response. While I’d been burying my pain on my bike all over the damned Midwest, Pup had been making sure my mate was safe. A job that should have rested on my shoulders. And if that wasn’t a thought that made my balls practically crawl back into my body.