Chapter Twenty-Four

Karter

“Just tell me what I want to know and we’ll turn you over to the Elders,” Grey tries to reason with the man tied to the chair in front of us, “Their punishment will be harsh but a lot swifter than him.”

I growl and flash my glowing eyes on cue. We’ve been playing this good cop bad cop routine for weeks with different members of Dark Wood to no avail. It’s driving me crazy that we’ve had no breakthroughs but even more crazy that I can’t seem to enjoy this the way I would’ve before. Seeing my enemy tied to a chair at my will would’ve sent me over the edge with excitement. But now all I want is for this all to be over as soon as possible so that I can get back home to my mate.

She’s been feeling, off, for the past few days, I can feel it. Her moods have been so up and down like they were when she first shifted. I send a quick prayer to the goddess that she isn’t going into heat. Although everyone in the pack knows she is my mate it doesn’t change the fact that we haven’t completed the mating bond. She may wear my mark but it doesn’t truly mean anything until I bear hers. Unmated weres in the pack will have a tougher time than they already do containing themselves if she’s in heat. I don’t even want to think about the increase of male weres here now that we’ve got so many from Dark Wood as prisoners.

My mind immediately flashes to how close she’s been with Connor lately. A few weeks ago she couldn’t stand to be around him and now he’s the one I have to talk to in order to get messages through to her. He’s been with her twenty-four seven and it’s getting to me. I bet he’s been sleeping at our house. He better not have slept in the bed with her or I’ll string him up by his balls. I know my mind is lacing together events, grasping at straws and jumping to conclusions but my heart still beats frantically at the thought and my mood quickly sours.

I almost miss my cue, a subtle wink from Grey. I’m supposed to flip the chair over onto it’s back and snarl at the man while he’s helpless on the ground. Instead I let my frustration get the best of me and backhand the hêll out of him.

The chair and the man in it flip over onto it’s side, knocking him out cold.

“What the hêll Karter?” Grey asks, rushing to sit the man up.

“He’ll be fine Nurse Betty,” I grumble, flinging the blood from his lip off of my hand.

“Maybe you should take a break,” he suggests in that tone that let’s me know it’s not really a suggestion.

He’s going to make one hell of a dad. I pity my little niece or nephew.

I salute him sarcastically, “Aye aye Captain.”

I hear him grumbling behind my back as I walk upstairs but I don’t respond. I’m looking for a fight but not with him.

*

Walking into my home I’m immediately hit in the nose by two familiar scents. Connor and Rose are both here, and they’re close. Her scent is everywhere now that she’s moved here permanently, all over the pack house and the grounds but it’s strongest and sweetest here.

I round the staircase and immediately see something that makes my wolf barrel his way to the surface. Rose and Connor are on the couch, my fûcking couch that I fûcking bought with my fûcking money, snuggled up like a couple. Connor has his arm slung around the back of the couch, behind Rose, playing with a strand of her hair and she’s snuggled into his side. She’s sitting too close to him like - like he’s me!

“Get the fûck up!” I growl, causing Dylan to jump into him for protection. That just makes me angrier and I reach to grab Connor up myself.

He snatches his arm away and stands up from the couch.

“Get your punk aṣs out of here Connor before I fûck you up,” I grit, barely holding my wolf back. He’s gnashing at his cage, claws extended, teeth barred, ready to go for the jugular.

“Are you going to be okay? You can come with me,” he offers to Rose, completely ignoring me.

I can’t believe the gall of this motherfûcker. Using my Alpha tone I command him, “Out Connor. Now.”

He immediately starts towards the door but not before shaking his head and sneering at me on his way out.

I begrudgingly turn away from his retreating form, wanting so badly to rip him apart. I’ll deal with him later. Movement from the couch brings my attention back to the Judas getting up from it.

“And you,” I accuse, walking over to her, finger pointing directly at her.

“What about me? You’re acting deranged Karter,” Dylan snaps, breezing past me and into the kitchen.

“Deranged? So I didn’t just see you all hugged up on my couch in my fûcking house with Connor? I’m imagining things now?”

She scoffs, “Your couch? Your house? I thought this was our house or was that just more bullshịt?”

“Don’t try to flip this around on me,” I snap, stomping towards her, “This is about you being disloyal to me in the home we share. Are you really going to deny what we both know I saw? You’re wearing that shịt bracelet he wears and yet I haven’t seen you in the necklace I got you since Christmas!”

Her eyes bulge and she starts to laugh. Not a jovial laugh but a crazy, off kilter laugh. The kind of laugh that I will forever recognize as the laugh she uses when I have her fûcked up.

“You want to talk about disloyalty? You? The most snake in the grass, unstable, disloyal motherfûcker to ever walk this earth want to talk about disloyalty?” Her voice is shrill and her steps are no longer tentative but direct, and headed at me.

For every step she takes forward I take one back until we’re in a strange waltz around the kitchen.

“You think I don’t know what you did with that big forehead having slût Zoe?”

My heart drops to my ankles. I knew her scent was stronger than usual that day in the pack house but I chalked it up to me missing her and amplifying her scent to calm myself. Now I know better.

“Don’t look so fûcking surprised! You don’t want to talk about loyalty now? Do you? I’ve been nothing but faithful to you and this is how you betray me? By letting that pinhead bịtch touch you, again. You don’t want to even broach the subject of loyalty with me Karter Dean Jarreau because I’ve been more devoted to you than you could ever dream of being. Lest we forget who the virgin in the room is because it for dḁmn sure isn’t your manwhỏre asṣ!”

Her words are sharp and seemingly never ending. I can feel how much me holding back from her has hurt her. Suddenly her up and down moods make sense. It pains me to know that I’ve hurt her but what fûcks me up even more is the fact that the only thing making her happy was Connor when it should’ve been me.

“I can explain,” I offer quietly. I clear my throat hoping my voice will return. My wolf has cowered back into a corner, covering his head with his paws, all of my previous boldness going with him.

She doesn’t speak. Instead she raises her eyebrow and crosses her hands across her chest, daring me to say something.

“The truth is,” I start, slowly stopping to get my words together, “I was asleep the entire time.”

She glares at me and starts to yell again but I stop her, throwing my hand in the air.

“I’m being honest, just let me get through this.”

When she sits back against the counter I continue.

“It was my birthday and I’d gone upstairs to take a nap before coming to see you. You were the last thing on my mind so I ended up having a dream, about you. In the dream we were married and we started to…well you know. It felt so real and when I woke up I realized why, Zoe had snuck into my room and went down on me while I slept. I guess I was moaning in my sleep so she thought I was okay with it but I told her off and she left. It wasn’t some sorted affair it was just a mistake.”

She looks to be going over everything I said, scanning my expression for bullshịt. I watch her carefully as she walks over to me and places her hand against my chest before looking deep into my eyes.

Her hazel irises bore into mine digging up all of my past transgressions, fleshing them out and laying them bare in front of me. Every single time I’ve made her cry flashes through my mind until I realize she’s doing this, making me see how I’ve hurt her. The second I reach out to touch her she moves out of my grasp.

“I need some time,” she mumbles and walks straight from the kitchen and out the front door.

I breathe deeply and go to follow her but her voice rings clear through my head, just as clear as it would if she was in the room. “No! Don’t follow me!”

I lean back against the counter not only gutted because she’s left me and I don’t know if she’s coming back, but astonished because of the level of power she holds.

Dylan

My hands shake uncontrollably as I walk to the pack house. Andrea should be there any minute to pick me up so I put a little pep in my step despite how badly I want to break down.

It feels like I touched a live wire and the energy is still flowing rapidly through each of my limbs. When I touched Dean I could see everything he was saying was true. I don’t know how I did it but I did and I gave him a few of my own memories. Andrea kept telling me my abilities were more psychic than anything else and I didn’t believe her until now. I actually gave him memories from my fûcking brain just by touching him! What the hell?

My shoulder slams into someone and before I can apologize I hear the last voice I need to hear right now.

“Watch where you’re going bịtch!” Zoe snaps, looking back at me over her shoulder. I guess she’s done with the fake pleasantries.

“Bịtch?” I laugh, “Girl, please just keep walking.” This is not the day, I will gladly beat her asṣ.

“Stupid ghetto bịtch,” she mumbles and keeps walking.

I decide to let her make it until I realize the direction she’s walking in. Back towards my house, the house I share with Dean.

“Wait a second,” I say and she halts, turning to me, “Where do you think you’re going?”

She smiles evilly, “You can’t be that dumb can you? Just because he’s tied to you doesn’t mean he’ll ever fully give me up. I was his first love, his first kiss, his first time, his first everything. You’re nothing but second best. A burden placed on him by the Goddess.”

My heart flutters at how well she can read my insecurities and I muster up the only comeback I can think of with my brain turned to mush the way it is. “Fûck you!”

Her wicked smile spreads even more. “Karter always does, thoroughly. I doubt he’s getting any from you, it would explain why he’s so tense. His burden of a mate is a stupid stuck up prude.”

My eyes light and my senses tingle. The wind picks up carrying a mixture of scents into my nose and my fingers twitch in my heightened state.

“I guess I should rephrase since you should be hooked on phonics you fûcking ditz. Go fûck yourself, because that’s the only action you’ll be getting. You had to moleṣt Karter in his sleep to get any play from him you loose twat trollop! The only reason he even came for you is because he was dreaming of me, his burden,” I declare, pointing to my chest proudly, “Since you’re so sure you’ll get some from him you might want to make sure you brought enough Benadryl to knock him out.”

Her eyes bulge and the next thing I see is her petite frame flying in the air towards me.

She grabs on to my hair and pulls, jerking my head forward and directly into her knee.

I can feel my nose starting to bleed, my eyes are so watery I can’t see but I know I have to defend myself or I’m fûcked.

I draw back and punch the only thing in my range, her loose twat.

A howl emits from her throat and she lets go of my hair, freeing me.

I let her get her bearings. I want her to be totally prepared for this asá¹£ whooping.

Suddenly she swings at me and I dodge it with precision I didn’t know I had, and pop her in the jaw with a right hook.

She stumbles back but this time I don’t give a crap about letting her get herself together. In milliseconds I’m on her throwing punches and combinations I didn’t know I could do.

It isn’t until I feel arms around me, pulling me from on top of her that I realize what’s happening. Throwing my leg out I kick the bịtch one last time before I’m spun around and out of range.

“Let go of me Karter! She deserves it!” I yell, struggling in his grip but it’s no use. I don’t stop fighting to get free until he puts me down in the driveway of the pack house.

“What the hell happened? I heard screaming and walk out of the house to see you beating the shịt out of Zoe,” he pauses, examining my face, cradling it in both hands, “Is your nose bleeding?”

“Yes!” I shout, still amped up, “She was talking crap about me, horrible things!” Things I only admit to myself.

“So you started fighting her?” he asks, confused.

“No!” I defend, “I argued back with her and told her to stop mỏlesting you in your sleep then she attacked me. She grabbed my hair and kneed me in the face, after that…it’s all a blur.”

“You beat her asṣ… like badly,” he laughs, “How much UFC have you been watching? Your ground and pound technique is on point.”

“You think this is funny?” I snap.

He immediately stops laughing and gulps.

“I’ve had crap out of her from the day I met her because of you and it finally erupts into this…this…I don’t even know what and you’re laughing. It’s not funny.”

“I mean it’s not ideal, obviously. I don’t want you to get hurt and I never want anything bad to happen to you. And this definitely isn’t the right message we want to send with you being the new Luna of the pack but you’ve got to admit it’s a little funny,” he smiles, trying to convince me to see things his way.

His words re-spark the anger in me that truthfully never left. I can’t stop my hand fast enough from slapping him. Watching the blood beneath his skin flood to the handprint left on his face fuels me further.

“You have been the cause of everything bad that’s happened in my life as of late,” I grit my teeth and annunciate each word, “Stay the hell away from me.”

Spinning away from the look of pain on his face, I hop straight into Andrea’s car and we speed off.

********************

Hello my good people!!

I hope yall enjoyed the update! I can’t be the only one that’s glad Zoe finally got that ass whooped lol

Not long now until the end of the book but just you wait #Kylan sex is coming as promised. In fact *whispers* it’ll be in the next chapter. But you didn’t hear that from me :)

Okay I’m done being a freak lol

On to business….

I didn’t do this for the double update but the amount of support is just as amazing as always!!!

6,684 reads, 298 votes on Awake, That’s 1561 more reads and 55 more votes since last update. I genuinely LOVE you KINGS, QUEENS, and IN BETWEENS that read past the Prologue! I honestly never thought that I would ever have a story that would have reads increasing by the thousands between updates. Yall are amazing!!!!

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