Everything That You Are (15 page)

Michael took the proffered sack from her hand and placed it on the couch. “He’s in the kitchen. Things got a little out of hand even before you showed up.”

Katherine raised her eyebrows and asked, “What happened? Is he okay? I swear to Mother Earth, if that vile woman hurt a single hair on his head, I’ll tear her…”

“Mom!
Geez! And here I thought you were the peacemaker of the family. I’m almost afraid to tell you that it was my fault. Because I haven’t told anyone but you two that my mate is male, he thinks that I don’t want him. Let me go and try to smooth things over before we join you.”

“Go on, son. We’ll be out here for a bit, but if he doesn’t feel like talking, we’ll just see you both in the morning,” Sam said.

Michael sent him a grateful look, strode over to his mom to kiss her on the temple,
then
raced for the kitchen. He’d been desperate to get to his mate ever since he had run from the room. He couldn’t wait any longer. Just as he got to the doorway, he stopped to get his emotions under control.

He wanted to touch
Kaden
, but couldn’t risk harming him any more than he already had. After several deep breaths, he walked tentatively into the room and looked around, but couldn’t find the slight form of the pup anywhere.

He walked quickly to the guest bedroom Missy was using,
then
searched the downstairs bathroom only to come up empty. Fear seized his heart as he bounded up to the second floor and looked in his bedroom as well as the adjoining bathroom, both devoid of his mate.

As he reached the head of the stairs, he bellowed, “Dad!” His father reacted instantly, meeting him in the downstairs hallway, alert to the stress in his son’s voice.

Michael continued to re-check the entire downstairs as he ground out, “He’s not here. Dad, he’s gone. I can’t find him. Oh Mother, he’s on his own. He’s…”

Sam had to grab his arm so tightly that he nearly wrenched it out of its socket before he could bring Michael’s frantic search to a halt.

“Michael!” he shouted. When his son finally stopped to look at him, he asked, “Was
Kaden
in the kitchen before we got here?”

Michael had to forcefully slow his breathing until he was able to answer, “He ran in there right before you showed. At least that’s what I thought.”

“Did you check the back door?”

Michael thought about that and cursed as he realised he hadn’t. Running back to the kitchen with Sam close on his heels, he felt his lungs constrict as he saw that the door leading from the kitchen to the back yard was indeed open a few inches.

“Dad, shit. My mate…” He was beyond coherent words as he realised that he had lost his mate again due to his negligence.

Without another thought, he stripped and let the feverish rush of warmth consume him as he reached for his wolf form. The communion of his body and soul with Mother Earth was exhilarating and humbling at the same time. She took his devotion of spirit and allowed her own energy to flow through him, consuming him and giving him the strength he needed to keep the delicate balance between his own consciousness and that of the new form she bequeathed to him. The whole transformation took no more than a second, and he was bounding out of the door in the next.

He shook out his thick
coat,
rejoicing in the sharpening of his already keen senses this form brought to him, and paused to inhale deeply. His mate’s scent was strong, and he immediately headed in the direction of the sweet smell of ocean spray and wild flowers.

He became vaguely aware of Sam flanking his left side as he rushed headlong into the night, leaping over fallen branches and dodging tree trunks in his path. The memory of his mate’s carefree laughter from their day spent at the lake rang in his ears, and the pain at the thought of never being able to hear that again almost caused him to collide with a large fir tree, but he swerved at the last moment to narrowly avoid it.

He reminded himself that
Kaden
would never abandon his sister, which meant that he would have to come back eventually, but that did little to ease the guilt of his latest mistake.

He felt Sam open the mental link they shared as Alphas and heard him say, “
Michael, this direction leads to the ravine. Did you go over the lay of the land with him yet?”

Fear twined its way around his heart at his father’s words. “
No. Dad, he hasn’t shifted yet. I don’t think his senses are heightened enough to see the edge with so little light.”
Kaden
may be part were, but he wouldn’t truly develop the advanced senses of a wolf until he merged his soul with Mother Earth. The moon was nearly full but its beams could only partially penetrate the thick canopy of tree leaves and branches above them.

“Faster, son.
I think I see him.”

The beating of light footsteps on the ground ahead of him had his heart racing and he took another deep breath. The smell of his mate was getting stronger. There, to his right. He caught a glimpse of bare, pale feet streaking ahead of him. They were roughly a mile from the house but he couldn’t detect a slowing in his mate’s frantic flight. He was close. So close.

“Faster!”

That’s when he saw the sheer drop. He howled out a loud warning to his mate, but
Kaden
wouldn’t stop. Just yards from the border, his steps faltered and Michael knew he’d finally noticed the difference between the darkness of the land and the black emptiness of open space, but it was too late.
Kaden’s
forward momentum pulled him, stumbling, across the last few feet, and he tumbled over with a frightened cry.
 

Michael didn’t even think twice. He doubled his speed and barely heard the warning growl from his father before he leapt over the edge. He shifted in mid-jump so that after a few seconds of weightlessness, his human form slammed into that of his mate and he wrapped his entire body protectively around the slight frame. Time was suspended as they plummeted together, buffeted by crisp gusts of wind, before tumbling into the raging water below. The force of their fall plunged them into darkness.

Chapter Six

Kaden
awoke to the feeling of suffocation. Warmth surrounded him on all sides and a crushing weight seemed to be wrapped around his ribcage. He tried to breathe, but something was covering his face, blocking off precious oxygen.

Memories flooded his mind and he was back in the basement, recovering from his latest beating. A solid, black hood covered his head, secured by a buckle at the back of his neck. There was no room to move…no air.
Kaden
started to struggle, desperate to get free of his prison. How had Gregory caught him? He’d been so careful. This wasn’t happening. Not again.

“
Kaden
, enough!” a sharp, rumbling voice said, stilling him instantly. The tone of it resonated throughout his back, sending waves of vibrations into his bones. He knew that voice. It was strong and commanding and wrapped him up in a steel embrace that he never wanted to climb out of.

His mate.

The words echoed through his mind before he could fully comprehend their meaning. He could feel the promise of dominance and protection and loyalty in the powerful arms currently squeezing the life out of him. He tried to take a breath to speak, but the man with the death-grip on him from behind only squeezed tighter. He tried struggling again, but it brought the hold around his ribs to the point of pain.

All he could do was whimper his distress. As soon as the sound escaped him, the hold immediately loosened, but still didn’t give him a square inch to move around in.
Kaden
took several deep breaths before trying to talk, but his first word came out as more of a croak. He tried to clear his throat but it felt like he had swallowed sandpaper which was now glued to his vocal cords.

After another attempt, he was racked by a fit of coughing and felt his upper body lifted into a sitting positions. Tears sprang to his eyes and prevented him from seeing the glass of water being pressed to his lips.

He started to brush the object away until that deep voice resounded again, saying,
“
Drink.”

At once, he stopped struggling, as if that voice was connected directly to the synapses of his nerve cells, forcing his body to heed its command. As soon as he felt the rim of the glass tilt forward on his lips and the cool splash of water hit his tongue, he groaned at the renewed life it gave to his parched throat. He gulped down long swallows but, all too soon, the glass was taken away. He couldn’t help but reach blindly for it, trying desperately to bring it back to his mouth.

“That’s enough for now. Lie back down.”

Kaden
was pressed back into the softness of the mattress by that overwhelming weight once again, but he had another piece of business to take care of. He opened his eyes slowly and was relieved to find the room he was in blanketed in darkness. He blinked his gritty eyes several times until they felt like they were made out of living tissue again instead of coarse granite.

“Michael?” he whispered.

“What?” The tone was decidedly less than pleasant, but he could feel no anger or negative emotions coming from the man. For that matter, he could discern no emotions whatsoever, but he put off that thought in light of more pressing matters.
 
 
 

“Umm…I need to pee. Think you could maybe let go of…”

“No.” The response was deadpan, instant, and in no way negotiable.
Kaden
was about to argue on his bladder’s behalf when he felt the huge man shift behind him and lift him from the bed without allowing a single inch of air to come between them. Pain shot through every muscle in his body and another whimper escaped before he could suppress it. The strength of the embrace never relented, however.

A small lamp on the dresser was flipped on as Michael made his way to the bathroom. As they reached the toilet, the large man gracefully lowered him onto the open seat, then promptly sat to his immediate left on the edge of the bathtub and kept hold of his wrist, never once breaking physical contact.

Kaden
sat there, trying to modestly cover his flaccid cock in the dim light, and realised after several seconds that the man was not going to give him any privacy. In fact, Michael was staring at him with a shadowed, stoical look on his face as if they had been discussing some dire issue.

Kaden
began to relive the fear that always came at the loss of independence and was about to resort to begging for privacy when Michael sighed, stood up and turned his back to him, all while keeping his wrist in a gentle yet unbreakable hold.

“This is as far as I go. Don’t be embarrassed. I’ll be using the toilet as soon as you’re done,” Michael said.

Kaden
still couldn’t pick up on his emotions, which was a first, but he wasn’t about to argue. It was hard enough to have someone holding his hand like a child while he peed, let alone having to feel that person’s emotions while doing the deed.

It took him a few minutes before he was able to relax his muscles enough to urinate while being touched, but he finally managed. When he was finished, Michael switched places with him, standing over the toilet and guiding himself towards the bowl with one hand while his other remained on
Kaden’s
wrist.

After flushing the toilet, Michael turned back to him and lifted him up, only to turn around and place him gently onto the countertop next to the sink. The man then situated his large body between
Kaden’s
thighs and reached over to open the mirror cabinet next to his head, searching the contents until he found what he was looking for and pulled out a white bottle with black lettering on it.

Kaden
began to feel extremely uncomfortable. He couldn’t detect a single emotion from the man and couldn’t understand why he was being so overbearing. He also didn’t know why his entire body ached with every movement.

“Michael, what…”

“Take these.” Michael pressed two tiny white pills into his hand and poured water into a small, disposable cup which he placed into his other hand.

“Michael. Did I do something wrong? Please…”

Michael gently lifted
Kaden’s
hand, carrying the two pills to his mouth until
Kaden
was forced to place them on his tongue and quickly take a swig of water to swallow them down and wash away their acrid taste.

The large man silently took the cup from his hand and lifted him into his arms again, turning directly around and setting him on his feet outside the bathtub. He pulled a corner of the shower curtain open and reached around to turn on the spray and adjust the temperature.
Kaden
felt his body begin to tremble in fear as the man touching him remained emotionally unresponsive.

Michael’s cold, unfeeling behaviour was beginning to remind him of Gregory even though, logically, he knew he was not the same as the monster who had tormented him for years. The loss of the tentative connection he was sure had been growing between them hurt more than he would have thought possible. His breathing began to quicken and he tried one more time to break through the emotional barrier Michael had erected between them.