Racing Hard (Dirt Track Dogs Book 4) (4 page)

No.

She managed to clear her throat. “That… that’s a personal question.”

He glanced at her, one eyebrow raised. “Yeah. So?”

“So. Do
you
want young?”

He bent to push the bread into the oven and then straightened to face her. “I’ve thought about it. I’m not sure I have an answer yet.”

“What’s that mean?”

One shoulder lifted in a shrug. “I guess it depends on the female I decide to spend my life with.”

His answer intrigued her. “Decide? As if you have a choice?”

Surge’s lips curled up slightly, but once again, it didn’t reach his eyes. In fact, his eyes had grown dark. Sad. “I do. We all do really, if we want to fight our instincts for the sake of love. But in my case, I wouldn’t even have to do that. I have complete freedom to choose my mate.”

Tana frowned, waiting for what she already knew was coming. And then he said it, his words skimming over her skin and leaving chills in their wake.

“My intended is dead.”

Chapter Five

My intended is dead
.

There were any number of better ways he could’ve said that. My mate doesn’t exist. My mate is no longer of this world. My intended has passed on and there’s no longer a bond for my wolf to hold on to.

But why sugarcoat it. Why dress it up to look pretty when it wasn’t?

Tana stood staring at him as though she was waiting for a punch line. The female was going to have to learn he had a serious side sooner or later.

Surge turned to stir the soup, testing the potatoes. It was almost done. Soup was comfort food, and the whole damn lot of them needed comforting. No one was left unshaken by the events of the night, and he still wasn’t sure how the other female bobcat would fare.

And on that note, what the hell had happened to them? Three female cats. No clan. One injured so badly she was near death. The other hopeless enough to try suicide. Where was mama cat’s mate?

“Mine is too.” Tana’s quiet voice pulled him out of his thoughts.

He looked up from the soup.

“My intended is dead too.”

Surge almost laughed. Not because it was funny. In fact, he wanted to comfort Tana. He knew the pain of losing that bond. But all he felt was relief. He’d been wondering about her mating status since she’d first arrived, and he’d decided he didn’t care. He intended to make her his whether her mate existed or not.

But knowing she was as free as he was… that changed the game.

He put the spoon down and stepped closer to her so he could look into her golden eyes. “I’m sorry for your loss.” He let the truth come through his words. Anything that was a source of pain for her made him sorry.

Tana crossed her arms, a wry smile forming on her lips. “Don’t be. It was no loss. He was a fucking asshole.”

Surge’s eyebrows shot into his forehead as Tana went to the fridge and pulled out a beer, popping the cap and guzzling. She set it on the counter and took a deep breath.

“Let me school you on cat mates, babe. This shit I see going on around here, the lovey dovey, only want my mate happy, only have eyes for her…
that
shit, the panthers don’t work like that. Neither do any werecats I know of. We don’t mate for love. We mate to procreate.”

The hell
?

What kind of arrangement was that? Though it explained the absence of mama cat’s baby daddy.

“Male werecats hunt their intended. When they find her, they claim her. Usually without asking first. Knock her up. And while she’s playing incubator for their litter, he finds other females to fuck. The older generation was the worst. My father would bring his conquests to our home and fuck them right in the bed he shared with my mom. And she let him. It’s our way, she’d say, ‘I belong to him, but he doesn’t belong to me.’”

The disgust on her face mirrored what Surge felt. No wolf would ever dream of behaving that way. Nor would they want to. Wolves were monogamous, heart, soul, and body.

“That’s bullshit,” he ground out.

“It’s sick.”

“Your clan? The males… Owyn, Renner… they do this?” He’d get her out of there. He wouldn’t let her live with a group of barbarians.

Tana shook her head. “No. Our generation was the first to put their foot down. Females like me, said no to mating. Males like Magic made sure our wishes were respected. Renner was the first to mate in years. He broke Magic’s no mating rule, but…” She shrugged. “Renner’s different.”

“Different how?”

“He loves his mate. He’d never do anything to hurt her. Worships the ground she walks on. And he wouldn’t dick around on her either.”

Surge frowned, his eyes falling on the ball of fur resting on the counter. The kitten was so innocent. She’d been dealt a shit hand. She’d lost her mother, and now when she grew, she wouldn’t even have the love and dedication of a mate.

Where was the goddamn hope in this situation?

“I don’t want that for her,” he murmured, running his fingers gently over her ears.

“I don’t either,” Tana croaked. “But it’s not up to us.”

Her concern for the babe tore at his heart. This wasn’t a woman who didn’t want young. But her hesitation to answer his question left him confused.

“How did you… escape him?”

“Another personal question.”

“Yeah, well. Get used to it. I don’t have boundaries. I just say what I want, and what I want is to know about you.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, well okay then. I guess I’ll just tell you,” she said dryly. “Because that’s how things work. You want something and—
voila
!—you get it, right? Yeah, no. I don’t think so.” She crossed her arms over her chest and Surge was tempted to let his gaze fall there. The mere idea had him growing hard. But he needed to show her he was serious. That he meant business.

“So, what will it be, baby girl? A little give and take? I show you mine, you show me yours?”

A smirk brought one side of her mouth up before she let her gaze travel the length of his body.

And fuck yeah, he hadn’t expected that calculating perusal of his goods. His wolf quit pacing and paid attention.

If his animal had anything say in it, whatever had a vagina would work for satisfying his lust. And… sometimes that wasn’t even a requirement.

Damn houseplant. The shame of it would haunt him for eternity.

But it was different with Tana. The wolf hesitated when it came to her. Like she confused him. But Surge was determined. Somehow he knew she was the one for him.

He cleared his throat. Time to get serious.

“My intended died in the fire. She was part of Drake’s old pack. Barely more than a young. Same as me. But see, I didn’t know her. Didn’t even know fated mates existed.”

“How could you not know?” Tana’s voice was careful, he’d clearly stunned her with his confession.

Grabbing her gaze, he tried his best to explain. “Shifters weren’t even on my radar. I was raised as a human. Didn’t know I was anything more.”

A frown creased her brow. “A shade?”

Surge nodded, a random laugh escaping.

“What happened?”

“My animal knew something was wrong, and started pushing me. I kept seeing visions of her face, and this…
instinct
rode me. Rode me hard. To save her. To get to her before it was too late.” He laughed a sad sound. “I was so young. Barely out of high school. Had no fucking idea what was happening to me. But I followed my instinct. Let my wolf guide me. Except when I got to that mountain, there was no one left but the boys.”

“Damn,” Tana breathed, her shoulders sagging with the weight of what he’d revealed.

“I was half out of my mind because I’d never shifted. My wolf wanted out so it could protect its mate, and I was fighting it with everything in me because I didn’t fucking know better. Drake and the guys dragged me back down the mountain because like a fool, I was running into the flames instead of running away. It was only later that we figured out what I was. And why I was climbing a burning mountain.”

“Shit.”

“Years later when I’d gotten used to my animal, when I’d leveled out a little. Drake sat down with me and we figured out who she was. I described the girl I saw in my visions down to the scar on her forearm, and he knew. Her name was…”

Well, damn. He hadn’t spoken her name in years. No reason to. He’d mourned a person he never even knew. He’d let her and what could have been, go. He’d healed, even though he hadn’t lost loved ones like the other guys. He’d lost a
potential
loved one. It was different, though none of his packmates knew it. None except Drake.

It was hard when Diz liked to speculate about the future. The way he talked about Surge finding his intended, it made him feel like he was hiding the truth from them. But it wasn’t like anyone else opened up about their losses, so why would he?

“Her name was Vance. Short for something long and obnoxious, but Drake couldn’t remember what.”

“Fuck. I mean, damn, all I can manage right now is one word curses. I just…”

Surge let a soft laugh fill the blank space. Why not?

“I’m sorry,” Tana murmured.

“No need. I didn’t know her. I didn’t love her, though I probably would have, given time. But the path my life took started way before I was born. I never had a choice. For whatever reason my mother, who was human, decided to hide my shifter side, and this is the result.” He stared at Tana, her beautiful face troubled. “This time though, I have a choice. I decide who I want, who I mate.”

Her voice was small as she stared back at him. “But it will never be what it could have been, if you’d had your intended.”

“I don’t believe that. And I don’t live by what-ifs. The past haunts us, but it doesn’t make us its bitch.” It’s why he embraced his laugh and his crazy-ass wolf. He wouldn’t let his circumstances define him.

Her lips lifted in a genuine grin. Not sarcastic. Not the kind she used to keep him at a distance. A real one, and it made his heart pound in his chest until another laugh released. This one felt good though. Really damn good.

“Okay, okay. Your turn, baby girl.”

She shook her head. “You sure you need to hear this? It’s really not a nice story.”

“I can take it.”

She sighed. “My mate—I never knew his name—came to claim me. I didn’t want it. I fought him. But the more I fought, the more determined he seemed. I injured him, got him in the balls, and when I did…” She shook her head, lifting her shirt. “He did this.”

Surge’s mouth went dry as he stared at what the bastard had done to her. Three, one inch wide claw marks slashed across the smooth dark skin of her stomach, starting at her ribs and disappearing beneath the waistband of her low slung jeans.

He rushed forward to examine her wounds, barely able to conceal the growl hiding in his throat. The sight made him fucking furious. That any male would do
this
to their intended. The sick piece of shit had better be doing time in hell right now.

“Does it hurt?”

“Not really. Not anymore.”

Slowly, he reached forward to brush his fingers along the raised skin, and she didn’t flinch away. Touching her like this felt a hundred times more intimate than anything he’d ever experienced.

“Your mate did this to you,” he whispered in disbelief. “How
could
he? How the fuck does a shifter injure their own like this? Any of those guys in there would die before letting their woman be hurt.”

She let out a slow breath Surge hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Not every man is like them.” She dropped her shirt, but he didn’t move his hands from her belly.

“Tell me the rest,” he said, dragging his hand softly across her torso and back. She seemed to relax, the tension in her shoulders easing.

“As you can imagine, I was hurt badly. Internal organs had been sliced and I was close to a total bleed out. As I laid there, he attempted to use our bond to heal himself but it wasn’t strong enough, having just met. And that’s when Owyn found us.”

Owyn. That explained their tumultuous friendship.

“He tore that asshole’s head off and carried me to his clan’s doctor. The rest is history.”

She fought with Owyn because her panther knew he was responsible for her mate’s death. But Tana seemed grateful. She was at odds with her cat, and Surge knew exactly what that felt like.

Shit. It felt like shit wrapped in shit wrapping paper, tied with a shit bow.

Surge continued rubbing her belly because the touch anchored him. Made him feel less wild. Made him want to stay right there in that kitchen instead of cackling while he found something to destroy with his anger over what had been done to her.

And she liked it too. With every pass of his hand, she melted a little more, softening to him.

Soon, he was going to make her purr. Very soon.

“I’m glad he’s dead,” he said, his voice sharpened with barely repressed rage. “I should buy Owyn a drink. Or ten.”

“It was a long time ago. Like you said, the past is the past.”

“Yeah. And the future is whatever we want it to be.”

She stiffened suddenly, and Surge pulled his hand away just as Owyn shoved past the kitchen door.

“The female is going to live,” he announced, eyeing Surge warily.

Tana gasped in relief. “
Good
. God, that’s damn good news.”

Surge agreed. “Damn good.”

Now maybe they could find out what happened to their baby’s clan.