Soul Bonded (30 page)

“I’m not angry. I’m not surprised, either.” The fondness in Rafe’s voice relaxed her instantly. “I was pretty sure you were going to do whatever you had to do to protect me. Obviously I didn’t want you taking unnecessary risks, and I would have preferred that you just did as I asked and stayed hidden, but I can’t exactly be upset with you for doing what I would have done, in your situation. You want to protect me just as much as I want to protect you. That’s the nature of our bond. How could I ever hold that against you?”

Katie sagged in relief. “Thank you for understanding.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m thrilled, mind you.” His obvious concern wrapped around her like a warm blanket, taking away the chill in the cab. When he stroked her thigh with so much adoration, it filled her with that feeling of safety and belonging she had been craving all morning. He chuckled. “I have a feeling the rest of this story will terrify me, but please keep going.”

She knew that was true. The rest of the story terrified her, and she’d lived it. “It was just like you said. They smelled me as soon as I opened the window, but I managed to shoot them both. Then I ducked out of sight, honestly a little freaked out by the realization that I’d just taken two lives. Once I got my head back together, I looked out the window again and saw four more wolves standing over the bodies. They spotted me right away, so I took a shot at one of them, but I missed. Naturally, they all took off running. That’s when I heard a window break downstairs.” Katie tightened her hands on the wheel, tense and angry at herself in retrospect. That was the moment when she should have gone downstairs to protect Shilah.
 

“Then what?” Rafe asked in a gentle voice.

“I knew they would break in eventually, but I wanted to look out the other window before I had to deal with them. I wanted to see if I could help you. So I…” She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “I closed the hatch on my way past it. I went to the other window and saw you fighting. There were five of them surrounding you, and another group of wolves were fighting nearby.” For the first time since he’d woken up, she remembered the somber news she had to deliver. “Rafe, Cooper is dead.”

She felt the physical impact of the news as his body jolted beside her. “What?”

“I found his body this morning. That must have been him last night, fighting the smaller group of wolves beside you.” Katie fell silent as the truck’s tires struggled to maintain traction on the slick surface. Turning her focus toward driving while Rafe processed her words, she began to worry after he didn’t speak for a long time. Guilt radiated from him, and stark torment. Without looking away from the road, she murmured, “It’s not your fault, honey.”

“I didn’t honestly think anyone would come fight with me.”
 

The agony he was clearly feeling made her insides ache. “He’d known you since you were a little boy. Even if you always felt like a lone wolf, he obviously cared about you.”

“Obviously.” From her peripheral vision, she saw him brusquely scrub the back of his hand over his eyes. “It doesn’t feel right to just leave him. I know they’re coming for us, but—”

“Cooper would want you to escape. Otherwise he died for no reason.”

Rafe put his elbows on his knees and dropped his head into his hands. “I know. I just wish I could have at least told his mate. Taken his body to her…”

“I’m so sorry.” Katie didn’t think that leaving immediately had been the wrong choice, but she hated that Rafe hadn’t had a chance for any type of closure before she took him away from his home—possibly forever. “You can call her from the city.”

Sniffing, Rafe nodded and put his hand back on her thigh. “So you saw me fighting. What happened next?”

The knot in her stomach only got bigger. “Wolves broke in through one of the back windows. I heard…” She shuddered. “I heard Shilah fighting with one of them, and I panicked. I realized that I’d left him down there all alone…” A sob burst from her with unexpected force, all the emotion she’d suppressed for the past fourteen hours finally catching up with her. She stopped speaking, afraid that she wouldn’t be able to continue driving if she attempted to tell the rest.

“Pull over.” Rafe cradled her cheek in his hand, wiping away her tears with his thumb. “I can drive now.”

She didn’t argue. Even if he’d just woken up, she was exhausted and emotional and ready for a break. Steering the truck onto the side of the road, she shifted into park and unbuckled her seatbelt. Rafe put his hand on her back, coaxing her into another warm embrace. She held on tightly, greedy for the comfort. “When I went to help Shilah, there was a wolf on the ladder. He jumped up into the attic with me, and I shot him, but by that time the fight downstairs was over and Shilah was quiet. I had to deal with two more wolves before I found Shilah. He was in pretty rough shape. I spent the rest of the night cleaning his wounds and protecting him.” She shivered, then burrowed deeper into Rafe’s arms. “I’m so sorry. He needs to go to the vet. His leg is very badly injured.”
 

Rafe hugged her tighter. “Katie, look at him. He’s all right.” He waited for her to glance into the backseat at Shilah, then caressed the small of her back. “You were trying to protect me.
He
was protecting
you
. Nobody had bad intentions, and everybody got through the night alive. Am I happy that you put yourself in danger? Not really. But we’re all still in one piece, potentially
because
you did exactly what you did. I’d be a jerk to reprimand you now.” He fell silent, and they breathed together for a few moments. Then Rafe murmured, “Especially when I wouldn’t have listened to me, either. Not with my bond-mate in danger.”

His empathy triggered a fresh flood of tears. That he understood why she’d done what she had meant everything. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Rafe released her with a final squeeze. “Now trade seats with me.”

Katie climbed over him into the passenger seat, buckling the safety belt with shaky hands as he settled in behind the wheel. “Thanks for taking over. I’m so tired I’m ready to collapse.”

“I’ll bet.” Rafe shifted the truck into drive and pulled back onto the road, resuming their torturously slow pace. “You said you killed six wolves, but you’ve only told me about five. Was the last one after you found Shilah?”

“Yes. He surprised me when I went back to the kitchen to get the shotgun after I moved Shilah to the bathroom.” A chill shook her as she recalled their encounter. “It was the one who bit me. The one with Zeke. That was probably my closest call last night.”

The blood drained from Rafe’s face. “But you’re all right?”

“I will be.” Katie scooted over in her seat and rested her head against his shoulder. “How about you? How are you doing?”

“Happy to be alive.” Rafe kissed the crown of her head. “Sad for Cooper. Confused.”

She knew without asking. “About Susan.”

“Yeah.” He flexed his fingers on the steering wheel, jaw set in determination. “I’m ready to hear that part now.”

Katie exhaled, not sure she was ready to tell it. But they had hours of driving ahead of them, Rafe needed to know what had become of his first love, and there was no point in putting it off the telling just because she was afraid of how he might react. She couldn’t hide anything from him. She didn’t even want to try.

So she started, once again, from the beginning.

Rafe listened quietly until she got to the part where she’d confronted Susan about her disappearance. Then he lost his cool. “So you’re saying that she’s been living with those psychopaths all this time?”

Katie winced at the anger in Rafe’s voice, and at the sharp turn he took entirely too fast. She’d expected him to be upset, but now she seriously questioned the wisdom in timing the big reveal to coincide with their desperate escape down an icy mountain road. “She bonded with the guy. She didn’t mean for it to happen. It just did.”

The muscles in Rafe’s jaw bunched. “How did it happen? Tell me what she said.”

“She was out walking near your cabin and came across this man—“

“What’s his name?” Rafe interrupted. When she hesitated to answer, he gave her an entreating look. “Please. I just want to know if I’ve met him before.”

“Ian.” Katie watched his face carefully. There was no spark of recognition in his eyes. “He didn’t come to fight you last night.” Dreading the impact of this next detail, she added, “He stayed home to be with their daughter. Susan stayed away, too. Said she wasn’t sure whose side she would’ve been on if she’d joined the rest of her pack-mates.”

The anger on Rafe’s face vanished, replaced by a stony mask. “For years I imagined how they might have tortured her. How they’d made her suffer before they finally killed her. I’ve imagined her dying a hundred different ways, and she’s been living only miles away with a bond-mate and a pup of her own?” His knuckles turned white as he gripped the steering wheel. “I don’t understand why she would do that to me.”

“She didn’t want to hurt you.” When he looked at her, incredulous, Katie shrugged. “I don’t think she knew how to deal with breaking the heart of a boy she genuinely loved. She was young and selfish. It was easier for her if you mourned her, rather than hated her.”
 

He cursed under his breath, turning hard eyes back to the road ahead. Then he exhaled and took his foot off the gas pedal, reducing their speed. “I’m sorry. I don’t even know why I’m so upset. She bonded. And because she did, I had the chance to bond…with you.” He gave her a look of apology. “If she hadn’t left, I probably would never have found you that night. I might not have ever known what it’s like to be connected to someone on this level. So in a way, I’m glad she did what she did. But it still pisses me off.”

“Of course it does. She was your first love and she disappeared. You thought something terrible had happened to her, and you spent years trying to make the rest of your pack listen to your concerns. It’s only natural to be angry when you find out it was all a lie. But she obviously loved you, and she does seem genuinely sorry about hurting you. I know she hopes that coming to my aid this morning has helped to right some of the wrongs she committed.” Tightening her fingers on his thigh, she experimented with sending him calming thoughts. “As the woman who needed her help—desperately—I’m asking you to let her off the hook just a
little
bit. For me.”

Rafe grumbled under his breath. “Aw, hell. I forgive her. Of course I do.” He dropped a hand from the wheel to cover hers for just a moment. “At the end of the day, I’m thrilled that she didn’t suffer some terrible death. And I’m happy that she’s happy. I just wish she’d been straightforward with me. I would have been upset, sure, but…“ He winced. “It would have been better than seeing her raped and murdered in my imagination night after night.”

“Well, at least she’s come clean now. She didn’t have to help me get you into the truck, or give me her name. She risked the wrath of her own pack to come to our aid this morning. Even if the gesture is years too late, that has to count for something.”

“It does.” When the truck’s tires spun suddenly on a patch of ice, Rafe eased off the accelerator even further. “But now I feel like an ass. I can’t tell you how many times I butted heads with Alpha over Susan’s disappearance. I called him a coward for not pursuing the truth about what happened to her. I was ready to start a goddamn war. I can’t help feeling a little guilty about that, in retrospect, even if he couldn’t have known that she was okay.”

Katie bit her lip. This one was going to hurt. “Actually, he did.”

Rafe went deadly still. “What?”

“Your Alpha knew. Susan went to him after her bonding. She didn’t want him going after Ian’s pack thinking that something had happened to her, but she asked him to keep it secret from you.” Katie paused, afraid to say more. A fresh surge of rage rolled off Rafe and hit her in the gut. At the core of his intense emotion was the most profound sensation of betrayal she’d ever experienced. The potency of it took her breath away.
 

“I take back what I said about feeling guilty.” His low voice sent a chill down Katie’s spine. He slowed the truck even more, as though countering his blistering anger with an overabundance of caution. “And now I remember why it is that I don’t need a goddamn
pack
.”

Her heart hurt for him even as she found hope in the idea that he didn’t need to be around other wolves to be happy. After the past forty-eight hours, she knew one thing for sure—they were better off living as far away from his kind as possible. “I’m so sorry to be the one to tell you all this.” She lifted her hand and, hoping he was receptive to affection, stroked the short hairs on the back of his neck. “But you deserve the truth—and I’m pretty sure I can’t lie to you, anyway.”

Rafe rested his head on the seat, tearing his eyes away from the road for a beat to search her face with an expression so open and sincere that Katie melted before he even spoke. “I wouldn’t want it to come from anyone
but
you. Because I know you have my back, and you’re literally the only living creature in the world—besides Shilah—that I can say that about. You’ve shown me that you’ll be there even when things get rough. I
want
you with me when things get rough.”

She leaned across the center console and kissed his stubbled cheek. “That’s a promise.”

He gave her a quick peck on the lips before she pulled back. “This Susan thing is a mind fuck, but I am okay. I swear. Or at least I will be.” Exhaling, Rafe murmured, “Honestly, I have a feeling that all it will take is one night alone with you, safe from harm.”

Despite her exhaustion, the thought of having Rafe back in bed—without anyone waiting outside to kill them—triggered powerful yearning. “Can you imagine? An entire night together without worrying about being murdered? Sounds like a dream.”

Rafe’s upper lip twitched in apparent amusement. “Doesn’t it?”

Emboldened by the distance they’d put between themselves and the scene of last night’s carnage, Katie slid her hand up the inside of Rafe’s thigh. Running a fingernail over the length of his shaft, she murmured, “On that note, I’m looking forward to some very hot and explicitly consensual sex sometime in the near future.”