Chapter 3

Bowden

I finish up my work and switch my laptop off just before it runs out of battery. I put it aside and stare at the sleeping girl across from me. At some point, she just lay down, curled up, and went straight to sleep.

I’ve been searching for a mate for months now and I haven’t been home in close to a hundred days. Not a single one of the she-wolves that the Alphas presented to me pleased Knox. I couldn’t care less one way or the other. If I want sex, I go out and get it, company is easy to come by if I crave it, but I rarely need or want relationships. They just get in the way.

I don’t form bonds with my mates anymore. I haven’t in decades. Time after time, I had to watch my mates die, and I’d be left here alone, trying to glue back the pieces of my broken heart. I couldn’t take it anymore, so I started keeping my mates at arm’s length.

Finding a mate is really all about making my wolf happy. It took him longer than usual to get restless this time. He really loved our last mate, Nolene, and her death crushed him. I thought he was over the whole mate thing until a year ago, when he started to become restless again.

Marking a she-wolf gives her an unnaturally long life, vitality, and youth, but not immortality. Nolene lived longer than most, and Knox started to believe that she was the one, that she was the one who would break the cycle and be with us forever.

She wasn’t the one.

I woke up one morning next to a cold, emaciated corpse. Her youth and vitality robbed from her in a blink. Her dark hair had gone white, her cheeks were sunken in, her full lips thinned out, her skin dark grey and wrinkled like leather. When our mates die, their age catches up with them overnight, and the shock of waking up to the sight of what amounts to a mummified corpse never lessens.

I cried for her, I’d be stone cold monster if I didn’t admit that I felt some affection for the woman that spent two hundred years of my life with me, but my heart wasn’t broken. Just like it wasn’t broken when the three mates before her died.

Kaiya stirs and pushes her hand a little deeper under her head. She smells fantastic. She smells like my mate. Each one of them smells different, but I recognise it immediately all the same. Nolene smelled like vanilla and strawberries. Kaiya smells like wildflowers and the forest during a thunderstorm.

She is going to drive me crazy. I just know it. She’s a wild child. Untameable. Griffin had a mate like that before, and he loved her like no other. After she died, he never took another one, and to this day refuses to talk about it. His wolf, it would seem, also doesn’t crave the company of a mate anymore.

I knock on the glass and my Beta lowers the partition. “What’s up?” he asks.

“Did you send someone to pick up the girl? Clara?”

“Yes. Jaeger has her.”

“Good. How much longer until we’re at the hotel? I’m starving and my ass is numb.”

Griffin laughs softly. “An hour or so. There are pretzels in the snack compartment.”

“Oh, Goddess, no, if I have to eat one more pretzel, I’m going to jump out of this limousine.”

“Then you’ll just have to keep on starving, don’t you?”

I’m still chuckling when Griffin puts the divider back up. My eyes turn to the girl again. Her scent is driving me crazy and Knox is just about ready to jump out of my skin so he can claim his new mate. “Calm down,” I say to him.

“I want my mate.”

“I know, but you know better, don’t you? Now is not the time or the place. She is here, and that is enough.”

“She wants to run.”

“They all want to run at first,” I remind him. “She won’t go anywhere.”

Everything werewolves think they know about Lycans is wrong. The myth that I kill unwanted girls is not new. I’ve heard that one for centuries. The breeder story is brand new though and hilarious. The last time I did a tour of the territories with the express intention of picking a mate is so long ago now, that no living wolf can remember it.

I guess over time the wolves just started to invent new and terrifying tales about the cruel Lycan king.

Lycans are sterile. We are immortal, therefore we have no need to breed, but I didn’t correct a single soul as I toured the territories looking for a mate. I just went with the flow and pretended that none of the young she-wolves met my criteria. A few came close, but none stirred Knox’s interest quite as much as Kaiya does.

Kaiya’s eyes flutter open and she takes a sleepy look around, her pretty face pulled in a frown of confusion. I open the refreshment box next to me and take out a bottle of water. “Here you go,” I say and hand it over to her.

Yawning and ruffling her hair, she takes the bottle from me. “Thank you,” she mumbles sleepily.

I nod and go straight into what I call king mode. “We will be at the hotel soon. You can rest then.”

“I…I don’t have any clothes or anything.”

“All will be provided.”

She glimpses at the cheap little watch around her dainty wrist. “It’s almost midnight.”

“Yes,” I reply curtly.

Despite my absolute conviction not to give in to any kind of feelings for the girl, my heart does soften a little. Her hands are rough, and she doesn’t have perfectly manicured nails. She has the hands of a hard worker, and when her dress pulls up over her knees, I can see the red callouses that had formed there over the years. “You must be very tired,” I say. “Please go back to sleep.”

“I worked a double…you know, so I could get money together to fix up my clunker.”

I feel a deep sense of shame wash over me at her words. I drop my chin and look at her through the fringe of hair that flops over my eyes. “I have respect for what you do. I admire your temerity. It could not have been easy for you.”

She just stares at me but doesn’t answer. I wonder if she’s aware that she’s looking me straight in the eyes - something very few wolves can do.

“I know who your father was. Deimos right? The dread Alpha.”

Her heart starts to flutter and her breathing speeds up ever so slightly. She clenches her trembling hands around the water bottle and her lovely grey eyes fill with fear. For a girl that was so talkative a few hours ago, she has suddenly gone very quiet. “Are you…I’m the only survivor…are you going to finish the job?”

“No. I don’t know if you are aware of this, but I had his Beta executed for killing your family.”

“Whu-Why?” she finally asks.

“Bloodline extermination is against the law. Killing Deimos was justified. He was not a good Alpha. I know he was your father, but he was truly an evil person.”

“I know,” she whispers hoarsely. “And you may find this hard to believe, but he was a good father to me.”

I nod. “I believe you. I am sorry for the loss of your family. You should have been protected by your pack after Beta Klaus defeated your father.”

It is clear to me that I’m confusing her and that she doesn’t know how to react to my words. I sit back to contemplate what I’ve just done. I’ve shown her gentleness and kindness in ways I haven’t done for a potential mate in centuries.

I have to stop. Right now. I can’t go falling in love with this girl. I can’t put myself back together again. I don’t have it in me. “You are twenty-one,” I say at last. “I remember when you went missing. It was seven years ago.”

“Seven,” she mumbles. “Wow. It doesn’t feel like such a long time ago.”

“Hm-hm,” I grunt.

“How did you know who my father is?”

I rest my hand lightly on my closed laptop. “I went through our records. Your father’s reign and demise is well documented, as is your disappearance. There’s only one Kaiya recorded as an Alpha’s daughter. Kaiya Cole. That is you right?”

Mute, she just nods.

“How did you manage to make a life for yourself without any papers?”

“Clara helped…she knows a guy.”

“It’s all forged?”

She grunts something that sounds like a yes and starts to pick at her already ruined nails. I’m about to reprimand her for it when the car slows down and turns off the main road. I glance out of the window at the five-star boutique hotel in the distance.

The lights twinkle invitingly in the darkness. The hotel will be empty, and the owner compensated for waiting for us. He is an old werewolf and I often stay over at his charming hotel. I’m comfortable here and looking forward to a good night’s sleep before we tackle the last leg of our journey home.

The hotel owner looks a little surprised when I enter with a she-wolf by my side. I don’t usually travel with she-wolves, and Kaiya is absolutely dishevelled again with her dress all wrinkled and her smeared make-up, but even in the state she’s in, I find her unbearably cute.

‘No. Dammit Bowden,’ I chastise myself. ‘Stop it right now.’

“You like this one,” Knox crows in my head.

“Shut up,” I growl at him. “She is for you, not me.”

“Good evening,” the old hotelier says. “Your usual rooms are ready. I regret…I did not prepare a room for the young lady.”

“Oh. That doesn’t matter,” Kaiya pipes up and looks around the lobby. “I can sleep on that big couch over there.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I growl at her. “She will sleep with me,” I say. “Please send food up to my room."

“Right away, Sire,” the hotelier says.

My entourage enters behind me, looking every bit as exhausted and haggard as I feel. They’re all Lycans, and all of them are male. Kaiya tenses visibly and unconsciously takes a step closer to me.

I have to resist the sudden overwhelming urge to put my arm around her to comfort and protect her. None of my attendants will dare to touch her, but she doesn’t know that.

What is going on with me? This is not who I am. It’s not what I want to be or do. I left that part of myself behind a long time ago.

I take the key from the old wolf and walk down the familiar hallways to my usual bedroom. It’s massive, with a comfortable and oh so inviting king sized four-poster just waiting for me, but I won’t be enjoying that particular luxury tonight.

Kaiya makes a beeline for the bathroom while an attendant walks into the room carrying my suitcase and a garment bag. Another has a smaller vanity case containing everything Kaiya needs and a dress for our drive home tomorrow. They put everything down and leave without a word.

The girl looks much better when she comes out of the bathroom. She combed her messy hair and washed her face. I much prefer her without the make-up, but the sooner I get her used to her new role, the easier it will be for her to get used to the routines.

I haven’t had a wild child as a mate before, and I expect I’m in for quite a challenge. I’m strangely excited by the prospect of it.

Soon after, a server shows up with our meals. He casts a curious glance in Kaiya’s direction and only retreats when I loudly clear my throat.

We eat our meal in silence, but the usually exquisite food turns to sawdust in my mouth tonight. For the first time in a very long while, a she-wolf’s presence is unsettling me. I push my food away and get up to fetch my sleep shorts. I rethink myself and decide to get a t-shirt as well.

In the smaller bag I asked Dorian to pack, I find some pyjamas for Kaiya. “I’ll take the couch,” I say as I hand her the sleepwear.

“No,” she says, her eyes going wide with genuine horror. “You are the king…I’ll be comfortable on the couch.”

I smile at her. “It’s ungentlemanly. My ancestors will come back from the grave to haunt me.”

“You have ancestors?”

“Yes,” I say and gather my things so I can take a shower. “Get some sleep, Kaiya,” I add before I close the bathroom door behind me. “Tomorrow is going to be a long day.”