Page 34 of Mated in Darkness

Tears slid from my eyes as I choked sobs, wanting my mate, wanting my family, wanting anything but these two near strangers holding me back from taking care of my mate.

Then the Healer was there, a strange expression on her face as she went to heal Jason’s wounds.

Because Jason would be a wolf at the next full moon. He wouldn’t need full moons to change, but the one after the transformation was strengthened by the moon itself.

Somebody had come here, had tried to kill me, had nearly succeeded in killing Jason.

And now our lives would be irrevocably tangled, and Jason had just lost his humanity.

“I took his choice,” I whispered, my voice raw, so ravaged that I could barely breathe.

Riaz, having shifted to human, held me as Dean handed me a bottle of water. Brendan moved to help the Healer as Rio paced around the group of us.

“It was the only choice.”

“Was it?” I asked, but nobody answered, because they couldn’t.

Jason had not had the ability to speak up. Maybe he would have wanted to die rather than become a wolf.

Maybe he would have rather ended his life in that moment, not come back at all, than become my mate.

And now we would never know.

He was my mate, and he would be a wolf.

And Jason had never had a choice.

I would always be the one who took that choice from him.

One hell of a way to begin a mating.

Chapter 14

Kaylee

I didn’t remember getting backto the den. The others had moved around the fight site, looking over the bodies. Not Jason’s. No, the Healer, Brendan, and Riaz had taken Jason back to the den to take care of him, to make sure he was settled before he woke up.

I would go to him soon, I would hold his hand, and I would wait for him to wake. And I would wait for the recrimination in his eyes as he realized that I had taken so much from him.

I didn’t want to hate myself for doing that. I didn’t want to hate the person that I was becoming. But I had taken so much from him. He would no longer be human. He would no longer have any sense of who he was, because I had been the one to decide that.

I hadn’t wanted him to die.

I had wanted my mate.

I had come down to Texas to find Spencer, to find my Packmate and see if he had become a rogue or if he had just been out of communication.

I hadn’t expected to find Spencer’s dead body as I had. I hadn’t expected to find him wrapped up in the mystery of strange humans that seemed to have far more strength than they should.

And I sure as hell hadn’t meant to find Jason.

Now that I had, I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do.

Jason had nearly died. And Spencer was dead. And now I was mated to Jason, at least partially, and there was no going back from that.

Once my mate woke up and realized what I had done, I had to hope he wouldn’t walk away, that he wouldn’t leave our wolves half broken, half mated.

I kissed him, and he had kissed me back, and we had nearly taken each other against his door, and yet that was the closest we had gotten to talking about anything of who we were.

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