Page 10 of Dane's War

“Yes, he’s been a part of you,” Dad agrees, nodding. “But our family was cursed nearly a millennia ago when our ancestor broke the heart of a woman of great power. She wasn’t his mate, but she’d fallen for him. He toyed with her.”

“This sounds familiar,” Karsyn mutters.

I shoot her a fast glare and focus back on our dad. “Okay, so some scorned bitch cursed him because he didn’t mate her?”

“Pretty much, he found his fated mate and ended things with her. The woman didn’t take too kindly of it all. Story goes that she cursed his pups that their wolves would be a part of them, yet not. Their souls will be of tatters until they find their true mate. Only then can it be mended. The eyes change colors to that of our ancestors upon seeing our mates for the first time.”

“How is that a curse?” Justice asks, getting to the point of it before I can.

“Because the last sentence of it says, until the desired one, the one meant to be true opens her heart to her mate, we shall go crazy. We’ll war with ourselves until they give themselves willingly. If they don’t, if we’re rejected, then madness sinks in, and there’s no hope. Those who have been rejected end up remaining a wolf or finding a way to get themselves killed.”

Well, shit.

“Let me get this right, if his mate doesn’t accept him, madness will drive him to either getting killed or him shifting and never turning back again?” Abel grumbles out in question.

“Yes.” Dad nods, confirming.

“How come I hadn’t heard this before?” I demand. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me before now?” Anger boils beneath my skin over the fact my dad has kept yet another secret to himself. I get my mother hadn’t been his mate. He only mated her because she’d gotten knocked up with me nearly sixty years ago. He wanted to do right for his kids and give them a family. I also got the fact my dad wasn’t in love with her. But they’d given me a good family. Raised me in a home of a family rather than in two different homes. When she’d been killed by blood witches, Dad wentafter her murderers. Killing them hadn’t alleviated the anguish of the mother I lost.

Then he’d gone and kept the fact he’d found his fated mate, an earth witch . . .

“Wait a minute,” I growl, narrowing my gaze on my dad. “How did you evade the madness, considering you didn’t have your mate?”

“Karoline didn’t reject me. She accepted who I was. Loved me for who I was.” The tormented look in his gaze speaks volumes, just as the agony in his voice does. He lost two mates, and the guilt ate at him.

“She did love you,” Karsyn whispers, her breath hitching.

Dad twists toward Karsyn and nods. “I know she did, sweetheart. I know she did.”

“So, to keep our brother from losing his mind, we need to make sure Raine doesn’t reject him?” Corbin mutters, brows drawing together.

“Pretty much.”

At Dad’s confirmation, I shake my head. “Great. Just what I need.”

“It’s not going to be easy, big brother, but I know you can do it. You and your wolf both can show her that you won’t treat her as anything else but what she deserves.” A soft smile curls into place on my sister’s lips, and she cocks her head slightly. “Just be patientwith her, you don’t know her story as she doesn’t know yours.”

Now, what the fuck does that mean?

I don’t bother asking. She’s not going to tell me. I know she’s not.

“I’m gonna get out of here. Need to clear my head,” I tell everyone as I stalk toward the door. All the bullshit I’ve been dealing with, I need a break from everything. To clear my head and think about what I need to do and what needs to happen next.

What we have to do is get our mate to desire us as much as we do her.The wolf inside me growls. It’s weird hearing it in my head. The way everything feels inside my head, my chest. My wolf has always had a voice of his own, but it’s different now. It’s like he’s actually talking rather than thinking, and I’m understanding. We’re a whole, together as one. Our bond is complete in a way it never was before. All because of Raine.

Raine.

Just thinking about her makes me wish to go in search of her, to find her. Make sure she’s okay. I know there’s more to the story where those men who attacked her were concerned. I intend to find out and make sure they never come near her again.

Riding through the night, a freedom I get onlywhen I’m on the back of my bike, flows through me. With it, visions of the woman that’s my mate. My Raine. Mine. Yet, she’s not mine. Not yet, at least.

A plan forms in my head as a grin slides into place. What I need to do is show her just how much my desire for her goes. In order to do that, I’ll prove to her that I won’t do to her what I’d done to Sloane. This time around, there won’t be any scorning of women. I’ll make sure of it, even if it means warring with the madness threatening to start sinking it. I’ll fight it off as long as I can to give Raine the time she needs for me to get to know her, her to know me. We’re whole together, and I want her to know I won’t do a damn thing to harm her in any way.

Chapter Eight

Raine

“You okay?” Bandit asks, his body leaning against the frame of my door, legs crossed. His expression is what it’s been since leaving the Spiked Raiders MC clubhouse. That being murderous.

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