Page 123 of Callen's Captive
Chapter Twenty-Five
CALLEN
Callen kept Kate secluded from the rest of the pack for a few days, on Damien’s suggestion while tempers cooled, but mostly because he didn’t want her exposed to their talk, their accusations. She had made a mistake, but even Hayden understood and forgave her. If only the rest of the pack—and Kate—would do the same. . .
She barely spoke to Callen since she returned with him to their tent. Her mood had changed; his sweet mate had become sullen and withdrawn. He needed to get her away from the pack, out of the woods entirely.
“I’m going to fix this,” Kate said. They were in the tent, and she was lying on her stomach, with her hands supporting her head, staring at the dark green canvas.
“There’s nothing to fix.”
“Then why are you here with me, a half-mile from camp, instead of with your pack?”
“Because you’re my mate.”
“I didn’t believe you about Drake. I didn’t see what he was doing. But you knew. You told me he was using me somehow, and you were right.”
“I wish I hadn’t been.”
“But he knew so many details, details I hadn’t divulged. I was sure he was researching everything, putting the time in to find their murderers as he claimed. The details he had were so convincing. It was like he was there.”
“I doubt that too, unless you remember a kid there. Hayden was ten at the time and Drake’s younger than Hayden.”
“I let him use me,” she said, her voice falling, her disappointment in herself clear.
“We all make mistakes, Kate. It’s how we pick ourselves up and push on afterward that counts.”
“My mistake almost killed an innocent shifter. And now your pack hates me—rightfully so. I’ll never belong here, but you do.”
“We’re not having this conversation again. We’re blood-bonded. Nothing will come between us, not even my pack.” Maybe someday she’d finally believe him. “They just need time to get to know you. Until then, we need to go over this business of nicknames. If you must call me ‘bear’, then do so in private. I can’t have the pack seeing me as some teddy bear.”
A weak smile crossed her face, one he could see right through. She didn’t believe a word he’d said, and maybe that was because he hadn’t believed it either. She’d always be seen as the human who shot Hayden.
She poked him in the stomach. “Pookie. I’ll call you ‘Pookie’.”
“Kate, I’m being serious.”
“So am I, Pookie,” she said as she walked her fingers up his chest to his mouth that opened for her. Her fingers traced his lips. “I’ve missed you, Callen.”
“I’m right here, Princess.”
“For how long?”
The question hurt. She still didn’t trust that he wasn’t going anywhere. “You need to have some faith in me,” he said, a definite growl underlying his words. His wolf didn’t like that she questioned their bond any more than he did.
“I care about you,” she said, which brought a smile to his face.
“And yet you still have questions about us,” he finished the thought that was hanging around his neck like a dead weight.
“This bond you spoke of. It doesn’t exist for me.”
She was trying to feel the bond, to share that connection with him, but she was human. Callen had spoken to Blade and found out it had taken a while for Anna to feel the bond. Blade hadn’t been forthright about the depth of that bond, and Callen hadn’t pried. Perhaps it meant humans couldn’t feel the bond the same way shifters did. Either way, Callen was confident Kate would feel it, eventually. Until then, she was going to use her inability to feel the bond as a reason they shouldn’t be together. Pushing everyone away, pushing him away, is what she did when she felt vulnerable.
“You have questions about me and Drake, but you don’t want to ask me. Is that because you’re afraid of the answers?”
When he didn’t say anything, she continued. “I’m not going to beg you to believe me, Callen. You either do or you don’t. You asked me to trust you about him, and I didn’t. Now you don’t trust me, not enough to ask and hear what you may not want to hear. That’s not a good basis for a relationship, is it?
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