You Are Mine (The Lycans 2)

“And it has nothing to do with being mated now.”

Luca growled, and I pressed the side of my much smaller body against his to calm him.

“It’s because you have Darris blood running through your veins.”

I wanted to say “bullshit,” which was so not like me. I wanted to tell him although I didn’t know the why of this whole shifting for the first time phenomenon, in my heart, I believed it was because I wanted to protect my mate. My emotions had been running so high to get to Luca that my wolf forced herself to rise and be known. To be dominant in that instance.

I wanted to speak to Adryan, to work this out without violence, but he was an alpha, just like Luca, just like every other male in my life. And most of the time, speaking did nothing but go in one ear and out the other.

But I didn’t even know if I could shift back into my human form. I had no concrete knowledge of how I got to this point or how to get back. And it seemed like Luca had no plans on shifting back to his human form either, given the fact that his massive body still blocked me from my uncle.

Sometimes words didn’t need to be said to speak to someone. I stepped out more fully from behind my mate and looked into my uncle’s eyes, ones that were the same shade of blue as my mother’s. I was never close with Adryan, but he’d always made it clear family and blood were the most important aspects in his long life.

Surely he could see that Luca was my family now, that I loved him, and that I would fight to the death for him, just like he would for his sister, his blood… and one day for his mate.

I looked into his eyes and conveyed all of that without words, hoping it resonated, that it clicked into place and he could see what he was doing to me by proceeding. And the longer I stared at my uncle, the more his grin started to waver, and the more I could see recognition and realization cover his face.

I was pleading with him from one heart to another.

He might be cold and unforgiving, but I knew deep down past that brutal and icy exterior, he was a good male. It had just been a very long time since he connected with that side of himself.

He exhaled and broke eye contact with me to look back at Luca. For long moments, he didn’t speak, and I wondered what he was thinking, what was going through his mind.

What will he do?

“I can see you’re willing to die for your mate,” Adryan said in a deep voice. I heard Luca growl low, a warning as much as it was an affirmation. Adryan looked at me then and exhaled again, and I could tell just from the sound it was one not so much of defeat, but of acceptance on where we stood. “And I can see, little Ainslee, that you would die for him as well.”

This low sound left me, my wolf answering in the only way she could.

Another thick moment of tension passed between us, and then he looked over at Kane and Sebastian and tipped his chin. “We leave now,” he said in an even, apathetic tone and looked at Luca. “I have my own personal shit I have to deal with.” He stared at Luca. “Treat her well, wolf, or we’ll be meeting again.”

Luca growled low in warning.

Adryan chuckled, and with one more lingering glance in my direction, he left.

I was still frozen in place, not believing that it was actually over, that Adryan had conceded, that he’d known when to stop.

But here we were, Luca and me standing alone on our property, the threat actually… gone.

It was only when I sensed Adryan and the cousins leaving that I felt a semblance of calm wash through me. I was staring into the darkened woods when I felt a nudge at my side, Luca’s scent instantly washing through me. I’d been so focused on making sure they were actually leaving that I hadn’t paid attention to anything else.

Luca kept rubbing up against me, and I knew his wolf was putting his scent on me, marking me in a way that he’d never done before. I wanted to just get lost in how right it felt standing beside Luca, both of us in our animal forms, the wilderness surrounding us. I wanted to run free with him, to feel the wind through my fur, really feel it for the very first time in my life.

Suddenly, all the smells and feelings and sensations rushed through me. I felt this crushing weight of all the emotions of the past few moments, of what I could have lost… who I could have lost. I felt a suffocating embrace of that darkness, and before I could get a grasp on it or try to control it, the pain was carrying me away.