Free Shifter's Revenge (Alpha Lineage) by Stacy Kinlee Page B

that bound them together. They were made for each other. Fated even. 
    Yet even after coming to that realization he noticed that something about her had changed. She seemed too resolute in the lies about her worth. He pressed his lips against her neck and loosened the hold he had on her hair. Still she didn’t move from the position he put her in. He could faintly smell the soft and salty tears that trailed down her face.
    The hardest thing for him to accept was the broken state of his bond with the wolf inside of him. He felt he could go crazy at any moment. Kera had mentioned that she suspected the same had happened to Rayland and that was why he worked so hard to get the book from her. Luke obviously couldn’t or wouldn’t reverse the damage. If the woman in his arms could do such a thing then that was just another reason not to let her go.
    He thought for a moment about what he was doing. The pain he was causing the woman he loved. He cursed himself for trying to inflict the same pain he was going through. Hadn’t she been through enough? Maybe. Still in his mind he couldn’t imagine why she had left him. He couldn’t seem to let go of the fact that she had the power to break him and not only used it, but because of her leaving he suffered a physical and mental blow that practically disabled him as an Alpha.
    Kera leaned her head down and buried her face against his neck. Her breath pushed against his chest as she spoke softly. “I didn’t leave you like that , Maddox. I just left your presence for a few days. I needed to get you out of this rut of worrying about me and push you to find Rayland and Luke. If you were also inclined to hunt down Andrew, then so be it. I won’t be a thorn your side and that was all I was becoming.”
    Maddox shut his eyes and took a deep breath. “You h ave no idea what you mean to me,” he murmured. “Even without the mating bond I couldn’t imagine it being anyone but you. You have to understand that I just found you dead not more than a week ago and by sheer luck you came back to me. I wanted nothing more than to spend time with you and make sure you were ok, but you just fucking left me. You ran out and disappeared for days Kera and what was I supposed to think? That you went off to find yourself? Do you not think that I would feel even a little responsible that I wasn’t enough for you to lean on? You didn’t tell me what happened to you until I forced it out of you.”
    Her shoulders shook in silent sobs. Her hand pulled away from his and she pushed off of him with such force that his breath was knocked out of his lungs.
    She paced in front of him. Her emerald eyes reflected in the moonlight causing desire to take his next breath away. She was utterly beautiful. The possibility of her existence was unfathomable, but here she was standing before him. Even now that he was weakened by the spell she said her and her mother put over her father’s house, he knew that his wolf longed for her. He longed for her. It wasn’t fair for him to take when he wasn’t willing to give. The urge to make love to her had to be completely mutual and without taint before he was willing to allow himself the pleasure.
    Right now he was too damaged to let her in. She stood before him trying to find words to plead her case but it wasn’t going to matter. Her words even if they were truth wouldn’t erase the past few days. Time would only tell if they were going to make it. Time was the only thing that they needed and had very little of. Rayland requested a meeting in the morning and Jason had agreed. His father figured that even without Kera’s presence he would be able to reason with his brother and reconcile the pack.
    Maddox, of course, felt different. He only felt hate and the urge for revenge when it came to Rayland. He had taken Kera and stripped her of her innocence by letting her fall into the hands of Andrew. Her torture and death had affected her to the very core of her being. It