Free EarthBorn (The Elemental Born Book 1) by E.M Reders Page B

matter.
    I could feel Kaia’s frustration and anger through my small connection to her, and my wolf didn't like it one bit. It took everything in me not to let him lose on my father. That said, I still couldn't stop the growl that ripped from my chest. Her eyes were the darkest green I had ever seen them, and only getting darker by the second.
    I wanted to move over to her, comfort her, but I knew she didn’t want me near her right now.
    “Kaia. Breath. The Alpha did not mean any disrespect,” Grace spoke softly to her. For a brief moment, I could have sworn I felt the ground beneath us shake. “Kaia!”
    “My apologies, Kaia,” my father said sincerely. Turning back to Grace, he continued. “You said he is going to become her protector? I thought the ritual selecting him made him that already?”
    “No. Until the bond is complete, he is not officially her protector.”
    “Bond?” I asked. “But I can already feel the connection between us.”
    “Yes, but the connection is only very small at the moment. When the bond is completed, it will open up fully. After that happens, you will always know where she is, how she is, everything. Enabling you to be the best protector you can be.”
    “So when will the bond be completed?” my father asked.
    “It won't,” Kaia spoke quietly, our sensitive hearing picking it up.
    “What do you mean ‘it won't’?” The steel in his voice set my wolf on edge. Kaia really didn’t want to piss my father off. Didn’t she know how dangerous an Alpha wolf could be when angry?
    “Kaia, be reasonable,” Grace said. “Let’s discuss this.”
    “There is nothing to discuss. I won't do it, Grace.” Getting to her feet, still a little unsteady but better than before, she walked away. Turning around when she reached the door, her eyes passed over each and every one of us until they fixed on Grace. “And you can't make me.”
    When she was gone and we heard a door upstairs slam shut, Kaia's friend burst out laughing, shocking us all. “What? She has a point. You can't force her to do it, Grace. You may have made her perform the ritual, but the full bonding, she will never do.”
    “What is this bonding exactly?” Ryan asked. “Surely you can make her do it if it's for her own protection.”
    “The bonding is... Well, it’s a little…” she stuttered, looking positively awkward.
    “Spit it out, Grandmother.” The girl smirked.
    “Well, let’s just say that it’s a little personal.”
    “That's an understatement.” Getting up to follow after Kaia, the girl laughed as she made her way to the door. “Oh fine, I’ll tell them. The bonding takes place during another small ritual… One which is completed the first time they have sex.” 
    What?
    After that, the conversation had quickly moved away from bonding to moving Kaia to the packhouse and the protection she would need there. The whole time my father, Ryan and the Crone talked, my wolf was howling inside me, urging me to go to her. He desperately wanted to be near her, to rub his fur up against her soft flesh, to dig his claws into her waist, his teeth into her neck as we claimed her, took her as our own, our mate. But she didn't want that. She didn't want to complete the bond, to mate. Somehow I needed to make her change her mind. Make her see that we were always meant to be together.
    But were we? I had thought so once, but then she’d changed and the girl she had become had not been the one I had slowly been falling in love with.
    Why was that? Why had she changed, pushed me away like she did? Maybe now that she was moving to the packhouse and we were going to be together most of the time, or all of the time if I had it my way, I could finally find out what had happened.
    “So that’s settled,” my father announced, rising to his feet. “Kaia will be moved to the packhouse tonight. Grace, if you would call the girl, I would like to get there before the sun rises.”
     
    ~
    Kaia
     
    “Come on, you