Blue Moon

C H A P T E R 10

PARADOX

ARRAH

Gone in a flash, the full weight of Sid's body was off me. Wrapped in the arms of my mate whose glowing eyes betrayed her anger, I relaxed. I knew it was Kai when the feeling of safety washed over my fears the moment she enveloped me in her embrace.

"I've been extending courtesy to you from the beginning. The same courtesy that you have shown no regard for," Kai maneuvered me to stand behind her. "Time and again you have shown disregard of our laws."

"Your laws do not apply to me!" Sid bellowed.

"You're no longer welcomed here!" Kai took menacing steps towards Sid who never looked away from me. "Leave!"

"You're no Alpha," Sid sneered. "Your words mean nothing! No weight!" She made her way to me.

But to get to me she would have to get past Kai.

"Give her back to me!" Lunging, she barely caught me but Kai deflected her hand and hit her in the stomach.

Claws out and fangs bared, Kai reeled her wolf in but attacked in half shift. Bent and clutching her abdomen, Sid was piqued.

"You dare raise your hand against me?" Her shirt torn by Kai's sharp claws; it was a wonder Sid was unscathed. "You, whose life I could end with a wave of my hand? You –"

Kai attacked.

A trained warrior, her strikes meant to kill not to render her enemy incapacitated. She wanted to kill Sid. On the other hand, her opponent effortlessly evaded each blow. Sid was fast even though I could tell she was battling Kai as is. Returning each attack and not only parrying blows, but she was also able to land a kick on Kai's body among punches without partially shifting.

My mate hit the tree trunk with a grunt. She must have broken a rib or two and cut her forehead. In visions and in real life, the sight of blood or anything red churns my stomach.

Though I was having a hard time steadying my heart, I ran to Kai and helped her up. Striding to where we were, Sid never spared a look of pity on her opponent, in fact, she was about to punch the winded Kai.

"You've won. That ends it!" I stopped her punch using both of my hands. Her strength would have sent me down had I not been holding on to her. I moved us away from Kai. "You've won so enough..."

"Won? A pointless fray..." Sid straightened up. "You have no idea what I lost."

'Give her back to me!'

Her stoic face contorted in anguish when those words left her mouth.

I swallowed back the words I wanted to say when Kai shifted behind us. Moving to shield Sid from a snarling wolf, my heart almost flat-lined when the sharp fangs were mere inches from my neck.

"Shift back," I implored her.

Kai was no ordinary wolf. None of the shifters were. They were the size of quadruple the normal wolf in the wild. Huge, Kai was huge. Since I was relatively short, I was face to face with the enormous creature's razor-sharp teeth.

Her sentient amber eyes fixed on me and her breathing matched mine.

I heard Edmund call, "Beta!"

The scream snapped us out of the trance. Sid was nowhere to be seen as Cyrus raced to us with Edmund on his heels.

"What's happening?" Cyrus had a hand on my shoulder which made Kai growl. Both of them stepped back and bared their necks in submission.

"It's all under control," I told them. Their brows rose in disbelief because a growling Kai was the opposite of being 'under control'.

"The humans might see you," Edmund was careful and submissively spoke behind Cyrus. "With all due respect Beta, humans could walk by anytime and see you. The Alpha..."

He will punish Kai for being reckless and for possibly revealing us to humans.

Taking her by her pelt, I pulled her to the house with me. She was low-key growling at me as we went. I got her through the entrance and waved the guards away.

I closed the door and leaned against it. Wolf Kai was not snarling but I could sense her annoyance at having her tail pulled at like a dog in front of her subordinates.

"You're mad... yada yada," I walked past her and fell on the couch. "Berate me tomorrow." Everything tired me out.

Closing my eyes and ready to sleep, I reluctantly regained my senses when I felt wolf Kai breathing down my face. I decided to let it go but her tongue on my cheek made me jump. "What in tarnation was that for?"

"Ouch!" I haphazardly grazed the wound on my cheek when I wiped at the wolf saliva off me. "Wonderful..."

Not healing fast like a shifter suck. A tiny wound would not even mend itself.

"She did that." The voice of Kai startled me again. There she stood in front of me in all her glorious nakedness. Her small cuts gone and her rib injuries almost healed – lucky her.

"Get dressed." A naked reluctant mate on top of all the drama was a terrible punishment. It made me want her when she wanted none of me. "Don't you think it too late for a lesson in anatomy, Ms. Randale?"

How dare she flaunt what I could not claim as mine? What should have been rightfully mine?

No matter how tired I was, I hauled my ass and trudged up to my room. I entered the comfort room brushed my teeth and washed my face and arms then dried myself with a towel.

Búlan?

Sid was desperately calling for her. She was calling out for her as if that woman and I were one. The reflection on the mirror showed me crying when I looked up. Tears were streaming like a river down my left eye.

"Arrah..." Kai dressed in only a big t-shirt, hogged the small door opening of the bathroom. "Why are you crying?"

"Beats me," I dried the tears and turned off the light then pushed past her as I walked out.

She stopped me with her hands on my shoulder and turned me to face her. "Talk to me and tell me what's wrong." She was concerned about me.

No more thinking, I hooked an arm around her neck and propelled myself up to plant a kiss on her lips.

Her soft lips, mine.

My other arm came up as I kissed her with all the pent up passion I had bottled up inside me.

This was the way it should have always been, her and me, together.

"I'm yours, Kai," I whispered.

She stood rigidly as she hastily pried my arms off her and pushed me away. Her brusqueness made me hit my head and my back on the wooden end of the bed.

This is what I get for dreaming.

"I'm sorry." A shocked Kai bent down to pick me up but I refused her help.

Sorry?

"A sorry would be unnecessary..." I laughed at her temerity to utter an apology, "If you had only thought of not hurting me."

Roughly wiping my lips, I stood up and dusted myself off. Kai's face was set in stone when I regarded her. The word 'mate' must have offended her. She did her best not to refer to me as such.

Boo, hoo, as lamentable as it was nothing changed the fact that we are mates.

"No matter how much you loathed our fates, I am yours and you should have been mine." I reached to cup her face and I could feel her recoil at my touch. "You can't keep breaking my heart like this."

She looked away but I pulled her chin down. The eyes that looked at me were a thousand times different from Sid's gaze. The disparity was as wide as the skies and deep as the Marianas Trench.

"Whenever an opportunity to hurt me arises, try to hesitate once in a while Kai." I would try to keep those chances of hurting low if not totally zero. "That is all I'll ask of you."