Queen Alpha (NYC Mecca #2)(26)
The treeling was silent for a moment and I wasn‘t sure what to say or if I should just pull my hand off.
Can I tell you a story of old? it finally asked, just as I was about to remove my hand.
Yes, of course. Story time with an old fae tree. Totally normal.
When I was first planted here, there were many shifters of both bear and wolf origin that lived here.
Okay… Like spread out in the mecca?
No, no, here in this house. The king was bear, the queen was wolf, and they had a mixture of each in their staff.
Chills trickled down my back. That’s not true! No way our kind used to mingle like that. The tree must be confused.
It is true. The wolves and bears were always meant to work and live together. Only greed and misinformation tore you apart.
I yanked my hand off. I couldn’t hear anymore. What he said was blasphemy. Treason. And … exciting. Was it possible that any of that story was the truth? Surely someone would have known if bears and wolves existed together. It would have been passed down through our storytellers, especially if at some point bear and wolf shifters did not only coexist, but actually ruled and bred together. If that happened, where were their offspring? How did they cover it all up? Was there anyone alive, besides the treeling, who knew about this?
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Kade said from behind me, startling me. I jumped, and so was already half in the air as I spun around to find him right behind me. My breath went very shallow and all I could see in my head were the images the treeling had painted. Bears and wolves ruling together. It was like seeing Kade in an entirely new light.
Sure, he looked the same as always, strong, sexy, deadly, the epitome of a woodsman. His huge muscled body was coiled and lethal, just waiting to spring into action. Where had the usual warning gone, the one that generally flashed before my eyes when I was around him, slamming me with the reality of our situation – there could never be anything between us? Damn that tree. It had given me a brief glimpse of a life that I’d die for – bear-wolf children running and playing in this amazing garden, of Kade lifting babies up and spinning them around. My heart was literally bleeding as I stood there, stunned.
“Ari?” Kade stepped even closer to me, blocking out the sun. “Is everything okay? You seem distracted.”
I shook my head in a jerky motion, trying desperately to pull myself together. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. And even if that had happened in the past, we lived in the present, and there was no chance for Kade and me. For us.
“No, I’m fine. Thank you for asking. Just been a long day. You know what I mean.”
He ran his hand through his tousled hair, those amber eyes tearing me apart, but thankfully he didn’t push me. “I understand perfectly. Today was one of my more trying since taking the crown.” He leaned in closer to me then, with a mischievous glint in his eye. “So Gerald tells me you’re ready to have this affair, earn the title our people are bestowing on us.” His half-smile grew, the depth of his eye color deepening. Clearly he found this amusing, and I couldn’t hold in my own laughter.
“You wish,” I said playfully.
His face went dead serious in a millisecond. “Every day, Arianna.”
I was pretty sure I stopped breathing then. Heat sizzled down my body and settled into my core. “The fae prince of the Summer Court visited me!” I blurted out, desperate to change the subject.
Kade’s face turned lethal. “When? Why didn’t you call for me? Are you okay?” He scanned my body as if looking for injuries.
I hugged my arms to keep from touching him. Why did this have to be so hard? I didn’t want to feel this way forever. It was too much.
“I’m fine. He gave me a warning though.”
“A warning?” Kade’s voice was husky as he awaited my reply.
I nodded, bobbing my head like a creepy doll. “I need to fix the mecca and send the stolen energy back to the Otherworld, or the Summer Court and all their people and food will die off. If that happens, the Winter Court will come to Earth, kill us all, and take over.”
He forced a smile, but it was more bared teeth. “No big deal, right?”
I huffed. “Right! So I‘m here, with my mecca expert, asking for help.”
Kade’s eyes twinkled. “Mecca expert, huh?”
I shook my head at him. “Don’t let it go to your head. I had to say something to convince him there was a shot at keeping his entire race from dying out. At least now the Summer Court is still holding onto some hope that we can fix this, which means they continue to battle our enemy and slow their takeover of Earth.”
I bit my bottom lip, which was a bad habit from when I was younger. Kade’s eyes darkened as he followed that movement. Crap. I knew there was a reason to not bite my lips, it created cliché moments like this where kissing that damn bear was all I could think about. I needed to squash this before it could heat up and get us both into more trouble with our people.
Freeing my lip, I said in a rush, “Just forget that kiss, okay? It was a mistake.” The words hurt more than I thought they would, and when his face hardened and eyes went flat, I wanted to take them back.
“Arianna,” he said slowly, “for as long as I live, I will never forget kissing you.”
Then, for some stupid hormonal idiotic reason, my eyes filled with tears. The hard planes of Kade’s face softened and he reached for me, but knowing if he touched me I’d completely break apart, I shook off some of my agony and schooled my face, faking a coughing fit. I ran for the house.