From Maiden to Mother (Book 2 of the Northern Territories Series)

Chapter 7

From Maiden to Mother

Chapter 7

Kara’s POV

I walk in and sit with Tania at the bar, she has tea made for each of us. “Tell me where your mind is, Princess.”, she says softly.

“He claims his anger and frustration comes from my relationship with Clay and before you say you warned me, I know. I don’t regret anything with Clay. I love him, Tania. That doesn’t mean I can’t love someone else also. I don’t think he wants to live in the coven, but he’s a wolf. 6 hour drive is like… an hour maybe for a lycan wolf. I’d be willing to work that out if it were the only issue. I don’t think I’ve ever seen who he actually is though. I think I’ve seen glimpses behind the charm he tries to display. I told him this, earlier this evening, and he promised we would work it out. That he would be more transparent.”, I answer, spilling all my thoughts.

Tania smiles, “So you intend to wait and see if he will let you in?”, she asks.

I nod, “If he can be open with me, we can make it work. I’m very attracted to him, he just makes me nervous at times. Before you say it, no it isn’t like a ‘cute crush’ nervous, it’s a ‘fight or flight’ nervous. If I hurt him, he may force me to kill him, Mother. I don’t want to kill him, but I don’t want him to hurt me either.”

Tania chuckles, “I get it, I’ve been there, give him a warning next time he gets rough with you, escalate if he does. Don’t let fear of having to kill him stop you from protecting you, Maiden.”, she replies.

I nod in agreement. “I’m going to shower and get in bed, Mother.”, I tell her standing and hugging her. She kisses my head and I go upstairs. I brush my teeth and take a shower.

I check my messages while I towel dry my hair. I have a message from Clay and one from Nikolai.

Nikolai- Just wanted to say goodnight again, gorgeous. See you in the morning.

Kara- Just got out of the shower. Goodnight, Nik.

Nikolai- Mmmm… bet you smell amazing.

Kara- You’re making me blush. I’m going to bed, see you in the morning.

I click over to Clay’s message.

Clay- You’re back to training with the twins tomorrow, right?

Kara- Yes, back to usual routine. I appreciate your help, best friend.

Clay- Never a problem, Princess.

Kara- I didn’t want to make things awkward earlier, I’m sorry.

Clay- Don’t be sorry, sweetheart. I’m happy for you. That’s my bullshit, not yours. I love you; you’ll always be my best friend. I just need to distance myself a little for a while and get my head right.

My eyes water and I try to stop the tears.

Kara- I love you, best friend. Don’t run from me.

Clay- I’m not running, I'll always be there if you need me. I love you more than you’ll ever know. I’m trying to be fair to both of you. I can’t help making him defensive because my temper flares. You can’t see who he really is because he is being defensive. I’m still here, just bye for now,

Kara- Not forever.

Clay- Never forever, sweetheart.

I lay in my bed and cry. I don’t want to lose Clay.

I wake up feeling groggy. I shut off the alarm on my phone, it’s 5am. I climb out of bed and wash my face, brush my teeth, and put on my jogging shorts and sports bra. I french braid my hair and head downstairs to the kitchen, Jayce is making coffee, “Good morning, Princess.”, he says.

“Good morning, Jayce.”, I reply while making my coffee. Tania and Rayne come in and make their coffee before we all head out to the field.

Tania and I start bo staff training while Rayne and Jayce sit back and watch. Nikolai comes out on the field and sits next to Rayne and Jayce. I can hear them talking, but not what they’re saying.

Tania takes a swing and I spin away from her, she kicks at me and I grab her leg. I intended to trip her but she took me down with her bo staff and we both came crashing clumsily down, her arm with the staff under me and her leg over me. Tania giggles at me. “Oops.”

I laugh and we untangle from one another. Rayne calls out “Alpha wants to spar, Princess.”

I smile and wave him up to me. Nik stands and pulls his shirt off before crossing over to me. He is well toned and muscular. It is unfair that lycan are built so devastatingly attractive.

Rayne and Jayce chuckle as Tania sits between them to watch. Nikolai starts circling me. He fakes a lunge at me and I jump away. He’s testing my reflexes. He does it a few more times before actually lunging and swiping at me with an open hand. I side step and hit him 3x in quick succession, the chest, the face, swipe his legs. He crashes hard on the ground and I spin my staff backing away from him.

“She’s quick for a witch, Alpha. Underestimating her will get you leveled.”, Jayce advises from his seated position.

Nik gets up and smirks at me. “That’s actually hotter than I expected, you really burned me.”, he says surprised.

“I project small amounts of power through my staff.”, I reply. He nods and circles me again, being much more cautious with leaving me openings. He fights like a brute, throwing his weight around. I keep out of his path. If he fought Tania, she would beat his ass even without her power. I, on the other hand, do not have the strength he does and my hits can’t really hurt him that bad without my power. Obviously, I don’t want to actually hurt him.

“You’re tough to get a hold of, gorgeous.”, he says smiling. I know he is getting annoyed so I decide to wrap it up.

“I want a drink.”, I tell him and drop position. He chuckles and follows me over to the benches. I dig through Jayce’s bag and steal one of his waters. Nik smirks at me, “Do you not bring your own water, Kara?”, he asks.

I suddenly recall him having his Beta follow me. I stole Clay’s water then. “I do if I’m not with them. They always bring it for me. Rayne and Jayce carry water for Tania and I.”, I reply.

“And Clay?”, he asks, taking a drink of his own water. I thought about what Clay said last night about distancing himself.

“Yes, Clay carries water for me if I’m with him.”, I turn to face Nikolai, “Shane carries water for me as well. It is my understanding that lycan wolves are natural providers.”

Nikolai’s POV

We are, but not usually without anything in return. What are you giving them, little mate? “We are natural providers to the people we care about. I just wondered what your relationship with him… and now Shane, is.”, I add Shane jokingly to lighten my mood. I’ve been very careful to conceal any anger.

She smiles and laughs, so it is working. “Ivy is a close friend of mine, Shane is her mate. I believe you've met her. Shane is like my big wolf brother. Clay is my best friend.”, she says matter-of-factly.

I study her, “Honest answers, I promise to control myself if I get mad. Is your relationship with Clay s****l in nature?”, I ask.

She lowers her water bottle from her mouth and locks eyes with me. “It has been in the past. It was a one night thing that we both agreed it would be. He wants his mate, Nik. I am not his mate.”, she answers.

I don’t see any deception in her at all. “Do you want him to be your mate?”, I ask her, barely masking the anger I feel already.

“I’m not who the Goddess chose for him, so no. I want him to have his perfect match.”, she replies. It’s hedging the question. She does want him to be her mate, but accepts she is not.

I nod and brush my thumb over her cheek, leaning down and kissing her briefly. I smile when I pull back, “I was right…”, she furrows her brows at me, “You do smell amazing.”, I say leaning into her neck and inhaling deeply. She giggles and pushes me away. I laugh and release her.

She spars Rayne and Jayce shifted. Tania heads back up to the house to help Meri with her sons. Kara finishes sparring with them and they continue sparring together.

She comes back over and drinks more of her water.

“I’m just going to stretch and meditate, then we can to get breakfast.”, she tells me, setting her water down beside me. I’m uncomfortably hard as I watch her stretch. I’ve never wanted anyone so bad in my life. She sits and folds her hands. I feel a peace wash over me. It startles me at first, but I realize quickly it is coming from her. This is why they sit and watch, they enjoy all their stress being slightly numbed. I can’t help but fidget some waiting for her to be done.

She side-eyes me, “You don’t sit still well, Nik.”, she says softly.

I smile, “I try really hard, gorgeous. It is tough.”, she turns and studies me.

“That’s because you’re not clearing your mind. Come here, Nik.”, she says patting the grass in front of her. She is going to make me do it with her like she did Clay.

“I don’t know, gorgeous. That’s a little nerve wracking.”, I reply.

She laughs, “Come here, Nik. I won’t hurt you. You’d have your mate beg you to sit with her?”, she asks, raising a brow.

I smirk, I’d have you beg me for a lot of things, gorgeous. I get up and move to sit where she gestured. I mimic the way she sits. She has her palms up to me and I place mine on hers. The tingles from our bond travel through me. She starts chanting something and I feel the power around us increasing, I can feel it entering me. I can’t do this, she’s freaking me the hell out. I pull away and stand.

She looks confused as she watches me. “What is wrong, Nik?”, she asks. I don’t want to admit she scared me there with that.

“Just a little nervous when you chant something I don’t understand, gorgeous.”, I reply.

“It’s just a peace blessing, Nik. It’s a call for peace, calm, and clarity to help balance you, nothing to be nervous about.”, she tells me.

“I just don’t like it.”, I reply a little more harshly than I intended.

She nods slowly, studying me. “If you don’t like it, that’s okay. We can just go get breakfast.”, she says before standing and grabbing her shirt from the bench. She pulls it on and offers me her hand. I accept it and walk alongside her to the diner.

“So what is your secret, Nik?”, Kara asks me.

“My secret?”, I ask, not really sure what she is asking.

“Yes. Ivy said all lycan wolves have a part of themselves, their passion, they only share with their mate.”, she explains. I think about it.

“I don’t know, gorgeous. Maybe it isn’t something I’ve found yet. I’m much younger than most lycan finding their mates.”, I reply when I can’t think of anything like that.

She smiles, “We will have to keep trying new things until you find it then.”, she says as we walk into the diner.

We had breakfast and joked around about different things. I talked her into going to the river to swim with me. She takes me to a dock by a nice little boathouse. She takes off her shirt and shoes, jumping in the water in her athletic shorts and sports bra. I strip completely and jump in before she comes up. She treads water and waits for me to swim closer to her. We swim around for a little while before heading up the bank. I stop her at about waist deep and pull her gently to me. She leans into my kiss and I stroke her stomach and lower back while she grips my shoulders. I pull her to me deepening the kiss, sliding my hand up under her bra and palming her firm breast. She starts to pull away, but I’m not ready to let her go, I keep her against me. She turns her head away from me and I graze my canines over her neck, she flinches back,

“Nik, stop.”, she says firmly, pushing my hand out of her bra.

I get annoyed, I know I can get her to change her mind. I kiss her hard and yank her shorts from her, grinding my hard c**k between her thighs. She shoves off my chest, searing the s**t out of me. I feel like fire travels through me entire body. I jerk away from her and she bails out of the water, toward her clothes.

“Kara…”, I call after her as I start out of the water.

“Nik, don’t touch me. Stay back.”, she warns, grabbing her shirt and shoes. She ties her shirt around her hips, barely covering her lacey hot pick thong. I continue out of the water. She backs toward the trail, I had kind of hoped she would run but she seems to know better than to excite a wolf with a chase. "Nik, I’m serious. Do not touch me, stay back.”, she warns again.

“I’m not going to hurt you, gorgeous. Just come here. We can talk about it.”

“Go get dressed, Nik.”, she commands.

I bristle at that, I’m not being ordered around. This is exactly what I meant by the other lycan being pushovers.

I shake my head, “Kara, cut it out. You’re over reacting. I will get dressed. Will you just wait a second?”, I ask.

She nods, “I’ll wait here.”, she replies. I return to the dock and dress quickly. Kara hasn’t moved. The twin handprints on my chest haven’t healed so I don’t put my shirt on. I wall back toward her, she watches me cautiously. I focus hard on masking my anger so she won’t run.

“That escalated very quickly, gorgeous. What is wrong?”, I ask her.

“I told you to stop and you ripped my shorts off, Nik. That is not stopping.”

I sigh heavily, “I’m sorry, gorgeous. I will stop when you ask me to. I honestly thought you were playing ‘hard to get’, I mistook your responses. You leaned into me one second and burned me the next. Can you tell me why this isn’t healing?”

She studies the marks on my chest for a moment before answering me, “When a witch uses her power defensively, the injury contains her magic. It slows healing.”, she replies. She took that s**t way too far. Cursed f*****g burns? What is this innocent prude act, it’s not f*****g cute!

Kara’s POV

He looks down at his chest and pokes at one of the burns. “So it’s cursed then?”, he asks.

I nod, “Something like that, yes.”, I answer honestly. I don’t tell him I can revoke it because I’m not sure I want to get close enough to him to do it.

“Come here, please Kara. I won’t hurt you. I misread signals and made you uncomfortable. I will let you make first moves from now on, okay?”, he offers, holding his hand out to me. I study him, but don’t respond. He doesn’t seem angry, he seems genuine. “Babe, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. Please, come here.”, he says.

I move a little closer to him, but still out of reach. He slowly moves toward me, taking my hand gently and kissing my palm. “I won’t hurt you, gorgeous. You don’t have to run. Can we start over?”, he asks softly.

I nod slowly and he cups my jaw gently, tilting my head gently up to him. “I split your lip again, gorgeous. I’m sorry. Let me fix it for you?”, he asks. I feel the sting and know he is being truthful.

I nod my head and he leans in, sucking my bottom lip into his mouth and running his tongue over it before releasing my lip and kissing me softly. He runs his tongue over my lips, I hesitantly open to let him in and kiss him back. I can sense the joy that brings him and it relaxes me some.

He pulls back and strokes my cheek. “Better?”, he asks sweetly. I nod slowly and look down at the burns on his chest. Maybe I did overreact, he didn’t mean to hurt or scare me. I blow gently over the burns and watch as they heal. He smiles and runs his hands over where they were, “Thanks, gorgeous.”, he smiles down at me, “Do you want my shirt? It will cover more.”, he offers it to me.

I accept his shirt and pull it on. It rests about mid thigh on me. He pulls my wet braided hair out of the collar and slowly reaches under his shirt to untie my mine from my hips. He uses my shirt to dry my hair some before letting it fall down my back. He kisses me again, the lust in him and the warmth from our bond travel through me. I lean into him and a low growl escapes him as he moves his hands from my hips to my back. I know he can sense my arousal, but I’m not ready for it to go that far. I pull back and he releases me this time.

“Let’s get you back up to your house so you can change, gorgeous.”, he says before kneeling in front of me. He helps me put my shoes on and kisses the inside of my knee before standing. He takes my hand, interlacing our fingers and walks up the trail with me.

Rayne is swinging the boys on their swing set, Jayce is sitting on the patio with Tania and Meri watching. I leave Nikolai there with them while I run inside to change. I decide on jean shorts and a t-shirt. I go back downstairs and find Nik sitting on the patio talking to Jayce.

I return his shirt to him, he pulls it over his head. It clings to his muscular chest and arms, but conceals his rock hard abs. I sit beside him and he takes my hand again, kissing the inside of my wrist before resting our hands in his lap. We all sit and talk for a while. Tania says it’s close to lunch time and asks me to come in with her to get sandwiches made for everyone.

I follow Tania into the house telling her everything that happened at the river, skipping over the part where I felt his canines against my neck. “I don’t know, Mother. He is so hard to read. I sensed annoyance from him when he ripped my shorts, like he didn’t like being told no… but his apology saying he misread me seemed genuine. I like him, but I don’t feel like I can trust him.”, I give her all my conflicting thoughts.

She rubs my arm gently, “What do you want to do, Princess?”, she asks.

I shake my head, “I don’t know, Mother. If this goes badly, can we erase a portion of a lycan wolf’s memory?”, I ask.

Tania chuckles, “You cannot make lycan forget they met their mate, Kara.”

I grumble, “It’s not fair! I have to ruin the rest of his life if I decide I do not want to be with him? It makes me feel selfish rejecting him. My life goes on just fine. His gets messed up.”

Tania studies me before responding, “Princess, if you can’t accept him because he holds himself away from you, then that is on him, not you.”

I fidget with the hand towel on the counter. “Mother…”, I say hesitantly. She tilts her head, moving into my line of sight. “I felt his canines on my neck when I turned my head from him… that’s why I forced my power into him.”, her eyes widen.

“Did he try to mark you, Kara?”, she asks.

I sigh heavily, “I’m not sure, I felt them but he wasn’t biting down. He just grazed me with them. It scared me. What exactly happens if he force marks me?”, I ask.

She shakes her head, “I’m not certain, Princess. Let me call Rayne in here and we will ask.”

I nod in agreement and Rayne walks in immediately and stands in front of me, “Kara, if he force marks you, you will feel the pain you saw the night Tania shifted. It will last the entire 5-7 days your body makes the changes and you shift. You won’t be able to will any of the pain to him because you did not accept his bond. It would most likely kill you. This is really serious, do you understand?”

I nod, “Yes, I understand.” He accepts the plate full of sandwiches from Tania while she grabs the bag of bottled waters. He takes those from her as well before turning and walking back toward the patio.

“I have my challenges in 3 days, I don’t know what to do with Nik, but I don’t want to hurt him. Clay is distancing himself for a while. It’s too much all at once and I just need time to process all of it so I can decide what to do.”

Tania nods slowly, “Take some time to work it out in your mind, Princess. You don’t have to have it all figured out right this instant.”, she says, stroking my hair lightly.

I nod and follow her back out onto the patio. I sit wondering if Nik is what Nana meant when she said he would hide himself from me and letting him go will be all too easy. Is he the mate she warned me not to lose?