Page 21 of A Velvet Kiss After Dark

Kane required Zeke's permission to have sex with Tabby and to claim her for his own and thus mark her as his mate so others couldn't touch her.

To claim a mate the book said: after receiving permission from the pack alpha, the couple would engage in coital operations in which the male would bite the female. If she too was a werewolf, she would bite him in return to exchange lifeblood.

It then went on to showcase examples of various species interbreeding. All of them involved biting and the exchange of blood. Not one of them mentioned humans. Fragile beings with short-life spans. And he was nearly immortal.

What was he supposed to do about that?

You only got one fated mate. It was said that if one mate died, the other would soon die after. Either ending their life or stopping their heart to be with their loved ones on the other side.

Just peachy.

Typical reactions of males to finding their female mates included: unusual behaviors (he'd snatched her away the very first time he saw her—needing to be near her and alone), protective urges (he kept vigilant watch over her and her home), untamable desire (his cock was still hard for her—enough said), and the beasts’ acceptance of the mate. This, he knew, had already occured.

His Beast purred when she was near.

Kane scrubbed a hand over his head. Damn it all.

Zeke was right. He did have a mate. And it was Tabitha Burke.

How was he supposed to tell her that?

Kane laid his forehead against the cool wood table, sighing. The muscles in his neck and back were tauter than a drawn bow string. His head pounded and so did his heart. Nerves twisted in his gut.

He couldn't believe it. He hadn't even known if the whole mate thing was real. Apparently, it was, and Tabitha Burke was his perfect divine fit.

They were meant to be together.

Flashbacks came to him. Of a time when he'd been chained in a kennel with his ever-positive brother. Even after all these years, six hundred as a matter of fact, the pain was as fresh as if he'd watched his brother die yesterday. He could still see the blood seeping from his eyes, the infected wound at his waist. He could still see Elustrian's head rolling across that shiny white marble floor as he'd bitten off his body with the very same teeth he still harbored today. He saw himself and Konner back in that basement after a day of abuse, reminiscing about what their perfect mates would be.

"What would yours be like?" Konner had asked him about his fated mate.

"She's smart," he said. "We'll talk for hours. It'll never get boring. We'll never tire of each other. We'll never be sad."

Even after all these years, his chest constricted, burning and ravaging him from the inside out.

Shoving those brutal memories away, Kane shoved the books back where they belonged and grabbed his bag to leave.

He needed to get home to think up his game plan for getting the relic. But first he wanted to see Tabitha again.

He didn't want to leave without a proper farewell. After all, what if he never made it back home? He certainly didn't want to die without having ever kissed his female.

***

He needed to see her. Smell her. Hear her voice one more time. I have a fated wife. One made by the universe specifically for him, suited to equalize, match, and sync with every point of his being.

Not since his brother Konner did he have someone else to fight for. This one he wanted to protect. It explained his hyper-vigilant, volatile feelings she wrought from him from the very first.

How many journeyed into the demon realms and didn't return? Unfortunately, there were no statistics to refer to.

As if he'd always known it, all the pieces of the puzzle clicked into place. All of his irrational feelings for her which began from the moment he scented her across a crowded room—how he needed to protect her, how he needed to be near her—it all came back to this.

Now that Alpha Zeke had legitimized his yearnings, and Kane acknowledged them himself, he was helpless not to go see her before he went into the demon realm tomorrow. He planned to return in one piece and claim his fated wife as a prize. A wry smirk quickened at his mouth at the mere thought of what her loud, precocious mind would think. She was only just a human, after all.

After leaving the library, Kane detoured to make a stop at her apartment. Concerned when she didn't answer, and not caring for the spike of anxiety that clogged in his throat at her lack of response, he used his lock pick he kept in his rucksack to jimmy open her door. The lights were off, and she wasn't home, but she'd packed more of her belongings.

He had to figure out where she was going to. But first he needed to find her. A slip of paper on her desk, scribbled in haste, showed an event tonight for VNN. He managed to locate a street address at the bottom of the paper; a good clue for him to go off of.

Outside he shifted enough so that his werewolf sense of smell could better track her. He found it floating in the breeze, soft, womanly and sweet as candy. She'd been here recently. Her moped was gone, too.

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