She grinned. “You sound like you’re looking forward to it.”
He chuckled. “I’m not opposed as much as I thought I’d be.” He ran a hand through her hair. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to Logan and me. So I know that whoever we’re blessed to have join us will be an honorable male.” He smiled, and his light tone surprised her.
Jesse would always be the more serious part of her pack, so to hear him sounding excited, even eager, for the chance to grow their family made her desire it as well.
“If you’re for it, it must be a good thing.” Kate kissed him, then turned to kiss Logan as well.
The three of them watched the new patrols in silence, each deep in their own thoughts yet connected, hip to hip and heart to heart.
Logan cleared his throat. “You know how Diana promised to add another Ravager to her pack since she took Sean, a human, as mate?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, what if our mate isn’t a Ravager at all? What if it’s a human, a Conduit like Sean?”
Kate let that sit with her, but something about herguerrejected the idea. “No,” she intoned. “I don’t think so. He’ll feel like home. He’ll be a Ravager, I think. Because he needs to fit not only with me, but with the two males I love most in the world.”
Kate glanced between them, aware of their energies so finely in tune with each other that they felt like one being. One soul. Her heart was overflowing. And then their love turned her way, and she felt so close to them she knew she’d never forget the beauty of the moment.
The sun set as the threat of Watchers in Savage clan woods urged a need for more security. It didn’t matter, because she had the sense that with her mates by her side, they would conquer all the obstacles life offered.
Jesse and Logan smiled at her. She covered their hands with hers and held on tight. She might have claimed them, but they’d claimed her right back. The perfect beginning for her brand new life.
“Okay, you two. Let’s get those candy asses off the swing and go satisfy my needs.” She laughed when Logan yanked her to her feet and tickled her.
“Demanding thing, aren’t you?” Jesse smirked. “Time to try out a few ofmyfantasies.”
Kate clearly recalled his mention of a flogger and restraints. “I feel like I’ve already lived through that once.”
Jesse grinned, and Logan laughed.
Kate pretended to think it over. “Fine, but this time you get the clamps and Logan wears the gag.”
Logan’s smile turned into a frown. “Now wait just a minute—”
“I can handle that.” Jesse pulled her away from Logan and leered at him. “I like the way you think, mate.” He kissed Kate with love. “I really, really do.”
Chapter Seventeen
Part II
Three months later
Kellen Lawless returned to his pack’s den, only to find it missing his prime and packmates.
“What the hell?”
For the past five years, he’d spent his time abroad, collecting intelligence about other areas of the world saturated by Void energy. Though Cross Step remained a Ravager stronghold, a few smaller towns in southern Germany and a small number of areas in France seemed to be growing in Ravager strength. He hadn’t heard from his prime in too long and knew something had to be wrong, so he’d returned.
Odd that he’d come home to find Nev Lawless dead. Odder still how glad he was of that absence.
The air smelled stale in the darkened cavern, a hint of blood and unbathed bodies lingering in the stains and bits of detritus cluttering pockets of space in the rock walls, on the dirt-covered ground, and scattered near the prime’s throne, highlighted by a thin stream of sunlight that pierced a hole in the cave’s ceiling.
“Hold,” a deep voice growled.
Kellen immediately transformed into hisguerand gained fur and fangs, huge in his warrior’s stance. Unlike others of his kind, he’d been bred to war, a rare berserker who lived to fight. And among Ravagers, that was saying something.
“Shit. Get the others,” the deep voice snarled to someone behind him.
