Years after he was reduced to nothing but ash, Thaddeus had one more life to take.
Kaz didn’t think about his mother often. He tried not to, at least. She was dead — another woman’s life snuffed out by his very existence. It was out of respect that he didn’t dwell on her memory, seeing as he was responsible for her miserable end.
But as he held his own matein his arms, Kaz thought of her. He tried to imagine what it must have been like for Thaddeus to hold Amira for the first time. He tried to picture himself getting up, walking away from Atria, to return to another woman’s bed.
Kaz got as far as “getting up” before his mind rebelled.
He simply could not imagineleavingAtria, let alone for another woman. He couldn’t force himself to abandon her, nor seek her out for only snatches of time, without feeling like ants were crawling under his skin.
And in that simple truth, he finally understood what he had gotten wrong for so many years.
Thaddeus’s mistake was not that he met his consort, relinquishing control over himself to the whim of biology to disastrous ends. Rather, it was that he didn’t have the fucking stones tostay.
The answer Kaz had sought in the frantic drive from the Denver airport, when he wondered how he could get control over himself, seemed so obvious to him now that he cringed thinking about it.
It washer.
Yes, surrendering to the pull, thekohl,was a hit to his pride, but once done, he felt… free.
He didn’t have the usual aggression that made him itch for a fight. He didn’t feel like he was drowning under the weight of his own emotions, the burden he carried every single day.
Holding Atria made him razor focused, clear-headed, and in control. For the first time in his life, Kaz was not only in control of himself, but he wascontent.
He didn’t feel like a new person, nor that his personality had been rewritten by hormones. He was finallyhimself.It was as if he’d been functioning under a layer of fog his entire life and Atria’s nearness had simply… burned it away.
Kaz would not walk back into the fog. He wouldn’t make his father’s mistakes. He’d forge his own path with his witch. At that moment, he didn’t know where that would take them, but it mattered far less than simply being with her.
Keep her safe. Find out who’s hunting her. Get her to the conference. Figure out how to be a good mate. Make her love me. Make her happy. Never let her go.
He wasn’t sure if the roaring desire to consume everything about her was love, but he figured it was a damn good start.
His instincts had gotten him this far. They urged him to stay the course, to give her what she needed, and to keep her close always. All good suggestions.
But what now?
The memory of Norman pointing his gun at Atria made nausea bubble in his gut. Kaz tightened his grip on his mate as the lingering terror swept through him in a prickly wave. In the split second Norman had been allowed to aim his gun at Atria, Kaz was absolutely certain that if she died, he would, too.
He had only experienced fear like that once, when his mother passed. It was a hysterical, unreasonable sort of feeling, the kind that sent animals careening over cliffsides and had mothers lifting cars off of children. It was foundational, brutal. Kaz was absolutely determined toneverfeel it again.
That meant finding somewhere safe to lay low. The Protectorate was still out of the question, especially now that he knew how long Atria and Ruby’s kidnapping must have been planned. All major cities were cut from the list of safe harbors, though he had connections in most of them.
Kaz briefly considered seeking sanctuary with Camille and Viktor’s pack, but almost immediately discarded the thought. Though they were relatively secluded in a tiny town about an hour outside of Minneapolis, he knew they’d experienced a bit of a coyote shifter baby boom. Even if there hadn’t been so many children around, Kaz wouldn’t have felt right bringing potential violence to the pack’s door — though he knew both Camille and Viktor would heartily disagree with that choice.
If nothing else, Viktor would relish the opportunity to see Kaz brought so low by his little witch.
But where could they go now? The Solbournes had safehouses all over the UTA. Theoretically, he could take Atria to any one of them and lock her down, but Theodore would be alerted the instant he stepped onto the property.
What they needed was a place to hunker down for a while, a place where they could regroup, strategize, and… other things.
Kaz’s stomached dipped low at the thought of holing up somewhere with Atria for a week or two. A deep, instinctual need urged him to follow that thought.
For once, he actually listened.
Take her somewhere dark and safe,orcish instinct pressed.Give her a place to nest, where we can be alone and protected. Bring her home.
Home?
Kaz’s lips parted on a surprised breath. An old, wounded part of him recoiled from the thought, but he forced himself to consider what exactly his instincts were trying to tell him.
