One hand slid between us as Adam growled. “Now, Lana. Now…”
My body obeyed his demands. Every inner muscle clenched tightly around him as he exploded deep inside of me, calling out my name. His fingers dug into my hips as he held me against him until the aftershocks faded. When he laid back over me, his elbows rested on either side of my head as he looked into my eyes.
“I love you.” He kissed me.
I smiled. “I love you, too.”
“There’s something else I need to tell you,” he said.
I shook my head with an exhausted smile. “If it’s going to mess with my afterglow here, then I don’t want to know.”
Adam laughed. God, I loved the sound of his laugh. He rolled to the side, pulling me into his arms. I snuggled against his chest with a happy sigh. He kissed my hair, and his hand ran slowly up and down my back.
“There’s a wolf thing that I need to tell you about.”
I raised my head to look down at him. “Uh oh.”
“It’s not bad,” he reached up to cup my cheek in his hand. “Not to me anyway.” He met my eyes. “Remember how I told you we have to convert women before we can have children?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Only boys carry the wolf gene.”
“Right. Well there’s another part of that I didn’t tell you before because I didn’t want you to run away screaming.”
“I love how you’re setting this up so far.”
He shook his head with a grin. “Sorry. It’s just…” He hesitated and my smile faded. “Wolves have an instinct to mate with one female for life. Okay, that’s not even big enough to describe it. It’s like this wolf inside of us comes alive, demanding we protect and love our mate like it’s a physical need. Some of us wait for her to come along, and others just enjoy their freedom without any strings attached.”
“If you’re trying to tell me you’re one of the others, don’t bother. I figured that out a long time ago. You had player written all over you.”
He rubbed his face and heaved a sigh before meeting my eyes. “I’m trying to tell you I found my mate.”
I almost choked on my tongue. My brow furrowed. “What?”
“You, Lana. That’s why I can’t let anything happen to you, and if it means we have to leave Reno, then I’m going with you. I just want you to understand. I can’t let you walk out of my life. You are my life.”
I collapsed back onto his chest, listening to the sound of his heart beating. “We’re not even the same…species? Race? Whatever.” I lifted my head to look up at him. “How is this even possible? Has anyone else in your Pack had a mate who wasn’t human?”
Adam shook his head. “Not in our Pack. And I haven’t heard of it in any others either.”
“So maybe I’m not really your mate—you just really like me.” My inner foster kid whispered I told you so.
Adam brought my hand to his lips and kissed it. “Remember the night we met at the café, when I grabbed your arm to pull you out? It hit me so hard, I almost lost my footing. The wolf knew instantly that you were my other half. My mate. And in the donut shop? When that guy starting flirting with you, I came unglued. I wanted to beat the crap out of him. It was over the top.” He put my hand over his heart. “I thought those stories were Pack legends to try to get us to settle down, but trust me. I’m a believer now. Jaguar or not, you’re my mate.”
I tried to wrap my brain around it. “But we can’t be together here, and I can’t take you away from your Pack.”
“You can’t take me, but I can choose to go.” Adam stroked my hair. “We’re a team, okay? Where you go, I go.”
“No, you don’t understand. When Sebastian told me about the Nero Organization, he mentioned that they tried to train some werewolf subjects to be assassins like the jaguars, but the wolves couldn’t work alone. He said something about their spirits being weakened. They need to live in a Pack. You can’t just leave them, Adam.”
“I wouldn’t trust everything Sebastian tells you.” He held me a little tighter. “He just wants you to stay away from me.”
“We weren’t discussing you when he told me this.”
Adam shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about him anymore.”
I sighed. “He also told me that if he doesn’t bring me back to the organization soon, they’ll send another jaguar after me.”
He held me a little tighter. “I’ll kill him.”
“Killing a bunch of jaguars isn’t the answer here,” I said. “One of them might be my brother.”
“What?” Adam tensed and pulled back enough to look down at me.
“Sebastian didn’t confirm it, but he thinks my mother gave birth and hid me from Nero. They only got the boy.”
His fingers slowly traced my spine before he spoke. “ As far as they knew, you didn’t exist until you got those CAT scans.”
“Exactly.” I kissed along his neck. “I think I need to get down to San Antonio and see if I can get my sealed records. There might be a clue about my parents. I need to put the pieces together to truly know what I am up against.”
“You think they’re hiding from Nero, too?” His fingers stroked through the back of my hair. I closed my eyes, resting my head against his chest and drinking in the comfort.
“Sebastian told me my father is still with Nero…” I wet my lips, pushing down my emotions. “My mother was eliminated.”
“I’m sorry, Lana.” He kissed my hair. “You know she loved you.”
I frowned without lifting my head. “How do you know that?”
“Because she didn’t want you to be an experiment like she was. It probably broke her heart to leave you behind, but it was her only chance to save you.”
I kissed over his heart while mine broke for a woman I never got to meet. “I want to know where she left me and when. I want to know everything.”
“I’m going with you.”
I wiped my tears and lifted my head. “What about the ranch?”
“Luke can exercise the horses. We won’t be gone long.”
“No.” I kissed his lips, then pulled back and met his eyes. “I’m not taking you away from your Pack.”
“It’s not forever.” He reached up to cup my cheek. “Remember what I said about needing to protect you?” He kissed me again, long and slow. For a second my brain short-circuited and I forgot what we were talking about.
I laughed softly. “You’re trying to distract me.”
“Am I?” He flashed me an innocent smile.
I gave him a gentle shove. “You know you are.” My smile faded a little. “What about your brother?”
He sobered. “He won’t like me going away with you.”
“Will he follow us?”
I could feel the weight of his stare. “Probably.”
“We could ditch him. I’m good at hiding under the radar.”
“I know you told me you thought you’d be okay being a secret, and I thought I’d be all right with it too. But I’ve lied to my family enough. I feel like a spineless asshole. I don’t want to hide anymore.”
His admission felt like a punch in the gut. He lied to them all because of me.
“I should get ready to go.” I pulled free of his embrace and sat up in the bed, yanking my cotton T-shirt back down.
He watched me get up. “This isn’t your fault, Lana. But I’ve never kept a secret from Aren. Never.” His voice dropped even lower as he looked over toward the window. “I hit him yesterday.”
“You did what?”
He rubbed his knuckles, staring at his hand. “We both said things we shouldn’t have. It escalated.”
I pressed my hand to forehead. “God, Adam. Even if we found a way to keep Nero away, I can’t stay here and singlehandedly destroy your relationship with your family. I can’t. I won’t.”