Ryan shimmered back into human form in mid-stride and collapsed onto the ground in the forest behind the shifter cabin. His insides felt like they would rip in two. Smelling Kate’s scent entwining with that of the damn VonBrandt jackass had been…

So much pain.

He slammed his eyes shut and let the pain rip through him. Pounding his fists on the damp earth, he allowed himself an inhuman wail. His grief cut the air, almost as loud as his howl would have been.

It had been stupid of him to think he could bear seeing Kate with another man. He’d hated it the previous night at the bar. But seeing her with Julian, with a ring…it was just…

His pack could be a bunch of bloodthirsty, crazy animals, and his life’s ambition was to keep them from hurting and killing each other. He’d wanted that more than he’d wanted to have his mate.

Until he’d lost her.

“Dammit!” he yelled, pounding his hands again on the forest floor. Kissing her in the library had been a mistake. That was the moment when his desire had first ignited out of control. If he’d just been able to forgo touching her. Kissing her. Maybe he would have stood a chance.

Maybe not.

He climbed to his feet, dragging himself toward the house. There was nothing he could do about it now. His plan had worked, and Julian had been bluffing at the bar last night. This shouldn’t hurt so much. He’d gotten what he wanted.

Ryan dragged himself up the back steps of the big shifter cabin and pounded his fist hard into the wood railing along the stairs. He gripped the wood in his hand, leaning against it for support. Magick was nothing to fool around with. Somehow, without realizing it, he’d become so attached to Kate that he couldn’t even see her with another man without feeling unimaginable pain. The mate pull was something he’d never experienced before, so he didn’t know much about it. His parents had been a Fated match, but Ryan had never really understood what it meant when he was a kid. He’d never seen the start of a Fated match up close until Dee.

Gods. Dee.

If she felt like this around Will, he had been way too hard on her. If Ryan had been in human form when he’d seen Kate and Julian together, he would have bonded her that very moment.

The protectiveness—the complete certainty—had been so deep.

I know she’s mine.

Yes. There was no getting around that. No way his wolf would be hurting him this much, begging him to rip through the forest to find her, claim her, if they weren’t Fated for each other. But Ryan needed to leave. He couldn’t be around the ranch if he’d have to see Julian and Kate together like that. Bracken was technically still the alpha. Ryan could beg off and go home and prepare for his term.

His one consolation was that the VonBrandts would unquestionably handle Kate’s problem with her pack. She’d marry Julian and accept Aaron as her new alpha, and there would be no reason for her to take the job in Ryan’s office.

He fisted his hand and punched the wood railing again.

Dammit if he hadn’t been half looking forward to fighting his attraction to her, having her around. Being near her every day, whatever the cost to his sanity. As hard as it would be, he’d prefer to be with her—even if he had to stay celibate—than to be away from her.

Fuck. My. Life.

Ryan walked in through the back door, trying to calm himself and ease the pain in his chest with a couple of deep breaths. His mother had always insisted that worked, but Ryan had never needed to try it before. He’d always been pretty even. Rodeo had been his outlet—the place where his adrenaline could come out and play.

But it had been three months since he’d done a rodeo event, even for practice. That had been a sacrifice, no question, but he’d consoled himself with the fact that he was taking one for the team. That the pack would be stronger because of his sacrifice. That he’d been born to lead.

All that seemed hollow now that he was faced with giving up Kate.

He called out, but no one answered. The place was massive, and members of all three out-of-town packs were sleeping in various places, but it was like a ghost house in the cabin.

Ryan strode toward his room, his mind racing. The window was still open and a little breeze wafted through the space, though it was considerably warmer than it had been that morning. Every part of him wanted to go back for Kate. Mark her as his own. Bond her. Fuck her.

Every part was wrong.

He threw on some boxer briefs and gripped the bedding hard in his fingers, trying to control the anger that kept sweeping over him in waves. Anger at himself. At his father for being such a massive ass and pouring fuel on the fire consuming the Oklahoma pack.

Damn his father and his stupid pride.

Ryan grabbed the plaid shirt that he’d worn the previous night. It still smelled like the bar. And like Kate. She’d forced a few of his buttons open, and the fragrance of her touch remained, just enough that he could get a faint whiff. He held it up to his nose.

If he was this crazed over her now, what would it have been like if they’d actually had sex? Or if she’d managed to get the rest of his buttons open and he’d lost control. Or if she’d reached for his dick instead of his lips.

The scent of her body intensified, and he pulled his nose away from the shirt. That wasn’t coming from the fabric. It was drifting into his room. What in the actual fuck?

He whirled around and saw her padding quietly through the living room, covering her breasts and the light thatch of hair between her legs. A possessive growl ripped out of him.

“What are you doing here? Naked? Dammit, Kate.” He ripped his fingers through his hair and stared at her, trying not to acknowledge how hungrily his wolf growled.

She opened her lips, but her voice didn’t come out. Her face and eyes were red, and she reached for him, uncovering her breasts. With a choked sound, she whispered his name, and he was a goner.

Ryan blurred toward her and caught her just as she was about to collapse. It felt so good, so right, to have her in his arms. Like the world hadn’t made any sense until that moment. But she was sobbing into his chest like someone had died.

“What? Kate? What happened?” He pulled her back to look into her eyes, but they were blurred with tears. “Are you hurt?”

“Julian, he’s—”

“Holy mother fucker, if he touched a hair on your head, I will—”

“No.” She pulled at his neck, burying herself in his chest. “No. He didn’t. It was… It was my grandfather.” Her sobs just about broke him in half, there was so much emotion there.

“What? Kate. You have to tell me what happened. Please, baby. Just tell me.” He walked her back toward the bed, almost carrying her, and sat down, letting her sprawl across his lap.

Unfortunately, the sight of her breasts was starting to affect him, and he had a boner to beat the fuckin’ band. This wasn’t the time or the place, though, and he tried to shift her away from contact with the damn thing, but she kept wriggling closer. And dammit if her sweet little thatch wasn’t just fragrant as a rosebush. He wanted to stick his face in it and sniff and suck and…

Focus. Dammit.

There was only one way that was going to happen. He slid her onto the bed and grabbed a gray Sooners T-shirt and some matching shorts. Might as well show some pride while he was covering her up. Dammit, she would have made a sexy cheerleader.

Okay, is this what FOCUS looks like? Fuck.

“Kate. You have to tell me exactly what happened,” he said, pulling the shirt over her head while the tears continued to fall.

“I shifted in my clothes. They’re in complete tatters on the ground in the barn.”

“Why the hell did you shift so fast?” he wondered, pulling the shorts up her legs and getting another noseful of her rosebush. Dammit, he wanted to…

Will you fuckin’ focus?

“My grandfather…he was trying to…” She sniffed and climbed back into his lap. “Gods, Ryan. It was awful.”

He slid his hand down her back, stroking like she was an animal in need of comfort. It was the only thing he could think to do that didn’t involve his boner. She seemed to be safe, and he really…really…really wanted to kiss her.

But he shouldn’t.

“I need you to tell me exactly what happened so I know how to protect you.” He kept up the rhythm on her back and her tears seemed to subside. But there was still so much tension in her body. She was wound tighter than a tin string on a new Gibson. One pluck, and she would shatter.

The rhythm of the circles on her back seemed to soothe her, and she settled against him, heaving in shaky breaths.

“I have to shift back,” she said. “Julian said my grandfather’s alpha magick won’t work on me if I’m a wolf,” she said with a shudder. “He can’t make me do anything.”

“What exactly was your grandpa trying to make you do?”

She shook her head, burying it deeper into the crook of his neck, and he opened his arms so she could fall against him. Her body was flush against his chest, and she was practically straddling him.

Well, shit.

“I need you, Ryan,” she whispered against his neck, and dammit if he didn’t just about lose control right there.

His entire chest filled with hot emotion and he choked it back so he could speak. “What do you need from me, Kate?”

“Take me away,” she said. “I need to get away.”

He glanced at his bag, which he’d been filling with his stuff. Like they were having the exact same thought. No matter what his plans were for the future, no matter what Julian meant to her, no matter what his alpha would do to him, Kate needed him.

And he was going to give her whatever she needed.

Even if it killed him.