Fate Stained - Part Two
Chapter 13 - Don’t Take The Bait

Being kicked out of my own bedroom, and not by Quinn, was a new experience for me. I barely knew Flynn but one thing I was certain of, was his love towards his sister. Through my bond with Quinn, I could feel her connection with Flynn and his with her. They were linked and their bond was growing stronger everyday.

If Flynn needed me to leave the room so he could help my Luna get better, then that’s what I’d do…so long as Kyanite left too.

I stood in the dining room with Moira, Mason and the panther. Atropos was nowhere to be seen, I imagined she must have gone back to whatever realm she’d appeared from - good, I didn’t trust her one bit.

“She’ll be fine Jayce, Flynn will see to that” Moira soothed, sensing my obvious anxiety.

“I know. I just feel helpless, that’s all. Was Flynn with you at the clinic when I linked you?”

Moira nodded and smiled slightly. I knew she was going to help the Warlock with his connection to his animal but I didn’t know they’d begun already.

“Yes. He’d been with me since early morning, Mason too. He’s coming along well, his animal subconscious is strong though, very strong. I can’t figure out whether he is a single, hybrid or tribrid. The tea I’m giving Flynn mellows his animal somewhat until we can strengthen their connection; but by doing this I can’t see if he has multiple animals or not. If he has a single animal then he’s got an Alpha gene for sure—”

“He’d have the Alpha gene anyway” Mason jumped in, “he is my son after all”

“Not necessarily” Moira continued, “remember the son of the Alpha from the Baintree Pack? His wolf didn’t carry an Alpha gene at all and he was challenged as the future leader of the pack”

“I remember that” I added, “I believe it was the Beta’s son that ended up challenging him and won, taking over as Alpha when the time came. He carried an Alpha gene that was passed down from a distant uncle on his mother’s side”

It wouldn’t have surprised me in the slightest that Flynn would carry the Alpha gene, and a dominant one at that. His father had been a powerful Alpha and his mother was The Shifter Queen, those genetics weren’t exactly going to create any mediocre offspring.

“When can he stop drinking the tea then?” I asked.

Moira sighed and shrugged her shoulders.

“I don’t know. That girl, Fern, she’s kind of thrown a spanner in the works. If I take him off the tea too early then we risk him losing control of his animal and potentially hurting Fern. But if I keep him on it for too long then I’ll be hindering his animal’s natural progression and need to shift for the first time. It’s almost a lose-lose situation”

“Do you have secure holding facilities here?” Kyanite asked from the back of the room.

“Yeah, why? Are you wanting to get placed in one?”

The panther narrowed his gaze on me before turning his attention back to Moira.

“What if we secure him and bring on a shift? That way you’ll get an idea of what you’re dealing with animal-wise and you won’t be hindering his natural progression”

Mason sat down on one of the chairs at the dining table, his hand rubbing his jaw as he considered the panther’s suggestion. I had to hand it to him, and I’d never admit it out loud, but it wasn’t the worst idea I’d heard.

“I mean, it’s not ideal experiencing your first shift in a large cage—”

“But it’s better than losing control and raping your fated mate” Kyanite added, cutting Mason off.

“Calm down Prince” I but in, “you don’t know that’s what would happen”

Kyanite scoffed, his jaw tensing as he glared at me. My wolf stirred just below the surface, not like the look in the panther’s eyes.

“But isn’t that what you did with Quinn—?”

Oh no he fucking didn’t!

“—didn’t you attack her in the shower and put her in Moira’s clinic for a week? She told me all about it, all about how you couldn’t control your wolf and tried to—”

I closed the distance between myself and the panther before anyone in the room had a chance to act. Grabbing him around the throat I slammed him into the wall, his head smashing the glass in a frame that hung behind him.

“You have no fucking idea what you’re talking about” I snarled.

I could feel the anger and hatred boiling inside me. My wolf was raring to go, begging me to let him out so he could rip the head off this fuckface and end this multiple mate saga once and for all. The only reason I hesitated, the only reason I fought to keep my wolf reigned in was because I knew killing Kyanite would break Quinn’s heart, it would be something she would never forgive.

“Don’t I?” Kyan hissed, his panther’s fangs beginning to protrude from his jaw, he lowered his voice and almost leant into me with what he said next, “Quinn has told me a lot about you, she was very chatty in Hell when she was lying in my arms, her naked body dripping in sweat and cum after I’d fucked every hole of her’s and made her scream my name like a little slu—”

I snapped, what happened next being a blur even to me. I could faintly hear the screaming and yelling in the background, combined with the wet and sloppy gurgles that came from Kyanite’s mouth as he slid limply to the floor, blood pouring from between his lips like some kind of red water fountain. I looked down at my hands and black wolf claws stared back up at me, each sharp point coated in the panther’s life.

My body stumbled to the side a fraction as the feeling of someone bumping into me vibrated through my right side. Blood pumped thickly through my veins, the sound almost deafening in my ears as it blocked out the yelling around me. Another bump. I looked down to the panther’s body - so much blood. Moira and Flynn knelt over him, their hands frantically grasping at his chest as red covered everything.

Jayce!

I blinked. What happened? Looking at my hands again I was relieved to see my claws had retracted.

JAYCE!

I blinked again. If Flynn was here, then where was—

“JAYCE! what the fuck did you do?!”

What did I—?

Slap!

The feeling of skin striking sharply against my cheek was enough to jolt my mind back into gear. I blinked again and shook my head, opening my eyes to replace Quinn standing in front of me.

“Jayce! Can you fucking hear me?! What the fuck?!”

She was mad. Furious. Her eyes were black as night and all I could think about was the stress this would be putting on her body and that she should be upstairs resting.

“Quinn. You’re ok! You need to calm dow—”

Slap!

She fucking hit me. Again!

“Calm down? CALM DOWN?! I was calm until you decided to try and kill my mate!”

Shit. Kyanite.

I peered over Quinn’s head to where the panther was lying on the floor, blood surrounding him and Moira and Flynn still tending to him.

“Is he—?”

“He’ll be fine” Mason grunted, coming up beside me, his hand resting on my arm, “Flynn has some pretty impressive healing tricks up his sleeve, otherwise you’d have one very pissed off Panthera Queen on your hands”

“Not to mention one very pissed off Luna” Quinn growled.

“Quinn, I’m sorry, but Kyanite— he—”

“I don’t fucking care Jayce. Save it”

Quinn sighed, rubbing her head where she’d injured it earlier. I opened my mouth to speak and Quinn held up her hand to stop me.

“Don’t. Just don’t. Flynn—” she said, turning around to face her brother, “—I’ve arranged for the cabin behind the pack house to be cleared out, it hasn’t been used for a while. You and Kyan can stay there for now. Can you and dad move him there please? I’ll be there shortly”

Flynn nodded and I watched as Mason walked over to him, hooking one shoulder under Kyan’s arm while Flynn took the other. The panther muttered something and Quinn’s face softened as she watched him get carried out the back door.

“I can’t do this with you right now” Quinn whispered.

My head turned quickly and I looked down at her. She wasn’t looking at me, instead her shoulders were slumped and she stared at her feet.

“Do what?” I asked gently.

“I’ve been so distraught, so broken up thinking about what I’d done to you, how I’d upset you. Last night I felt like we’d taken a step in such a positive direction. It was almost like we were us again…almost. But then the two of you are left without my supervision for an hour and you nearly kill him. Jayce, you know how much Kyan means to me and you tried to kill him”

Fuck! If only she’d heard the way that piece of shit had spoken about her. There was no way my wolf would ever put up with another man speaking like that about our mate, even if he was her mate too. I’d never stoop so low to disrespect Quinn in such a way, talk about her like she was an object, just a warm body to fuck and throw to the side. I knew he’d done it just to make me snap, and it worked - I hated myself for that.

“Quinn. I won’t try to justify why I did it, there’s no point. I get it that you need space, you know where I am when you decide you’ve had enough of it”

With that I turned my back on my mate and headed out the front door. I could feel her standing behind me, shocked that I hadn’t pled for her forgiveness or even put up a fight as to why I did what I did. I knew Quinn. She was pissed off and with that came a level of stubbornness that I both hated and loved. She needed time to process what had happened and she needed to figure out how she felt about it; and I had to give her that time.

I also had to trust, that in that time, Quinn wouldn’t run back into Kyanite’s arms and ruin the progression that we’d made, how minor that progression may have been.

I headed over to Cameron’s house and as I approached the front door, it opened, Blake standing there to greet me.

“Quinn just linked me, she said you might show up here. You ok?”

I laughed, although not replaceing the situation very funny.

“I don’t fucking know”

Blake gestured for me to come inside and stepped out of the way.

“Cam’s in his office. Come in”

“The house seems unusually quiet” I said, stepping inside, “where are the triplets?”

I followed Blake down the back of the house to Cameron’s office.

“Onyx and Norah have taken them to the park. Mummy needed a break”

I smiled down at Blake as she rubbed her belly. Exhaustion was etched into her face as she sighed wearily. My hat went off to the woman, all women in fact, that carried babies, whether it was to term or not. Thinking back to when Quinn had been pregnant with Delilah brought back bittersweet memories; the dizzy spells, the nausea, the exhaustion— wait, what if?

No. You’d sense it, we’d know.

My wolf shut the idea down as quickly as it had popped into my head. Could Quinn be pregnant? Of course she could be, but after what we’d been through with Delilah I was sure I’d know the second she carried my baby again.

Unless she was…and it wasn’t my baby.