Catching Kate (Book 2.5 She-Wolf Series)
Chapter 7

Emerick

It had taken a few hours to rein in Zef. I hadn’t lost control like that since I was a teenager. Even back then, I could’ve kept him from running hundreds of miles in the dense wilderness with my alpha on my heels. If Luke hadn't followed, I'm not sure anyone would have been able to help stop us from tearing apart the entire Redclaw territory looking for an escape.

I felt immense guilt for my reaction to Kate’s injuries and her not wanting to tell me what was going on. It was clear I scared her. I held my mate on the couch and searched for the right thing to say.

In the end, it was Kate who spoke first.

“Are you okay?” She asked, tentatively.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m fine, Kate. Are you okay?”

She hesitated before saying, “Honestly, I’ve been better.”

I nodded against the top of her head. “You don’t have to tell me,” I told her. “I just need to know you’re not going to see him anymore. If he’s a boyfriend -"

“Boyfriend would be generous,” she cut me off. Then she sighed and her voice came out barely audible. “I was his mistress.”

I tried to keep myself from tensing up at her words. I kept my breathing even and drew gentle circles on her arm with my fingers. When I didn’t say anything, she continued.

“I graduated early and was in my last year of law school when I was 22,” she explained. “I was offered an internship at a top firm in Chicago and jumped at it. There was this girl in my class - she was a little older and her dad was an attorney also. Anyway, she told me the partner offering me the job was known for being weird with his interns.”

She scoffed. “I thought she was jealous. It seemed like such a great opportunity, and really if the guy was a little touchy, whatever, you know? I could still put it on my resume and go elsewhere after graduation,” she shook her head. “I didn’t though. I loved the job.

“Sure, my boss was a little too friendly, but I liked the attention. He gave me cases to work on that I had no business handling. All it took was a little batting of my eyelashes and I got what I wanted.

“It was a few months before anything physical actually happened - just a kiss - but it didn’t stop there. We kept up the affair. We worked closely during the day, he went home to his wife and kids, then he met me at my apartment a few hours later. I have no idea what bullshit he fed his wife, but he never seemed overly eager to get home.

“He showered me with gifts. Every week he gave me expensive clothes, shoes, bags - you name it. He took me on extravagant trips and it was always the best of everything. I knew it was wrong, but I didn’t know how to end it gracefully and part of me didn’t want to. I was a struggling law student. I never would have been able to afford the lifestyle he was offering me.

“When I graduated, the managing partner offered me a job at the firm because of the glowing recommendation from him. I took it, of course. I figured since he wasn’t my supervisor anymore, it would be fine and I could break things off more easily.

“My first day as a full-fledged attorney, I walked into a new nightmare. Apparently, my lover staged a coup and the board voted out the former managing partner. He was in charge. It was the initial inkling that I made a really big mistake.

“The first time he showed me who he was - the first time he hit me - was the night I tried to end things. It was just a slap, but he threatened to fire me and blacklist me from any other job I applied for. I was a brand-new, corporate attorney. There was no way any major firm would take a chance on me if he told them I wasn’t worth it.

“So began the next four years of my hell. He begged me for forgiveness every time. The gifts got bigger. He paid off my condo when he gave me the scar on my back.”

“What happened?” I asked, not able to hold myself back.

“He threw me into a glass coffee table,” she shrugged. “I had dinner with a client and he saw a text just thanking me for a great time. Forty-seven stitches later… He said he felt terrible about it. He fucking cried in my living room. That was nine months ago.”

“Did you ever try to tell anyone?” I asked.

She bit her lip and shook her head.

“I didn’t want anyone to know. I didn’t want to admit that I’m that person. Do you know I took fifteen years of martial arts and self defense classes? Not once did I fight back. What the fuck is wrong with me? How did I let him do that?”

“Hey, hey,” I said, gently and squeezed her a little tighter. “You were twenty-two, Kate. He was a grown man in a position of power, dangling your career over your head.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she argued, her voice thick with emotion. “I knew he was married. I knew he had a loving wife and two gorgeous kids. Still, I fucked him, and I liked it. I liked that he chose me over her.”

She shook her head and wiped away tears.

“I thought he loved me,” she said, quietly. “Even when he hit me, I thought it was because he loved me too much to let me go. When he said he would leave her, I believed him. I wanted him too. How could I have wanted to tear apart a family? God! I was so stupid!”

“Kate, you weren’t stupid,” I told her. “He was manipulating you. He knew what he was doing.”

“Maybe,” she conceded. “But I knew what I was doing too. I chose my career over doing the right thing and walking away.”

“That doesn’t mean you deserved to be abused.”

She looked up at me. “That doesn’t mean I deserve to be happy either.”

“Kate…” I said, softly.

“Emerick, I sent his wife everything when I decided to move to the Redclaw Pack,” she admitted. “I thought she deserved to know and maybe that if she did, he would leave me alone. You can see how he felt about that stunt,” she gestured to her battered body. “He couldn’t say anything at the office when I turned in my resignation, but he met me at my apartment that night.

“I didn’t even realize he has a key, but he was sitting in my living room with a half-drunk bottle of whiskey when I got there. My apartment looked like a fucking war zone by the end.”

I took deep breaths to try and keep Zef from breaking free again. He pounded in my head to be let out. He hadn’t gotten the blood he wanted earlier, and he was still ready for a fight. Only the little human still sitting on my lap kept him at bay.

“This time, I hit him back,” she said after a moment. “He tried to… force himself on me. I kicked him in the groin and bashed in his face with a table lamp. He didn’t even see it coming.”

She sounded proud of herself and I was too. It took courage to face a monster.

“You did what you had to,” I told her.

“What I had to do,” she agreed. “And what I wanted to do.”

“Did he leave then?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she nodded. “I’m fairly confident he needed stitches.”

“Good girl,” I told her.

She grinned, slightly.

“Please don’t tell anybody about everything,” she said, softly. “I’ll tell them eventually. I just want a little more time to pretend they don’t know.”

“It’s not something to be embarrassed of,” I argued.

“Really? Would you have thought yesterday that I would be the one to take a man kicking the shit out of me for four years?”

I looked away. The truth was I never would have imagined it in my wildest dreams. She was the feistiest woman I had ever met. If you had told me a man hit her, I would’ve asked where she buried his body.

When I didn’t respond she said, “Exactly.”

“Only because you never let on you were in trouble, Kate,” I reasoned.

“Maybe I didn’t feel like I was until he threw me into that coffee table,” she pondered. “It was the first time I thought he might actually kill me. He told me exactly what to say to the police before he called 911. I was bleeding out in a hotel room, and he was worried about whether I would get him in trouble.”

An accidental growl escaped my chest and Kate jumped.

“Sorry,” I muttered. “If I ever see that mother fu -”

“Just let it go,” she said, firmly. “He’s extremely well connected and insanely wealthy. It’s not worth the fight. Besides, he can’t get to me here. There’s nothing more he can hold over me and I just want to move on.”

She settled back into my chest with a sigh. I could feel exhaustion coming off of her in waves.

“Did this happen last night?” I asked.

“No,” she said, softly. “It was the first night I was there. I, um, couldn’t sleep after that though. I just spent my time cleaning up.”

I ground my teeth together at the thought of my mate, sitting alone in her apartment and terrified of a man trying to hurt her. I should have never let her leave on her own.

“I’m so sorry, Kate,” I told her.

“You didn’t do anything,” she sighed.

I shook my head, “I should have been there. I shouldn’t have let you go alone.”

She looked at me and placed a hand on my cheek.

“I didn’t want you to know,” she said. “I thought I could handle it on my own, so I purposefully didn’t tell you.”

There was nothing else I could say. I felt like I had failed her. I wanted to beg her forgiveness, but she would probably just be annoyed. I wished I could go back in time and insist on traveling with her. In truth, she probably still wouldn’t have let me even if she knew what was coming.

Instead of saying anything, I picked her up and carried her to my room. She didn’t fight me when I settled her into my bed. I took off her shoes and wrapped her under the covers.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

I nodded and turned to go into the bathroom.

“Where are you going?” She asked, sounding worried.

“I need a shower.”

“Okay,” she said, softly.

I turned on the water and leaned against the wall while I waited for it to get warm. I leaned my head back and stared at the ceiling, praying to the Moon Goddess for healing for my mate. She would need all the help she could get physically and emotionally.

I stepped into the hot water and watched as it sluiced over my body. I pressed my forearms into the tile of the wall and leaned my head against them, trying to calm my furious wolf.

‘I will hunt the pathetic bastard,’ Zef growled as he paced.

‘You need to calm down,’ I argued.

'Let some human hurt my mate?’ he spat.

‘You’re scaring Kate.’

At that, he finally backed down ever so slightly. It was enough that I felt like I could breathe again without him taking control. I was so focused, I barely heard the shower door open before I turned to see Kate standing behind me.

She looked a little uncharacteristically unsure of herself, but came willingly when I opened my arms to her. The feel of her naked body against mine centered me further. I knew she needed someone to lean into.

I vowed to be that person for her from then, until the end of my days.