Chapter 2 Two

Damon

I heard the rumble of my brother's motorcycle pulling into the driveway, but I didn't bother looking up from the basswood I was whittling. The piece I was working on was at a tricky spot, and he could let himself into the house since we shared the place. He must have fiddled with something on his bike because I spent another fifteen to twenty minutes working on the tail of the animal I was carving before he stomped into the kitchen.

"Another one bites the dust," Cason grumbled as he stuck his keys on the peg by the door.

I set my knife on the table and glanced up at him. "What do you mean?"

"Mike was in a fender bender this morning. A cute little human backed into him while pulling out of a parking spot at the grocery store. He was pissed as fuck at the dent in his bumper, but his anger disappeared when he went to check on her and got a lungful of her scent," he explained with a wishful gleam in his eyes.

My head reared back in shock. "His mate crashed into him?"

"Yeah, she was on a motherfucking road trip across the country to find herself or some shit like that." He pulled out the chair across from me and dropped onto it.

I shook my head and sighed, "What are the odds?"

"Slim to fucking none, considering how far off the highway we are." He scrubbed his palms up and down his face. "She had to have taken one hell of a detour to wind up in Timber Ridge."

"That's for fucking sure," I agreed. Our hometown was off the beaten path, which worked well for our pack because we had plenty of room to roam in our animal forms without having to worry about humans spotting us. There were two towns between us and the highway, so we didn't get many tourists all the way out here.

"And get this-she barely did any damage. That dent was smaller than my fist." He held up his hand, clenching it tight. "The only reason he was so angry was because he just bought the damn car last week."

"Some guys have all the luck," I grumbled, tracing the tip of my finger over the carving I was working on. The animal wasn't recognizable yet, but I already had a feeling it was going to be one of my best pieces.

"And none of them have the same last name as we do." A muscle jumped in Cason's jaw.

I wished I could argue with him, but the men in our family hadn't had much luck when it came to fated mates. Shit usually seemed to go wrong for Kemp males and the women who were meant to be theirs. Neither of our uncles had found their mates-one of our great-uncles was rejected like Aaron had been, and the other still hadn't found his. There had been plenty of trouble for the male ancestors further back, too.

Our dad had been one of the few lucky ones. He'd grown up next door to our mom, and they had realized they were mates when my mom turned eighteen. After being together for years and having three pups, my dad thought that they'd broken the bad luck streak. But his hope that the family curse had finally ended dried up when my brother Aaron was rejected by his fated mate.

The human he'd been paired with had cared more about money than love and didn't think my brother could give her what she thought she needed. She decided she'd rather marry a rich guy she had zero feelings for instead of mating the only man she'd ever desire. Aaron had spiraled after it had all gone down. He'd eventually decided that he couldn't stay with the pack and went lone wolf. He checked in with us sporadically, but none of us had seen my brother in years, and I missed the fuck out of him.

"Does it bother you?" Cason asked, pulling me out of my dark thoughts.

I shook my head to clear it. "What?"

He got up and walked over to the fridge, pulling out two beers before returning to the table. After sliding one of the cans toward me, he popped the top on his and took a sip. "Does being surrounded by so many fated mate pairings make you wonder if it's ever going to happen for you?"

"I don't know." I shrugged and gulped down about half my beer. "I'm happy for our pack mates, but some days, it's hard to see how in love some of them are, knowing that it's never going to happen for me."

Cason guzzled the rest of his drink, slammed the can on the table, and crushed it with his fist. "Never is a long time. Maybe you'll be one of the lucky ones."

"Not fucking likely," I muttered before finishing my beer and heading over to the fridge to grab two more.

Cason flashed me a smile when I handed him one of the cans. "Yeah, I'm having a hard time believing that I'm going to end up mated anytime soon."

"Or ever," I sighed as I dropped onto my chair.

"I'm trying not to let my pessimism reach quite that level yet." My brother's shoulders slumped. "But I'm not doing a great job at it."

"I'm the last person who can judge you for being a cynic when it comes to finding a mate. It's not as though my odds are any better than yours." My wolf huffed inside my head as though he thought his human counterpartwas an idiot.

"That fucking curse," he muttered, shaking his head. "Our family has paid more than enough for whatever bad luck they earned way back when."

"Damn fucking straight," I agreed. "It pisses me the fuck off that Aaron is going to suffer for the rest of his life when he's never done shit to hurt anyone."

Cason leaned back in his seat and stared up at the ceiling. "Do you think he'll ever come back?"

"Fuck, I hope so." I scrubbed my hands over my face and sighed, shaking my head. My gut told me that the odds of Aaron returning to Timber Ridge were slim to none. As much as I missed my brother, I didn't blame him for leaving. Living the rest of his life without his fated mate was tough enough, so spending time in the place where he had been rejected would be like a knife to the gut every day.

"Yeah, neither do I." Cason sat up, guzzled his beer, and crushed the can with his fist. He tapped the top of the carving I had been working on. "What's this?"

"It's going to be a tiger." For some odd reason, my wolf was feeling territorial over the piece. When I felt his fur brush against the inside of my skin, I snagged the chunk of wood off the table and clutched it in my fist.

"Relax, dude. I'm not going to steal a half-finished carving." Cason held his hands up, palms facing me. "Are you making it for Tane or one of his pups?"

That was a good guess since I often gave my finished pieces to members of our pack. Usually when I started a new carving, I had someone specific in mind. Not this time, though. I'd planned on a completely different design, but once I'd gotten my hands on that chunk of basswood, it had felt as though each stroke of my blade along the wood was guided by my wolf. The sentiment was strange as fuck, considering my inner animal had never been interested in my hobby. But the tiger I was whittling sure as hell had his attention. "Nope, I think I'm going to keep this one."

My brother's head jerked up, and his eyes widened. "Really?"

His surprise was understandable since I'd given away every single carving I'd made over the years. I whittled because it relaxed me, not for any emotional attachment to my pieces. Once they were done, I was ready to hand them off and get to work on something new. But not this time. The thought of anyone other than me owning the tiger I was creating pissed me the fuck off. "Yup."

"Huh." He craned his neck, trying to get a better look at the carving clenched in my fist. "That doesn't sound like you at all. Why are you keeping that one?"

"Because I want it." I didn't have a better answer for him since I didn't have a clue what was different about this piece.

Cason quirked a brow before standing up and walking over to the trash can to toss out the cans he had crushed. "Alrighty then. Now that you've cleared that up for me, I guess I'll leave you to your whittling. Maybe you'll be a little less touchy about your carving once it's done."

"Sorry," I grumbled, loosening my hold on the partially completed tiger to set it on the table. Now that my brother wasn't sitting across from me, my wolf relaxed a little over his proximity to the carving. I needed to get the damn thing done soon, and then maybe I could figure out why it was so fucking different from all the other pieces I'd done.