Chapter 81 - Dog Fight

It was the very early hours of the morning and Raeliana was feeling warm. Too warm. As her eyes peaked open she felt Kai shift in the bed next to her. His arm was wrapped tightly around her waist as he held her naked body close. She could feel the steady warm stream of his breath against the back of her neck.

Despite feeling way too hot, the feel of having her mate sleeping next to her felt amazing. She snuggled her back further into his body which enticed a content "mmmm" sound in her mate.

"Morning," Kai responded sleepily. The feel of her bare ass against him was causing other parts of him to awaken too.

"Morning," Rae replied back, equally as sleepy. Kai hadn't granted her much sleep at all during the night and he took his time reacquainting himself with his mate, in the best way that he knew how.

"Wait, morning?" Rae suddenly sat up in the bed alarmed. She had meant to wait up to see Mya and Gabriel return with Arrow, but had mistakenly fallen asleep.

At the same moment, a heavy banging sound on the front door of the guest house echoed through in to the bedroom. Startled, Rae tried to release herself from Kai's grip to get out of the bed and get dressed, but Kai's arm around her waist held her firmly in place.

"Kai. There's someone at the door."

Kai huffed in displeasure at whoever was disturbing them but kept his eyes closed. Unknown to Rae, Kai invoked Pax and sniffed the air to try and work out who it was. He growled as he recognised the scent. His hold around Rae got tighter. "Ignore it," he said casually as he tried to pull Rae back down in to the bed.

The banging on the door started again but with more aggression this time round.

"Kai! Let me up, it could be Mya, or Gabriel"

"Whoever it is can wait."

There was a sudden crash at the door as though the door had been kicked open. Heavy booted thuds could be heard traipsing inside the guest house.

"Kai!" Rae said alarmed. Whoever had come in, obviously had an urgent agenda.

Kai pulled Rae back in to the bed and pinned her underneath his naked body. Hovering above her, he leant in and started kissing her deeply just as the door to the bedroom opened.

"Rae are you..." Gabriel stopped mid-sentence as he took in the provocative scene in front of him. His queen lying naked underneath the man that he loathed.

Kai leisurely released Rae's lips from his and slowly turned his head to face Gabriel. A look of both satisfaction and annoyance on his lips.

"Do you mind? My *'mate'* and I are a bit busy." He raised an eyebrow at Gabriel as he waited to get a response out of him.

Gabriel's mouth curled over into a suppressed snarl as he looked back at Kai. His eyes then drifted down to Rae's face who was completely mortified at the position she was caught in. Sensing her embarrassment and trying not to see more of her than he should, Gabriel averted his gaze to the ground.

"Rae, I'll... I'll wait for you in the lounge." Gabriel quickly turned on his heels then left the bedroom.

Rae's look of shock quickly turned in to a scowl aimed at Kai. "Kai!"

"What?" he asked, feigning ignorance as she pushed him off of her.

"Was that really necessary?" Rae rolled out of the bed and hastily started pulling on her clothes.

"Was what necessary?" Kai sat up in the bed allowing the white sheet to fall down to his waist, exposing his bare torso. He scrapped his dark hair out of his face.

"Oh don't play dumb with me Kaiden, you did that on purpose. He didn't need to see us like that. You made it look like we were in the middle of....doing stuff."

"We still could be." He looked at Rae seductively as she started to get dressed. Even though he had acted like an ass just to get a rise of out Gabriel, he looked as tempting as sin with his hair all dishevelled and a hint of stubble on his chin.

Kai caught a hint of her amorous thoughts. "I felt that. You're tempted, aren't you?" he winked at her suggestively.

Rae rolled her eyes, then threw his clothes at him. She couldn't allow herself to even entertain the thought. She felt bad enough that she hadn't even checked in on Gabriel or Mya at all during the night.

"You're not seriously upset, are you?" Kai questioned as he pulled his top over his head. "Besides, he's the one who stormed in."

"But you knew it was him! You did it on purpose. He saw us!"

Kai's eyes turned dark and serious. "Good!" he snorted. "Let him see!" Kai hoped that the image of him entangled with Rae was permanently burnt in Gabriel's mind as a reminder of who he was to her.

Rae huffed then left Kai to finish getting dressed, then ran out to meet Gabriel. "Hey, are you okay? And how's..."

Gabriel slumped to his knees in front of her. "My queen, forgive me, this was my fault. My negligence is to blame here." He knelt down his head to stare at the floor.

Rae's eyes widened. He was back to calling her his queen again rather than Rae.

"Gabriel, no, get up. There's no need for you to kneel like this. I don't blame you for what happened. Arrow said you were drugged, there was nothing you could have done."

"That's not good enough!" Gabriel gritted his teeth. He was frustrated at himself and the potential harm that could have come to her.

Rae knelt down on the floor next to him and lifted his head. "Really, I'm okay. I barely got injured at all."

"So you did get injured?" Gabriel snapped his head up and cupped her face to examine her. The cut above her eyebrow had most healed already, there was just a slight bit of redness there and on her cheek, giving a hint of where her injuries were. Rae stilled as he examined her.

"I'm sorry, but I know just saying that isn't excuse enough"

Kai growled startling them both. Gabriel's hand dropped from her face, seeing Kai's black eyes as he approached the both of them slowly.

"Well ,he got one thing right," Kai said with a dark tone in his voice. "For someone who is supposed to be watching out for her, just saying ‘sorry’ isn't a good excuse at all"

"Kai!" Rae quickly stood to her feet, sensing the hostile energy from Kai.

As Kai got closer to Gabriel, who was still kneeling down, he looked down at him in disgust. "You took her from me and for what? To just leave her there on her own. That doesn't sound like someone who is looking out for her welfare."

"Kai that isn't what happened!" Rae tried to intervene by placing a hand on Kai's chest. She could feel Kai's growls resonating in his body and her hand on him did little to calm him.

Gabriel slowly rose to his feet. He didn't feel threatened at all and he didn't like the sight of Kai looking down on him. As he stood up, Gabriel's eyes went black to match his. They stood there, no more than three or four feet apart from each other, with Rae standing just to the side of them.

"Her welfare?" Gabriel's eyebrows narrowed. "Maybe you should take your own advice and learn some restraint," he said, referring to finding them in a little tryst. "Taking advantage of her whilst she was injured? Is that how you get your kicks?"

"Gabe!" Rae shouted at him.

Kai nudged Rae over to the side. Gabriel was pushing all of his buttons and he needed to make sure that Rae was out of the way if they did come to blows. Kai snarled directly in Gabriel's face.

"Maybe someone should teach you some respect," Kai said through clenched teeth.

"I'd like to see you try."

"That's enough!" Rae roared. The room was suddenly flooded with dominant energy.

Kai and Gabriel instantly snapped out of their aggression and turned to look at Rae. She growled loudly with her eyes as black as onyx.

"This stops right now! We don't have time for all this bullshit between the two of you. You both need to accept that you are a part of my life and learn to get along and stop behaving like prepubescent children," Rae continued. "We need to sit and talk out everything that has happened the last few days so we can share notes and work out how to move forward." She spotted Arrow in the doorway who was staring at her equally in shock.

"Now I'm going to go and see Mya and when I'm done, you two had better be finished with your dick measuring contest or you're *both* going to lose them! "

Rae stormed off towards Arrow's direction, who gave her a wide birth as she approached the door way.

Gabriel and Kai's mouths both dropped open, but Kai's quickly turned up in to a little smirk as he took in Rae's dominant energy. He had assumed that most of that was aimed at Gabriel.

*'Rae, that was sexy as...'* Kai mind linked her.

Rae whipped her head round and bared her teeth at him, sending a small chill down his spine. She had the same death stare that both his mother and Melody commonly used.

*'Don't think I'm joking Kaiden!'* Rae mind linked back as she stormed through the door.

Her dropping his full name confirmed to him that he was in the same position as Gabriel.

*'Great!'* Kai thought to himself. He'd been back with his mate for less than 24 hours and he was already in her bad books again.

Rae looked at Arrow expectantly, waiting for him to tell her where Mya was.

Realising she was waiting for directions, Arrow quickly relayed them to her. "Err, she's in the main house being seen by the doctor. Third door on the right as you go in the main entrance"

Rae nodded and then headed towards the main manor house, taking her dominant energy with her.

Arrow walked in to the living room and chuffed. "Well, that was intense. I think it's safe to say that you two have both fucked up."

Nobody needed to be rocket scientist to work that one out. As much as Kai disliked Gabriel, he knew that he was always going to be a constant in Rae's life. He was someone that he was going to have to reluctantly learn to live with in order to make things right with her.

Kai took a long hard breath to calm himself. He closed his eyes for a moment to settle Pax then looked back over at Gabriel, who seemed to be fighting the same battle with his own wolf.

"I think you and I need to have a little talk," Kai started, breaking the silence that Rae created.

Gabriel snorted. "Gonna finally show your true colours now she isn't here to witness it?"

Kai sighed again as he ignored Gabriel's attempt to antagonize him. Kai still wasn't quite sure why Gabriel felt a certain way towards him, but he could almost see Gabriel's hackles rising every time he spoke. This was going to require a serious amount of patience on his side, which was one thing Kai didn't have in abundance.

"You and I need to come to some kind of agreement," Kai continued.

"An agreement?" Gabriel raised an eyebrow like Kai had just asked him for the Earth. "With you? And why the hell would I do that?"

"Because incase you hadn't noticed, this animosity between us bothers her. Anything that bothers her, bothers me.

Kai started walking towards the door. "Come, let's take a walk."

Gabriel's brows furrowed. The fact that Kai was just expecting him to follow him, like he was one of his subjects was infuriating. After gathering his thoughts for a moment, he knew that Kai was right. Rae was going to be pissed if they didn't at least try to sort their differences. He sighed again and then followed Kai out.