Page 9 of Cruel Mate

Will pursed his lips as if trying not to laugh.

“Oh, he’s got it bad!” Eddie exclaimed, pointing at him with his half-empty beer bottle.

“Fuck off! She’s annoying as fuck!”

“She’s hot as fuck, you mean,” Kane growled, and the way he looked Layla up and down made Zander cringe.

“No, I mean what I said.” The way his friends all exchanged knowing glances made him flinch. “What?”

“Nothing,” Kane said, smirking around his bottle as he took a drink.

“What Kane means to say is, you really do have it bad,” Will said, clapping Zander on the back.

Eddie leaned forward in his lawn chair and looked Zander in the eye.

“We don’t blame you,” he said, smiling. “She is super hot.”

She is not! Zander thought. He wanted to yell the words at them, but he knew that would only convince them more.

Sure, Layla was attractive, but she wasn’t the number one hottest she-wolf in the world, and yet every single guy in Nightstar seemed to look her up and down every time she walked by.

“Come on, Zand, we all know what you do when you like a woman,” Eddie laughed. He threw an unopened beer at Zander as if to take the sting out of the truth as he added, “You can’t just be nice. It isn’t in your nature. You act like a bad guy and tease and torment until she’s so frustrated she can’t decide whether she hates your guts or wants to live in your bed forever.”

Zander clenched his jaw. “That’s not true,” he said through gritted teeth, twisting the cap off the bottle. He took a swig, trying not to rise to the incredulous expressions all around him.

“Prove it,” Will goaded, and Zander bit the inside of his lip. How the hell was he supposed to do that?

“Looks like she’s getting all the attention tonight,” Kane commented, inclining his head in Layla’s direction, and when Zander followed it, sure enough, she had been approached by a third human.

Sure, human men were drawn to she-wolves like moths to a flame thanks to their attractiveness, but still it was infuriating as hell.

If she took a single one of them up on any offer, it could be dangerous for the entire pack. At least, that’s what he told himself as he rose to his feet and prepared to intervene. “Excuse me while I go and handle this and prove to you all I do not like Layla fucking Keely.”

He drained his beer and dropped it onto the discard pile before marching away.

One way or another, he was going to prove to them—and himself—that he didn’t like her annoying, infuriating ass one bit.

Chapter 4 - Layla

“I’ll think about it,” Layla answered when Jason asked her if she would go out with him sometime. The way he and his friends had joined her at the refreshments table had felt awkward at first, but they seemed like nice guys. And it appeared they liked her, too.

The admiration in their eyes as they all gazed upon her almost made her feel special. Then she reminded herself that they were human. Werewolves were bound to be attractive to them—it was evolutionary. After all, many werewolves had sworn off the old ways of eating humans for their main source of prey in the modern world, but that didn’t cause them to devolve any.

“Don’t take too long to think about it, okay?” Jason said, a sheepish expression on his face. He glanced down, kicking the floor with his boot. “I’d really love to show you a good time.”

Layla shivered. Though it wasn’t at his words, but instead at the scent that had just wafted into her nostrils. It made butterflies fill her stomach even as her hackles began to rise.

The way Jason and his friends looked over her shoulder and started to back away slowly told Layla all she needed to know.

“Come and find me when you’ve decided, okay?” Jason suggested, but before she could respond, he and his friends were gone, frightened off by the big bad wolf who sidled up beside her.

“I thought you were off having a good time with Sandy?” she growled without so much as glancing at him. Instead, she gripped hold of the edge of the table and gritted her teeth. Zander’s mere presence did things to her, things she most definitely didn’t want to feel.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him shrug. “Not anymore.”

He, too, stared forward, as if he couldn’t bring himself to look at her, either.

Layla didn’t have a clue what to say to that, so she busied herself with pouring a glass of punch. It was strong, even for werewolves, and she struggled not to gag as she took a huge, unprepared gulp.

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