Page 7 of Cruel Mate

Bile filled her throat when she recognized the scent of the woman approaching. It was the same scent that still lingered on Zander, but it was thick and choking now.

Sandy Miller liked to wear far too much perfume. It was practically a crime for a werewolf, with their senses so heightened. How she could bear to smell herself like that was a mystery to Layla.

“Zander, come on, you’ve been gone so long!” she called from the trees, and Layla’s stomach twisted. “Can’t we just pick up where we left off? I’m fed up with you teasing me. I need more.”

More? Layla felt sick. Why it bothered her that Zander had clearly been fucking her, she didn’t know.

But when Sandy appeared at the edge of the clearing, her blonde hair golden even in the shadows, Layla felt the urge to rip her head off. She couldn't have said why, but it took all her effort to control herself.

“Maybe instead of bugging me, you should get back to whatever fun you were having with her,” Layla snarled, and she was shocked when she thought she saw a flash of hurt in Zander’s eyes.

She blinked and it was gone.

“Maybe you’re right,” Zander growled back at her. “I can see I’m wasting my time here.”

“Maybe if you weren’t such a fool, you would have realized that before you tried to sneak up on us,” Layla snapped at him. Again, she could have sworn she saw hurt darken his blue gaze, but before she could read too much into it, she grabbed hold of Darwin’s wrist and said, “Come on, let’s get out of here before all the good food is gone.”

She practically yanked Darwin’s arm out of its socket as she dragged him away. All the while, she could have sworn she felt Zander’s gaze on her, but she didn’t look back. She was scared of what she might do if she did.

Chapter 3 - Zander

No longer in the mood for Sandy and her advances, Zander stormed off in the opposite direction to the manor, deciding it best to take the long way back to the bonfire.

He needed some time to think. Who did Layla think she was, insulting him when he had only been teasing her?

It might have been just what he needed to cool down if not for the fact that Sandy continued to follow him, clearly not getting the hint.

“Zander, this is stupid,” she called after him. “We’ve been beating around this same bush so long now. Can’t you just give in already?”

After Layla’s berating, he was in no state to deal with this right now. Halting, he whipped around to face Sandy and growled, “If I wanted you, Sandy, I’d have had you by now.”

It was harsh, even for him, and he saw the flash of hurt in her eyes, yet he had never been one for backing down once he had set himself on a path. And so he continued down it. “Maybe another time. Not tonight. I’m tired and I’m frustrated and I’m hungry. Just leave me be, would you?”

Sandy took a half-step back, looking visibly deflated. “I…I guess.”

Feeling deflated himself, Zander turned and continued on down the path he had chosen.

What the fuck is this woman doing to me? He wondered. He had never turned down a woman who was throwing herself at him before, especially not one he actually found attractive.

And yet, whilst he had been looking at Sandy, all he had been able to see was Layla’s angry little face glowering back at him, and he felt again the urge to wrap his fingers around her throat and show her who was boss.

She was frustrating, infuriating, and annoying, and yet damn, was she hot.

Fuck!

He tried his damnedest to shake the turmoil within him as he made it back to the lawn and found the bonfire still in full force. More pack members had joined the festivities, some of them having shifted to play fight or run off into the woods. Some were returning, shifting back into human form just within the shadows of the tree line where the real humans couldn’t see them.

There weren’t many of them living in Nightstar, but there were enough that all the pack knew when and where it was acceptable to shift. Of course, sometimes things went wrong, but at a bonfire on a full moon, most were too drunk to even realize what they might have seen.

And Jack was insistent upon integrating properly with the humans, unlike Karl Ryker and his crew, who had kept the human world at bay by force, making more problems than fixing them.

If it was one thing they had learned in all their years in black ops, it was that the supernatural world didn’t do well when it tried to remain entirely separate from the rest of the world. Now they were lucky enough to have an alpha who understood that, who kept them safe the only way he knew how, by making sure all of his members were careful and only trusting a select handful of humans to bear the burden of their secret.

Not all at the bonfire were aware of that secret, and it was abundantly clear when he returned to his friends.

Almost as if she had been intending to bug him just a little more, Layla was amongst them, sitting upon a log bench and practically on top of Kane’s knee. She laughed at something he said before turning her twinkling eyes on Will.

They looked as if they were having a great time with Layla in their midst. And the two humans who had joined them also seemed to be having a whale of a time.

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