Page 41 of The Alpha's Protective Mate

“I tried, but you refused to listen to anything I had to say,” I insist, chuckling. “A drunk Charlotte sure is handsy, you know.”

“Shut up,” Charlotte mutters under her breath, grabbing a chopstick from the counter and piercing her bun with it. “I’m never going anywhere with you again. You’re such a jerk.”

“How is this my fault?” I make my way over to her. “I kept telling you to stop, but you wanted more—”

“I thought it was iced tea!” she bursts out, her cheeks flushed a pretty shade of red. “All you had to do was say, ‘Charlotte that has alcohol,’ and I would have stopped!”

“Sure you would have. You were already drunk after the first one.”

She gives me a nasty look. “You have an excuse for everything, don’t you?”

“Most of the time,” I agree pleasantly. “I also didn’t realize you could get drunk off the stuff humans make.”

“Defective, remember?” Charlotte rolls her eyes, then turns on the coffee machine. “I get drunk quickly, but it’s not like my metabolism is as slow as a human’s. I sober up pretty fast. An hour or so. It’s weird. I’ve only ever tried beer, and I didn’t like it. Based on that experience, I thought all alcoholic drinks tasted like pee.”

Her description makes me snicker. “Now, how would you know what pee tastes like?”

“I’m hazarding a guess,” she says as she shrugs. “But I liked the Long Island iced tea. I should learn how to make one. I can have it when I’m alone.”

“Call me over when you do,” I grin.

My smile broadens when she mutters something under her breath. Teasing Charlotte is slowly becoming one of my favorite activities.

When she turns her back to me, I can sense that the silent treatment has begun.

“Now, now.” I lean my back against the counter she’s working on. “I’ll tell you next time.”

“There’s not going to be a next time.” She shoots me a look that is part sulky, part grumpy, and makes me want to kiss it away.

The kiss.

I’m sure she remembers it, but she hasn’t mentioned it. I could always bring it up and incite a reaction from her. But as my eyes fall on the boiling coffee, my wolf advises against it. I’ve already got one prominent scar; I don’t need to add to it.

However, something strikes me.

“The vampires who attacked me, they injected me with liquid wolfsbane. How did you get it out of me?”

Charlotte freezes, and her tone turns cagey. “Why would you think I had anything to do with that?”

I straighten up. “What did you do, Charlotte?”

She wets her lips. “Nothing. I really don’t want to talk about this.”

I am about to say something when she quickly adds, “The coffee is ready. Hand me that mug, will you?”

I reach out and turn off the machine. “Charlotte.” My voice is serious. “What did you do?”

When she looks up at me, I see a trace of fear in her eyes, and suddenly I remember that sensation of ecstasy in my body, somebody’s mouth against my neck, the burning pleasure.

I know what she did.

And it shakes me to my core.

“You sucked it out of me?” I breathe.

She takes a step back, the fear in her eyes intensifying. “I was just trying to save you, I promise. I wasn’t trying to do anything else. Your organs would have begun to shut down. I—I didn’t know what else to do.”

I’m not angry.

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