Page 71 of Owning His Mate

The darkness between the buildings provides cover as I make my way over to the cells. The squat structure spans two floors and has rooms to hold vargr and tau.

As I move in the shadows, I catch a scent. Beck.

Fuck. That asshole is always in my way. Careful to keep downwind, I’m almost on him when his wolf senses pick up my scent.

I’m quicker than he is, my vargr blood giving me an edge he doesn’t have as a hybrid. In a move designed to incapacitate but not kill, I have my arm banded around his neck before he can even react.

I can’t see his face, but I can sense his rage as he tries to shove me off him, to no effect.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he hisses, shoving and bucking in my hold.

“I don’t want to hurt you?—”

“You should worry about yourself getting hurt,” he growls.

I smell the surge of his magic, but before he can hit me with it, I say, “If you unleash that magic, you better hope you can hit me with it before I snap your neck.” I tighten my arm around his throat to punctuate my point.

The smell dissipates, like smoke in the air, and he sags in my hold.

“I can’t let you inside, Kye. I’m under orders.”

“I don’t care. That female knows things that can protect my family, Beck. If she knew things about your brother, nothing would hold you back, would it?”

The urge to use violence to get what I want is one I usually follow, but despite how annoying I find him, Beck is not my enemy, at least not in this.

He liked Apryle enough to teach her to protect herself. It’s that affection he has for my mate that I appeal to. “Apryle’s in danger, Beck. I don’t know what is coming for her—or Savannah—but I need to know how to protect her.”

“Shit,” he mutters, and I slowly release my hold on him. He moves out of my reach quickly, glaring at me, but there’s not asmuch heat in that look as I’d expect, considering I attacked him. “You didn’t have to grab me,” he grumbles. “You don’t attack your friends, you giant asshole.”

It surprises me to hear him call me that. I don’t have friends other than Apryle, but she’s my mate, and she didn’t like me much at first either.

I fold my arms over my broad chest, trying to ignore the warmth spreading through my stomach.

“I just need five minutes with her.”

I can see he’s wavering and that he wants to help me. The cogs turn in his head as he tries to rationalize what decision to make, and my patience begins to fracture. If he doesn’t move, I’m going to beat his head against the wall.

“You have five minutes. And if Callum finds out, I’ll tell him you hit me.”

“You can tell him whatever you want.”

I shift on the balls of my feet while he unlocks the door, and as soon as it’s open, I push past him to step inside.

“You’re welcome!” Beck’s sarcasm doesn’t penetrate through my focus as I move into the room.

The lights are on low, and shadows dance in the corners of the room where they do not reach. Even so, I can still make out the figure sitting against the wall with her legs splayed in front of her, her arms resting over her stomach, as if she doesn’t have a care in the world.

I grind my molars together, my eyes like granite as I step up to the bars separating her from me.

“Cozy accommodation you have here,” I remark, my gaze moving around the space as if admiring it.

“Of course you like it. I bet it feels like home to you. Do they start crate training you from an early age, or do they wait until you’re older?”

My wolf snaps its teeth at the insult, urging me to set him free. It’s only the fact that she wants me angry that stops me from releasing him.

“Oh, dog jokes. How original,” I drawl. “Except, you’re the one in the cage, not me.”

She leans her head back against the wall behind her, glaring at me through the bars. “If you’re planning to bore me to death as a way of torturing information out of me, it won’t work. I have a stronger resolve than that.”

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