Page 20 of Mated

“We are mate bonded. It will be you and I, forever.”

Kira

He says those words like holy vows. I think he takes them even more seriously. There is not a hint of anything besides complete devotion in his eyes and in his voice. Is this what love is? Something that can take you to your most painful depths and your greatest heights? I am both exhausted and ecstatic, too tired to act on the pure joy that is coursing through my veins, as well as the fear that is already trying to worm its way through the human parts of my mind. It might be nice to be loved, but he doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know that I don’t deserve any of this.

I am exhausted. I am sore. I am feeling guilty for disobeying him. I know I should have stayed in bed. When I heard him leave the apartment, there was a pull for him, a yearning. It got me out of bed, and it almost took me out the front door.

I started watching television to distract myself from the yearning and the anxiety. Part of me felt as though I was a pup, left to fend for myself in the woods. It was an old fear, a primal one. One I haven’t felt in a very long time. It disoriented me. The television was the only thing to connect me to the real world, to make me feel normal again.

I don’t explain any of that. It would be far more humiliating to explain all those feelings than to be spanked and sent back to bed.

Orgasm aside, the punishment wasn’t really that bad. I felt his displeasure, but I also felt his guidance. It was not anger that made him smack me. It was how insistent he is that I obey him. The old, normal part of me bristles against that. I am an independent woman. I’ve been looking after myself since I was basically a child. He might think I am some stray that wandered into his office and was transformed by his cock, but there is strength inside me that only a few people have ever seen.

“Close your eyes,” he says, standing over me, tall, commanding. “Go to sleep.”

I close my eyes.

I do as I am told.

CHAPTER 5

Kira

I wake up in the middle of the night with a shout. I am covered in sweat, shaking from adrenaline, and something is holding me tight. I thrash against whatever has me, letting out little shouts of fear. I’m captive.

I thrash for freedom, trying to escape the bonds that keep me pinned in place, but they only seem to get tighter.

They’re keeping me in place. They’re drawing me down. They’re…

“Shhh, Kira. It’s okay. I’m here. I’m here…”

My eyes open in the dark. I didn’t realize that they were closed. I see the face of a familiar man in front of me, but it is not until I smell him that I realize who he is. I draw in a deep breath and bring his smell in with it.

It’s my mate. It’s Cain.

“It’s okay, shhh,” he tries to comfort me.

“I’m okay,” I say, verbally agreeing but physically pushing away. I feel like I might be sick. I hate this. I should have anticipated it, but I hate it.

He lets me go, thank God. Being held close when I’m freaking out does not help, especially when I’m only half awake to begin with.

“You are,” he says. “You’re okay.”

He switches the bedside light on, which makes things instantly better. I see his handsome, strong face, his broad shoulders, his muscular torso, his… complete lack of underwear. He must have come to bed with me after I fell asleep. I am now thoroughly distracted, the nebulous terror of the dream dissipating in his presence.

“Have you had bad dreams like that before?” He reaches out and gently brushes a few strands of wild hair out of my face.

“All the time,” I laugh. I want to play this off like it is nothing, because it is nothing. Nightmares happen to everyone sometimes. They happen for me a little more often, but I’m used to it. “I don’t remember the last time I slept all the way through the night.”

He is looking at me with concern.

“Don’t worry,” I try to reassure him. “It’s okay.”

“It is not okay,” he says. “You should sleep well with me. You are my mate. You should feel safer with me than that.”

“It’s not about you.”

I don’t mean to say that snappishly, but it is late, and I guess I’m still riding the adrenaline surge that comes with waking up that way.

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