Page 18 of Burned By My Mate

“Is that what you do for a living then?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s cool. You must be really talented.”

She blushes, and my bear rolls over onto his back inside of me.

Fuck, she’s so cute.

I want to reach over and hold her hand. I want to touch her all of the time in so many small ways, but I can’t. Not yet. She needs to know about us.

How do I start that conversation, though? How do I do it without freaking her out and potentially scaring her off?

We pull over in front of the small craft store in town, and Emerson hops out before I can stop her. I growl and hurry to catch up with her.

“Wait for me to get to your door from now on,” I tell her, and she huffs.

“I can open doors. See?” She says, opening the door to the craft store.

“Smartass,” I grumble under my breath as I follow her inside.

She grabs a basket, and I pry it from her hand. She just rolls her eyes, but I smile. She heads down one aisle and the next and I follow after her dutifully as she fills up the basket.

“Is this all?” I ask her, and she shakes her head.

“I just need to grab some canvases.”

We head to that aisle when the front door opens, the bell tinkling as someone else comes into the quiet store. I turn and growl when I spot who just walked in.

“What?” Emerson asks me, her body going on high alert.

“Those two are from Red Fog,” I tell her. “Stay close to me.”

She nods, moving closer to my side, and I turn, putting myself in front of my mate.

“What are you doing here?” I snap at the two men.

They’re staring at us with cold, wild eyes. One of them sneers at me, and I shift in front of Emerson more.

“Hey there, pretty girl,” the shorter one croons at Emerson, and I snarl at him.

“What. Do. You. Want?” I snap again.

“We just wanted to come and see if you had gotten our message,” the taller one says, and I drop the basket full of art supplies to the ground and lunge for him.

“You?” I roar.

Emerson’s little hands are tugging at the back of my shirt. I can smell her fear, can feel how tense and nervous she is.

Get her out of here. Then tear these two apart,my bear orders, and I know that he’s right. We promised that we would keep her safe and we need to do just that.

The two men snicker, and I bare my teeth at them. The bell above the door dings again, and I see Griffin and Ryker, our pack’s two Alphas, come inside. They must have heard that members from the Red Fog Pack were here.

“Is there a problem here?” Ryker growls.

“These two were just asking if we had gotten their message,” I explain, and I can see that the Alphas know that they mean the fire, too.

“We did, but we have some questions about it,” Griffin says.

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