Page 29 of Alpha
“You’re looking at me like you’ve never seen a naked chest before,” he stated with a smirk. I felt mortified. My cheeks darkened with a red blush.
“Oh, please,” I scoffed at him. His ego was unbelievable.
“For God’s sake put some clothes on,” I muttered to him, trying to cover up the fact that I was attracted to him.
He gave me a knowing smile as he stepped back and walked to his bed. I followed him into his room.
It was huge. The color theme of his room wasn’t surprising. It was a dark blue—a very male color. The bed was massive. I was pretty sure it was the biggest one I’d ever seen. I couldn’t help thinking of what probably happened in it.
Cade reached for a discarded shirt on his bed and pulled it over his head. I couldn’t argue the fact that physically he was gorgeous. He was ripped and defined, and it was enough to make any girl’s knees go weak, even mine.
It was as my eyes surveyed him that they fixed on a birthmark on his hip as he turned to pull the shirt down. There were two teardrops side by side, one bigger than the other. They were identical to mine. Shock locked the air in my lungs as I stared openly at the birthmark that confirmed something I didn’t want to believe.
As his birthmark disappeared under the hem of his shirt, I racked my brain trying to remember what Blake had said about them. Slowly the realization sank in and I felt a wave of horror sweep over me.
Mates had matching birthmarks. Mates.
Oh. My. God.
It wasn’t possible. It had to be some sort of joke.
I tried to remember what else Blake had told me about mates. It wasn’t like in the movies or books, since werewolves had to physically touch to discover they were mates. I tried to remember back through the stressful events. Blake had picked me up when I lay injured in the road. The more I cycled through the events, the more I realized that Cade hadn’t touched me at all.
“Are you okay?” he asked, watching me closely.
“Yeah… I’m okay,” I managed to get out as I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear, trying to pull myself together so he didn’t suspect something.
“Well, you came here for something,” he said as something changed in his eyes.
“Was there something you…wanted?” he said. Then it hit me: he thought I’d knocked on his bedroom door because he thought I’d come looking to get better acquainted with him.
“Oh, please,” I scoffed at him and rolled my eyes. He was so conceited it was annoying. “I came to ask for some more painkillers.”
“Sure you did,” he said like he knew better and I wanted to smack him.
I couldn’t believe he was supposed to be my mate. If that was true, I would end up killing him.
He disappeared into his adjoining bathroom and I heard him searching for something in the cupboards before he reappeared with a bottle of painkillers.
“Here,” he said as he handed me the plastic bottle. I made sure I didn’t touch his fingers as I took the bottle from him. I didn’t want him to know that I was his mate until I had time to wrap my mind around it.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to hide it forever, but I was going to try and give myself time to come to grips with all this werewolf stuff before I needed to add an egotistical mate to the equation.
Could the fact that he was my mate explain my unwanted attraction to him?
“Thanks,” I murmured while still deep in thought about werewolves and mates as I turned to walk out of his room. I felt the heat of his gaze as he watched me leave.
By the time I made it back to my room with the painkillers in my hand, I felt the panic at the realization that Cade was my mate.
I was so screwed.
I sat down on the bed, still clutching the bottle of painkillers in my hand, as I tried to calm myself down.
I felt like a cornered animal that was unable to escape. Technically I was a werewolf and I was pretty sure I couldn’t escape the whole mate thing. It was destiny, stuff that was written in the stars, so there was no way to get away from it.
There was no point in entertaining the idea of trying to leave because the rogue that was hell-bent on killing me was enough to keep me in place.
My head began to pound worse than before and I rubbed it, trying to ease the headache that was in full force now.
