Page 19 of Ruthlessly Mated
He brings an air of dark menace with him. Not just a sort of generally threatening demeanor, but an intensity that indicates he enjoys causing pain. I can feel it radiating from him. It is not anger, though I do think he is annoyed. I can see that in the quirk of his brow as he comes to a halt in front of Conroy and me, recognizing us as those who own this port. We need no introduction, for no others would dare stand before him this way. I look deep into his eyes with animal curiosity, and draw in a deep breath, trying to scent him. The information I receive from my senses is deeply disturbing. He has been dead for thousands more years than he was ever alive, and all that is left inside him is sadism.
“Count Alexander, your presence here is an honor,” I say, speaking first before Conroy can say something disrespectful and hostile. He will not be as impressed as I am. “I have heard of your deeds my entire life. Your exploits and conquests made up my bedtime stories more nights than I can number. To have met you is truly…” I pause. “There needs to be a word deeper than honor.”
“Veneration,” Alexander says, his voice deep and accented with a hundred different tongues. He speaks languages so lost that modern scholars probably don’t know they ever existed.
“Yes, I…”
“Where is the girl?” He interrupts me curtly, cutting me off like an unworthy mutt. My pride flares instantly. I am showing him some deference even though he is in the process of destroying everything my pack and I own. A little politeness would not go amiss.
“Which girl would you be speaking of?”
He turns his gaze on me with more direct irritation than before, and I get to see the same expression thousands have probably seen as their last sight in this life. “The one who was here. The one reported for failing to pay her toll. My envoy told you, so she might be captured. Where is she?”
“We do not know…”
He turns to Conroy. “Where is she? Stop wasting my time crawling on your pathetic mongrel bodies and tell me what I want to know.”
He has picked the wrong man to attempt to intimidate. I do not think that Conroy knows how to be intimidated. It wouldn’t occur to him. Before I can answer more deferentially, and with more diplomacy, Conroy steps forward, hands fisted, lip curled in an animal snarl.
“Not here. Not for you. Not ever.”
Alexander’s eyes flash with red ire. He waves a hand with casual grace and speaks to servants unseen.
“Destroy this rat pit.”
CHAPTER 3
Kita
Port Denhome is burning.
I am rumbling along in my truck as the flames really start to lick the sky. It started even sooner than I thought. A few minutes on either side and I might not have been able to get to my cargo truck. It’s not the one they impounded. It’s the one next to it. The one they ignored because Cyril is an idiot and repeats what he’s told.
I don’t come into any port unprepared. I didn’t expect to be waylaid by three massive shifters and made their mate, but you’ve got to adjust to circumstances. Conroy made this easy by deciding to be an overbearing asshole.
I hope Damon got out, but I have a feeling that Damon does just fine in hot situations. Tailor? I don’t know about him. He seemed nice, but then were any of them really nice if they weren’t going to deal with Conroy?
Alexander will have dealt with him. I wish I could have seen it. The moment that Conroy realized sometimes there’s an even bigger authoritarian bully in the world. It would have been so fucking perfect.
The flames light up the sky, bright sparks here and there followed by distant booms as fuel reserves catch fire and detonate. God. Alexander is really going to raze the whole place to the ground. That’s going to cause absolute chaos in the smuggling underground. The industry will adapt and adjust.
This is a night that will go down in infamy. People aren’t going to be talking about me getting my ass beat over the table anymore. They’re going to talk about how the whole fucking place went up a day later.
My mates are dead, I am sure of it.
Oh, well.
Easy come, easy go. I’ll be single for the rest of my life, I suppose, if they were my fated mates. Maybe I got knocked up last night. Maybe I’ll have a couple of pups and raise them to be as much of a criminal as I am. Or maybe I’ll never get pregnant at all and just live life as I see fit.
Right now, I am more worried about Alexander’s trackers. He’s not going to content himself with blowing up a port. He will have people looking for me. He already knows he has missed me. The saving grace here is that the men who loaded my cargo aren’t there anymore. Everybody had gotten the hell out of there—except my mates.
I feel another one of those inconvenient pangs of guilt. I tell myself I didn’t owe them anything, that they took me against mywill and got themselves involved in something they should never have gotten involved in. I tried to warn them, sort of.
Right now, I have to worry about myself. I have to stay under the radar, not draw any unnecessary attention. I’ve got to fit in with the world I’m in. This southern part of the Northern Island is pretty sparse in terms of civilization and law, so I’ve got that going for me. There’s a main road that runs right up the length of the place, splitting off to my destination: Eclipse City, several thousand miles ahead.
My plan is to blend in like a long-haul trucker. Fortunately, the shipping container attached to the flatbed is as nondescript as it gets. Rusty, yellow, marked as selling Fish Offal in faded green lettering.
As for me, I am going to have to dye my hair again. Bleach it, I guess. Cover the tattoos. Remove the piercing. Maybe it’s time to start dressing like a proper lady. Or a guy. Hm. A mask?
