Page 31 of Savagely Mated

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say, wishing I could do more, but not knowing where the hell to even start.

She stuffs the rest of my burrito into her mouth as fast as she can, chewing vehemently so she can respond to me.

“Fuck you. I know exactly what I’m talking about. When a guy likes a woman, he brings her flowers and he says her dress looks nice, and he changes his whole fucking life and kicks out his friends and he…”

She’s pissed off at something that isn’t just me, I think. Some of this stuff is way too specific. Or maybe she read it in a book somewhere. Romance propaganda.

“When this guy likes a woman, he tells her to her face,” I growl. “I like you, Darcy.”

Darcy

He insists he likes me, but he’s still so grumpy. I think it’s something about his eyes. He has these incredibly piercing blue eyes and set in that handsome face, it’s easy for him to look intimidating as hell. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so much latent fury seething in a man as what is locked away in Kirin’s long, powerful body.

I guess, to give him some credit, I do feel the attraction between us, especially as he is now wearing black motorcycle leathers, which emphasize the powerful masculine lines of his body. He’s so fucking hot.

I don’t know what to do with that feeling. He makes me nervous. He’s actually too hot, in a way, and besides that, he seems to have an inability to just be nice. I’m not sure I like nice, but Idefinitely don’t like whatever the hell this attitude is either. All growly, dominant, stompy, demanding, rude, terse…

“I can’t talk right now,” I tell him. “I’m at work.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Darcy? You’re a cadet at the academy.”

“Not anymore, I’m not. Not after everything that has happened lately,” I tell him. “There’s no place for me there. I have to be an independent woman. I have to support myself.”

“What are you babbling about?”

He interrupts me while I’m explaining, which is really annoying, not to mention condescending. I kick the bike back into life, and that’s when he makes his biggest mistake yet. He tries to stop me by grabbing me and dragging me off it. I feel his big hands wrap around my arm as he prepares to haul me into his custody.

Big mistake. Huge.

The thing with Delivery 2 Go bikes is they’re expensive. They’re expensive because they’re custom made with all sorts of features that help deliveries go more smoothly. I’m discovering this for myself on the job, as it were. One of the features is an electrical field that activates when someone not wearing Delivery 2 Go livery steps into the immediate radius of the bike and tries to assault the rider.

As Kirin grabs me, I see a blue snap of electric light wrap around his arm. Kirin goes flying backwards like he’s been donkey kicked. Lucky for him, he’s wearing protective gear, because if he weren’t he’d have some nasty Eclipse special road rash.

He curses as he stands up.

This entire scene is not going unobserved. A little crowd of people has decided that they need to use the alley and is flowing past us, because that’s how things are in a city like Eclipse. Nothing happens unobserved.

A woman laughs as she catches the tail end of our conversation.

“He likes you? Girl, good for you. Nobody has time for being liked. Liking is for ice cream. A man wants you? He better crave you.”

To Kirin’s credit, he doesn’t answer back to her. He keeps his eyes locked on me. Hell, maybe it’s not to his credit. He looks focused and annoyed. Oh, well. He can deal with that on his own. I gun the engine, toss the wrapper at him, and swing back into the flow of traffic. I’ve got deliveries to make.

CHAPTER 8

Einar

“Good news,” Kirin says as he swings his bike back to park beside us. “I found Darcy.”

“You went looking for a burrito and you found our mate?” Rafe snorts the question in disbelief.

“Our mate is a…” Kirin’s face performs contortions of annoyance, and I think maybe pride. “She’s a fucking handful.”

“Where is she?” I try not to snap the question with too much impatience, but we don’t need a breakdown of her temperament right now. We need her location.

“I don’t know where she is now, but she’s moonlighting as a D2G driver. She says she’s left the academy.”

“You can’t leave the academy,” I say. “That’s not how it works. So she’s gone AWOL.”

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