Page 35 of Savagely Mated

“You live here? I thought you all lived in the woods?”

“This is my parents’ house. Well, it’s mine now, I suppose. Since they are no longer with us.”

So he’s hot, and he’s rich, and he runs with a crowd of criminals.

“You lured me here. This is against Delivery 2 Go TOS,” I tell him. “You risk having your account blacklisted.”

“I don’t think we’re worried about that.”

I jump as Einar’s voice comes from behind me. He walks in the door and smacks my ass with the flat of his hand. I wish I was on my bike; he’d get a hell of a shock. Instead, I have the indignity of being smacked. At least the leathers are pretty protective.

Almost on cue, Rafe walks in the other kitchen door. There are so many ways into this kitchen, one behind me, one on the other side, and then there’s some French doors out to what I have to assume is some kind of palatial something.

I find it immediately interesting that they’ve decided to lure me here, rather than one of the many stately dining rooms I bet this house has. I wonder if that’s a reflection of their status, or mine, or if Kirin just prefers the kitchen.

“Fuck it,” I say. “Sign here.”

I toss the logbook over to Kirin, who actually does me the honor of making his mark on it. I take a deep breath and relax. Okay. Good.

I’m thinking about a bunch of things that objectively don’t matter. What does matter is that I’ve been very neatly caught, and that even though the delivery being made has ensured my rank doesn’t go down, I’m now missing out on potentially taking other jobs.

“What the hell do you guys want?”

Einar walks around me and looks down on me, immediately having the sort of towering effect that makes me go quiet.

“Sit down,” he says, pointing to an empty chair. “While you still can.”

I sit down. That threat sounds dire, and the tone he issues it in sounds even more dire.

Einar stands over me in a way that so many instructors from the academy have in their time. I hate it, because I have to tilt my head up and back to look at him in a way that makes my neck hurt.

“You’ve behaved in a way that…”

I go to the quiet place in my head, the same place I’ve gone each and every time someone has attempted to lecture me for the last few years. I think about butterflies, and I wonder if they remember the friends they made as caterpillars. I feel like they probably do. I wonder how they get all melted down into caterpillar goo and then still somehow come out as an even better version of themselves…

“Darcy!” Einar snaps my name. “Are you listening?”

“Of course.”

“What did I say?”

“I’ve been behaving very badly, and irresponsibly, and dangerously, and not to mention all the damage…”

“You didn’t listen to a word I said,” he growls.

“That is what you said, more or less,” Rafe cuts in. Somewhere in the midst of this, he’s managed to get cake. He’s leaning up against the cabinets, forking it into his sexy face.

Good for him. Rafe gives me the vibes of a man who is constantly forced to pretend to care about things he couldn’t care less about.

“She’s not listening,” Einar says.

“How could you tell?” Rafe asks the question.

“Her eyes glazed over the moment I started talking.”

“You do have that effect on people sometimes.”

I let out a little snort of amusement.

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