Page 62 of Savagely Mated

This man doesn’t miss a thing. Running drills in this state was not fun in any sense. I tried my best, though, and I know if anybody else was watching they wouldn’t have noticed. Einar notices everything.

He stoops down a little in front of me. “I need you to understand something, Darcy,” he says.

“What?”

“I need you to be honest with me, about everything. I don’t want you to be hurt, or suffering. Even if you’ve made a mistake.”

“You fucking caned me,” I curse. “You don’t care if I am in pain…”

“Not here,” he says. “Not here. Come on. You can yell at me outside the walls.”

Einar drives me to the doctor, whose surgery is located in the upper district. Very pricey. There’s no shortage of money funding these rebels. I guess Kirin’s paying. Or maybe there are other sources of money. I don’t know. I don’t care, really.

I’m sort of surprised he’s doing this. I figured he’d just tell me to behave better, or ride better, or not be so stupid. He’s actually being careful. I tell myself it’s just because he can’t handle me being hurt. He needs me in one piece. But there’s a part of me that wants to believe that he cares about me, more than just being my mate, I mean.

The mate bond is weird. It’s like a desire you can’t control, a compulsion to be with a person. But it doesn’t mean you know them, and I don’t know if it counts as love. I think love is something that grows over time. It comes from really knowing one another.

I don’t think any of us really know each other yet. We’ve been thrown together by fate and biology and that’s it. What Kirin and I had up on the hill, that felt like love. But coming back to Eclipse feels like it poisoned the connection somehow. Kirin’s still looking out for me, but it’s in that laddish, harsh way he used to act like. The Kirin who existed on the village hill seems to have gone away completely.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” Einar interrupts my thoughts with another question.

“Of course I don’t.”

“Alright, tell me what happened.”

“I got the bike out and I went for a ride and I crashed into a bush. Not really much to say,” I say, admitting everything because nothing matters anyway.

“You rode recklessly and hurt yourself, and you did that somewhere between getting caned and now. Do I need to ask if you had help, or can I assume Kirin helped you cover this up?”

“I’m not telling on anybody,” I say.

He drops a kiss on my forehead. It’s unexpectedly sweet. I don’t know how to read this man. Sometimes he is sweet and other times he is so fucking mean. I can’t start to read or understand him.

Einar

The doctor comes in and does his tests and things. Darcy is actually quite well behaved for the whole procedure, which surprises me. Her words are still echoing in my ears. Being accused of abandoning her rankles. I didn’t know her. She was just a random kid, and there were others far more qualified to look after her than I was.

Then I think about what it must have been like growing up in the academy with nobody really taking a true interest in her. Thedirector is an admirable woman, but she clearly did not provide any extra attention to Darcy. My mate had been raised in an institution, and I could have done something about it.

“Mr. Bitten?” The doctor pulls me from my reverie.

“Yes?”

“Scans and blood indicate no serious internal damage. She should feel better in the next few days, once the bruising subsides. Maybe keep her off the road. I’ve given her some pain relief that will make her somewhat sleepy. I’d put her to bed for the rest of the day.”

“I feel good,” Darcy grins. “Really good.”

I do just that. I take her home and put her to bed. The meds the doc gave her seem to kick in pretty quickly, so she has less to say for herself than usual, at least for the first part of the drive home. Once she gets into the house, it’s like a switch has been flipped as I help her up the stairs.

“I hate the uniform. It doesn’t fit and it feels bad.”

“I’m sorry,” I tell her.

“I hate the academy. I want to be a delivery driver.”

“Mhm. I know.”

“I am a good delivery driver,” she mumbles. “I was really, really good at deliveries. I did things nobody else would and I got the packages where we, where they needed to be. You should let me be a delivery driver. I miss Jory.”

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