Page 2 of Bred Mate
Recent events have made that more clear than ever. Letting people live when they know what wolves are is asking for trouble of a kind that disrupts and puts everyone in danger. Better to kill one or two people every now and then, than to be exposed as supernatural creatures in a world starved of magic.
“I’ll take care of her.”
He shifts uncomfortably. “She’sreallypretty, boss.”
“Not a problem.”
I get up from the barstool, aware that every eye in the place is on me. These are my men, my pack mates. Some of them arefriends, but most of them are underlings who like to do what they’re told. It gives them a place in the world, somewhere to belong, and someone to belong to.
They respect me, and they fear me. Some of them probably hate me, too. There’s no doubt in my mind that they’d prefer to be under my father’s law. He was old-fashioned. He’d been in power for the better part of forty years. Most people here don’t remember a time before Orion Dulac. Karl Dulac doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.
I’ll deal with the girl who saw too much. I’ll deal with it because it’s my fucking job, and because half the reason I’m in the mood I’m in is because someone else failed to deal with another cute girl who saw too much. Being adorable is not a get out of death free card when it comes to me. I’ve spent years hardening my heart. Hell, my dad ensured it would be hard from the moment I was born. I was raised to rule the pack one day, but the truth is I’m not like him. I’m not a strategist. I’m not a diplomat. I’m not even really a leader. I’m a brute. I know it, and I let everyone else know it.
“Where is she?”
“Put her in the back office, boss. Sorry.”
This won’t take a minute.
I go through the door marked Management Only to the office. It’s full of all the crap involved with running a business. I don’t pay attention to the location. I pay attention to the female who must die. My tongue runs over the sharp points of my teeth as I look at her. I like killing. I never hesitate. I bite the neck or I pull the trigger, and that is the end of it.
Seconds pass by. We look at each other.
She should be dead already.
Why is she still alive?
She looks at me with seductive eyes full of some kind of emotion I can’t quite place. It might be fear. If it is, it’s fear mixed with something else. Raglan was right. She is very, very pretty. She has long dark hair, big brown eyes, and the kind of features that angels would be jealous of. Generous, wide mouth. Cute nose. Her face is round and her chin is sharp and her body is all curves. She’s wearing leather. I wonder if there’s a cute pink bike out there with a fuzzy toy on the end of the keychain and a bunny ear cover on the helmet.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she says.
My anger flares. How dare she ask for mercy in a world where it doesn’t exist? She thinks she’s special, that she gets to break the rules. That’s what everyone thinks these days, that consequences don’t apply to them.
I walk over to where she’s standing, bend down, get ready to snap her neck.
She punches me in the throat.
Straight arm, twisted hips, she puts her whole weight behind it.
There aren’t a lot of places a human woman can hit a wolf shifter and make an impact. She hits one, and then finds the other, significantly further south, driving her knee right up into my crotch with a viciousness that I’ve really only previously encountered in myself.
“I’m sorry,” she says, her voice timid. “I can’t die today. I’ve got things to do. Don’t come after me, okay? I don’t want to have to kill you.”
Her small hands roam my pants for a brief moment, before she snatches my keys out of the interior.
Shedoesn’t want to have to killme. What fucking irony.
Just like that, she’s gone. Out through the door I came in. I hear my car start, because of course she’s taking my vehicle.
“Fuck!” I slam my fist into the wall as I try to get my breath back. My balls feel like they just had an anvil land on them, but that’s not going to be enough to stop me. I get up and I go after that little fucking bitch.
Ellie
The memory of those broken eyes boring into mine is going to stay with me for a while. He was the most intense creature I’ve ever seen, I think, and that includes the wolves I saw becoming men earlier on in the night. I’m not used to big cities. I’m not used to people who are this outright mean and aggressive.
I was lurking in the bar, trying to get some information, trying to get my way to someone who matters. I don’t have time to die. I have stuff to live for. I’ve got to get away from that place as soon as possible, and that’s why it’s okay that I stole his car. It means he can’t follow me and I can just leave the keys in it later and avoid any criminal charges hopefully.
I figure I’ve gotten away.
