Page 51 of Bred Mate
“None of that was an inconvenience for me,” I say.
His good eye narrows slightly.
He’s going to see it in me. The fact that I was comfortable doing terrible things in the wild, and that I wasn’t comfortable at all around his dinner table with my family. This should be my happily ever after right here, but it doesn’t feel like it and I can’t explain why.
“Just drop it,” I tell him.
There’s a moment where he looks at me as if I might be crazy. “I feel as though you’ve forgotten who you’re talking to,” he says. “Or holding a man hostage has gone to your head. Why aren’t you happy?”
“I don’t know. Why are you an asshole?”
The question makes both his brows hit his hairline.
“You really want to fight, huh?” He lowers his voice and his tone. “This is going to be painful for you, Ellie.”
“I don’t care. I’m not staying here,” I tell him. “I don’t belong in the city. You do. The boys do. But I don’t.”
“Where do you think you belong?”
He seems strangely unbothered for a man who was planning to keep me and breed me and turn me into his perfect little mate.
“I belong in the woods. I belong dirty. I belong struggling. I don’t deserve things or want things.”
“I’m not going to let you run wild.”
Oh, I understand why he wasn’t worried. He wasn’t taking me seriously.
“I’m a wolf. You don’t have any choice.”
He smiles at me, his eye lighting up with pleasure. “I can keep you captive if you like. But we had a deal…”
“Our deal was I get the forest. I didn’t get the forest. The deal is void.”
He frowns slightly, and I wonder if I’ve hurt him. Karl doesn’t seem to be the sort of man who has feelings. He was an enforcer before he was an alpha, and enforcer is just a fancy name for executioner. We met because he was trying to kill me.
“We’re in love,” he says. “I know we are.”
“That wasn’t part of the deal.”
I’m being a bitch. A huge fucking bitch. I know it, and knowing it makes me feel worse, but doesn’t make me stop. If anything, it makes it worse. I am completely spiraling right now.
He pulls me close and kisses me, roughly, deeply, possessively.
“You’re being a little monster,” he growls in my ear. “Do you want me to treat you like one?”
A little thrill runs through me. I do want a distraction from how much I am hating myself in this moment. All the guilt and the regret, the things I feel I should have done, and the things I realize I shouldn’t have.
“You’re still mine,” he tells me. “I’ve claimed you. I’ve made you mine, and no matter what you do, you can’t escape.”
“Bet I can,” I mutter.
He gives me a look as I challenge him, wearing an expression that makes me feel even more excitement.
He rips the rest of my clothes off in two rough swipes.
“You’re staying here, and you’re going to learn to be civilized, just like your brothers. You’re going to have my babies and you’re going to be happy.”
He picks me up, throws me down on the bed, and strips himself just as swiftly. “You’re being an absolute brat,” he says. “The boys were no trouble at all compared to you.”
