Page 70 of Stitched Up in You
She treated me as if I’m some fool warming her bed for her pleasure alone.
I’ve been rejected by a human.
Dismissed.
It rankles how all I can think about is her soft sweet flesh, her curves, her moans and cries, a mantra in my brain that won’tstop no matter what I do. My need for her is as relentless as it is confusing. What’s worse is, I saw the bond between us. I know that it is solidified, but I can’t sense her emotions.
Anna has been dead and gone so long I can hardly force myself to bring her image to mind, our mate bond nothing like this, but I can recall the ability to sense how she was feeling instantly. I was attracted to her intelligence and had much admiration for her, but it pales in comparison to my ties to Bernadette like a drop of rain in the ocean.
Bernadette’s touch seems to reach into the very soul of my being, stirring something within me I didn’t realize existed.
Fate apparently can’t seem to cease fucking with me, and I’m considering this situation being the universe’s ultimate pay back. Most likely from the amount of time I’ve professed to never interact with humans again.
The fact that this uncouth, criminal, diminutive redhead of a woman has unmanned me this much is the height of irony.
I glance around the sparse room, wishing I’d have had the forethought to put in a bedroom down stairs, but who could’ve predicted my predicament.
Last night, or the last few hours I should say, have been by far the most astounding in my long existence. Never have I felt such a magical force intertwining my very being with another’s, it was as if she were a conduit. At one point, I’m almost positive I saw an orange spark light up in her gaze before I forced her to her front where she couldn’t look upon my face.
The issue is that the Bernadette I know would have been pelting me with questions one after the other so fast I couldn’t answer them all, quite unlike the woman who tiptoed from my bedroom earlier. Now here I sit with nary a clue as to how to proceed.
Most supernatural beings go into matehood understanding that there is a period afterward where mates are drawn to eachother and typically don’t leave the bed sometimes for days. Bernadette couldn’t wait to make her escape from me, and that’s what pisses me off more than anything else.
The overhead lights above the charging pod begin to flicker irregularly as my rage increases.
A frown creases my brow as I gaze at the charging pod chamber. The lights aren’t prone to flickering like this, which means my power is behaving more erratically than I thought possible.
After several moments of no change, I decide to give Jekyll a call. He has to know something that can at least help, or have some concoction made to subdue the side effects from the mate bond.
I grab my phone from my pocket, cursing how the simple touch of my finger causes it to charge rapidly, a heavy sigh rattling from my chest.
Things are getting out of hand.
I settle onto the floor, putting my bare back to the cool concrete wall as I call the mad scientist.
Jekyll answers on the first ring, and my brow wrinkles as I stare down at the cellphone while getting a full visual of his nose and one eye.
“What do you want?” he asks in a way of greeting, and a juice box flashes across the screen along with his obnoxious mouth as he slurps at the straw.
“There’s a situation I could use your assistance with,” I tell him.
“Let me guess, you’re mating with a human,” Jekyll says, after the juice box makes a staticky slurping sound.
“I am, and Mikael has a big mouth,” I scowl, assuming he must have told him.
Jekyll is an enigma. Showing up outside my lab in New Orleans shortly after Anna’s death, insisting I needed him. Hequickly proved himself a magician, somehow blending science and magic and creating some of the most potent and incredible concoctions that have helped the supernatural community and made Talbot Global the profitable giant it is. I long gave up trying to deduce what supernatural type he adheres to, but he’s not aged a day since we met over one hundred-and-twenty years ago and has proved his loyalty several times over, even if he does have unorthodox ways.
“First Vlad needs something so he can sit in the fucking sun, then Doyle calls me over some chef he met at the castle, and now you. Yes, Mikael told me, but it’s strange you’re all finding mates at once,” he says.
I frown as he tells me nothing I don’t already know. It is strange, and I’ve no doubt Odette somehow has a hand in all of this, but that still doesn’t change the effects or reaction I’m having to Bernadette.
“Thankfully, you don’t need to shove shit up your nose to get over her or lather up your gigantic forehead with lotion. Just woo the woman. Show her what you’re interested in, that’s how you gain a woman’s trust,” he says, as the phone slips off whatever he’s propped it on, and I get a full view of the overhead lights hanging from the lab ceiling.
It’s laughable that Jekyll, a man who’s spent most of the last century holed away underground, is trying to lecture me on mating advice. “What do you know of mating?”
“I know you lack empathy and can’t let go of that wall you’ve got around your big heart. Plus, you’re a bit of a control freak,” Jekyll mumbles.
“I’d have killed you ages ago if you didn’t still make me money,” I snarl.
