“Yes and no. I wanted to book your function room for the Alpha meeting and also check out the competition. I wasn’t expecting to find my mate, though,” he says somewhat lamely.

“Well, like I said we are booked out, so if you will excuse me,” I tell him, and he growls, stepping into my path.

“Why are you being like this?” he asks.

“Being like what, Alpha Valen?”

“This! I am your mate!”

“I am well aware.”

“Then stop. Just let me take you out or something, go somewhere with less of an audience,” he says, glancing around at the chefs.

“No, thank you.”

“Have you got a boyfriend? Is that it?”

“No! I don’t feel the need to fuck everything in sight,” I say, my words full of venom.

“Excuse me?” he asks. I roll my eyes, trying to step around him when he blocks me again by placing his arm on the counter.

“I have work to do, please move,” I tell him.

“Being an Alpha, I can forcefully mark you to make you submit. Our laws state Alphas can mark their mates if the mate is unwilling.”

“Being rogue, I don’t give a fuck about status, and if you try that, that just shows your true character and every reason as to why I don’t want to be your mate.”

“So that’s it?” he asks. I shrug, needing him to move. His boxing me in like this is filling my head with his scent, making me want to do things I shouldn’t do to him.

“So, you hate me over what the media spills about me? You'll judge me off that? You don’t even know me; we just met,” he says.

He still hasn’t realized who I am. We have met three times now, both times a disaster because he was drunk, and well, I was underage, so this is on him either way. He should have been able to recognize me the first time.

“I would give you the world, and you wouldn’t even give me a chance?”

“No, you would give me Syphilis or some other sexually transmitted disease, so I am not interested,” I tell him, realizing I'm going to have to touch him to escape. I try to step around him, but he traps me between him and the steel counter, his hands going to either side of my hips.

“Don’t pretend the mate bond doesn’t affect you the same as it does me, Everly,” he says, leaning in. I'm rooted to the spot, completely frozen as he presses his face into my neck. He growls, the sound more like a purr the longer he sniffs me before he groans.

“Valen, baby? Valen, where are you?” comes a sugary sweet voice. Valen freezes and growls at the blonde woman as she rushes in, shock on her face when she spots us.

“Oh, there you are,” she says, hurrying over. He glares at her.

“I am not your baby, not your honey, or any other stupid name you think you can call me; get out, Ashley,” he snaps so cruelly I actually feel bad for her. She looks between us and her eyes well with tears.

“Get out!” he screams at her.

“But…but…”

“I have work to do, and you should take your girlfriend home,” I tell him, using her as an escape. I quickly grip his wrist to move it off the counter, trying not to think about the tingles that rush across my palm, though Valen gasps at my touch.

“She isn’t my girlfriend,” he says, glaring at her.

“Valen?” Ashley asks, looking hurt.

“You can do better,” I tell her as I walk past her and place my hand on her shoulder. She looks at me and smiles sadly. It's odd feeling sorry for the girl he had been screwing.

“That’s all you have to say? You aren’t angry at her?”