Which was total bullshit. But I needed him to go away. I was edgy, and increasingly miserable as the afternoon wore into evening, and it looked like it was going to rain again. For someone who loved showering so much, I hated getting caught in the rain.
“I’ll just — I’ll head back to the house, then,” Colin said, looking more confused than anything. “You’re going to follow along once you’ve done your thing?”
“Yes, of course,” I said. Just leave me alone.
Colin turned and headed back the way we’d come, leaving me alone in a stand of pines near the main road. The warding here really, truly sucked.
I let that evaporate from my mind and closed my eyes, trying to breathe deeply, even though my chest felt tight, and also trying to get to the bottom of this odd, unsettled mood of mine. Pine and dirt. Damp. A faint hint of engine oil and gasoline emanating from the stained asphalt a few yards from me. Rabbits. My nose twitched. I was getting hungry, and rabbits were delicious.
The nearly undetectable scent of Matthew, still ingrained into my skin — or just into my imagination.
I opened my eyes. Nothing but the gray-shadowed branches of trees, fading into the descending twilight.
He’d knotted me. That shouldn’t matter.
But it did, and it wasn’t only a physiological reaction. For the first time in a long time I didn’t just feel alone — I felt lonely.
A breeze carried a damp breath of nighttime chill past me, and I shivered, even though cold didn’t bother me much at all.
And then my phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket and stared at it. A local number, but no one had my number except Colin.
“Yeah?” I said cautiously.
An exhale down the line. “It’s me,” Matthew said. “And before you ask, Dor can apparently hack the phone company with his brain, and no, I don’t know how, and yes, I realize this makes me look like a crazy stalker.”
I let out a shaky laugh. Why did I suddenly feel like I could breathe again?
“Are you a crazy stalker?” I meant it to sound teasing, but my voice faltered.
He paused. I realized I could hear some background noise. Rushing, or rumbling, or something. Was he — yes, he was driving. And I was pretty sure I could guess where he was going.
“I’m going to go with maybe,” he said at last. “I’m not sure if I’m crazy.” Another deep inhale and exhale. “Arik, are you totally, completely sure you took that spell off?”
My heart gave a fluttery lurch. He didn’t sound accusing. He sounded — lost. “We’ve been over this more than once.”
“Yeah, I know. And I don’t doubt your word. Fuck. Forget I said anything. I don’t doubt your skill, either, even though I know that sounded like it. But I don’t feel — where are you right now? Are you at the Kimball pack house?”
“No, I’m near the highway. Maybe — maybe two miles from the turnoff into the Kimball territory. Past it, I mean. From the direction you’re coming from.”
He didn’t even try to deny it. “Can you wait there for me? I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
It felt like I was answering a totally different question. A way more important one. “Yeah,” I said softly. “I’ll wait here.”
I hung up the phone and leaned against a tree trunk, taking a few minutes to sink into its deep, slow-moving consciousness and try to calm my own emotions. When I emerged I could hear tires on asphalt, and I felt a little more grounded.
Matthew pulled over onto the shoulder a few yards away and got out. Once he shut the door and the dome light and headlights faded out, we were bathed in gloom, with the last ghost of the afternoon sun fading away over the treetops. It felt like our own world. An owl hooted quietly from a little distance away.
I waited for Matthew to come to me. He’d driven this far, and the gods only knew what persuasion and begging he’d had to exert to get Dor to find my phone number. He could cross that last little distance, because I didn’t think I could do it alone.
And he did, coming up to me without hesitation, stopping only a foot away. Close enough to touch, if I could bring myself to reach out and do it.
Instead I dug my fingers into the tree trunk behind me.
Matthew looked tired, and serious, and resolved. Like he’d made up his mind about something. His dark blue eyes were unflinching as he gazed into mine.
“I don’t feel any different,” he said into the silence. “I didn’t feel any different after you left the first time. Not as crazy, but I still felt like I was going to crawl out of my skin if I couldn’t see you again.” He swallowed hard. Not quite as calm as he was trying to look, maybe. My heart picked up, jolting my ribs with every beat.
I flashed back to the moment I’d confronted him after leaving Ian’s house. You didn’t. I don’t feel any— You’re lying. And then I’d been so angry that I hadn’t paused to really think about what he’d said.
He didn’t feel any different.
He’d felt like he was in love with me, because I’d put him under a spell.
Then I took the spell off, but he still felt…
“What are you saying, Matthew?” I asked hoarsely. “I can’t — I can’t afford to make any assumptions about this.” My fingers were going to break if I pressed them into the tree any harder.
He smiled crookedly. “You can’t afford to? I’m the one who’s out on a limb here. And I’m pretty sure you’re going to saw it off, but every minute of the last five days has been fucking endless, wondering if you’re going to stay here with Colin, or disappear again, for good this time. And yeah, I know I’m the one who should be out on a limb. You were working with the Kimballs when they attacked us, yes. But — all your available choices were bad, remember?” He took a deep breath. “When you had that spell on me, I couldn’t think about anything but you. I craved you. I would’ve done anything to protect you, and to win you. And I’ve felt that way ever since. If I’m being honest…I think I started to feel that way before the spell, too. I’m not quite sure when you put it on me, for one thing. Seems like a change I should’ve noticed.”
I closed my eyes, dizzy and nauseated and hopeful and aroused and — joyful? Was that sick feeling joy and fear mixed together? I couldn’t tell. It felt like swooping down from a height and not knowing if you were going to miss the ground. Did I even believe him?
Yes, I did, because I knew damn well my spell wasn’t affecting him anymore, even if it had taken a little time for his mind to resettle into normality. This was how he really felt. How he’d maybe felt before the spell even took effect…and I could hardly even process the possibility of that, that he’d seen something in me that made him start to love me before I’d even messed with his head. But would it last? I had no way of knowing.
And did I want it to? That was a lot easier: yes. Yes, I did, I wanted it so badly I was paralyzed.
Alphas can’t be trusted. Alphas always lie, always take, never give. Alphas don’t love anyone but themselves.
That had been my mantra for most of my life. And part of me still believed it.
But Matthew had stopped when I told him to, and then left my choices for me to make. Matthew had lain back with his hands behind him and waited for me to show him what I wanted. Matthew had killed Parker, ripping him to shreds because Parker had hurt me and wanted to hurt me again. He’d used his strength to protect me, not to compel me.
Maybe if I expected to be treated like more than a shaman and a commodity, it was time to treat him like more than just an alpha.
When I opened my eyes again, it was in time to see Matthew’s veneer of calm melt away into something like despair.
“You can take more time to give me an answer,” he said. “You can — fuck, I don’t know. You can tell me to fuck off right now, too, obviously.”
“You haven’t asked me a question,” I whispered.
He leaned a fraction closer and sucked in a deep breath. I was lost in his eyes, pleading and sincere — and behind that, a reservoir of avid
desire that made my heart pound. “Come home with me. Please?”
“I’m supposed to be putting up the wards.”
A slow smile bloomed on Matthew’s lips, and his eyes grew soft with relief; yeah, he’d recognized that for the weak, barely-there protest it was.
“And it’s quitting time. Come home. I’ll drive you back in the morning and be that asshole who drops his boyfriend off at work and kisses him in front of his clients so they know to keep their hands off.”
Boyfriend. What a strangely innocuous word to describe whatever we were to each other. It was normal, and human, the kind of word no one had ever thought to associate with me.
I mean, ever. Even if you left out the claws and the teeth and the magic, my tattoos and long hair alone made me don’t-take-home-to-mother material.
Of course, Matthew was taking me home to his brother, who decapitated monsters for fun, and his brother-in-law, who’d knocked me out with a magical water bottle.
So maybe I was the right material for them.
And he was taking me home.
I was smiling helplessly as I asked him, “So are you going to growl and pop your claws at Colin too, or do you think kissing’s going to get the pissing on your territory point across?”
Matthew moved in even closer, filling my whole field of vision and crowding me against the tree, until kissing was practically a necessity. “Are you going to kiss me back?”
I finally unclamped my fingers from the tree trunk and slid my arms up over his shoulders, clasping my hands loosely behind his neck. Evening had really set in. It was noticeably chillier. And I didn’t feel it, because Matthew warmed me all the way down, a glow that had nothing to do with alpha body heat and everything to do with how I knew nothing was going to get to me as long as he stood that close.
“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”
“Then I don’t need to piss on anything. You can tell Colin you’re mine, since you’re the one who gets to make that decision anyway. And I’ll stand there looking incredibly fucking smug.” He paused. “I may flip him off with my claws and stick my tongue out when your back is turned.”
When he finally closed those last few millimeters between us, I was laughing.
I’d never had a laughing kiss before, never felt lightness and arousal and longing all bubbling up in me at once, fizzier than champagne and sweeter than honey.
“Take me home,” I murmured into his kiss, and he wrapped his arms around me and led me back to the car. I’d text Colin later to let him know where I’d gone.
Matthew’s hand was hot and heavy on my hip, sneaking down to grope my ass with some serious intent. Fuck, I was aching for it. It’d been nearly a week.
I’d text Colin much later.
Chapter 20
Cute Little Tufty Ears
Home was an idea that took a while to really register with me.
Yeah, Matthew and I fucked every night. And yeah, I got some of Ian’s fancy shampoo and put it in Matthew’s bathroom — our bathroom. My bathroom, almost, considering how much time I spent showering, something Matthew smiled at but never teased me about.
He always got to knot me on nights when I spent an hour in the shower without him saying a single fucking word about it.
The Armitage pack was wary at first, but I knew they’d started to accept me when the pups were allowed to run through the house without their parents watching warily, brushing past me as carelessly as they did everyone else. The pack didn’t have that many kids in it, but there was a small gang of pre-teens who liked to shift and wrestle around out back, and a few toddlers who sprouted tiny claws and fuzzy tails when they were startled. I wasn’t a pack animal, but these kids were well cared for and obviously well loved, even though all their clothes were old and mended. I couldn’t help smiling when they barreled through and howled in squeaky little voices.
But it didn’t fully sink in until two weeks after I’d gone back to the Armitage territory to stay.
I’d mostly finished with my jobs for the Kimball pack. I couldn’t be sure whether or not Matthew had carried out his threat, but the first morning he’d dropped me off, I’d turned to say hi to Colin and Colin had looked behind me, turned bright red, and shaken his head. I thought it was more dignified to pretend I hadn’t noticed anything.
So Colin had been a lot more professional, and the work had gotten almost done, but I had to head back that day for a few hours to fix the warding in a spot where they’d done some landscaping work.
I was just putting away the cereal box when the front door slammed. A moment later Nate came stomping into the kitchen, scowling ferociously. He had a cup of coffee in one hand, and an empty mug in the other, which he slammed down on the counter in front of me.
“For you,” he growled.
In scrawled, cramped, nearly illegible handwriting, it read My Mate Is an Asshole Who Won’t Let Nate Grow Valerian Because He’s a Princess Who Doesn’t Like the Smell. I had to pick it up and turn it all around, squinting at it, before I could make it out.
“Ian won’t let you grow valerian?”
Nate grimaced. “Ian doesn’t care. It’s Matthew. Fucker. He claims it stinks. I’m the pack warlock, I need my herbs!”
Valerian did smell terrible, but it was necessary for a few spells I did too. I was totally on his side on this, but…oh, fuck. Hang on.
“Wait a minute. Matthew? He’s not your mate.” My brain slowly churned to the inevitable conclusion. “He’s not my mate either! What the fuck is this?”
I set the mug down on the counter and backed away from it slowly, resisting the urge to wash my hands.
“Right,” Nate snorted, with an epic eye-roll. “Not your mate. What the fuck ever.” He took a giant swig of his coffee. Before meeting Nate, I hadn’t realized coffee-drinking could express such a range of emotions, but I’d wised up. The way Nate was slurping meant he was furious. He pointed an accusing finger at me. “I don’t care what you have to do, but change his mind!”
And with that he stomped out again, muttering about how Matthew didn’t know anything about gardening anyway.
I stared at the mug. It didn’t do anything untoward except…exist, which was more than enough.
Matthew. My mate.
Something he hadn’t even hinted at wanting from me.
And yet here I was filling the role of the pack leader’s mate, at least in this makeshift excuse for a pack: being harassed before I’d even eaten my breakfast by pack members who had some problem with Matthew and hoped I’d intercede for them. Other packs had more formal processes for putting complaints through a leader’s mate, like filing a petition.
This one did snide handmade Sharpie coffee mugs.
Fuck, some days the Armitages really underlined the point of why Matthew’s mother had been so happy to move to a remote cabin in the mountains.
Maybe they had a spare bedroom.
Ugh.
I abandoned my cereal and headed to the car, slipping away before Matthew could reappear from wherever he’d gone with a councilmember who needed his take on some boring issue or other. I needed to brood.
And brood I did, through a long day of carefully spreading salt, muttering incantations, and funneling power into the broken part of the Kimball wards. It only took a quarter of my attention at most. That left seventy-five percent of my brain to worry about what Matthew did want from me, if he didn’t want to mate me.
He hadn’t even said he loved me, not in those exact words. And not at all since he’d tracked me down to bring me home.
Was I a placeholder for some future mate, a nice werewolf girl who’d know how to deal with her brother-in-law shoving mugs at her angrily? Someone Matthew’s council would fully support, someone who might bring a pack alliance with her, or even, gods forbid, some money?
I wasn’t a girl. I wasn’t even a werewolf.
…And Matthew didn’t know I wasn’t a werewolf. I would’ve liked to have said it hadn’t come up, but why would it have? I was a sh
aman. My scent was odd anyway, and disguised to boot. He’d never asked. And like a cowardly idiot, I’d never brought it up.
I was still brooding when I gave Colin a short, cranky farewell and got in the car, still brooding when I pulled up by the Armitage garage and yanked too hard on the parking brake, and still brooding when I went straight upstairs and got immediately into the shower, locking the bathroom door behind me.
Forty-five minutes of hot water and a really irresponsible amount of fancy shampoo later, I still had no idea what to do. What I was doing. What Matthew was doing. Fuck. Ugh. He was in lust. He didn’t actually love me.
Did I love him?
By the time I got there, I really hated myself for caring.
I stomped out of the bathroom with a force worthy of Nate on a rampage, and stopped dead.
Matthew was lying on the bed, shirtless and with his jeans unbuttoned, his bare ankles crossed. He was texting on his phone, but the second I came out he stopped and tossed the phone onto his nightstand.
Because he had his nightstand, and I had my nightstand, because…somehow, I lived here.
And I had no idea why I was living here.
On my nightstand, I realized, was Nate’s fucking awful mug. And it had steam coming out of it.
“I found this great mug and made you some tea,” Matthew said with a mischievous grin. Gods. Either he was completely oblivious, or he vastly overestimated how well teasing me when I was in this mood would work out for him.
“Fucking great,” I snarled, and stomped back into the bathroom to hang up my towel.
When I came back out he was standing by the bed shucking his jeans, his eyes glowing a little despite my grouchiness.
Right. Because I’d taken a long shower and was naked. Frustration welled up so strongly and so suddenly that it burst right out of me.
“How the fuck do we have old-married-couple routines and people giving me mugs that say you’re my mate on them when all we are is two people who like to fuck?” I wasn’t shouting, but it was close. “We’re not mated! We’re never going to be mated! I’m not even a fucking werewolf!”
Captive Mate (Mismatched Mates Book 2) Page 20
