Page 24 of Bred Mate (Stalked Mates #2)

K arl

I have my mate. The house my father left to me when he fled to Hawaii after creating a crisis in the pack is full.

I don’t want to count my chickens before they hatch, but I am pretty sure that I am surrounded by peeping chicks.

This is the life I secretly never dared want, and the life I never thought I’d have.

If she is bred, then she is not showing yet.

Human pregnancy tests are largely inaccurate for shifter pregnancies, so it would require an ultrasound to test, and Ellie is making herself scarce with regards to that.

She doesn’t want to know, because it would make it too real.

I don’t push it, because I know how much I have bred her, and I know sooner or later she will have my baby.

“You’re so fucking rich.” She says it almost like an accusation.

“I guess?”

“What do you mean you guess? You have enough money to buy the fucking forest, which is where this all started.”

“Ellie, I am not buying a forest so you can go back and live in a rotting hell-hole. You’re going to have a nice house and you’re going to enjoy it and that’s all there is to it.”

I have to be cruel to be kind. I know she wants to retain the lifestyle of her youth, but that lifestyle was unhealthy and it robbed her of so many chances and choices. Losing the forest was the best thing that ever happened to her.

“You promised.”

She is trying not to pout, but she is pouting.

“I have barely begun to deal with the financials of this pack,” I explain. “There are a lot. I can’t be sure how much money is really available. And even if I could, at this point, I wouldn’t.”

“Oh, so you have too much money to worry about buying me stuff?”

“You sound so damn spoiled.”

“But you know I’m not. You just told me I came from the swamp and had nothing. So how could I be spoiled?”

Arguing with my mate is not pleasant.

I am not used to dealing with feelings. I am used to being awful and killing things. I barely know how to talk to her outside the bedroom.

“Buy the forest, or I’m going to run away,” she says.

“Run away, and I will hunt you down and punish you in ways you have never been punished before. I will make you regret the day we met.”

“I already do,” she snipes before storming away.

I take a deep breath. I could go and thrash her for her rudeness, but I don’t want to reward that performance with attention.

She needs to calm down and accept her new life.

And she needs to learn to make herself behave.

I can’t control her every second of every day.

Sooner or later, she’s going to have to come to terms with her new life, and submit to me as her alpha.

It was only a matter of time before she ran away. We both knew it. So I’m not surprised when I wake up one morning a few days later to discover that Ellie is gone.

I plan to let her run a day or two, then go and get her back.

This time, when I find her, I am going to whip her ass.

I am not amused by this attitude she’s giving, but I understand it.

Her brothers have settled in so well and so quickly she’s taking it all personally, as if she should have been able to give them everything I have in spite of the fact she was also dirt poor and living in the woods.

It’s an entirely unrealistic expectation, but that won’t stop her from having it.

“Where’s sister?” Connor asks over breakfast.

“She’s busy for a couple of days,” I tell him. “She will be back soon enough.”

“Okay,” he says. “I’ve got art class today. I’m going to draw a horse.”

He moves on after that, trusting me that I’m telling the truth, and trusting that Ellie will come back. She’s actually raised him to be very secure in himself. She did a good job keeping all her brothers alive. She doesn’t give herself enough credit for that.

Further complicating matters, an unexpected visitor to the house later that day changes things all over again.

“A lady has come to see you, sir,” Baldwin tells me.

For a minute, I think maybe it’s Ellie, but he wouldn’t introduce her that way. He’d sound a lot less happy. She has not made a good impression on the faithful retainer.

I go out to meet her in the foyer, not certain who she is or what I am going to do with my visitor.

I am surprised to see that it is none other than Rainer Katsoff’s secretary.

She is wearing a coral pink blazer and a matching pleated skirt with kitten heels.

Her hair is pinned up neatly at the sides of her head.

She looks younger than she did the first time I met her, and I sense something different in her. Something familiar and yet strange.

“Come to hit me with a bottle?”

The woman does not smile. I suspect she very much did come to do that, though she will not get as calm a reaction from me if she tries it twice.

“What does Rainer want?” I ask.

“Nothing,” she says. “Nothing at all. I am the one who wants something I believe you have.”

“Oh?”

“I want to know where my daughter is.”

“Who is your daughter?”

She laughs. “She didn’t tell you.”

“Who didn’t tell me?”

“Eleanor. I am Ellie’s mother.”

My stomach tightens. My instinct is to get this woman out of the house as quickly as possible. She’s dangerous to the boys. I don’t want Connor to see her. Unless, of course, she’s not their mother. I don’t know what the deal is, but everything in my body is telling me she is dangerous.

“Ellie isn’t here,” I tell her.

“Interesting, given you reek of her.”

“I haven’t had a shower today,” I say bluntly. The woman clearly has wolf senses. She already knows what she is dealing with.

She makes a slightly put off expression.

“She’s an animal, you know that,” I remind her.

“I know no such thing.” The woman bristles. “I take it you share this wolf delusion. That’s unfortunate.”

“Delusion?”

I knew that the woman wasn’t going to be right in the head.

Even the limited information Ellie gave me suggested strongly that she was not a good mom.

Leaving a baby in a swamp rarely indicates a high standard of maternal instinct.

But realizing she doesn’t even acknowledge her wolf side is something else.

It happens from time to time in our kind.

Not every person wants to be a person. Not every wolf wants to be a wolf.

It’s not easy being an outcast species in a world full of people.

“Delusion,” she says firmly.

“Alright. Well. I don’t know where Ellie is right now.”

I’m trying not to say too much. I’m tempted to ask her what the fuck her problem is, and why she abandoned her kids for a decade, but of course if I do that I’ll have to listen to a cascade of complete bullshit and I’m not really interested in what is inevitably going to be her delusional rationale.

“That’s okay. I’ll wait for her.”

“No, I mean, she’s not in the city. And you cannot wait for her. It’s not an option.”

Her brow quirks just a fraction. “Is there a reason you’re being so inhospitable?”

“You hit me with a bottle and broke it over my head. I’m not inclined to welcome you into my home. You can leave your number. I will give it to Ellie when I see her, and she can choose if she wants to use it or not.”

I am being very reasonable these days. I barely recognize myself.

“The door is behind you,” I add.

Baldwin sweeps the front door open just as I say the words, emphasizing my point.

Margaret, vicious secretary, wolf in denial, and mother of my mate, sniffs once then turns to leave.

“It’s bad luck not to offer hospitality,” she says as she leaves. “I hope it doesn’t backfire on you.”

I watch her leave with that manipulative little parting shot. She really is a piece of work.

“Baldwin? Put a tail on that woman. I want to know where she goes, and what she’s doing.”

“Very good, sir.”