Page 2 of Bullied Pretend Mate (Silverville Firefighter Wolves #3)

“ Felix !”

I startle awake, pushing out thoughts of strawberry-blond hair and full lips, realizing all too late that I was having a sex dream while napping at my parents’ house.

And I know I’m imagining it, but it’s like I can catch her scent on the wind. Like she might somehow be near Silverville. I know that’s not true. I know she left for good, and this smell is just wishful thinking on my part.

Blinking, I sit up and look at my mother, who stands in front of the couch, her hand on her hip. She’s shaking her head but smiling. Secretly, she loves it when I come back here and do things I used to do. Like napping on the couch, or wolfing down dinner.

“Food’s ready,” she says, turning on her heel and gesturing for me to follow her.

My parents’ house is tucked right into the middle of the west side of town, and somehow mostly survived the most recent wildfire that blew in, razing half the houses on this side.

Since then, Xeran—our supreme—has put a lot of work into supporting the rebuilding effort, which means we can hear saws and hammers, sometimes all through the night, from my parents’ house.

They don’t mind. Sometimes my dad will just wander around until he finds a project going on, then step in and ask what he can do to help.

Yawning and rubbing my eyes—and trying not to think about the girl lingering in my head—I stumble to the table and take a seat, grinning at my mom when she brings me a glass.

Rolling her eyes, she says, “You are so spoiled, do you know that?”

“Coming here is my favorite part of the week,” I say, stretching out. “Really gives me a chance to relax after being at the firehouse.”

“You know,” my dad says, appearing from the kitchen, holding a glass baking dish of lasagna in his oven-mitted hands. “You’re not going to be able to use the fire excuse for much longer. People are saying they’ve finally slowed down.”

I swallow, nerves creeping up when I think about it.

It’s been months since we discovered what was causing all the fires—a couple of fuckers from Silverville trying to harvest daemonic energy, not caring that each time they did it, it seemed to spawn the fires that consumed trees and houses and left nothing in their wake.

When Xeran came back to town, he started up our old firefighting squad, and for a while, we were out what felt like every night, trying to smother the fires before they could get to town.

Xeran has been one of my best friends since high school. It was hard to see him realize his own brothers were part of the problem, letting their own greed get to them.

It was even harder to play a role in their deaths.

When they went too far, kidnapping Lachlan’s mate, I was the one to figure out where they were. I’ve always had a wicked good sense of smell, and after the last couple of fires, I could smell something sweet, almost sticky. A burnt sugar smell that nearly mirrored Xeran’s—in fact, all the Sorels’.

It was the old candy factory, barely standing on the edge of town, somehow having survived fire after fire through the years.

That’s where we found them, and that’s where Kalen and I cornered Farris, outnumbering him. The panic in his eyes—the raw, vulnerable fear—was enough for me to feel sorry for him. Younger than me, and younger than Soren, I’d remembered playing with the kid, being there for his first shift.

But in the end, Kalen had tackled his own brother, sending them skittering. A single second before or after, and it would have been Kalen under that jagged piece of rusted metal, his head severed. The memory of it, the image, flashes into my mind frequently, making me sick.

“ Felix ,” my mother says, drawing me out of the memory.

I blink at her, trying to clear the images of blood and gore from my head. Since it happened, I have a tendency to get stuck in these daydreams—or daynightmares.

“Yeah?” I answer, clearing my throat. “What’s up?

“Will you answer the door ?” she asks, raising her eyebrows.

As though responding to her statement, there’s a soft, tentative knock at the door. I realize whoever it is has been knocked before, and, for some reason, my mother wants me to answer it.

“Mom.” I shake my head. “You didn’t.”

“Just go answer the door, Felix.”

Sighing, I push up from my chair, practically dragging my feet to the front door, where I find exactly what I was expecting to see.

“Thank you so much for inviting me, Felix!” Annette says, the moment I open the door, before I’m even able to offer my own greeting.

Today, she’s wearing a tight pair of low-rise jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt that shows off her chest. Her cheekbones are high and sharp, her makeup accentuating them to the point of ridiculousness.

Objectively, Annette is gorgeous. The kind of woman you might see walking the runway in a tiny little bikini, her ultra-flat stomach defying the laws of physics. But every time I see her, something in me shudders away.

She reaches in, wrapping her arms around my neck and pulling me in for a hug that I don’t want, her breasts pressing against my chest. Almost like she’s doing it on purpose.

“Oh, don’t thank me,” I say, managing to disentangle myself from her. “It must have been my mother who invited you.”

I don’t realize my mother is standing behind me until she whips me with the towel, where Annette can’t see it. Annette swallows, looking between me and my mom. A blush would rise to her cheeks now if her makeup wasn’t full-coverage.

“Well,” she says, smiling. “Thanks for the invite, no matter who it came from.”

We move to the dining room, and I try not to glower at my mother.

She’s been on this for weeks—me needing to find a date for the string of weddings coming up this summer.

With the fires raging for the past few years, people around here have been postponing and postponing.

Now that it looks like they might finally be done, all those couples are rushing to tie the knot.

Something I thoroughly don’t understand.

I’ve tried to explain to my parents that I’m just not that interested in marriage, no matter how hung up they are on the idea of me getting too old. For one, I’m not some Victorian spinster. And for two, there are plenty of humans who go their entire lives without getting married or mating .

This is something my parents just don’t understand. For them, their entire lives revolved around finding the right person, marrying them, and staying with them. It’s biologically driven in a shifter.

And that biology is there for me. But I just know with a certainty that I’m not going to find the right person, so what’s the point in trying? Better to keep my expectations on the floor.

While we eat dinner, my parents ask Annette questions, charming her, making it seem like this thing is entirely normal. Annette and I grew up together and have known each other our entire lives. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to fall into bed with her, much less mate her.

Not when there’s another girl I grew up with. Another girl who lives in my head, her scent seeming to float around me even when I know there’s no chance she’s within a hundred miles of here.

***

When I wake up the next morning, twisted in my sheets, it’s with the scent of Maeve Villareal around me like a curse.

I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling, examining it as I think.

Back in high school, I couldn’t escape the smell of her.

No matter which corner of the school she was in, her scent clung to me desperately.

And as much as I hoped I’d get used to it, that my brain would filter it out into my background, that never seemed to happen.

Each breath was a reminder of her proximity, driving my body to go find her.

Once, I went into one of those make-your-own perfume places, and I spent the entire time trying to find the mix that was closest to her.

Something like black currant, jasmine, and vanilla.

Something soft and soothing, yet warm and fresh.

Like standing in the middle of a strawberry field, but never picking or eating a strawberry.

Or maybe that’s me projecting. Because her scent has always meant wanting but never getting to have.

Sighing, I swing my legs over the bed, folding myself and forcing my body to get to my feet. I have to be at the firehouse in less than fifteen minutes, but on a nice day like this, I’ll just walk over rather than taking my bike.

When I get to the firehouse, it’s buzzing with activity. Since the fires stopped, Xeran has been on a mission to recruit a lot more guys, train them, and get our force up to snuff. To ensure that if—and, I think, when —the daemon fires return, we’ll have more hands on deck to fight back.

On the left side of the station is a crew of guys repairing the remaining damage from the last big fire that swept through town.

They’re installing a massive pane of glass on the side of the building.

It will be nice not to have to look at the temporary plywood anymore, and hopefully, this new glass lives up to the promise of being fireproof and shatterproof.

I don’t know how much that means against a daemon fire, which burns at least ten times hotter than a standard fire.

When I get to the kitchen, I find a box of bagels on the counter and grab one that looks good—cinnamon sugar or something—shoving it into my mouth and looking around for cream cheese.

I’m just pulling the spoon from my mouth, adding the cream cheese to the bagel I’ve already started chewing, when Soren walks into the kitchen, shaking his head at me so his copper curls jostle over his forehead.

“Can you find it within yourself to eat like a normal person?”

Lachlan Cambias strolls in right after Soren, smelling like expensive cologne. Under that is the new base scent of him that I’m still getting used to, a solidified mixing of him and Valerie, his mate. They just had their baby, but Lachlan doesn’t look tired at all.

The benefit of having money to throw around—the ability to hire maids and a private chef.

“He can’t,” Lachlan says, throwing a second box on the counter. It’s donuts, and I take one of those, too, stacking a bagel and a donut together and taking a bite.

“Sick,” Soren mutters while Lachlan laughs.

“It’s called ingenuity,” I say, raising my hand to catch a crumb as it falls from my mouth. “You guys are just jealous.”

“What are we doing today?” Lachlan asks after stashing his fancy protein shake in the fridge.

“Don’t know,” Soren says. “Xeran is late .”

“I am not,” Xeran says, walking briskly into the kitchen. “You say that shit about me again, and see what happens.”

“A minute late, boss,” Soren laughs, and Lachlan blocks him in so Xeran can punch him on the shoulder.

“Assholes,” Soren mutters, rubbing his arm.

“Get out there and help those guys with painting the side,” Xeran says, jerking his thumb toward the outside of the fire station.

I move to go with the others, but Xeran holds his hand out, and I stop mid-stride. The look he gives me does not bode well for how the rest of this conversation is about to go.

Lachlan and Soren each give me an oh shit look before hurrying out of the kitchen, Lachlan reaching back quickly for a donut before he goes. When they’re gone, Xeran levels me with a look.

“Have you given any more thought to what I proposed?”

No, I have not.

In fact, since last Friday, when Xeran first mentioned that he might give me my own squad, having me head up one of the units, I thought it was a joke. And when he wasn’t laughing, I pushed the thought as far out of my head as I possibly could.

So far that when Xeran came in, I wasn’t even sure what he wanted to talk to me about.

“I didn’t think so,” Xeran says, sighing good-naturedly. “I’d like to get you started on the certifications. If you’re going to do it. Just think about it.”

“Alright,” I say, leaning back against the counter, even though I know it’s a lie. “I will.”

“Go join those other guys,” Xeran says, and before I go, he adds, “And Felix?”

“Yeah?”

“Actually, think it over. I wouldn’t be talking to you about it if I didn’t think you were the right guy for the job.”