Page 6 of Bullied Pretend Mate (Silverville Firefighter Wolves #3)

This is far from the first time Maeve Villareal has stared at me like I’m stupid, and I doubt it will be the last.

Before she can open her mouth and start listing out all the reasons this is a bad idea, I get ahead of her, shaking my head and holding my hand up in a just hear me out expression.

“My mom has been on my ass because, like, every person in our family and every close family friend is having a wedding since the fires have died down,” I explain.

“And she has this idea in her head that I need to find someone to bring with me to all of them. I’m not interested in anything long-term, and I don’t want to give someone the wrong idea.

But you’re not looking to mate with an alpha—not for real. ”

Maeve gives me a droll stare. “So, your perfect idea is lying?”

“Hear me out,” I say, scooting closer to her, bending my legs so I can see her face a little more clearly in the dark.

My sense of smell is amazing, but my sight is only as good as another shifter’s.

“It was fucked up for your grandma to put that provision in her will. Sexist, omegaist bullshit, right? So if you find a workaround, you’re not really doing something wrong. You’re doing something right.”

“You would make a really terrible lawyer.”

I put a hand to my chest in mock offense. “Rude. But seriously, Maeve. It would be a win-win. I can make it through the wedding season unscathed and unmated, and you can convince whoever you need to that you’re mated.”

“And Xeran has to approve the mating,” she reminds me, which does put a bit of a wrench in the plans. “He’s not going to lie for you, and I don’t imagine you want to lie to your friend?”

I’m more than willing to lie, especially when it comes to something like this.

It’s not like Xeran really cares about whether I’m mated or not.

If I told him the whole truth and asked him to play a part in it, he wouldn’t—he’s way too honorable for that.

But if I think I want to be mated to Maeve and it just happens to fall through… what’s the harm in that?

“We can figure it out,” I say, finding Maeve’s gaze and holding it. “All we’d have to do is make him believe it. A couple of mating bites, and—”

Her eyes widen to an impossible degree, making her look cartoonish, and the next thing I know, she’s scrambling to her feet, like even being on the floor with me is a crime.

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “No, no, no. Absolutely not, Felix. We’re not…” Her face is flushed, the red splotches climbing up her neck and to the bottom of her chin. I’m transfixed by it. “We are not biting one another.”

She whispers, biting like it’s scandalous, and I suppose it is, if you take that sort of thing seriously.

I’ve never actually done a mating bite on someone, but the first one is never permanent.

You have to do it many times—sometimes as long as a year—for it to really settle in.

And even then, I’ve heard of older, divorced shifters losing their mating bond after years and years apart.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” I say, even as my eyes roam over her body of their own accord, looking for the exact spot on her I would choose.

The nape of her neck? Something rebellious in me wants to get my teeth in the perfect swell of her ass, but that would definitely be frowned upon.

Typically, the mark is supposed to be somewhere visible, so you can show other shifters that you’re taken.

“It is a big deal,” she protests, backing up into the corner of the elevator.

I don’t think she’s afraid of me, but I scoot back, staying seated just to give her space.

I search my brain to remember whether or not she’s claustrophobic.

“In case you’ve forgotten, people around here already don’t like me,” she adds.

I kind of had forgotten. My mother might not be happy with the choice to mate with Maeve, but with Phina in the luna position and Valerie back in town, it’s not like the girls are as villainized as they used to be.

And especially now that the fires have stopped, and Xeran has been doing a great job with the rebuilding efforts, people around here are not as salty about it as they used to be.

“Maeve,” I begin, knowing I can convince her about this. I just have to figure out how. When we were kids, I managed to talk her into all sorts of things.

I managed to talk her into that kiss. Or, rather, when I kissed her, she kissed me back. Even with how we’d grown apart, I talked her into leaning forward, opening her mouth for me.

The thought makes a rush of lust move through me, and when I look at her again, I wonder if she can see it.

It’s so much worse now than it ever was in high school—at least in high school, she did everything she could to hide her figure.

Her hips, that chest. But now, she’s figured out the perfect way to accentuate every feature, and I want to eat her alive.

She is so much more than the girl she used to be.

But I don’t get to finish the rest of my sentence, because the elevator jerks and drops an inch. She screams, putting her hands to her face, and I pop up to my feet to grab her, but then the doors open, and Maeve rushes out.

“Maeve!” Phina says, the worry on her face melting into pleasant surprise. “You came!”

“Felix, what the hell did you do?” Xeran demands, shaking his head at me. Soren is on the ground, the panel next to the elevator open, a screwdriver in his hand.

“Nothing,” I say, distracted, trying to step past him to get to Maeve, but he doesn’t seem to sense my urgency.

The crowd around the elevator seems to be celebrating us getting out, and somehow Maeve slips through them effortlessly while I’m caught with the supreme in front of me. “It wasn’t my fault this time.”

“Yeah, right,” Soren says through the tool between his teeth. He reaches up to take it out. “Only you could break a brand-new elevator.”

I growl without meaning to. “Just—one second, guys—”

But by the time I make it through the crowd, Maeve is gone.

***

I’m on my way to the firehouse the next morning—tired, grumpy, and still plagued by the scent of Maeve around me—when my mother calls.

I knew I should have taken my bike this morning. Then I would have an excuse to ignore this call. Likely, Annette said something about me ditching her last night, and my mom is reaching out to rip me apart for doing something so rude and careless.

“Hello?”

“Felix!” she says, a laugh in her voice that tells me this is not a you’re in trouble call. “Your father and I just heard about what happened last night.”

My mouth goes dry. Maeve and I in the elevator?

“I can’t believe you were trapped in that elevator. Poor Annette had no idea. She thought you were trying to avoid her.”

I swallow down my answer, knowing that if I say I was, it’s not going to go over well. I’ve already tried telling my mother in a million different ways that I am not interested in Annette. She just doesn’t want to hear it.

Or, maybe she just thinks she knows what’s best for me. I’ve never been great at making responsible decisions.

“Oh,” I say instead, because that’s neither a lie nor the truth.

“Anyway, have you asked her to the wedding this weekend?”

“ This weekend ?” I come to a stop, blinking against the bright sunshine and putting her on speaker so I can open the calendar app on my phone.

I have the wedding scheduled. I just somehow managed to forget about it, thinking of it as something very far in the future. Until, all at once, it’s not far in the future at all.

I’m already trying to think of a way to get out of it—I could be sick, I could start a fire to fight—when my mother says, her voice relaxed, “You don’t have to worry about it. I know you’ve been shy with Annette. I have a spin class with her tonight. I can talk to her about it.”

“No, Mom, that’s okay—”

“Felix, you have to go with someone—”

“I am.” When I say it, the line goes quiet, and I can practically hear the gears turning in my mother’s head as she tries to figure out who I could possibly be going to the wedding with. “It’s all settled. You don’t have to talk to Annette.”

She’s silent for a moment. “Okay,” she says, “but I’m serious about this, Felix. Your father and I are going to be embarrassed if you’re coming to these weddings on your own.”

I feel a twinge of guilt, knowing that I’ll probably be skipping the weddings altogether. My parents are good people, and I know they’re just thinking of how the pack is going to look at me—mostly through their dated lens of pack politics—but I just can’t bring myself to go with Annette.

“I know,” I say, knowing I sound more confident than I feel. “You can trust me, Mom.”