Page 17 of Hunted Mate (Stalked Mates #1)

“If I let them go without some kind of protection, the pack will find them and hurt them. They don’t deserve to die just because they saw something.

If your kind doesn’t want to be spotted, don’t dance around in the fucking woods turning into wolves in the firelight.

This happens all the fucking time as far as I can tell.

Going for a hike shouldn’t be a death sentence. ”

“Bring them, then, but they’ll be in just as much danger. You are special, Callie. They are not. They are absolutely expendable, and you are going to put them in danger, along with the rest of us.”

“Molly, Mark! Do you guys want to come with me to a wolf-infested New Orleans? Or do you want to stay here in wolf-infested New York?”

I don’t know what I expected to see when Molly and Mark appear, but it’s not the two people who emerge.

They look like they belong in a much less palatial environment.

Mark especially is dressed like he’s accustomed to brewing his own alcohol and hunting his own meat.

Molly gives me an arch look, as if she’s sizing me up.

I know very well that Callie doesn’t have many friends.

She has hundreds of social connections, and probably thousands of people who would do her bidding if she were to ask, but she never really gets close to people in an easy, friendly way.

I don’t think these people are friends either. I think they are under her protection.

The two humans look at one another with an understandable hesitance. “Do you have any non-wolf infested places to go to?” Molly asks the question.

Callie looks at me. “Are there any non-wolf infested places to go?”

“No,” I say. “The world is full of wolves, and snakes, and more things besides. There’s no real escape from the paranormal horrors once your eyes are opened and you’re on their radar.”

“We have to do something for them,” she insists. “I’m not leaving anybody to die.”

“Best we can do is get them hidden and then hope we can cut a deal with New York’s pack master. Deals happen all the time.”

“You can still stay at my place,” she tells them. “I told you that, and I meant it.”

“Wait, is that a good idea?” I don’t know that I like the idea of two complete strangers, one of them male, spending time in Callie’s home, no matter how big it is.

“Do you have somewhere for them to stay safe?” She looks at me accusingly, as if I’m to blame for this quandary. She is taking on far too much responsibility for complete strangers.

“No,” I sigh.

I don’t care about these people. I care completely and exclusively about her.

I want to get her out of New York, where the shifter packs have taken a black eye in the loss of their pack mate to a human female.

They will be out for blood. There is absolutely no doubt about that.

She will not be safe, not here, not in this fancy house.

They will come in the night, and they will kill her.

They will burn this place to the ground if they have to.

She has started a fight with a feral force of nature that will show no mercy.

“I have to talk to you somewhere private,” she says.

Molly and Mark keep staring at us, so she takes me by the hand and leads me away.

I allow it, only because I think grabbing her and carrying her off into my car is going to make her panic.

She’s just been abducted. I don’t want to abduct her twice in one day.

Calista

I take Gray to the study, because we really need to talk. Not in the casual sort of superficial, ‘oh, terrible things just happened’ sort of way, but in the ‘my life and probably personality has changed forever’ sort of way.

He follows me into the book-lined room, his hands on my hips from behind as he pulls me back against him. He’s aroused. I can feel the thick ridge of it between my cheeks. It almost distracts me from my existential crisis. Almost.

“I shot someone,” I say, turning toward him. “I’m a murderer.”

I know I already told him this, but it’s not the sort of thing you mention once and never go back to again.

“Eh. He had it coming.” Gray shrugs it off like it doesn’t matter, and I guess it doesn’t. It was a matter of him or me and of course I chose me. There was nobody else to choose.

“But…” I bite my lower lip. “I’ve never done that before, and it feels like it’s changed something inside me.”

I don’t know how to explain it entirely, but I hope those words are enough. Sometimes, having to blather endlessly about my feelings makes me wish I didn’t have any. It’s painful. This would be worse than most of them, because it’s so dark and so terrible.

Gray’s expression shifts to one of pity. I hate that. He thinks I’m weak. Shooting someone should at least mean people think you are strong.

“I know,” he says. “I’m sorry. I should have been there to kill him for you.

And I should never have left your side. I thought I could lure Karl away, but I think it was part of his plan to begin with.

They didn’t think I’d done my job with you, and yes, they wanted you dead.

I’ve convinced him otherwise now, I think.

But…” He gives a slight shrug, as if he can’t know and as if he’s not even going to attempt to guess.

What fun.

I guess danger is going to be ever present now.

We’re going to be fugitives to the creatures we wanted to find so badly.

Well, I wanted to find them. Molly and Mark just wanted to fuck in the woods with an asshole called Brent who is dead now.

I wonder how many hundreds if not thousands of people have lost their lives over the years because wolves decided they’ve seen too much and took them out remorselessly.

“I want to make a difference,” I say. “I want to make sure that people who don’t deserve to die, don’t die. So you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to hire bodyguards and I’m going to have them guard this house, and I’m going to get the two of them everything they want because…”

“Saving random people won’t bring your parents back.”

I can’t believe Gray just said that. He has a serious expression on his face, as if he said something that makes sense to him. Apparently he didn’t stop to think how it would feel to hear it.

Smack.

I slap him right in the face. Open palm slap. He doesn’t even pretend to jerk away. His face pinkens just slightly. He looks at me with something like mercy, or maybe it’s indulgence. I don’t know. My temper got the better of me.

“Sorry,” he says. “I deserved that. Psychoanalysis is very rarely appreciated in the moment.”

“I know they’re not my parents. They’re two people I can help.

And I’m planning on helping them. Nothing you do or say is going to stop me, even shitty below the belt comments on my parents.

You fucking…” I stop myself from going off on him completely, but he would deserve it if I did.

That was a low blow, and it reduced all my inner goodness to the reactive desire of some little girl missing her parents to save some make-believe version of them.

Gray drops the matter immediately. I don’t know if he really understands how wrong he was, but he definitely understands he doesn’t want the fight with me.

“Alright, then put the bodyguards on them, and make it clear to the New York pack that trying to come after them will be difficult. Nobody wants a scene. The more public you can make the attempt to hurt them, the better.”

“Thanks,” I say. “So nice of you to give me permission to do what I was going to do anyway.”

Gray lets out a little low growl. “I know you’ve been through a lot recently, and a lot more before that, and I’ll give you that slap because I should have known better than to say what I did—but you need to start watching your tone, young lady, or I am going to give you a lesson in respect.”

I laugh in his face. “I shot someone today. You think I care about any of this, any of your feelings or thoughts about how I should behave? There’s no should anymore, Gray. There’s just whatever I want to do, whenever I want to do it.”

My comments feel very bold and very satisfying, but the next thing I see is the carpet, because he has sat down and thrown me over his knee.

I balance on my fingertips out in front of me as he snugs one arm around my waist, then sets about spanking me hard and fast, like he has the right to discipline me like a spoiled little girl.

“I warned you,” he says, his tone almost amused. “I told you to be careful and the first thing you did was get yourself right into trouble. I can’t believe you sometimes, Callie. You’re so smart, and you really don’t like being spanked like this, but every chance you get, you provoke one.”

“Oh, fuck off. You don’t know me like that,” I curse at him, my temper flaring with each and every harsh slap landing on my ass. The tracksuit fabric helps a little, but I can still feel the heat building almost instantly, and the odd sort of numb buzz that comes from being whipped too damn hard.

“I do know you, Callie. I have spent months doing nothing but getting to know you. You think because I met you a couple of times I don’t know you. But, little girl, you are my special interest. You are my favorite subject. I know more about you than I know about anyone or anything.”

It would be a sweet, intimate declaration if he wasn’t thrashing my ass. He spanks me with slow, measured slaps that land heavily every time.

“I’m dangerous! I’m scary! I killed someone.”

He reaches to yank down my pants and panties, clutches my hair, and rumbles a response in my ear.

“Baby girl, let me know when you’ve killed a dozen. One person in defense of yourself and others is not the makings of a monster. Now settle down and be sorry.”