Page 18 of Hunted Mate (Stalked Mates #1)

I laugh as his palm lands, cutting my amusement off as it starts to create a painful sting. He’s not kidding. He’s spanking me hard and fast, driving out all notion of my terribleness until I am soft, pliable, and in the strangest way given the events of this horrible day, happy.

His fingers slide over my cheeks and down between my legs and he finds the little bud of desire hidden at the apex of my lips.

I let out a soft moan as he starts to play with me there, circling and strumming until I am writhing and then bucking over his lap.

I cannot think about the terrible things.

All I can think about is pleasure, how much he gives me, and how he found me.

But he didn’t save me. I saved myself. And even as I buck against his fingers, the fact that I have become something other than what I used to be is still somewhere deep in the back of my mind, circling like an impatient beast dismissed from the fire and relegated to the shadows.

When I have finished shivering in his arms, he picks me up and makes things clear.

“You’re coming with me. The strays can stay here. But you… you are not leaving my sight again.”

Funny thing about orgasms. They make it really, really hard to argue.

My brain is barely operational right now.

The fact that I’m being sexually coerced by my stalker who has done nothing but leave me to the mercy of the worst of wolf kind does ring alarm bells, but they’re very distant alarm bells.

Sort of more like wind chimes, at this point.

That’s the fun thing about doing very dumb things.

It’s not that you don’t know the thing you are doing is dumb, but it’s more fun in the immediate moment than it is stupid.

The point is, I haven’t forgotten that this man is a stalker and maybe a murderer and he was sent to disrupt my life and my research.

He might be my lover, in some ways, but he’s not my friend.

He’s not my boyfriend. He’s not even, technically speaking, an acquaintance.

He’s a walking shadow with a plethora of identities, many of which are likely still very unknown to me.

I let him take me. Maybe it’s because I’m curious. Maybe it’s because I want to come again. Maybe it’s both.

Once he has my compliance, he starts making calls. In about twenty minutes, a big black SUV of the kind only owned by people who are up to bad things rolls up my drive.

“We’re going to New Orleans?” I ask Gray the question. “Is that where you’re from?”

“It is where my pack is from. But I wasn’t born here. I was born in England. I moved here when my father gained custody from my mother. He is from here, but he left pups all over the world. I was just one of his bastards. Karl is another.”

A tall man gets out of the driver’s side. I recognize him from Gray’s apartment. It’s his brother. Or half-brother. They don’t look enough like one another to be full brothers, I think.

“Karl is another what?”

“Bastard,” Gray says. “Karl, this is Callie. My mate.”

Karl looks like he wants to laugh in our faces when Gray calls me his mate.

“I love your work, darling,” Karl says. “Brutal, messy, dramatic. You’re too good for him, you know. You could do so much better.”

He smiles at me, but only one of his eyes is able to emote. The other remains cold and inexpressive. That’s not his fault, but it does seem to relay a certain depth that wouldn’t be there if his face was unscarred.

“What happened to you?” I ask the question bluntly.

“I was born this way,” Karl says.

“I mean to your face.”

Both his eyes go cold. I guess he doesn’t like that question. Fuck him. I’m glad I made him uncomfortable. He deserves to be. He’s the reason I got taken into the warehouse. He’s the reason I’ve now killed someone.

“That’s rude,” he says. “I was led to believe you were well bred. Or is that just my brother who breeds you well, and you are descended from nothing…”

My hand makes harsh contact with his face. I’m an equal opportunity slapper when you talk shit about my parents.

“Fucking little…”

Gray is between us in a flash, shoving Karl back. “Don’t talk about people’s dead parents if you don’t want a smack in the face,” he says. “It’s a pretty simple, reasonable rule, don’t you think?”

“Asking personal questions is also rather rude,” Karl points out, walking away to open the rear door of the vehicle.

“Alright, idiots, get in.”

He retreats to a leaning position on the hood while swinging the car keys around on his middle finger.

“Does he really have to come?” I turn to Gray. I really am not in the mood to make friends with assholes. I’ve always been rich enough to avoid this sort of encounter, and my plan is to keep avoiding them. “Can’t we just go as the two of us?”

“Karl’s been sent as an escort,” Gray explains. “Don’t worry about him.”

“No. Do worry about me,” Karl clarifies. “I’m the one in charge. You’re in my custody.”

“Alright, well, I’m not going,” I say.

Predictably, it is too late to back out. Karl reaches out, grabs me by the front of my shirt, and quite literally throws me into the back of the SUV. These werewolves are annoyingly strong. Whenever any of them handle me, it feels like I weigh nothing at all.

“Be careful with her!” Gray snaps, annoyed.

“Get in the car, little bro… ow!”

The ow is followed by some very muffled words. I scramble back out of the car and see that Karl’s face is bleeding profusely from the nose. He’s clasping his hands to it in a very ineffective manner

“Pinch the tip,” I say. “And don’t lean your head back.”

I don’t know why I am giving him advice. I should be joining in the assault. Having come to that conclusion, I run up and kick in him in the shin. It’s satisfying to hear him yowl through a bloodied nose.

“I’m going to kill the both of you little fuckers.”

“That’s not an option,” Gray reminds him. “The alpha wants to see us, remember?”

Gray’s voice is starting to sound different.

His accent is getting broader, deeper, more liquid and mellow.

He’d been talking in a sort of Connecticut twang up until now, sounding rich and businesslike.

I guess he’s letting that impression slide, or maybe he’s just being more himself.

I find myself hoping that it is his original mode of speaking.

It would be nice to have some real sense of him.

“Get in the fucking car,” Karl growls.

“You get in the back,” he says. “I’ll drive. She’ll be in the passenger seat.”

“We don’t have time for this shit,” Karl says. “Get in, or I’ll break your fucking necks and tell the alpha I dealt with it.”

“You know Dad won’t let that slide.”

“Wait,” I say. “The New Orleans alpha is your dad?”

“Don’t get excited,” Karl says. “He fathered half the wolves in the state. He’s everybody’s dad. And he barely knows who this one is. Just a scrub hunter, aren’t you, Gray.”

“I can’t break your nose twice, but I can try,” Gray says.

I was being abducted two minutes ago, but now I feel like I’m about to embark on the dumbest road trip ever. I’ve never had any siblings, but this feels delightfully fraternal. I’m kind of here for it.

“So we do have to bring him?” I ask Gray the question again. “I can have a doctor come here and treat his nose so you can break it again if you want.”

“All I need to do is shift to fix it. Shut the hell up and get in the car, or I swear to god.”

“What?”

“What do you mean what?”

“What do you swear to god?” I ask the question innocently.

“Okay, okay, we do need to go,” Gray says as Karl damn near turns inside out from rage.

He’s not used to being defied by humans.

He’s used to having them kidnapped and murdered.

He’s dangerous, and I think that’s why I’m getting so much pleasure out of fucking with him.

It’s like my way of taking a stand against all dangerous, terrible things I’ve ever encountered in my life.

“Get in the passenger seat,” Gray tells me.

I hesitate again, realizing this is not the smartest thing I have ever done.

Then it occurs to me I really don’t have as many choices as I might think.

I can’t run any more than I can. They’re proven hunters.

Gray will find me no matter what. Which means all I’ve got is defiance, and I know he’ll whip my ass if I try that.

My butt is still stinging from the last altercation I had with him.

So I get in the passenger seat and buckle up. As I do, a question occurs to me.

“Are we driving? Or taking the plane?”

“I’m not spending twenty hours in this car with the two of you,” Karl growls. “We’ll be taking the plane.”

He’s in the back, having stemmed the bleeding.

I don’t think his nose is actually broken.

Not yet anyway. The day is still early in that regard.

Still plenty of time to pay him back for putting me through that captivity.

I know he was involved in that somehow. Karl is the sort of person who doesn’t have feelings for anybody besides himself.

Maybe not a true psychopath, just deeply, deeply selfish and sadistic.

We drive to a private airport, where a sleek black private plane is waiting. I’m not as impressed by it as some people might be. My plane is bigger, after all. But this is nice too, I suppose, if you’re not really going very far or taking very many people with you.

“You’re not impressed, are you,” Karl says. “Little Miss Moneybags probably never flew coach in her life.”

I’ve heard of coaches before. They’re what the British call buses.

I snort. “You can’t fly a bus,” I say. “You won’t get me that easily.”

“Coach is the colloquial term for flying economy class in a passenger plane,” Gray explains. “It’s pretty cramped and not very comfortable in other ways either.”

“Oh,” I say, blushing while Karl smirks, me having proved his point for him. “Am I supposed to be embarrassed that I have money? Do you want me to be ashamed for the life I was born into? Because I’m not.”

“No,” Karl says. “I don’t expect you to have shame.”

Man, he is really winning all these conversational gambits. I kind of hate it. It makes me feel more stupid and slower than I am. And it makes him look smarter than I bet he really is.

The pilot sets the plane in motion, and I use take-off as an excuse not to engage with Karl anymore.

I really dislike him, both for the general murderousness, and the more specific desire to kill me personally that lingers just under his surface.

Wolves are supposed to deal with their prey cleanly, but he’s enjoying toying with me like he’s a cat.

I can’t help but wonder what kind of reception awaits me in New Orleans. If they’re taking me all this way just to kill me, that will suck. I think Gray wants me alive anyway, so I have to assume that’s not what he thinks is going to happen.

Karl keeps looking at me. I try not to look back, but it is so hard to avoid the eye of someone who is staring me down that way.

“What?” I finally snap at him.

“Just ignore him,” Gray says.

This is going to be a long three hours in a tin can with two wolves.

Wolves. I go back to thinking about that plot twist. I spent so much time trying to find these creatures, and the moment I did, they set about ruining me.

Every time I’ve had any kind of interaction with wolf shifters, they hurt me.

Why the hell did I get myself into this?

Did I ever really have a choice?

It feels like I’ve been drawn in fascination ever since the very first moment we met in the forest. I was scarred, and I’ve been chasing something about that scar ever since.

Everybody goes quiet. I wonder what the other two are thinking. I wonder if I am walking into a trap. Probably. Feels like I’ve been in a trap for a long time. I’m not sure there’s any way out.