Page 5 of Love Bites Really Hard (Mated to the King #4)

five

BANE

Despite my mate’s clear—and adorable—annoyance, when we joined the inner circle in the conference room, she sat down on my lap like she didn’t hate me.

Like she belonged there, even.

She did.

And it was sexy enough to make me glad I’d put a new pair of jeans on, thanks to the erection fighting against them. The sweats wouldn’t have done a damn thing to hide it.

“Inner Circle, this is Zora,” I said, gesturing to the pretty little siren on my lap. “Zora, this is my inner circle. It’s made up of representatives from the largest groups of monsters.”

They were all in their human forms, so they looked normal at the moment. I didn’t know how she’d react to seeing everyone’s monster forms. But considering the way she’d climbed me after I shifted, I wasn’t too concerned.

Gordon, the cyclopes representative, scowled. He was mated, and therefore both used to and tired of dealing with unmated men.

Anthony, the demon rep, set his hands on the table and leaned closer. “So you’re the one who rejected Oscar.”

If Zora had shrunk away from him, he would’ve eaten her alive. Instead, she glared back at him. “No, I’m the one who was nearly manipulated into sharing a bed with a monster who didn’t mention that he’d imprinted on me. If you’re going to expect people to mate with the first monster that looks at them, the public should be aware of the risk so they can take precautions, don’t you think?”

My arm tightened around her.

No one would dare hurt my mate, but monsters weren’t known for their level-headedness.

The last thing I needed was for them to scare my female away right after I made her mine. I was already on thin ice with her, considering she had assumed we were in agreement about being nothing more than friends.

“You did more than look at him,” Anthony countered.

“I flirted with him. It was a party. People do that,” she said drily. “If having monsters at parties means other people are forced into mate bonds with someone they don’t even like, you bastards shouldn’t be invited to anything.”

My arm tightened further.

There was a moment of tense silence before Lex finally laughed. “She has a point.”

A few more monsters chuckled, though some of them looked irritated about it. We weren’t known for being cheerful any more than we were known for being level-headed.

“If you were so against mating with a monster, why did you already seal your bond with the king?” Gerald, the basilisk representative, asked.

Someone growled at the apparent challenge to my female, who was effectively their queen.

Maybe it was a few someones.

Maybe I was one of them.

“Careful,” Lex warned.

“It’s fine,” Zora said, waving Lex’s warning off and ignoring the growls. “I realized that I wasn’t going to get out of the situation without picking one of them. Oscar is nice, but I wasn’t attracted to him. As I’m sure you can smell, I’m into Bane. That made the choice an easy one. There was no point in dragging out the drama and risking setting off another imprint with my magic.”

It was a decent argument. Better than telling everyone in the room that he was too nice for her. I’d seen them together, and I knew his niceness wasn’t the problem. It was his sensitivity that she couldn’t handle.

Zora obviously had feelings, but she wasn’t gentle or weepy about them. She was strong. Dominant. Commanding. Maybe Oscar was into that, but she obviously wasn’t interested in his lack of those qualities.

Even if she could’ve been, it was a moot point.

Because she was mine .

Whether she liked it or not, there was no going back from a sealed mate bond.

A few of the representatives nodded. Some still didn’t look convinced, but they’d come around. If they didn’t, I’d make them come around.

“Maybe they should attend dinner with the unmated males for now, in an attempt to break Oscar’s imprint,” Lex suggested.

“The unmated females will want to meet the siren as well as officially get to know their king,” Lina, the arachnid representative countered. “They’ll need to divide their time equally.”

“I was planning on it,” I said.

“Oscar’s friends will be a problem. Text messages are already circling about you stealing his mate,” Anthony warned.

“There may be no way to deal with this without bloodshed.” Gordon cracked his knuckles.

“I have an idea,” Nessa, the representative over the unmated females, said. Her mate had been killed in a fight many years ago, and she had lived among the unmated women since. I’d asked if she intended to take a second mate, but she no longer had interest in sharing her life with anyone at all.

She was the person in the inner circle that I trusted the most, after Lex.

I looked at her, and found her looking at Zora.

“From my perspective, there’s only one way to take care of this problem without causing a civil war. The unmated men have taken Oscar’s side. They often feel targeted by both the mated monsters and the unmated females, because of the regulations imposed on them. They see this as a personal attack, and won’t back down,” she explained.

“Alright,” Zora said. “What’s your idea?”

“We give them what they want: an enemy. You.”

“Me?” Zora sounded a little surprised. “Sirens don’t usually make good enemies. Our magic convinces people to want us for no reason.”

“Right now, the men see you as a small, weak siren trapped between Oscar and Bane. The king is the cruel gargoyle who took you from everyone’s favorite man. If we can make them see you as the mastermind, and Bane as the unmated male who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, we can turn them against you. And if they hate you instead of Bane, we can prevent more violence and death.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t want our army of unmated men focused on despising my mate.”

Lex leaned over the table. “That could actually work. There isn’t a man in this building who would hurt a defenseless woman, regardless of how much lust her magic causes. She wouldn’t be in physical danger just because they hated her.”

“Do you think it could prevent more fighting?” Zora asked, her focus still on Nessa.

“Yes. And potentially, break an imprint,” Nessa confirmed.

“Then I’m in.”

My chest rumbled with warning.

“If there’s any sign that the queen’s in danger, we shut it down immediately, and Bane kills Oscar. The unmated males will be furious, but he can leave until the anger dies down,” Lex said.

The anger wouldn’t die down.

I would have to abdicate the throne or kill more of them. One of my brothers would have to replace me. Neither of them had any interest, but the inner circle would probably be able to keep the Manor running together.

“The queen ?” Zora asked, her voice raising with her title as she looked back at me. “I thought you bastards pretended not to believe that you’re royalty.”

“It’s the best route publicly,” I said. “Here, there’s no point in pretending.”

She let out a long breath and looked back at the group. “Alright, we’ll change the narrative. I’ll play the wicked little siren until Oscar’s imprint breaks or someone tries to hurt me. Bane will act like he’s trying to be unaffected by my magic.”

“What?” My voice was sharp.

“That would be the best way to sell the point we’re trying to make.” Nessa’s expression was considerate. “If Bane acts uninterested in you while you’re in public, it would be nearly impossible for the men to gain enough momentum to rise against him. They won’t attack him for a bond he didn’t want to create.”

“Probably,” Lex amended.

“If they think I used my magic to seduce him into bonding with me before he realized what was going on, they’ll hate me even more,” Zora agreed.

“Probably,” Lex repeated. “Assuming Bane is willing to pretend for even a few minutes that he’s not obsessed with her. He’s barely looked away from the back of her head since they’ve sat down, so that seems like an important question.”

Everyone looked at me, but Zora’s gaze was the one I met.

She stared at me for a long moment before speaking for me. “To prevent deaths, he’ll do it. Not perfectly—but no one will expect him to be able to resist me entirely, right?”

“Certainly not physically,” someone muttered.

I clenched my jaw to stop myself from growling at whoever had spoken.

“I suppose his willpower of steel will get a little more use before he truly embraces mated life,” Anthony drawled.

My attention snapped to him, and the superiority in his expression slowly withered until he ducked his head.

He knew which of us would win in a fight. There was no question at all.

“I’ll try,” I finally said. “If it doesn’t make a difference after our first dinner with the unmated males, I won’t waste my energy pretending.”

“That’s fair,” Nessa agreed.

“What are we going to do about our security systems?” Gerald asked. “Oscar created them. He’s not going to hand them over to someone else, and I would be surprised if he doesn’t figure out a way to use them against us.”

“The vampires offered to let us borrow part of their tech team, but we can’t bring them in unless Oscar genuinely uses the systems to hurt us or put us in danger. Taking away Oscar’s team will only make the situation worse,” I said. “We can’t put that fire out until it burns.”

Nods went around the room.

After a few more discussion topics in which no decisions were truly made, the room finally cleared out. There wasn’t much time until dinner, so I needed to get myself under control if I was going to play the role Zora wanted.

“If Oscar runs the security system, can he see through all of the cameras?” she asked, as the last of the group finally cleared the door.

A wave of fury tore through me with the thought.

I clenched my jaw and dug my fingers into the armrests of my chair.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” she said, rising from my lap long enough to turn around and sit back down with her chest facing mine.

It was the same position she’d been in when she rode me earlier, and I had to slam my eyes shut to prevent reliving the most intense moments of my life.

I could come from the memories alone.

“We’re going to have to play along in every room with cameras, at least a little bit,” she said, setting her hands on my shoulders. “We need Oscar to buy the act too.”

“I’m not going to pretend to hate you in our bedroom,” I gritted out.

“There are cameras in your room?” Her eyebrows lifted.

“I had them placed after my mother snuck some of Sierra’s things into my room a decade back.”

Her eyebrows lifted higher. “Fuck. Well, we can take them down when we get back up there, then.” She slid her hands down my biceps slowly. “He might be watching right now.”

“There’s no way to know.”

“No,” she agreed. “But if I’m going to put on a show during dinner, I’ll need to use my magic on you. And you don’t know how you’ll react to it yet. We need to practice.”

I closed my eyes.

I knew exactly how I was going to react to it, and she wasn’t going to like the outcome.

“Bane?”

“Practice is a bad idea,” I finally said.

I’d told her earlier that my cock was aching, and it was true. I’d had her wrapped around me without either of us coming. If I didn’t have a release, practicing was going to lead to exactly that.

“You’re still horny,” she said.

“Of course I am.” There was no use in denying it. It wouldn’t take much effort for her to realize the truth on her own.

“Alright.” She let out a quick breath, like she was gearing herself up for something.

Then, she slid off my lap.

I reached for her waist, but before I could grab her, she was on her knees in front of me. My pants were unbuttoned, the zipper was down, and her small, soft hand was wrapped around my erection a moment later.

All I could do was watch in stunned silence as she lowered her face to my cock.

Her lips nearly brushed me as she murmured, “I’ll kill you if you shift while you’re in my mouth. And don’t try to pull out when you come.”

She took the head of my cock between her lips, and it felt so fucking good, I almost lost it then and there.

Clenching my jaw and gripping the armrests of the chair, I fought like hell to stay in control.

She licked.

She bobbed.

She stroked.

She sucked.

I was fighting a losing battle.

Despite my best efforts, I didn’t last long before I gasped out a curse. Burying my fingers in her hair, I gripped tightly as she took my release down her throat like she was made for it. Made for me .

Maybe she was.

My imprint was sure as fuck remaking me for her.

My chest rose and fell roughly, my entire body relaxed when she finally popped those sexy, swollen lips free of my erection and sat back on her knees. “Better?”

“That’s not the right word.”

Her lips curved upward, just a little. Some of my release was smeared on them, and I fought the urge to wipe it off and slip my finger into her mouth to watch her swallow that too.

“You taste weirdly good,” she said. “That was unexpected.”

“I imprinted on you. My magic will adapt everything about my body that it possibly can to suit you. Your taste is so addictive, it still lingers on my tongue.”

“Wow.” She tucked my cock back into my boxer briefs and wrestled with my zipper for a moment before abandoning it. “You’re not softening yet.”

I chuckled humorlessly, releasing my grip on her hair even though it was the last thing I wanted to do. “It’ll take a lot more than a blowjob to ease my desire for you, Sweetheart. I could come inside you half a dozen times and still want more.”

Her cheeks pinked slightly, and she sat back down on my lap. I couldn’t stop my hands from finding her waist. “Ready to feel my magic?”

“Sure.”

She focused her gaze on my mouth, and a moment later, my cock throbbed hard.

My eyes closed again.

My hands dipped beneath her shirt, sliding over her smooth, warm back as her magic washed over me, pushing me to want her more.

“Fuck.” I fought my instincts hard.

I wanted, needed , to pull her closer.

To let her feel my cock against her core.

To unbuckle her bra, and take her breasts in my hands.

“Maybe this won’t be a hard sell after all,” she mused. “You look like you’re trying to resist sitting me on the edge of the table and screwing me right now.”

“Don’t tempt me, Sweetheart,” I gritted out.

Her magic lessened, and breathing grew a little easier. “How long until we have to go to dinner?”

I forced myself to look at the clock. “A few minutes.”

“Perfect.” She pulled my hands out of her shirt and stood up, crossing the room. I forced myself to stay put as she found the neatly-folded pile of clothes someone had left in the corner, and pulled my phone out of my jeans’ pocket.

When she came back over, she sat down on my lap and tapped the screen. It lit up, and her fingers hovered over the numbers. “What’s your code?”

“One, two, three, four.”

She typed in the numbers, and snorted when it unlocked. “Everyone knows that’s the worst code. You can’t seriously use that.”

“Everyone knows, so no one suspects. You didn’t.”

“That’s bullshit, and you know it.” She opened my messages and pulled up the thread from my mom, scrolling through it. When she didn’t see any pictures after a solid minute, she found the last message Sierra had sent me, and looked through those too. I’d never replied to any message she sent me. I wasn’t interested in her, and wasn’t leading her on.

Zora clicked around the app, and my forehead creased when she managed to find a category called recently deleted messages .

“I didn’t know that existed,” I said.

She opened the top message, which was from my mother.

I lifted my gaze to the ceiling before the picture could load.

She growled at the screen, and I felt her gaze as she looked back at me. “If she ever sends you pictures like this again, tell me. She obviously doesn’t care when you ask her to stop, but she’ll listen to me.”

“I don’t know if she will, but I’ll tell you.”

Zora scoffed. “The woman is dying for grandbabies. If I threaten not to let her anywhere near our kids, she’ll back off. She might not believe that you can keep them away from her, but she’ll believe me. Mother-in-law issues are universal. The only way to deal with them is a good, strong offense.” She paused. “Or a damn good defense, I guess. That’s just not really my style.”

“So you want children?”

Zora hesitated a beat.

It was a little too long. Long enough to tell me she didn’t want to admit the truth.

“I think so,” she finally said. “But this obviously isn’t the time to talk about it. You’re supposed to pretend not to like me.”

I lowered my lips to her ear and said quietly, “The only thing I want to do right now is strip you bare and fuck you hard, Sweetheart.”

“Maybe I don’t like to be fucked hard.”

“You weren’t against sitting on my shifted cock. You have no problem with hard.”

She scowled at me over my shoulder, and I heard her tap the screen a few times. “I deleted all of the pictures. I’m going to search your computer to make sure they’re not saved there, too.”

“They’re not, but you’re free to dig around. I’d like you to remember this moment the next time my jealousy shows, as well.”

“I won’t have a problem with you being jealous, and I won’t try to make you feel that way. I don’t play games.”

“Good.” I nipped at her ear.

“You’re supposed to be pretending you don’t like me.”

“Act like I just said something that pissed you off, then.”

She glared at me over her shoulder, then dropped my phone on the table. When she hit me with a wave of her magic, my jaw clenched. I gritted my teeth against the onslaught of need.

“Can we go yet? We need to get this over with. I need time alone with my thoughts to process everything,” Zora said.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

I hoped the meal went by quickly, or there was a good chance I’d lose control entirely.

And if that happened, there would be no hiding exactly how I felt about my mate.