Page 1 of Ruthlessly Mated (Shared Mates #2)

K ita

“My Rules. Apply. To. You.”

A very large, very handsome, and incredibly dangerous man is looming over me. His eyes flash with animal instinct and intense desire. He is twice the size of me, so large that one of his hands could wrap around both of my wrists. I know this because he’s holding me that exact way right now.

My ass is burning, not to mention exposed. The eyes of a whole mess of hardened criminals are on me.

His cock surges between my trembling legs. I am being taken. Ravaged. Mated.

These are all words, but there’s one that I can’t quite bring myself to acknowledge.

I can’t resist it, though. I cannot stop thinking it, even though I really don’t want to.

It forces itself through my mind. It lodges inside my head the same way his cock sheathes inside me.

Bred.

A few hours ago…

I had hoped to avoid this. I tried very, very hard to avoid it, actually. I sailed into this shady port under cover of darkness, hoping to find it largely empty and quiet.

It was anything but. I got in too early, after nightfall, but long before people pass out and I can do what I want to do without being seen.

I have to wait for my cargo to be unloaded onto the truck I brought.

I wanted to get out of here right away, but the cranes are busy and they won’t let me operate one by myself.

I hover on the dock, trying not to look uncertain, because uncertain means I’m potentially a target for people who are looking for easy targets.

It’s not easy being a five-foot-fuck-all woman in a place like this.

I am doing my best to look intimidating.

I have thick, chunky boots, dark leather pants, and a long knife displayed prominently at my waist. I’m wearing a short jacket that bristles with patches and warnings, and a thick sweater that kept me warm on the journey over the sea.

I hate traveling over water. It sloshes around and it sloshes you around with it.

At least I started to feel better as soon as I made landing. This dock is a lifesaver.

The port is alive with light and sound and music. People are stumbling up and down the docks, intermittently falling into the water and pulling themselves up or being fished out by friends.

Others are lurking. There’s a lot of that here.

This is not a port run by any regional authority.

This is a private port, i.e., a smuggler’s port.

It doesn’t officially exist, which means it is one of the most important hubs for commercial activity in the region.

The far south is full of places like this, facilities and services that used to be run by humans back in the day, before werewolves and vampires came out of the shadows and demanded equal rights.

The economy collapsed around the same time, and a lot of people say the two events are connected.

Others say it’s because of inflation and over-investments in real estate by an increasing minority of owners, but that’s a lot less sexy than blaming it on dogs and bats.

This port is very supernatural friendly. I have already spotted several red-eyed vamps, and I can smell wolves all around. Normal people don’t care about supernaturals here, because they’re far too busy doing crime.

I’ve never been in Port Denhome before, but it’s living up to its reputation.

Everyone here is a criminal.

Including me.

I get a little thrill when I think about it that way. It’s like finally being embraced by my own kind. I don’t have to pretend to be nice or kind. Actually, being either nice or kind would get me killed. This is a place where the worse you are, the better you do.

I pace underneath a sign with the same message on it as most of the signs posted high and low. They clearly don’t want us to be able to say we didn’t see them.

All Cargo Taxed. Pay at the Bursar.

Shirkers Will Suffer Pain of Death.

I tell myself that in a lawless world, breaking the rules doesn’t mean much.

I tell myself I’m not doing anything wrong.

I tell myself it doesn’t matter that I’m doing something wrong.

This is a smuggler’s port, a place where people don’t respect anything besides physical force, and occasionally force of will.

But mostly force. There’s a lot of force.

Everyone bristles with guns, and flosses with piano wire.

Great gums and no mercy. We don’t care about signs. So, I don’t care about signs.

I approach one of the dock workers, a man who is wearing no shirt and has a massive anchor tattoo across his back, as well as on each bicep, and on his pecs.

He’s absolutely covered in tattoos of anchors.

Almost like nobody told him that he could get anything else.

He also has a very bushy and long beard all the way to his gut.

“Are the cranes going to be much longer? My container will only take a second to put on the flatbed.”

He ignores me.

Great.

I guess I am just going to have to wait my turn.

The air coming off the sea is fucking cold. I’m starting to freeze, and I am really starting to think that I’m going to end up being an ice block if I don’t get indoors.

The port doesn’t really offer a lot of options for entertainment. The main building is pretty much the only building. It’s massive, spread out kind of like a train station along the frontage of the docks.

PORT DENHOME is spelled out along the front of the building, outlined by dozens of little bulbs that glow warmly in the night. It feels oddly homey, sort of old-fashioned. The building is made of old weatherboard that has been silvered in the sea air over decades.

I go indoors and seek out a place to settle down until they get my cargo sorted. I tell myself I will go and check it every fifteen minutes or so. I don’t have time to tarry. I might have been followed. It’s hard to be followed across an ocean, but you never know.

I need a drink, so I head through the foyer, which has a big staircase that goes all the way up to the second floor, which is listed as being private with a big sign in front of it and velvet ropes stretched across the base of the stairs.

Bar

The bar is marked with another big, old-fashioned sign, this time painted above the door frame.

The floor creaks. The smell of salt and whiskey fills my nostrils, a blessing given the filthy animals inhabiting this place.

I can feel eyes on me as I sit in a dark corner, back to the wall.

It makes me nervous. I’m not prey, but I absolutely look like it.

Being a short, curvy woman is a guarantee of being harassed in most places like these.

That’s why I have the knife. If anybody takes a step toward me, or tries to slide up behind me, they’re getting stabbed.

Might seem like an overreaction, but I’d rather overreact and stab someone than under-react and have something terrible happen to me.

A waitress swings by the table. She has glorious red, curly hair and an expression that can only be formed by handling dozens of criminals every night of her life. Sort of a cross between a soldier and a nursery school teacher. “You have your port seal?”

“Port seal?”

“You get it when you pay your cargo tax,” she says.

“Oh, I must have forgotten,” I say.

“I can’t serve anyone who hasn’t paid their cargo tax,” she says. “The bosses take it really serious.”

“Oh, okay. I’ll go take care of that.”

I get up and leave the bar. I can see that the bursar’s office is over on the other side of the building. A big sign says: Pay Here.

I have enough money in my pockets for gas for the truck and a drink for me.

I don’t even know how I’d declare the contents of my cargo if they asked.

Neither do most people; that’s why the port has a flat fee.

They take pretty much any currency, but that doesn’t make any difference because I used all my money getting the thing here.

I go and hang out just outside the bursar’s office and I wait for someone drunk to come and pay their fee. He gets a port seal in turn. Perfect.

As he stumbles out past me, I grab it from his loose fingers. He doesn’t even notice it going away. He’s at the stage of inebriation where his digits aren’t really communicating with the rest of his body. I slip the seal into my pocket, do a bit of a loop, and then head back to the bar.

The same seat is free, so I slip back into it.

The waitress comes back around, scans my seal, and takes my order. Perfect.

In a matter of minutes, I’ve got a flagon of something high proof in front of me, and with any luck, my payday being unloaded on the dock.

This is the last time I’ll have to do something desperate and shady.

After this, I’m going to go straight. I’m going to buy a nice house in Eclipse City.

Something that has a view of the palace, and I’ll reminisce about these days. I’ll probably get bored.

Mind you, from what I hear, Eclipse has plenty of trouble to get into. I might even find a mate there—it’s where the royal shifter lines live, so I’m thinking I’ll finally escape the general pits of scum that make up the rest of the world and get what I deserve for once.

All I have to do is get out of here with my cargo on the next stage of the journey. The truck shouldn’t take too much longer to load.

I’m trying not to be nervous.

More specifically, I’m trying not to make the fact that I am nervous obvious to the others in this seedy bar.

Everybody here is up to something, but I am up to more than most of them and they’ll sniff it out in the way criminals do.

Breaking the law and not being arrested is all about instinct.

Everybody in this place is trying to read one another, trying to sniff out weaknesses and scout for opportunities.

I’m used to dangerous, nasty hideouts. They feel like home most of the time. But today there’s so much more at stake. I have just performed my greatest heist, and now I have the most precious and valuable cargo that ever came through this place.