Page 64 of Savagely Mated

Rafe has a tendency to be very fair. He’s showing me more grace than I expected.

“We have to be transparent with each other. We can’t keep secrets.”

“I think we have to keep secrets,” Kirin says, ever contrary. “I’m not going to run to you every time she sneezes.”

“No, because half the time you implicate yourself.”

“I’m not one of your students, Einar,” Kirin scowls. “I don’t answer to you.”

“Actually, you do.”

“Not like that. I’ll do what needs to be done for the cause, but I’m not going to submit every single detail of my romantic life to you.”

This is complicated. It would be a lot easier if Darcy was mated to just one of us. Then there would be a single chain of command, as it were. Right now, we all have claim. We all have responsibility, too.

“You should have told us,” Rafe interjects. “We need to know what happens to her.”

“You knew some of it.”

“Kirin, both Einar and I are telling you that we need to know. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Kirin says. “I understand. Can I go? Or do the two of you want to keep lecturing me because you mishandled our mate and she damn near fucking killed herself as a result?”

I fight my temper down and stay silent. Rafe can deal with him.

“You are forgetting yourself, Kirin,” Rafe says. There is a quiet threat in those words. Rafe doesn’t get angry often, or quickly, but Darcy’s injury combined with Kirin’s attitude is not pleasing him.

“I don’t forget anything. I don’t forget who I am doing all of this for. I don’t forget why I am doing it. And I still don’t intend to be a little bitch and snitch out my mate.”

I really thought the whelp was getting closer to understanding the stakes here, but Kirin’s digging in.

“Very well,” Rafe says.

“Very well,” Kirin replies. “By your leave, your majesties.”

With that, he walks out. We let him go.

CHAPTER 18

Darcy

I wake up to find myself being looked at. At first, I just have the feeling. Then I look down at the foot of the bed, and see Rafe sitting in the chair at the end of it. He’s wearing a blue shirt that brings out the color of his eyes, which are regarding me very seriously. The drugs have worn off. I do feel better for having had them, but there’s a clarity that’s returned with their absence.

But Rafe isn’t looking at me in anoh my god are you okaysort of way. He’s looking at me in ayou’ve fucked upsort of way, which is very intense given I barely know him. It’s hard enough getting to know one person well, let alone three. Einar and Kirin have been more forward in various ways. Rafe’s been more content to sit back—until now.

“Hello?”

He leans forward in his chair. “Do you like being in trouble?”

I feel myself blush at his inquiry. “What?”

“Genuine question. Do you like being in trouble?”

“Sometimes.”

“Good news, then, Darcy. You’re in more trouble than you’ve ever been in in your life.”

“I don’t think so.”