Page 22 of Savagely Mated (Shared Mates #1)

D arcy

I wake up sore, which doesn’t surprise me. Einar was rough with me, and I loved it. A smile spreads over my face as I remember how it felt to be pinned beneath him.

I’ve been transformed. I’ve been bred.

My body feels different. Not just achy and tender in the places I was touched for the first time, but different everywhere. I feel stronger. I feel taller, which doesn’t make any sense. I feel more deeply feminine. I feel more adult.

I look at myself in the mirror, and I swear my skin is clearer, cheeks rosy, eyes sparkling. I see a very beautiful young woman. I don’t know why I never saw that before. I used to look and see frizzy hair or a spot somewhere it shouldn’t be, or the odd set of my nose.

“You’re awake.”

I turn to see Einar standing in the room. I don’t know where he came from, if he was watching me sleep and I somehow didn’t notice, or what. The man moves like a ghost sometimes.

“Morning,” I smile.

“Good morning,” Einar says, wrapping his arms around me. “How are you feeling?”

I’m not used to being hugged. I wasn’t used to being pinned down and fucked either, but this feels strangely more intimate.

In the light of day, he feels like a stranger again.

This is not the man who fucked me in the garden.

His energy is entirely different. He is softer, more tender.

He’s concerned, if I am reading his expression correctly.

“Fine, I guess?”

Not the most romantic of responses, but I don’t know if what we did was romantic. It was feral, and not much else. I feel a little shy, and a little… I don’t know, disconnected?

“Fine, you guess,” he responds, repeating my words in a slightly incredulous tone. “Darcy, we need to talk.”

“You might need to talk. I need to eat.”

My stomach is growling more than he was when he fucked me. I’m absolutely ravenous.

“I’ll make you pancakes,” he says. “Come to the kitchen.”

I follow him to the picturesque kitchen where I met my fate last night.

It looks even nicer in the morning light, with the old iron-style stove with all the trimmings and bits, leadlight windows, and a big homey table with marks here and there where someone put something that was too hot down on the surface without thinking about it.

It feels like stepping into a storybook, or a place from long ago.

“So Kirin is rich, huh? Is that why you hang out with him?”

“That is not why we hang out,” Einar says. “But yes, he is well off.”

“Maybe he can buy you another van,” I quip cheekily.

Quick as lightning, Einar spins me around and smacks my ass. It is just one slap, but it is hard and stinging enough to jolt me out of my amusement.

“Ow! Asshole!” I curse at him, only to earn another one of those slaps before I pull away.

“I’m going to adjust that attitude of yours,” he says. “There’s no place for it in our pack.”

“Our pack?” I rub my rear and glower at him. I don’t know what the hell he is talking about, but I know I don’t like it.

“Myself, Kirin, Rafe, and you. We’re a pack now, Darcy.”

“Are we?”

“Yes,” he says firmly as he sets about making pancakes.

Maybe we are. Maybe we aren’t. I know my animal side probably thinks of us that way. I know I’m drawn to these men. But I also have a normal brain on top of all that animal instinct and that part of me thinks that these are older strangers who want something from me.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were wolves?”

“Pancakes!” Rafe announces them loudly, as he strides into the kitchen. He, too, smacks my ass on the way past, but his slap is more friendly. “Tell me you’re making your famous pancakes, Einar.”

“Did you not smell us? Did you not feel drawn to mate with us?” Einar ignores Rafe and answers me with questions that frankly feel more accusatory than anything, like I was just supposed to know.

“Yes, but I assumed I was being stupid,” I snap back. “I’ve never met a male wolf I connected with before. I didn’t know what any of it meant. Besides, they told me the only shifters were in the King’s Guard.”

“They lied. You were bound for the king’s harem, Darcy.”

“No, I wasn’t,” I snort. “I was never going to be chosen for castle duties.”

“Maybe not. Maybe your atrocious behavior is what saved you,” Einar says.

I don’t like that comment. I don’t think my behavior is atrocious. I do what I need to do in order to survive and stay sane. He’s judging me like a goddamn tutor at the academy.

“So is that a yes on the pancakes, or a not so much?” Rafe interjects again, though his tone suggests he might be losing faith in pancakes.

My uniform leathers and helmet are stacked neatly on the floor next to the kitchen door. One of Kirin’s servants must have done that.

I pick them up and start putting them on. Rafe and Einar watch me with somewhat dumbfounded expressions. It feels good to put the kit on. It feels good to assume another identity, even if it’s the identity of a disposable, interchangeable delivery grunt.

“Where do you think you are going?” Einar asks the question as I spin on my heel.

“Work.”

“You’re not going to work, Darcy. It’s ridiculous for you to work as a delivery driver.”

“Why?”

“For starters, you’re currently missing from the academy.”

“You want me to go back to school? The same school that is apparently fast tracking me into being a harem girl? Make up your mind, Einar.”

“Don’t speak to me that way, whelp.”

He’s getting stern again, which I like. It’s exciting to annoy him. And he has certainly done more than enough to annoy me lately.

“Would you make us some pancakes, please, Einar,” Rafe says. “I’ll deal with this one.”

Without waiting for a response from either of us, Rafe grabs me and throws me over his shoulder. He carries me out of the kitchen and into a dining room adjacent. Like the rest of the house this is full of period drama furniture that is somehow also brand new.

“You can’t rile him up like that before he makes the pancakes,” he says, sitting me down at the table with him. “You could have waited until after, and then you’d be having this argument on a full stomach.”

I look at the man sitting next to me. He’s at the head of the table, and I’m off to the side, our chairs somewhat diagonal to one another. Rafe is really fucking hot, but there’s something about him that’s just… absent. It’s hard to put my finger on, but he has my attention now.

“What is your deal?”

“What do you mean, what is my deal?”

“Literally all I know is that you like pancakes…” I also know he once put his finger in my ass, but I don’t want to bring that up. Other than that, this man is a charming, smiling enigma.

“There’s not much more to me than that,” he says, smiling broadly at me, like this is all some big joke that only he knows the punchline to.

“Well, I’m going to work after breakfast. I signed a contract. And I like it. I’m good at it,” I tell him.

“And you look cute in the uniform, and it annoys Daddy, I mean, Einar.”

“Why do you call him Daddy?” I laugh as I ask the question. It’s hard to stay angry around Rafe. He just doesn’t take things as seriously as either of the other two. Maybe he has less skin in the game.

“Because it annoys him, and pleases him. He’s the leader of this outfit, and more besides. You don’t know a lot about the situation you’re in just yet, Darcy.”

“I know that you guys abducted me. You’re kidnappers.”

“Yeah. Well. About that. We did it for a good reason.”

“You wanted to try anal in a van?” I snap the response, even though the words themselves make me blush.

He laughs, a deep, pleased sound. “No,” he says. “That was just a bonus to the whole experience. Though, one day, I do intend to have the hole experience, if you get my meaning.”

I do get his meaning, and it makes me blush even deeper.

“Abductions are the only way we can do what we do,” he continues.

“We have to take someone and explain things to them. Usually that’s what happens.

We go to the woods, we give the person time to decompress away from the city, we explain what’s really going on here, and they get a chance to fully be their wolf selves for the first time. You’ve made that difficult.”

“Yeah. Well. I don’t like the woods. I don’t like hiking.”

“Not liking hiking is probably the oddest reason I’ve ever heard for stealing a van and getting it impounded,” he chuckles handsomely.

He really does think this is all quite amusing. There’s something very attractive about the handsome ease with which Rafe moves through the world.

“Does that mean you got abducted once as well?”

“Oh, not me. I was thrown out of the palace, but most of us are pulled out of the King’s Guard as soon as we’re identified. Some of the older, more indoctrinated ones who are already in service can’t be saved, but anyone still at the academy is fair game.”

“So you didn’t decide to take me because you were impressed by my dueling skills.”

“You’re cute with a sword.”

“I killed someone!”

“And it was adorable,” he smiles at me. He’s teasing me, and it’s hard to stay angry even though I very much want to.

“So why are you guys stealing all the shifters? We belong to the king, don’t we?”

An almost imperceptible shadow passes over Rafe’s eyes, but is gone as soon as I think I saw it.

“The king of Eclipse has always been a shifter. This city was built for our kind. Over time, normal people moved here, and the cardinal and the capital rose to power, but yes, in some sense shifters belong to the king. What’s currently happening is a kind of forced servitude.

That’s why we are freeing as many wolves as we can.

Eclipse was supposed to be a place we’d be free. ”

“But Einar bosses me around like he fucking owns me.”

“Einar is an alpha, and your mate. So am I.”

“And Kirin?”

“Kirin’s a whelp,” he laughs. “But yes, actually, all three of us have the alpha gene.”

“Oh, it’s a gene, is it?”

“It is, actually.”

I don’t know why all of this makes me feel so incredibly sulky, but it does.

“I want the alpha gene,” I mutter to myself, under my breath.

“Oh, you have it too,” he laughs. “There’s no doubt about that. Why do you think you’re such a handful? Alphas are practically impossible to control when they’re female.”

“Why when they’re female?” I brighten at the news that I, too, get to be alpha.

“Because nature, in her wisdom, makes most female shifters some variant of beta or natural submissive. Doesn’t make them any less dangerous, but orients them toward kindness, compassion, and caretaking. Those types don’t like to rock the boat.”

“I like to set the boat on fire.”

“I know you do,” he smiles. “And that’s probably why you bonded with all three of us. Nature knows you need a small pack to handle you.”

I don’t know if he’s appealing to my ego on purpose, or if he’s just telling the truth, but whatever it is, I like it.

And then the morning gets even better.

“Pancakes,” Einar says, coming into the room with a stack of big, fat pancakes on a silver tray. There’s syrup, too, and rich butter.

Once it is all served, I take a dubious bite, and my mouth is instantly full of the most delicious flavor I’ve ever experienced. It’s rich and slightly crispy and sweet and fatty. It’s perfect.

“These are delicious,” I say, not quite making eye contact with Einar because I feel a little guilty now, like I’ve been acting badly in an unreasonable way. I’m finding out a lot about myself, and the world, and it’s hard to adjust when you’re used to being an asshole all the time.

“Excellent as always,” Rafe grins. “You never disappoint, Einar.”

At some point, Kirin drifts in, languid, beautiful, and wearing silk pajama bottoms and a robe that hangs open so I can see the bare lines of his chest. His natural elegance is so much at odds with the rougher ways I’ve seen him, like when I stole his burrito.

“Good morning,” he says.

I keep feeling shy all over again, and I don’t know why, and I kind of hate it, but it makes saying a simple good morning feel practically impossible. I watch him as he sits down, avoids the pancakes, and pours himself coffee.

He catches me looking at him and flickers me a little wink that makes me blush. What the hell is going on? Why is my body constantly in some state of erotic shock or tension around these men?

I know the answer, of course. They’re my mates. I am chemically addicted to them, basically. No matter what happens from this point on, we are bonded.

“We need to talk about your behavior,” Einar says to me.

Those words make my stomach sink. I don’t want a lecture right now. It makes me feel like I’m back at the academy, back being a disappointment.

“Can we just… not?”

“No.” He’s firm.

“Maybe that can be discussed later,” Rafe says.

“Maybe,” Einar agrees, with one sharp look at me.

I notice that Einar, in spite of being very much in charge, is letting Rafe call the shots in some respects. I wonder if this is how it always is. Seems to me that the dynamics are not as simple as they might first appear to be.

“I’m going to report you to the academy as being in my custody,” Einar says. “You can’t just disappear.”

“And they’re going to be okay with that?”

“Probably not, but I was an instructor there for many years, and it will at least assuage their concerns for your immediate physical safety.”

“You abducted me from there,” I point out. “You didn’t want them to know you had me. You didn’t care about their concerns for my physical safety.”

“That was before the bond happened,” he explains. “The plan, at first, was to take you for a few days or weeks, train you up, and send you back. You being our mate changed that.”

“Train me up to do what?”

They look at one another.

“Train me to do what?” I repeat.

It is Kirin who answers with a rare flashing smile.

“Kill the king.”