Page 27 of Savagely Mated (Shared Mates #1)

D arcy

It’s almost six in the morning by the time we get back to Kirin’s mansion. The lights are on, like the place is full of people, but I know there’ll be some servants and one, maybe two angry wolves.

We walk in the front door, as makes sense.

Kirin owns all of this. We don’t have to sneak anywhere, and even if we had to, I am pretty sure that he would refuse to do so.

I’m still wrapping my head around how damn rich Kirin really is.

It’s not just this place; it’s a whole lot of shares, companies, trusts, and land in other locations.

He’s got everything anybody could ever want, and yet he’s caught up in a group that is as illegal as illegal gets.

We find Einar and Rafe in a sitting room. Rafe’s watching television in the tense way people do when they’re only watching it to distract themselves. Einar is pacing. He swings around as we enter the room with an expression that makes me want to hide behind Kirin.

“Hey, boys,” Kirin says, grinning broadly. I catch the look that passes between him and the others. There’s a certain intensity to it, and a triumph. Like he’s telling them he slept with me without telling them he slept with me. It’s all in the set of his jaw and his eyes.

Einar strides up to him and cuffs him around the head hard enough to make me wince. He was restraining himself. At first, that open hand was a fist, but he changed course at the last minute.

“What the hell?” I exclaim, my voice instantly shrill. “What are you doing?”

“It’s okay,” Kirin says. “Let the old man get it out of his system.”

Kirin really doesn’t give a shit about anything, and I don’t know how to take that. I suppose a smack isn’t much of anything to worry about, but the energy Einar delivered it with bothers the hell out of me. He’s fucking angry, so angry I can feel it in my gut.

“There’s no need to be this mad,” Kirin says. “Sure, we were out, but…”

Einar picks up a piece of photo paper from a nearby table, slapping his hand onto it as if it owes him money, before shaking it in our faces.

“No need to be mad?”

It’s a print-out from a traffic drone. There’s one picture of the two of us going down Main Avenue, and there’s another one of Kirin in midair after he hit that truck ramp. I grin as I look at them. They’re fucking awesome pictures. We look like action heroes.

“Wow,” Kirin says, taking the picture from him, and handing it to me. “Do you scrapbook, Darcy? This would be good to commemorate our first date.”

I’m busy wondering how the hell Einar got this.

Drones send pictures back to various ministries and authorities, but you don’t usually see those pictures unless they send you a ticket, and they don’t send tickets that fast. To have this picture, Einar would have to have someone on the inside of the MoT, or maybe…

“You know what that picture is?” Einar growls the question.

“No idea,” Kirin says. Of course he knows, he’s playing dumb, winding Einar up on purpose.

I don’t know how Einar doesn’t see what’s happening.

Or maybe he does, and he doesn’t care. I’ve done what Kirin’s doing before.

It’s when you decide you just don’t give a fuck if you’re in trouble and rile the authority up as much as you can, see how far you can push them.

“It’s our mate following you on a fucking death run in the middle of Eclipse City not thirty minutes after I took her back to the academy!”

I’ve never heard him yell before. He does it with a deep gravelly bass that makes my adrenaline spike.

“Lower your tone, old man,” Kirin rumbles. “I’ll give you that first shot for free, but hit me again and I’ll kick your ass.”

“Is that right?”

I watch, eyes wide as Kirin and Einar square up against one another. I get the impression this is a disagreement that has been a long time coming.

“That’s enough,” Rafe says. He hasn’t moved from the couch, and his tone is casual. “We’re not here to fight each other, and they’re back, unharmed.”

“We need Darcy in the academy,” Einar says. “It’s the only way to…”

“Kill the king?”

I pour a little gas on the fire by finishing his sentence. What the hell. Why not?

“You told her?” Einar turns back to Kirin.

“I did. She should know what she’s involved with.”

“We agreed it would be better if she didn’t, that way she can be innocent in most of this. She can fit into the academy more easily without all of this in her mind.”

“Stop talking about me like I’m not here, and I’m not going back to the academy,” I interject. Einar’s not even looking at me. He’s discussing me like I’m part of the furniture.

“Oh, yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Darcy, you will be in attendance at that school tomorrow if I have to cuff you to me in order to ensure that happens. Apparently I can’t trust you out of my sight.”

“Who the hell said you had any right to have any expectation of me doing what you tell me to do?” My voice starts to get pitchy, which I hate. I sound all girlish and annoyed.

“I said, enough,” Rafe repeats himself, slightly more firmly this time. Then he goes so far as to turn the television off. The inane babbling of the box is more obvious when it is gone.

I notice Einar relaxes, though Kirin doesn’t. Kirin puts his arm around my shoulders in a sort of possessive, comforting way.

Rafe leans forward while sitting on the couch, his hands clutched together as he looks at all of us. He seems unbothered, but firm.

“We’re not fighting in front of our mate. Einar, Kirin, if you want to kill each other, go out back and do it quietly.”

“I don’t want to kill anybody. I want our mate safe.”

“You want your pawn positioned correctly, you mean,” Kirin says.

“What part of enough wasn’t clear?” Rafe muses. “Darcy, go up to bed.”

Apparently all of them tell me what to do. Except Kirin. Kirin’s worse than me, and I like that. It’s nice to be with someone who gets me in a way I don’t think anybody else does. Jory used to, but he’s decided to be all responsible now.

“I’ll come with you,” Kirin says, before I can tell Rafe I’m not going to bed. “I’ve had more than enough of this day, and it’s only just started.”

Einar

“Those two are…”

“Doing exactly what you’d expect them to,” Rafe says. “Don’t worry about it. He won’t let any harm come to her.”

“He’s young. She’s young. They’re both stupid.”

“They might be young, but neither one of them is stupid. They’ve both been through more than enough to mature in the way that matters. They’ve both lost a lot, and neither one of them responds to cold authoritarianism. You know that. My question is what’s got you off balance?”

“I spent the day teaching a bunch of snot-nosed kids how to hide in bushes,” I say. “Director talked me into taking a position on the faculty again. I don’t like being in the academy. I don’t like pretending to be loyal to a philandering usurper.”

“You mean you talked her into talking you into it,” Rafe says. “This is all part of the plan. It’s working out nicely. Exactly as planned.”

“Not exactly.”

“In what way?”

“Darcy isn’t just some shifter. She’s our mate. She matters. And she’s terrified of killing. Didn’t you see how she reacted when she cut that guard down? I think she’s been acting out ever since. The director says her behavior’s been even worse these last few days.”

“That sounds like a training issue,” Rafe says. “Which you’ll have the chance to correct when she’s back at the academy.”

“She says she won’t go.”

“She’ll go. I’ll take Kirin out tomorrow, and you can take her.”

“That’s what we’re doing now? Babysitting?”

“A little babysitting is inevitable, and you know it. We’re getting closer, Einar. Now is not the time to lose our nerve.”

He’s right. I don’t know how he’s so calm.

I know I should be more relaxed, but when I realized Darcy had yet again gone missing from the academy, and then saw those pictures of what she was up to, and who she was up to it with, keeping my cool became impossible.

There’s more to lose now. If anything happens to Darcy, I know I will never be the same.

“You’re right. I’m sorry I let my temper get the better of me. It’s not like me.”

“We’re all feeling it,” Rafe says. “The mate bond is a complicating factor. But it’s not the only thing.

We’ve all fought long and hard to get to this point, to put all the pieces in place.

We’ve infiltrated every corner we need to.

We’re going to succeed. And yelling at the kids isn’t going to do anything to help. ”

“Right again,” I say. “I’m going to get some sleep. Tomorrow will be a long day.”