Page 29 of Savagely Mated (Shared Mates #1)

D arcy

Later that evening, I’m doing my homework on the mantelpiece of one of Kirin’s many fireplaces. It’s at the right height for standing comfortably, and standing is the only comfortable thing I can do.

Rafe strides into the room, stopping with a smile on his face as he sees me. “Hello, you,” he says.

“Hi,” I say, forcing a smile back.

“What are you doing?”

“Academy work.”

He nods, tilting his head at me in the way dogs and I guess wolves do when they find something slightly confusing.

“Why are you standing?”

“Because I can’t sit.”

“What do you mean, you can’t sit?”

My lower lip quivers.

His expression softens. He’s so handsome, and so kind. He looks at me with concern. “What’s wrong, Darcy? Why can’t you… oh.”

His brain just started working again apparently. He’s put two and two together and come up with a very painful four—though I took a lot more than that today.

“Can I see?”

I nod.

Rafe curses softly and proceeds to check my ass, lowering my pants carefully.

It’s impossible not to let out a little animal whimper as the motion of fabric reignites so much of the tenderness.

I hear him suck in a breath as he sees the aftermath.

He returns everything to its proper place, then stands up and looks at me.

“Who did this to you?”

“Einar.”

Rafe’s eyes go black. There’s usually a ring of blue around the pupil, but there’s not anymore. He’s pissed. I feel a welling of something like happiness, realizing he’s on my side. Kirin’s not going to be pleased when he sees what happened to me either, I bet.

“He was proving a point at school. Wanted to show them he could handle me. Wanted to teach me a lesson for yesterday.”

Rafe nods. “I will be back,” he says.

I watch him leave the room, a little smile on my face. Let’s see how Einar likes being in trouble with the one man he seems to actually listen to.

Einar

Bam!

My door flies open, a furious male figure filling the frame, silhouetted by the light in the hall for a moment until I turn the main light in the room on. I had been reading by candlelight until I was rudely interrupted.

I have been expecting this, though I expected Kirin to come through my door, not Rafe. Our young lady certainly has the innate ability to provoke the knight in shining armor reaction when she wants to.

“I need to speak with you,” he says. “I just saw the state of our mate’s flesh, and I can tell you now, that’s not acceptable.”

“What’s not acceptable? Discipline? That attitude explains the way she behaves.”

“She can’t sit down, Einar.”

“Sure she can. She just doesn’t want to.”

His expression hardens and I see his jaw clench as he turns to shut the door behind him. If this was Kirin, there would be explosions, but Rafe’s more refined than our little rich pup pack member.

He expects me to be apologetic, I think. Wants to hear me tell him that I got carried away and I won’t do it again. The thing is I will do it again if she needs it. What happens to her ass depends entirely on how she behaves. That’s how it should be.

“I told you to be careful with her,” he says, trying another approach. “She’s our one chance.”

“You can’t train an effective assassin if you coddle them, Rafe. I know what I’m doing. I’ve done it a hundred, if not a thousand times before. She’s got good technique and form. It’s her head that’s not in the game. I’m getting her where she needs to be.”

“At what cost?”

“At any cost. It is as you told me yesterday. We have been planning this for years. It’s what has to happen.

It’s what’s going to keep her alive. And if that means she hates me, and you hate me, and Kirin hates me, then so be it.

I’m going to see the rightful king on the throne, and I’m going to make sure Darcy survives the hardest fight of all our lives. ”

He sighs and runs a hand through his thick shock of dark hair. Rafe has a lot weighing on him. We all do. I have chosen to simplify things so that we achieve our goals. The others are letting their emotions rule them.

“She’s our mate,” he says. “We’re supposed to love her. We’re all she has in this world. She’s an orphan.”

“We are all orphans,” I remind him. “And the reason we are all orphans is because of the corruption we are going to stamp out through discipline and determination. She is our mate, but loving Darcy doesn’t change our destiny.”

He nods, his face shifting as my words sink in. Rafe’s a good man. It’s his primary quality. Can’t really say the same for Kirin and me. We’re more twisted in different ways. But Rafe? He’s full of notions of romance and honor and acting right.

“She’s home tonight, isn’t she? She’s not getting herself killed in the middle of the city.

She’s doing her homework. What I’ve done has already made her safer than she was.

Darcy doesn’t respond to anything besides firm and personal attention.

So let me handle this side of things, Rafe.

You don’t have to discipline her. You can go and coddle her all you want.

I’m not stopping you. I just ask you to let me do what I know how to do. ”

“Yeah,” he says, his voice twisted with reluctance. “Alright.”

Darcy

It’s been a little while since Rafe went storming upstairs. Now I can hear Rafe and Kirin talking in the next room. Not sure what they’re saying, but I bet I could guess.

The two of them come into the room with me. Kirin hands me a shot glass with a deep amber liquid that smells like it has been fermenting for longer than I’ve been alive.

“I heard Einar whipped your ass,” Kirin says. “Down that. It’ll make you feel better.”

I do as he tells me, tipping my head back, opening my throat and letting the whole rich, smooth, fiery brew slide down to my stomach. It doesn’t immediately make me feel better, but it does make me feel warmer on the inside.

“Yeah,” I say. “He did.”

Kirin smirks, not the reaction I was expecting. Rafe was upset when he saw what happened. Kirin just seems to think it is funny.

“The old man is going to be particularly dangerous to your ass, Darcy. We’re going to have to be more careful about getting out of here.”

“What did he do to you?”

“Me? Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“I’m not his mate. And I’m definitely not his student. You’re both.” Kirin sits down in a lounge chair. “You’re somewhat fucked.”

I look over at Rafe. “What do you think?”

“I think you’ve been left to act recklessly for far too long, and if this is what it takes to stop you, then unfortunately, that’s what’s going to happen.”

I can’t believe this. Somehow, Einar has managed to get these two to present a united front.

I go from thinking I have two of them on my side to realizing they are all on the same side.

They might like me, they might really want to sleep with me, but their bond is strong, and they’re not going to fight each other over me.

That realization makes me flush with anger.

Someone should be on my fucking side. They should all be on my side.

“You know what? Fuck you. Fuck all of you!”

I throw my homework into the fire and storm out of the room.

I am wild with anger and hurt. What happened at the academy was painful and humiliating.

I thought I’d at least get a little sympathy at home, but no.

It was stupid of me to think that. It was stupid to imagine that anybody might actually be upset at my being handled so roughly.

Even the people who love me don’t like me.

I slam out of the house, jump on my bike, and kick it into life. I’m not wearing leathers or a helmet because I don’t have time to put either of them on.

I tear into the night, my vision blurry with the tears I have wanted to cry all damn day. Instead of sitting like I usually would, I sort of hover up and over the seat. The balance isn’t as good, but it means my ass doesn’t throb like I’m being caned all over again.

The bike hits a patch of smooth tarmac. It’s nothing that would usually be a problem, but I am off balance, and so is the bike. I go from riding to skidding in an instant, sliding off the road and into a thicket of bushes.

“Fuck!” I scream to the night.

The bright light of another bike is already coming up on me. I can’t struggle up out of the bushes soon enough before being caught in my predicament.

Kirin is roaring with laughter as he pulls up, finding me cursing and flailing in a bunch of bushes that don’t want to relinquish me.

“I saw all of that,” he says. “That was worthy of the circus. Are you hurt?”

“No,” I sigh, giving up for a second. “I’m just stuck.”

Kirin gets off his bike and offers me his hands, hauling me out of the twiggy embrace of the plants that probably saved my life. If I’d hit something else, like a rock, I might not be having this conversation.

“Get on,” he says. “I might be able to get you back to the house before Einar finds out what the hell you just did.”

“The bike…”

“Me or Rafe will come back for the bike,” he says. “Get on. Quick. God, Darcy. You know how to make bad things worse, don’t you.”

He speeds me back to the mansion, and takes me in the side door, what’s called the servant’s entrance. It has some stairs and passages that aren’t obvious in the main parts of the house.

“Go up and get showered,” he says. “And go to bed before you can get yourself in even more trouble.”

I do as he says, not feeling much less sorry for myself than I did before. As I stand under the water, I try to count my very limited blessings.

I’m not hurt, and the bike still runs. I’m lucky. I get to live another miserable day.