Page 33 of Savagely Mated (Shared Mates #1)

E inar

“Where is she?” I ask Rafe the question.

He promised he wasn’t going to take his eye off her for even a moment, but somehow she has managed to give him the slip.

I’m not surprised. Running is what she does.

She’s very good at it. She’s clearly read the chapter on evasion in my book a hundred times or more.

At this point, she may as well write her own.

“She went to work,” he says. “I’m sorry. She talked me into it. I realized that we don’t actually have any right to treat her like a prisoner. If she wants to be a delivery driver, there’s no reason to stop her.”

“Why do we keep having to have this discussion?” I sigh. It seems to me that the three of us should be able to keep tabs on one little girl.

“Maybe we could respect her as an autonomous adult woman who can make her own choices and doesn’t see herself as a pawn in our plot?” Kirin makes the comment snidely.

Rafe and I look at him with dour expressions that eventually make him shrug. “Or not,” he says, now dipping into sarcasm. “Oh, no, I can’t believe she did the one thing she literally always does. Shocking.”

“Our plan isn’t just for us,” I remind the others. “It’s for everyone. It’s for Eclipse City. We’re not just trying to get a throne back. We’re trying to liberate the downtrodden. We’re trying to right a wrong. And sometimes that means people who don’t want to play a part still have to.”

“The two of you need to argue,” Rafe says. “She was very convincing, and now you are.”

“Of all the people who stand to gain from this, Rafe…” I trail off. I can’t lecture my pack mates. I can’t be the only person who cares about the mission we embarked upon.

“We could chain her,” Rafe says. “Cage her.”

“Can’t get her into the king’s harem selection if she’s caged with us. We have to get her on our side. She needs to be made obedient.”

“Good luck with that,” Kirin says. “She’s not going to do anything she doesn’t want to do.”

“Then we need to make her want it, somehow.”

“I don’t think she really cares about the king, one way or another,” Rafe says.

“To her, the king is just some guy she’s never met, and we’re saying actually it should be some other guy she’s never met.

There are no stakes for her. She identifies more with people in the city than people at the academy.

She chooses to go work as a delivery driver… ”

“That’s because delivery drivers get to ride like assholes with death wishes and get rewarded for it,” Kirin grins.

“Whatever Delivery 2 Go is doing, we need to do as well,” Rafe says.

“Oh, you’ve gone insane. You think we should devise strategy from a shit-tier delivery company that kills a third of its drivers every year?” Kirin says.

“I think we should do what works,” I say.

“Uh. Guys?” Kirin turns his tablet toward the pair of us and slides the volume up. It’s a news broadcast on a social media feed, so there’s a cartoon bear dancing in the corner of the screen as a reporter does a serious voiceover.

“Drone and personal streaming footage today caught sight of a disturbing crime in the very heart of Eclipse’s industrial district. In the aftermath of a hijacked delivery, a delivery rider turns into a wolf and kills six gang members. We speak to personnel manager and branch owner, Clint Legend.”

The image of a pasty white man appears on the other half of the screen.

He’s in the D2G office. We’ve seen it before.

There’s a coffee stain on his shirt, which I am almost certain he does not give anything even faintly resembling a damn about.

Clint has transcended many of the concerns that plague other mortals.

“What do you have to say about today’s events?” the reporter quizzes him.

Clint glances down at his desk, then decides to just pick up the paper with his statement on it, obscuring the lower half of his face as he reads it out like a kid doing a book report.

“Delivery 2 Go doesn’t discriminate based on gender, ethnicity, or whether or not you sometimes turn into a werewolf. We stand behind our employees’ rights, but especially, their wrongs.”

He puts the paper down.

“Have you spoken with the employee as yet?”

“Her deliveries were all made on time.”

“Do Delivery 2 Go drivers usually…”

“I have to go,” Clint says, now looking at the camera man. “I’m done now.”

“If you could just answer one more question,” the reporter says, clearly regretting doing this live.

“Hi, guys, what’s the…”

At that moment, Darcy walks into the room, all smiles. Apparently she’s been emboldened by her little killing spree, and has just decided to waltz back in here wearing D2G leathers still noticeably covered in blood.

“Oh,” she says, when she sees the social feed playing on Kirin’s tablet. “Are people still watching those? I really didn’t think they were still watching those.”

“Darcy…” I lower my voice.

“I know, you want me at the academy, and I was supposed to be getting better, but I feel better now. Today was good for me.”

“Darcy, you were attacked today.”

“I know,” she says, shrugging. “But they got theirs, didn’t they. Made the news, even!”

“You could have been hurt.”

“I know,” she says. “That’s why I killed them.”

“Spoken like a true soldier, I suppose,” Rafe acknowledges.

Darcy

I knew they’d be mad. Well, not Kirin. But Rafe looks unimpressed and Einar is giving me big ‘I told you so’ energy.

“The academy is going to see this. You could be expelled,” he says.

“Expelled for being awesome at fighting? Okay, sure. If they want. I don’t want to go back there anyway.

I keep telling you guys. I like my job. I want to build my own life.

The academy has treated me like they own me my whole fucking life, and they don’t even like me.

I don’t think I care about them anymore.

And I don’t think I care about this whole king thing, either.

Sorry, I know you guys are really into it, but… ”

“Yes, you could say we are really into it,” Einar says. “You could say we have dedicated our lives to the cause of restoring the proper bloodline to the throne.”

“Maybe you should get a different hobby. Who cares about this king stuff anyway? I bet neither king, the fake one or the real one, have any idea who any of you are. Why don’t you all chill?”

Kirin has been laughing since I suggested they get a new hobby. He is leaning against the wall, weak from amusement. Even Rafe is smiling.

I think I’m starting to get through to these guys. Einar’s behind the curve, but he’s older and I guess that’s what happens when you get old.

“Good point,” he says. “Maybe we should all chill. I know. Let’s all go down to Delivery 2 Go and get jobs as motorcycle couriers. Let’s forget about the theft of the throne, and make sure people’s doll collections get to them on time.”

“People really like their doll collections, and they don’t even know the king. I bet I could be in the same room as the king and not even know it. I could probably run the guy over and be none the wiser.”

Rafe is grinning broadly now, and Kirin is practically weak with hysterics.

“What’s so funny?” I ask the question, slightly confused. It feels like there’s something going on, a joke that I haven’t been let in on.

“You’re so close to the truth,” Rafe says.

“Okay. So what’s the truth?”

I really don’t know what’s going on. I thought they’d whip my ass when I got back, covered in blood, but the vibe of the room is variable right now.

Kirin can’t handle whatever the hell it is, and every time I look over at him I feel myself about to burst into laughter as well, though I don’t know what the joke is.

Rafe looks amused, which also makes little sense, because I know he’s pissed. He has to be. I told him I had to go to work to fulfill my destiny or whatever and then nearly got murdered for what turned out to be a family-sized box of rice crackers, a new pair of boots, and a subscription of fruits.

Only Einar makes any kind of sense to me, and that’s because Einar being annoyed with me is starting to feel like a new kind of home.

“Should we tell her?” Einar looks around the room.

“Tell me what?”

The others nod.

“Yeah,” Rafe says. “Tell her. Whatever. It’s all so far gone at this point.”

“This was supposed to be a big reveal, you understand,” Einar says. “A dramatic moment, in which your life changed forever in an instant. We wanted there to be fireworks.”

“Why? Fireworks are stupid and they scare animals.”

“Rafe’s the true king,” Kirin interjects, before Einar can say it.

“Thank you, Kirin,” Einar sighs. “Yes, Rafe is the true heir to the throne.”

“What?”

“Yes. It’s true. I am.” Rafe smiles.

“And that means you are the princess of Eclipse,” Einar points out. “Or would be, if Rafe were on the throne as he should be. You would live in the palace. You would have the ability to help steer this city in ways you see fit…”

It’s my turn to laugh. I didn’t know they were actually capable of humor. I always assumed Einar wouldn’t know a joke if he fell over it. Kirin is still chuckling to himself, and his mirth only increases as mine does.

“Sure, Rafe’s the king. And I’m the emperor.”

“Darcy…” Einar says my name warningly.

“Rafe’s the king,” I repeat. “Sure. He’s pretty, but come on.

He takes orders from you all day, and even I talked him out of his plan this morning.

He was going to stay on me all day, but he got tired of trying to watch me pee and let me go to work.

He’s not exactly king material, no offense, Rafe. ”

“None taken,” Rafe says, though I am sure some has been taken.

“Darcy…” Einar repeats my name in a lower tone this time.

Rafe shakes his head, grinning. “Let it go, Einar. She’s too smart to be fooled that way.”

“Damn straight I am.”

At that moment, Einar’s phone rings. He checks the caller, then lifts a finger to all of us, as if we should all enter some form of stasis while he does this.

They should have told me Einar is the true king. I would have believed that.