Page 9 of Savagely Mated (Shared Mates #1)

E inar

This young woman is the biggest handful I have ever attempted to handle, and that is saying a lot.

“Wow,” Rafe breathes. “That was…”

“Stupid?” Kirin finishes his sentence for him. “She’s so reckless. Dare her to do anything and I bet she’d do it. So desperate to prove herself she just knocked herself out for us.”

She couldn’t sustain the shift for long, that’s the problem. She might have forced her way into animal form, but much like Rafe said, there was no way for her to hold it.

She’s exhausted in more ways than one, and that means that one moment I was spanking a very deserving brat in her pajamas, and the next there was a wolf in our midst. It lasted for less than ten seconds, which is good because a lot of damage could be done in that time.

Now she is lying naked on the floor between us.

She’s beautiful in a way I don’t dare acknowledge.

I am feeling a pull toward this young woman, a kind of feeling I’ve not experienced before.

It’s like desire, but stronger. More complete.

It consumes every part of me; it seems to fill my every breath.

“Gentlemen, we might have a problem,” I say, starting to broach the subject.

There’s no point hiding it, and there’s no way I can avoid staking my claim.

My need for this young woman is becoming more than I can handle.

It feels wrong in so many different ways.

She’s too young for me, for starters, half my age.

And we’re not supposed to be abducting her to fuck her.

We’re supposed to take her to free her. She’s in a prison she doesn’t really understand because she’s spent her whole life being raised in an institution.

I used to work for the academy. I was one of the instructors. And I remember the day she was found. Not as a girl, but as a puppy. More a wolf cub, really. They found her in the courtyard, playing with a boot.

I remember that day like it was yesterday…

A half-dozen of the faculty are all standing around with this little animal that seems thrilled to see us. The discussion is animated and excited for the most part, though there are some determined to bring the mood down.

“We don’t have pets. The academy does not allow them.” This opinion is put forth by the P.E. teacher, Projectiles and Ejectiles being his range of expertise.

“It’s not a pet. It’s a cub. A wolf,” the Logistics of Battle professor cuts in.

“We could keep it as a mascot. Train it.”

“It’s a wild animal. You can’t train wild animals.”

“We can’t just release it into the forest. It will never survive on its own. It’s too young.”

“It keeps biting me.”

“Of course it does. It’s an animal. We should kill it now. Put it out of its misery,” Victor Franz says. Victor is the professor of War Crimes.

“We’re not killing a defenseless animal,” I cut in.

“We should,” he insists.

The man who very much wants to kill this cub will one day be the captain of the King’s Guard. He is a cruel man who revels in hurting the weak and the innocent.

I scoop the cub up. “We will not be killing this. We will not be killing anything.”

The little animal lets out a squeal as it is picked up, and I find myself very nearly dropping not a wolf cub, but a young human child. Cursing with surprise, I wrap the girl in my cloak as we all stare at each other.

“If we’d killed it when I suggested, we wouldn’t have this even more complicated problem now,” Victor drawls.

“I’m taking her to the director. She will know what to do.”

I haven’t thought of that memory in almost two decades, and now it comes to me so perfectly it almost feels as though it happened just yesterday.

I wonder at what twisted fate has brought us back together. I left the academy a few weeks later, never knowing what happened to her. I assumed she was sent to the palace.

Apparently, they kept her.

“I think she’s my mate,” Rafe says, sounding as sick about it as I feel.

I am surprised to hear him say that, but I know he would not make the statement lightly. A declaration of mate bond is not something that a wolf does without knowing it deep in his soul. It is a feeling that cannot be denied and cannot be ignored. It is an imperative in the truest sense.

Kirin parks the van suddenly and turns on Rafe with ardent fury, nearly coming over the back of the seat.

“We can’t both be her mate. That’s not possible. You’re probably just horny. You don’t get laid enough.”

“You forget who you’re talking to, boy,” Rafe growls back.

I think we are all forgetting ourselves. When we saw Darcy fight, we were impressed. When we saw her shift, we knew we needed to get her out of the academy. We knew she needed to be free.

They look at me to adjudicate, as if I could pick between them, hand her over to one of them.

“Bad news, boys. I think we just all got sucked in. Mate bonds are unpredictable, and powerful. There wasn’t any way of knowing this would happen. We’ve got to keep our cool.”

“Not you too?” Rafe looks at me, heartbroken.

“I’m sorry, but yeah. Me too.”

“No. I don’t share,” Kirin snarls. “She’s mine. There’s no way she isn’t mine. I feel like I want to crawl out of my skin to be inside her.”

“That’s a graphic image,” Rafe says.

“It’s not unheard of for mate bonds to be formed within a pack when there are few females available,” I remind them. “And with the king hoarding all female wolves, there are almost none in the wild. She’s young, she’s fertile…”

“She’s beautiful,” Rafe adds.

“Yes. It’s no wonder that our true beasts have imprinted on her. We’ve always known we wouldn’t get a choice in who we fell for. The last thing any of us need right now is to be at odds. This is a good thing. A very, very good thing.”

I take my cape off, pick up Darcy’s insensate body, and wrap her up nice and snug. Her being naked this way is not going to be good for her. She needs to be covered. She needs to be looked after. She needs to be protected.

“All of us?” Kirin asks. “Is that possible?”

“It’s more than possible,” I say. “It’s happening. Now, please, let’s get her somewhere safe.”

“My place, or the woods?” Kirin asks the question as he starts the van up again.

“Woods,” I say. “She’s obviously used to having the run of the city. Let’s try to keep her out of trouble for a bit.”

Little do I know as I say those words that there is absolutely no way for anybody on this planet to keep Darcy out of trouble.