Page 60 of The Bodyguard and the Alpha (Witch Twins #2)

Bastien

My mate was in my arms. She was safe. Apart from minor physical scrapes, she seemed unharmed. Outwardly at least. But I didn’t know how much damage had been done to her psyche before I got there.

The rage was like a physical force, ready to rise up like a tide and take me away.

Breathe. We have her. She is here. She is safe .

I inhaled deeply, letting the scent of her hair soothe me.

“I don’t think that’s legal,” she’d said.

As if I cared whether the retribution coming to Maximilian was legal or not.

If he’d been party to that illegal interrogation, he was a dead man walking.

If he’d put that look of terror onto my mate’s face, was responsible for the fear I’d felt when I sent her my power down the bond. Pieces. His body would be in pieces—

Tiny pieces —

All right, his body would be in tiny pieces before I dropped them into the bay for the fish.

If I was being logical about it, I should find out if he had ordered my kidnap. But he was smart enough to have whispered dissension into some poor fucker’s ear without leaving any trail. And I no longer cared.

Luc had filled me in during the chopper trip over here.

From the information they’d collected in the bunker computers and the phones of the men I’d killed, the terrorist cell had been small.

They’d been planning the attack for months, and they had a lot of money, but whoever had been funnelling them funds had covered their tracks.

Whoever had been pulling their strings, they’d left no electronic trail.

But all of the dead men in the bunker had been active members of the Humans First movement, and Maximilian was the head of the movement in the Council.

He would have had ample opportunity to whisper poison into their ears without putting anything into a form which could be tracked.

Or they could have gone old school and used paper messages before destroying them.

Pinning the illegal interrogation of my mate onto him was going to be much easier. And it had been deliberate. He employed a Mage who tried to mind-rape my mate. To peel open her mind and uncover all her secrets. The procedure had been conducted in his house, with his guards supervising.

I had him.

And once the worm confirmed that Maximilian had given the order for the interrogation—He was mine.

But before I dealt with the Humans First representative, I had to fix whatever was wrong with the bond between myself and my mate.

I’d gone in hard against her shields before.

I’d swept them away, demanding that she give me all of herself.

And she had done it. But now her shields were up again and she was hiding her thoughts from me.

She hurts , Beast told me. She fears .

She fears us ? The thought made me want to vomit. What had I done? She had seen me at my most violent, when I’d gone into full berserker mode in the bunker, and she hadn’t been afraid.

No. Not us. Smell her perfume. She knows she belongs in our arms. Her body is soft against ours. Pliant.

Her body wants us. But her mind fights the bond .

We must show her that she is ours . Beast sent me an image. An image of my Pixie, her belly swollen with our child. Tie her to us. Breed her . Keep her .

Would she fight me on this? I didn’t even know if she wanted children. From the moment I’d seen her, I’d imagined how our children would look. A boy with her green eyes. A girl with my brown ones.

More than two , said my Beast.

Let’s work on one first , I said. But if she wanted more? I would give her as many as she wanted.

I ran one hand up and down Elie’s back. Giving her wordless comfort. Feeling her soften against me. Fuck. I had done everything wrong. For five years I had kept my distance, trying to be subtle. Trying to woo her gently. To give her time to accept what we had.

All I had done was to send half of my soul mad and made my mate believe I didn’t want her. But I had to believe it wasn’t too late to fix my mistakes. We had a bond. The bond would increase her physical pleasure. I could make her crave me as much as I craved her.

Court her .

What does she want?

Orgasms. Beast sounded smug.

We can’t court her with orgasms . As much as I would like to.

Tie her to our bed. Give her so many orgasms that she forgets to use her shields.

Dude, I need some more ideas.

Against me, my mate’s body twitched as she dropped into sleep. The pilot’s voice sounded in my headset. “Five minutes, Mr President.”

Clearly, I would need more time to think about this. I knew she liked pretty things. On her days off, I’d seen her in swirly skirts and loose dresses. Clothing that was completely different to her uniform.

Bright nail polish.

Lingerie?

I would buy her enough lingerie that I could tear every single pair off her luscious body. But that gift was maybe more for me than for her.

What did my mate want?

Had the choices I’d made when I was secretly courting her been so bad? Did I know so little about my mate that I didn’t know what made her happy?

Apparently.

Beautiful beaches. Luxury ski chalets. I’d tried the lot. And her heartrate never increased with excitement. Her eyes didn’t soften. She didn’t smile.

In her vacation time she rented a small cottage in the country. Yeah, so I’d had someone find out where she went when she was away from me. I hadn’t given her my bite until recently, but she’d been my mate for five years. Of course, I fucking knew where she went on her holidays.

I’d thought she would like the fancy places I’d taken her to because they were different from the place she chose for herself. But on the morning of the Summit I’d finally realised that she had never needed any of those things.

Was that little cottage what she really wanted?

I was her mate. Her happiness was my responsibility. And so far I’d done a shit job. She had fucking panic attacks, and I didn’t know why.

She was willing to share her body with me, but her mind was another matter.

Which brought me back to her shields. My mate needed to trust me enough to let me in, so I knew what she was thinking. Always. And then I would give her everything she had ever desired.

“Landing in one minute sir.”

Fuck. There was going to be a shitstorm to deal with after today. I had Council members to placate. Information to gather. I had to find out who suspected that I hadn’t Declared my Intent before I gave her my mate bond. I had to deal with it before it became a bigger problem.

I flexed my fingers, being careful to keep the sharp claws on my fingertips away from my mate’s gentle skin.

A public announcement that Electra was my mate should have gone out days ago, but Luc had kept the information in the Palace locked down as tightly as possible while I’d been under guard.

It would be easy enough to control the narrative in a press release.

Given that I was the President and she was my bodyguard, it would be simple to say that we’d kept our courting private.

And although Calypso clearly suspected something was wrong, she would never betray her sister.

Provided Maximilian hadn’t told anyone else, I could control this.

I had to control this.

Failure was not an option. Not when I finally had everything I had ever wanted.

For the first time in years, I questioned my choices.

I had wanted to follow in my mother’s footsteps all my life.

I believed that I could make a difference.

I was confident about myself. While my Beast-half had been locked away, I was good at what I did.

I didn’t get tripped up by my emotions. My logical, rational side ruled, and it had made me ruthless. I made deals and alliances.

I worked so hard that I had no life.

Realisation hit me.

I didn’t want to be President anymore. I wanted my mate. A family. Everything else could go to Hell.