Page 5 of His Runaway Mate

Another female voice cuts through the air. Maybe Nick Love isn’t here at all. Maybe the top floor of his business is nothing but a stockpile of unruly female shifters, none of whom have been mated, I suspect. There’s a certain unshifted quality about both the girl at the front desk and the one behind the filing cabinet that is clearly taller than her.

I don’t know if she thinks someone else is here and she’s talking to them, or if this is just a stream of consciousness I happen to be overhearing.

“Hello?” I speak for the first time.

At my voice, a figure shoots into view, rubber-banded from the depths of this fever dream.

She’s got shaggy blonde and brown hair, hacked into a wolf cut. It looks good on her. It also looks like she’s one glitter-star-painted-onto-an-eye away from joining a glam rock band.

She’s very cute. She has obstinate features, though. A snub nose, big brown eyes that are currently narrowed at me, full cheeks. She’s on the curvy side and it suits her. Her clothing would horrify Fescue into an episode of some kind. She’s wearing a fitted black T-shirt with an expletive on it, and bootcut jeans that have come in and out of fashion twice since I’ve been alive. She really could have stepped right out of a picture from a time before she was born.

She stares at me too, much like the desk girl did, but she’s got a lot more going on behind her eyes. Annoyance, mostly, but I’ll take it. Her gaze runs up my body and back down it again, and I’m somewhat relieved Fescue decided to pitch one of his sassy fits today. I know I project traditional strength. That is the one thing this place is clearly missing. Everything around me, including her adorable, petulant face, screams spank me, Daddy.

I’d be more than pleased to oblige. The young woman looking at me has an aura about her that draws me. She has a perfect mixture of vulnerability and rebellion. She’s got me down here by defying me. That’s earned her a good, long spanking before we even start.

“Can I help you? Are you lost?”

Even her questions show that same dyad. The first one felt almost helpful. The second one is clearly a thinly veiled fuck off. I get the impression I am lucky to have been given the veil.

“I’m looking for Nick Love.”

“I am Nicky,” she says. “Who are you?”

That last question is insolent and insubordinate. I can already tell that she knows precisely who I am. At first, she might have been confused. She isn’t now. Her gaze has roamed up and down my body several times, and now there is an adorable flush on her cheeks and across her nose.

“I am Rex Regent,” I say, though I know she knows precisely who I am. I am the alpha of this city. The one whose authority she has been blatantly flouting.

I can smell her.

I can smell everyone here, of course. But the scent coming from her is laced with endorphins. She’s enjoying this. We have only just met and she is already starting to be consumed with chemical want.

Our eyes are locked on one another with an intensity that demands we do not break the contact. I take a step toward her, and immediately her scent becomes richer.

My expression intensifies. I can see myself reflected in a dozen surfaces. The hard lines of my face sharpen, my eyes narrow. I am locked in on her entirely. I don’t care about anything else anymore. Not about the takeover. Not about the building makeover. Not about the reserve. Not about my own company. I care about her. And having her.

There is a big desk covered in various items of a decorative nature. Some of them look delicate. That rules out tossing everything on it onto the floor when I fuck her into submission. Perhaps we’ll do it on the oversized shaggy toon wolf rug. I am going to defile this woman.

No. More than that.

I am going to mate her. No.

The beast inside me demands more still.

I am going to breed her.

The realization comes over me all at once.

I just met my mate.

I expected to do it in the deep woods and wilds of the reserve, but instead it is happening inside a cotton candy fever dream squatting in the shell of my childhood.

“I’m here to do a deal,” I tell her.

She has to be feeling this as well, the magnetic pull between us. The very near feral impulses coursing through my body have to be answered.

I look at her, seeking signs of blushing, of heat. She takes a step back and narrows her eyes even more. Her hackles are invisibly raised. I don’t see arousal. I see hostility. She’s scared. But not the kind of scared that will make her turn tail or submit. This is the kind of fear that turns into deep bites and savagery.

There is so much more going on here than I had bargained for. My instincts make me want to take her roughly here and now, but we live in a civilized world and there are motions that have to be gone through. She has to want it. Scrap that. She has to beg for it.