Page 6 of His Secret Mate

Nightshadow sat down at his desk and began to work on his computer. He was so involved in what he was doing, he barely noticed when Lara got up and searched his supplies, coming up with what she needed to make cacio e pepe. The dish was simple to make and took only a few ingredients: pasta, butter, black pepper, parmesan and pecorino romano cheeses. Even so, for Lara, it was comfort food.

“Damn, Doc, that smells amazing,” he said, startling her once again with having come up behind her without a sound.

She was certain he did it on purpose to try and get a rise out of her. This time he had succeeded. As she tossed the ingredients together, she brought her elbow back into his mid-section, making him groan and backing him off.

“Be a little bit nicer to me, and I’ll share it with you.”

“It’s my food.”

“It’s the Resistance’s food.”

He nodded as he took the plate she was offering him, expertly twirling the spaghetti around his fork before putting it in his mouth. “Damn. That tastes even better than it smells. I wonder if you’ll be the same.”

Lara gasped and stormed past him to the safety and warmth of the fire. “I cooked. You can clean.”

“Sounds fair to me. Want a beer? I have Guinness and a really nice pale ale.”

“Guinness would be great.” He smiled at her, and she frowned. “What?”

“I’d have bet serious money you’d go for the pale ale.”

“You’d have lost.”

“Apparently there’s more to you than meets the eye.”

After they’d finished, Nightshadow cleaned up the kitchen without comment.

"Let's get you settled. You'll be in the dormitory. Follow me."

“Where will you be?”

“In my room. I’m right down the hall. Each dorm unit has four beds and an attached bath.”

He picked up her pack and led her through the station, Lara couldn't help but steal glances at Nightshadow. There was something about him—a wildness, a raw energy that seemed to mirror the untamed landscape outside. It both unsettled and intrigued her.

He showed her to a small, utilitarian room. "This is you," he said.

“Thanks. I appreciate your help.”

He gave her a curt nod. "You didn’t give me much choice, but I do appreciate the dinner you made. I haven’t had cacio e pepe since the last time I was in Rome."

As he walked away, Lara opened her pack.

“Don’t get too comfortable. I’m taking you back in the morning.”

Even through the thick walls she could hear the arctic wind howling. This place was everything she had imagined and more—beautiful, desolate, and full of challenges—Orion Nightshadow being one of them.

As she lay in her narrow bed, the cold seeping in despite the station's heaters, she found her thoughts drifting to Nightshadow. There was something magnetic about him, something that drew her despite his brusque exterior. She had never been as wildly attracted to a man as she was to him. Her response was visceral and profound. She could well imagine herself laying back at his command and letting him ravish her.

Lara closed her eyes, exhaustion finally taking over, and dreamed of him being some kind of barbarian warrior who had raided her village and taken her for his own. In a flight of fancy, she drifted off to sleep, wondering if perhaps in another time and in another life, they had been mates. It didn’t matter. Tomorrow, she would figure out a way to convince Nightshadow to let her stay until she could find the plant she truly believed could be the gateway to a cure for the Tasmanian Devils.

CHAPTER 3

ORION

Sleep was elusive even though it shouldn’t have been. He should have known she was on the plane. The buzzing in his head, the way he found it difficult to focus on flying—on anything other than on what his very vivid imagination was saying he could be doing with and to her. Maybe he had known. Maybe he’d wanted her trapped up here with him. If the incoming storm was as bad as it had appeared on radar, who was to say what might happen if they were snowbound for the rest of the season? Come spring, if she was wearing his mark and had a baby in her belly, there weren’t a lot of men who would challenge him for her.

In his dreams he could see her up ahead. She was running from him. She was human, and he was in his wolf form, galloping after her, closing the distance between them. She stumbled and fell, and he was on her, standing above her, straddling her, lowering his head to breathe in her scent. He growled silently and the she-wolf in her that had yet to be awakened quieted as the maelstrom of the shift enveloped him and he became a man once more. A very naked and very aroused man.

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