Page 394 of Hate Mates

“You’ll just have toun-end things.” Father gives me a look that says he’ll accept no argument. “I’ve put too much time on this arranged marriage, Benjamin. We’ll have drinks and a series of small plates in the library, the main course in the formal dining room, and then retire to the family lounge for dessert and your proposal. Your sisters will join us for dessert, perhaps dinner if they aren’t too….” My father waves his hand without continuing the sentence, but I know too well what he means. They’re a lot on a good day.

“Yes, Father. May I be excused to go outside for some fresh air? I want to prepare myself for the proposal.” I’m excused with a nod as my parents continue talking about the accident at the Café de l’Illusion. It has been the only topic of conversation since George brought me home to them both standing on the curving staircase out front.

The sudden sunburn sensation increases as I clear my dishes to the tray beside the door. It’s gotten worse the longer I go from my shift; it’s probably some aftereffect of it. Hopefully if I can manage to get through the next full moon without changing forms, it’ll be better. In a different family, I would ask what theyknow about the feeling. Here, you don’t ask about the family’s dirty secret.

A bell rings loud and clear through the main floor of the house, the sound of church bells marking the presence of an outsider. “I bet that’s the florists. Benjamin, be a dear and let them in on your way outside. All our staff are preparing for tonight. I’ve ordered blue roses and those indigo calla lilies Starline is so fond of.”

Picking flowers to fill vases just to toss them outside to rot with the compost seems like a bad omen for a union of two families. “What about the sunflowers I like?” I call back to my parents as I head toward the front door.

“You’re getting a bride. You don’t need flowers.”

I don’t need?—

Thoughts fall away as my hands close on the doorknob and tug it open. Standing there in a hot pink and black corset and ruffled skirt, her open hoodie flapping in the breeze, Poppy paces back and forth when she sees me. “I—” She hugs herself tightly and stops in front of me. “I promised myself I would stay away, but we have a problem.Ihave a problem, I mean. I’m going into heat, and you’re my mate.”

“Heat?”

Poppy shivers at the sound of my voice as if I grabbed her. “I haven’t had a heat cycle in six years, seven this summer. We suppressed that one with medication since I was just 18. Now, the doctors expect me to deal with it on my own. I can go to some cabin away from everyone until it’s over, or….” Her voice drops to a whisper. “I can have you fill me. Please stop the burning ache inside me. Benji, I need you.”

I remember the “when two shifters love each other very much” talk. When unpaired mates are near each other, the hormones are triggered to encourage…bonding. Well, fucking at least. In heterosexual couples, one goes into heat, and if theyare kept apart, the other tends to go into a rut until they’ve connected explosively.

My virgin cock has been making its presence known more and more since I left that garage building, and I’ve jacked off so many times I had to order in more than one bottle of lube. If she’s going into heat, it makes sense of why my body is doing this. “You going off to the woods won’t help. I would end up following you. You could find someone else to—” My mouth closes on the last word, not letting me say that she could get fucked repeatedly through her heat cycle until it eases. The thought of her letting anyone touch her…. My hands clench and open repeatedly, ready to fight my competition.

“Ialreadytried that, you idiot.” Poppy begins pacing again, her arms over her tits, and I’d swear she’s pinching her nipples as she talks. “I got so far as naked and the tip inside me, when I just couldn’t.” She gets closer to me, and I can smell the sweet, almost grape juice scent of her skin and hair. Her pupils have expanded, and she looks at me hungrily. Oh, yes, she’s definitely squeezing her chest, and I fight the urge to grab her and put my face in the valley of her cleavage. “I grabbed my clothes and left. I tried again—twice—with?—”

I fling my hand up, silencing her. Rage burns through me, and I long to destroy the lovers she tried to use to fix the burning.Mine.

We can’t stand out here like this, not where anyone can see. I start and stop several times in my attempt to invite her in long enough for me to find the nearest set of car keys and get out of here. “Poppy, we should?—”

A hand claps down on my shoulder. “Ben, who’s this?” Leo takes a look at Poppy and smiles. “Leonard Devona.”

“Go away,” I hiss even as she tells him her name. “Leo, if you value your life, you will go the fuck inside and not tell anyone….”My words become a sigh, and I drop my shoulders, defeated in even this, as our parents come up behind him.

“Is the florist having issues, darling? Oh. You are not the florist.” My mother makes it sound equally cold and just pleasant enough to not be rude. “You’rethatgirl.”

I can’t let her say things like that, not to Poppy. Not after how she saved me. “Mother, this is Poppy. She’s the server who saved me at the Café when the glass was shattered by the cars hitting the wall.” I look at my mate, need making her claw herself to stop from throwing herself at me, and I try to draw strength from the well of it she must have to endure what she does every day. “Poppy saw me get wet and made sure I could change in private. She shifted and led me to a safe space to stay until the moon released us. Poppy kept me warm, and now she’s here because she’s my mate and?—”

“And she’s in heat,” my father continues. “This conversation should be indoors where others aren’t privy to family matters.”

“Perhaps I don’t want to go in there with you.” Her teeth snap on the words, and I wince as my jaw aches at the sound. What was almost cute in her dog form sounds painful as a human.

Knowing this is all about to blow up very badly, I step between Poppy and my family. “Poppy has been through enough, and we need to discuss things without you. I’m going to take her over to the pool house to talk in private. That way you can still get ready for company, and we’re not speaking out in the open. It’s win-win for everyone. Fair?”

Father looks ready to argue, but my brother manages to coax him back to the shadows of our home’s interior. “A half hour, and then I expect you back here to get ready for this afternoon and evening, Benjamin. Keep your pants on, young man.”

I don’t reply; lying doesn’t go well in the household, but I let him assume I’ve agreed to it all for now. “We can follow the veranda around to the back and cut across to the poolhouse from there, Poppy.” Careful not to touch her and make everything that much worse for her, I lead Poppy away from the unfolding drama and down the heated sidewalk. “The building is warm, but if you prefer the cold air, we can open windows.”

Her shivers have nothing to do with the temperature, and she lets out a moan as one of her hands brushes against me in the doorway. My cock hardens at the sound, and I swallow the rush of want that hits me and makes my mouth water for a taste of her.

“I shouldn’t be here. Your dad will have me sent away. He looked ready to murder me.”

Grasping the back of a cabana chair, I try to come up with anything helpful for the situation. It’s my fault after all. She wouldn’t be in heat if she hadn’t stayed with me through the storm. Abandoning her to what will become increasingly painful before it triggers my own possessive need seems counterproductive to everything and just downright rude to not at least consider the alternative.

“For what? Being a shifter? I mean, they could try, but you haven’t done anything wrong, and I would defend you.”

Poppy sits down on the white and blue floral cushioned couch. “You would? Why?” Her lust fractures a moment, and she leans down to fix the laces on one boot, nearly popping her chest free from the top.

“Because you’re obviously a good person, you saved me, and you’re my mate. I’d out my family if I had to.”

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