Page 56 of Captive Mate
Presuming that I would be staying here, and that there was an ‘inside’ and an ‘outside,’ which was maybe nuts. He hadn’t even kissed me when we woke up. Okay, he was on the phone…but shouldn’t he be kissing me now? Or doing something other than getting pissed someone besides him wanted to talk to me?
Matthew tossed his phone across the bed, still scowling. “Colin wants you to come to the Kimball territory. If you’re going, I should go with you.”
I picked up the phone and turned on the screen. His attitude was rubbing me the wrong way; did he think he owned me now that we’d fucked? “Did he ask you to come? And weren’t you just telling me you needed to keep your distance?”
“I don’t think you should be going anywhere alone —”
Oh, fuck that. He didn’t think I should be able to make my own decisions?
“I think you should mind your own fucking business,” I snapped, and poked the call button with a little more force than I needed to.
Matthew got up and stomped into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.
It took two minutes to find out what Colin wanted: he needed new wards on the territory, he wasn’t sure about dealing with the spell bags and hoped I could at least supervise their disposal, and the council was giving him trouble about taking over for his father, probably at Bill’s background instigation. Having a shaman backing him up and helping with all the shit the death of their previous shaman had left undone would give him leverage.
And he wasn’t asking for a favor; he wanted to pay standard freelance rates.
I dropped Matthew’s phone back on the bed and looked around. Water was running in the bathroom, and it sounded like maybe Matthew was shaving.
Fuck. I’d left my clothes on the bathroom floor, including my boots.
And I couldn’t deal with this. I opened the window, shifted, and jumped down to the ground. Ten minutes later I was in my car, fully dressed in some of the spare clothes I’d left there, and on my way to the Kimball territory.
I’d stop in Laceyville to get some new boots and a phone. Matthew could kiss my fuzzy bobcat ass — and maybe I’d even let him once he stopped being a controlling douchebag.
***
“Hey, Arik!” Colin said with a smile as I got out of the car, new boots in place and phone in my pocket. “You look good.” He subtly sniffed the air, and his smile wavered. Yeah, I hadn’t cleaned up nearly enough to get rid of the scent of what Matthew and I had done together.
“I don’t need to look good to fix your territory wards,” I said, maybe a little more sharply than I needed to.
Because what I really didn’t need was another alpha telling me how attractive I was and then acting like a douche.
“Oookay,” Colin said, raising his eyebrows. “Glad you’re recovered from the fight, is all.”
And thenIfelt like a douche.
I sighed and followed Colin into the house, nodding at a few passing pack members as I did. I could at least try to be polite.
Which…yeah. Trying to be polite lasted me approximately five days.
I’d met with the pack council when I arrived, walked part of the territory boundary with Colin, and tried not to snap at him too much. Being knotted by an alpha could induce a negative reaction to other alphas’ pheromones, but I was edgy even when no other alphas were around.
I slept in a spare room in the pack house, got up early in the morning, and started work on the wards. Adam really had left a lot of loopholes, and it was hard and absorbing work — or would’ve been, if I could’ve fucking focused.
The next days were more of the same, and it started to wear on me. I wasn’t getting any more relaxed, and every time I thought of Matthew — every five minutes, in other words — my stomach clenched with arousal and my teeth started grinding.
On day five I spent all day along the boundary. Colin brought me fresh bags of salt as needed and made attempts at conversation — which consisted mostly of decreasingly subtle questions about my relationship with Matthew.
I cut him off in the middle of asking me whether Matthew had any plans to take a mate anytime soon — because, seriously? Fuck him. If Matthew wanted me as a mate, I’d know but I wouldn’t tell Colin, and if he didn’t, then I wouldn’t know — and told him I needed to be alone to work my shamanic mojo.
Which was total bullshit. But I needed him togo away. I was edgy, and increasingly miserable as the afternoon wore into evening, and it looked like it was going to rain again. For someone who loved showering so much, I hated getting caught in the rain.
“I’ll just — I’ll head back to the house, then,” Colin said, looking more confused than anything. “You’re going to follow along once you’ve done your thing?”
“Yes, of course,” I said.Just leave me alone.
Colin turned and headed back the way we’d come, leaving me alone in a stand of pines near the main road. The warding here really, truly sucked.
