Page 46 of Pretty Little Prey
“Sly says I can be intense. Did I say too much again?”
“I—I liked it,” she said.
“Little mate, I like you very much. You have no need to feel lonely anymore. Our pain is in the past—used to shape us for each other. I would wander the woods by myself for years to be worthy of you.”
Damn it.Stay strong, Luna!He was a predator wolf.
Kobe touched her hips and gently lifted her from his body. “Hungry? I will make you breakfast.”
“No meat, remember,” she called to him as he strode to the bedroom door.
He turned to grin at her, his face lit by the soft morning light glowing behind the window curtains. “I remember. My mate is an herbivore.” His wolfish smile and white teeth should have concerned her. Instead, her heartbeat sped up in her chest. “An herbivore who moans over grilled cheese.”
She threw his pillow at him.
Chapter 19
“If she doesn’t come out of her room in the next thirty minutes, I’m walking in there and fucking pulling her out,” Bastille growled impatiently as he sat forward on his black wingback chair, fingering a few of the circular brass nails in it.
“Pull her by her hair?” Sly asked. “You always were the kinkiest of us.”
“Kobe, you said she was awake hours ago.” Bastille turned to the werewolf who guarded a plate of cold pancakes on his lap. Kobe had made them forher—not offering to cook for the rest of them. Not offering any pancakes to hisking.
She sows discord between my men, Bastille thought bitterly to himself.And I want a fucking pancake.
“She was tired,” Kobe replied. “Did not sleep much. She might have fallen back asleep.”
“Didn’t sleep much?” Bastille questioned. “You didn’t touch her, did you?” Murder flared in his eyes.
“Gods, what the fuck is going on?” Sly threw his arms up in frustration as he spoke to his king. “Dude, she’s yourmate. Your one andonlymate. Why are you acting like this? Yelling at her, threatening to cut off her fingers. Don’t you want towinher from the dragon? If so, you’re messing it all up.”
Bastille glared at him.
“You don’t need to instruct us not to touch her. You need to give her a reason to stay. I’m not surprised she tried to escape last night.”
“She willnotescape.”
Nikolai stepped forward to ask, “If you do not want her for yourself, why are we keeping her? If she goes into heat—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” Bastille said.
He had no idea what he would do once she went into heat. He talked a big game—saying he wouldn’t let any of them touch her, saying he would watch her go unsatisfied. But he knew the stories about a prey shifter’s heat. A prey’s heat had once ended a war because the two sides had to stop and have an orgy until it was over. The scent and pheromones she would put off would be irresistible. The frantic lust that would ensue…
“If you’re trying to win herBeauty and the Beaststyle, you need to start dressing her in ballgowns and finding her a library pronto,” Sly commented. “She probably hates you right now.”
She probably hates you right now. Finally, an emotion Bastille was familiar with. He was not about to try to win her from the dragon. What an insolent notion. To fall for his mate and know the pleasure of being with her, only for her to choose Daxton in the end… No.
Daxton would give her expensive clothes and jewelry and pamper her with bubble baths in luxury hotels all over the world. The light shifters were rich in money. The dark shifters were rich in fear.
I do not need to wonder which of us she will choose. I already know.
And he hated her for it.
“Ten more minutes,” Bastille said through his teeth. “Then I go in there and drag her out.”
“Miss her that much already? Awww,” Sly mocked.
Nikolai’s phone dinged, and the men glanced at him as he read the screen. “The dragon has sent a search team nearby for her.”
