Page 9 of Lawful Mate
No time would be too late on Sunday. He closed the space between them and kissed her softly, a quick, chaste meeting of lips. He was about to pull away but couldn’t resist burying his face in her neck, inhaling deeply.
“Mmm... you smell so good.” He reveled in her soft moan. “I’ll see you Sunday then.” He gave her another soft kiss before he left.
Adjusting himself in the elevator, he knew it would be sweet torture until Sunday. Something else would torture him as well, something that niggled at the back of his memory—a redheaded angel with a mischievous twinkle in her bright-blue eyes.
He’d dreamt about her—once a year, every year, for the past seventeen years.
CHAPTER 5
Ivy could still feel Theo’s pillowy lips on hers on Sunday evening as she walked out of the train station a few blocks away from her apartment building. They were even softer than she had imagined they would be the first time she saw him, the first time she thought about how they would feel against hers.
She could see it now—all the things she had found endearing about her cute boy standing with her by the willow tree—the dimple in his chin, now somewhat hidden underneath day-old stubble, his spattering of freckles, though perhaps not as profoundly noticeable, the green eyes that twinkled when he smiled at her, and the lips that had made her crave her first kiss.
She hadn’t mentioned the kiss or her feelings to her mom and grandmother while she’d been visiting, but something was off with her mother. It was as if she was expecting Ivy to tell her something every time Ivy opened her mouth to speak, and it wasn’t about what Ivy came to the city to discover. On that front, both her mom and nana knew she was still coming up empty.
Still no proof.
She had texted briefly with Theo, away from the prying eyes of her family, of course. She wasn’t ready to go there, not until she was sure. Damn the timing of it all. She hated keeping things from Theo.
They made plans for Sunday. Neither of them made any mention of the kiss, but her heart had skipped a beat when he wrote he couldn’t wait to see her. She couldn’t wait to see him, too. She couldn’t wait to taste his lips again. She knew she could trust him, so maybe she should tell him everything.
Her phone rang—Theo.
“Hi,” Ivy said, embarrassed at the breathiness of her voice.
“Hi, yourself.” She heard the smile in his voice. “I’m outside your building.”
God, she felt like such a lovestruck teenager. She was never shy around men, yet with Theo, she found herself stuttering and blushing every time she was around the gorgeous tiger, or even now, just hearing his voice.
“I’m sorry, the train was delayed. Have you been waiting long?”
“Not long. No worries.”
“I’m a few blocks—” Ivy didn’t get a chance to finish her sentence.
A premonition hit her like a ton of bricks. She saw herself on the ground, blood pouring out of her. Her premonition was cut short when strong arms wrapped around her from behind, crushing her, a hand over her mouth. Her cell phone and bag fell to the ground as she was dragged away to a nearby alleyway, where she was thrown to the ground, breaking her fall with her hands.
Before she had the chance to get her bearings, she felt a searing pain in her neck. She screamed from the pain as the claws retracted from her flesh.
“What the hell?”
She finally managed to face her attackers. Three shifters from work, the same three who had been whispering about her on her first day and angered Theo. Also among them was Delphine, the claws on her right hand extended, Ivy’s blood dripping from them, along with a thick, orange goo.
“Poison,” Ivy whispered right before she broke out into hysterical laughter, startling her four attackers. She was in pain, but there was no way she was going down without a fight. “You want to see what a witch can really do? I’ll show you.”
The tigers looked at one another in fear, then back at her. Delphine stared at all of them with disgust, then turned back to Ivy.
“Theo is mine.”
“Like hell, he is.” Ivy fought through the pain, though she already felt it traveling throughout her body. She could taste it now. More laughter escaped her as she called upon the wind. The sound ripped through the alleyway as the gale-force wind she’d conjured closed in on her assailants, squeezing, choking, and knocking them backward on their asses. But the poison kept spreading, doing exactly what she had predicted it would do, and one of the men, Larry, she thought was his name, broke through. He was about to pounce on her when a roar, loud enough to compete with the sound of her tornado-like wind, shook the alleyway.
In seconds, the majestic Siberian tiger tore out Larry’s throat. Ivy released the wind, too weak to hold it any longer. Theo shifted into his human self again, his clothes tattered. He attacked both tigers, pounding them until they were both bloody on the floor. They’d be arrested soon enough—tried and sentenced, prideless and disgraced.
He turned his ire on Delphine next. She looked stunned and terrified when he wrapped one of his hands around her neck.
“Do you know the punishment for attacking one’s mate?” he asked through gritted teeth.
“She can’t be. I am your—”
