Vexing Your Mate

by Sara Spark

  Vexing Your Mate

  A Valentine’s Day Shifter Romance

  Chimeric Mates Series 2

  By Sara Spark

  Vexing Your Mate Copyright © 2020 by Sara Spark

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electrical, digital or mechanical including but not limited to photocopying, recording, scanning or by any type of data storage and retrieval system without the express, written permission from the author.

  You may contact the author on FB: Sara Spark

  Instagram: author.sara.spark

  First edition

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing: February 2020

  Published by Sara Spark

  Publisher’s note:

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  About the Author

  Dreamer. Teacher. Scientist. Analyst.

  I am all of these. My Bachelor’s and Master’s degree focus on science and Psychology. Mainly Biology and Chemistry which absolutely fascinate me. However, I am too much of a people person to be locked up in a lab counting agar plates. Through the years, I would write here and there between working, learning, teaching and having babies, but never had the time to take it to publication. Life kept getting in the way. Well, I am putting life on hold to make this happen.

  Want to see where this crazy ride takes me?

  Want to help decide what I will write next?

  See some book covers before it’s released?

  Visit me:

  FB: Sara Spark

  Instagram: author.sara.spark

  See my other titles: Fierce Alpha, Outfox Your Mate

  Soon to be released: Trixing Your Mate, Spoil Your Mate, Hidden Alpha

  Dedication

  I believe deeply in happy endings because I am living one. There is no way I would be typing this today without the support of my husband. He has supported me, cheered me on and picked me up when I have fallen down. He is my soulmate and I am so thankful that he is in my life. I could not have done this without you, honey! I love you!

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  Several weeks earlier…

  “Rimie, come look at this.” Ravyn Nython murmured while looking at her screen intently. She called over her Alpha’s mate, Rimie. The clan of Chimeric shapeshifters were led by an Alpha and his second-in-command (their Beta). Rimie was their new mate.

  “Whatcha looking at?”

  “The latest results from your Date UR Mate website. Ye Jun and I have been working on the algorithms, trying to recreate the original website.”

  “But we haven’t sent the new virtual reality headsets out to the subscribers yet. How could we have any matches?” Rimie mused while looking at the data Ravyn was displaying on screen.

  “This is from your original group of subscribers. We have their data from when you still had the headsets. And we have our clan trying out the prototype that Declan worked on.”

  “Declan? Right, the Beta from Verdant Valley.”

  “Look who has a match.”

  “Ophelia Olszewski? Wow, and I thought my name was a mouthful!”

  “No, I mean look at who she is matched to!”

  “Oh my Mater! Bain!” Rimie rubbed her hand with the green swirl tattoo on it.

  February 1st

  Ophelia, ‘Lia’ to anyone that wanted to live, swiped a notification off of her phone…again. Why a dating site from almost a year ago that she had never heard diddly from would all of a sudden be sending her notifications daily was a mystery? I really should go unsubscribe or something. Later. It seemed as if the universe had been trying to make her late for this meeting and her fledgling little event planning business, Celebrate with Lia, needed this gig. She did not want to keep working at the restaurant around the corner to make ends meet. Making it to the receptionist with a luxurious 3 minutes still to go felt like a miracle. Flight delays, weather in KC, and traffic had all been against her today. The dim conference room for the meeting had a projector already set up and a docking station for her laptop and it was empty.

  Fantastic! That would give her chance to get organized. She swiftly docked her laptop and got started. While her laptop ran through her presentation, she had only one thought in her head. COFFEE! She had been at the airport at 4am this morning in order to catch the flight from KC to San Antonio. She was surviving on pure nerves and airport potato chips. Watching the run through of her presentation, she sidestepped over to the coffee bar behind a partition in the corner, and bam! Ran into a wall. Hard and unforgiving. Except this wall had hands!

  Gasping, she jerked around to look up, way up into a face that looked like it had been chiseled from stone. And a body that had been chiseled from the same block. His head was shaved smooth. Massive muscles wrapped his torso. The man was beyond big. He looked like a huge hulking football player. The kind that players see and think ‘let him not be the one tackling me’! One huge arm wrapped around her while he held his coffee in the other hand. He said nothing.

  Ripping herself a few steps away, Lia stammered, “I, I. Sorry! I didn’t—didn’t know anyone was in here.” Pull it together, Lia! “Are you Mr. Rohr? I’m Lia Olszewski, the owner of Celebrate with Lia.” She tried to stretch her tense face into a smile, but she didn’t offer her hand. She couldn’t. He was just too big, too muscled, too hard. Too cruel. Lia mentally shook her head.

  At one point in her life she would have been drooling over him, literally. Imagining herself stroking all over those muscles, gripping them, testing their hardness, was just a wet dream waiting to happen. But Lia had learned the hard way, those glorious muscles come with a cost. The cost was pain! Men like him used those muscles to control the world around them. Cruelty.

  Just cause he’s strong doesn’t mean he’s cruel, Lia! Snap out of it!

  The muscled behemoth just looked her up and down. Not saying anything.

  “Uh, Mr. Rohr, you were expecting me today?” She eyed his simple black t-shirt and faded blue jeans, although admittedly the weather in February in KC was a lot different than in central Texas.

  “Bain.”

  She gazed at him blankly. “I’m sorry. Pain?” Her eyes swept up and down his massive body. Could she possibly give this giant even a stubbed toe, let alone some real damage? “Oh, no, did I hurt you?”

  “Bain. Bain Bloque.” And then her stomach twisted as he held out his hand.

  Bain eyed his beautiful human mate. Human. He would have to adjust. His Alpha and Beta had done it. He could, too. Hopefully? More importantly, a mate! When his Prima Rimie had told him that he had been matched, he had been stunned. Him? A mate? Ever since that day, he had been getting on the ridiculous Date UR Mate website and painstakingly clicking all the annoying buttons so that he could make contact with his mate. Except he never got a chance to. She never replied to anything he sent. In desperation, he consulted with his Prima, and they had hatched this plan, bring her here and hire her!

  His eyes swept over her curvy form. Lia. She had soft, straight, medium brown hair, that rested sleekly on her shoulders. He was excited to see that she had hips to hold on to. Hips he hadn’t wanted to let go. From the shape of the jacket,
her breasts were ample handfuls, too, that he couldn’t wait to discover. She had pretty soft blue eyes. He frowned as he looked at the scar that ran along the length of her cheekbone. It wasn’t a recent scar. It looked several years old. Bain didn’t like knowing she had been in pain and he hadn’t been there to help her.

  When she bumped into him, he could have stayed there all day, holding her, and scenting her. And her scent was delicious, it was all lightness, and fresh spring, with a trace of luscious woman. And he needed to quit thinking about it because his dick was going from slightly hard to ‘I won’t fit in these jeans.’ He shifted on his feet. He desperately wanted to touch her again. Holding out his hand was an easy solution.

  The entrance of a group of clanmates disrupted the moment and he never got to touch her. He growled in his throat. His animal form, a cape buffalo, was a temperamental ass at the best of times.

  “Hi, you must be Ophelia!” His Prima came towards them, hand out. How come she gets to touch her and not us??? His buffalo wanted to know. He wanted to know, too.

  “Call me Lia…please!” Rimie shook her hand, looking thoughtfully down at their clasped hand for a moment. Then she looked up and beamed a ginormous smile at Bain. Guess that was the official ‘Lia is your mate’ confirmation, but Bain didn’t need it. Rimie had been gifted from the Mater with a small swirling green ivy tattoo on the back of her hand. Unusual abilities were cropping up with the gift. One of her talents—possibly sensing mates for her Chimera clan, although Rimie was a bit hesitant as to how it worked. Thus, Rimie was “confirming” that she sensed Lia was Bain’s mate. Unnecessary. It had only taken three seconds with the incredible scent of Lia to know deep in his soul. She was his.

  Rimie laughed. “Hey, I got stuck with Primrose, yours is at least Shakespearean!” Rimie turned to two hulking figures on either side of her. “I’m Rimie and these are my two ma—“ She coughed as Bain, catching her eye, frowned at her. Lia was human and had no knowledge of shapeshifters nor mates. Something he wanted to rectify very soon, but not during the introduction. “My—my two husbands. Magnus and Tracker.”

  Lia blinked at the two husbands reference, but didn’t stomp out in offense or anything, which was a cautiously good beginning. Chimera very often had multiple mates. Maybe it was to make up for the abysmal lack of female Chimera? Mater Natura, their blessed creator, along with her mate the Pater, decided the matings. Sometimes there were two Chimera, three, four, whatever the Mater put together. Mates were a blessing from the Mater herself, sent to show how much she loved her creations. And after seeing the beauty in front of him, the delicious scent of her, the sexy curves of her, Bain sent up another fervent thanks to the glorious Mater. His throat was so thick with appreciation, with emotion he couldn’t talk if he wanted to. No one even noticed, but then he wasn’t a chit-chatty type of guy.

  Bain tuned back in to the conversation. Lia was finishing up her pointless presentation. Pointless because she was getting hired, no matter what. She could have said let’s have a ‘pretty princess party and we all kiss a frog at the end’ and she would still be hired.

  “—a party to celebrate the occasion with a little wedding celebration thrown in.” Rimie was finishing up.

  “That sounds great! How big is the guest list?”

  “Oh, uh, let’s see.” Rimie turned to look at Magnus, seated to her left and Trac who was standing beside her chair. “How many are in the cl—“ She choked as she stopped herself from saying clan. “co—company?”

  Trac shrugged, “350.”

  “And the neighboring, uh, companies?” Rimie’s voice was a little tentative as she tiptoed through the topic of nearby clans that should be included. “Do they need to be invited?”

  “Yes.” That was Keegan.

  “No.” That was Magnus and Trac. They looked disgruntled. They were still pissed at one of the other Alphas who had tried to touch Rimie before their mating. Chimera were extremely sensitive to scent and nothing was more obnoxious than the scent of another male on their mate.

  Rimie narrowed her eyes at her mates. “I think Keegan’s right. I think we need to invite our neighboring, er, companies. Keegan, are they the same size as ours?”

  “Yes, my Pr—“ Keegan got an elbow in the side from Trac. “uh, Rimie.” Rimie was their Prima. A mate to an Alpha was usually called Mata. Mata Rimie. But some Matas had an exceptionally deep bond with their mates. That connection allowed those Matas special skills, or strengths, or cunning. The clan of Chimera shifters acknowledged this by granting the Mata a new title—Prima, meaning the soul of the clan.

  Bain wanted to smack them all. Obviously, we needed to rehearse this once or twenty times. Their replies were awkward and stilted.

  Rimie tried to cover with a big smile. “So let’s make the count around a thousand people.”

  “When would you like the event? I’ve heard that Fall is very nice in Texas.”

  Now this question, they had planned the answer to. “Valentine’s Day!” Rimie chirped.

  A look of dawning horror slowly unveiled on Lia’s face. She croaked, “You want me to plan a wedding celebration for 1,000 people in 13 days???”

  “Yep.” Rimie’s face clouded over. “Well, no, we aren’t counting their possible dates. Families are already included. So, probably more like 1,200. Uh, 1,300?”

  Lia’s mouth opened and closed several times with no sound coming out. She looked around the room. “I—I—uh. Is this a gag for a video?” Lia gazed around the room looking for cameras. “Is someone going to post this pranked video?”

  “Problem?” Magnus intoned. He had leaned forward. Bain knew that look. That was the ‘get the hell outta the way, nothing’s stopping me’ look. Bain, seeing that Lia’s coffee had run out, stood up quietly and started making her another cup. She looked like she was going to need it. Wanting to know everything about her, he had watched her make her coffee earlier. Cream with three sugars. His mate had a sweet tooth. He would keep that in mind.

  “I don’t even know where to start. Do you have a venue already?”

  Trac’s brow furrowed. “What’s a venue?”

  Lia groaned. Her head fell into one hand that she had braced on the table. Bain slid her coffee near her. Not even looking, she reached out and took a gulp. Humming as the jolt of coffee hit her taste buds. Then looked at him surprised, as he resumed his seat next to her.

  Chapter 2

  Conversation devolved down to logistics. A dizzying list of apparently “necessary” items for any event. Bain thought they just need to tell the clans “Chili Cookoff, Valentine’s Day, Stone Tower.” Party planned. Simple.

  After, Magnus insisted that there was no set budget for the event, just make Rimie happy, Lia went through another ‘fish gaping mouth’ episode. Bain didn’t think anything of it. Chimera spoiled their mates, that was a given. You took care of a blessing from the Mater.

  “So where do you want to start?” Rimie was bouncing up and down a little in her excitement.

  “I guess we better see your mega ballroom you’ve got on the second floor.” Lia had pulled up a checklist on her phone. Frantically typing in notes. “Did you have a theme in mind? Do you want a Valentine’s Day theme?”

  “No worries, I’m not picky! Just make it fancy dress. I want an excuse to wear my sexy silver dress that my boys bought for me.” Rimie gazed at them for a long moment, eyes sparkling with love. She shifted back to Lia. Her hand waving in the air. “I will let you decide all the rest. I’m sure it will be gorgeous!”

  Lia blinked her eyes at that several times.

  Magnus abruptly stood up, causing Lia to jerk in surprise. Magnus didn’t seem to even notice that there were others in the room, his eyes were locked on Rimie. He stood like a huge and bulky shadow over Rimie. Was he growling?!? But Rimie didn’t seem to mind. Reaching out to hold his hand as she smiled enthusiastically at Lia. “I want a huge cake with yummy cream cheese frosting. Other than that I don’t mind.” She squinted thinking for a
moment. “Actually, you should really plan for a lot of food. I mean a lot of food! These guys can take down a helluva lot of food. Nothing fancy, but plenty of it. They get very cranky if they don’t get fed.”

  “I want to eat right now, little one.” Magnus intoned still standing over Rimie. Rimie craned her neck back to share a long look with him.

  “Ok, I think that takes care of everything.” Trac rubbed his hands together. “Kitten, Magnus and I need to have an urgent meeting with you in Magnus’ office.”

  Rimie turned to look at him, but didn’t move. Magnus rolled her chair away from the table, and helped her from the chair.

  “Oh, one more thing.” Rimie’s men were urging her to the door as she spoke. “It’s gonna be a kinda rough group so nothing too…breakable. Keep it all shatterproof, if possible. Bain’s gonna be your assistant. Just let him know, if you need—“ Lia blanched. Bain! Her assistant?? Lia’s brain froze, not taking in anything else. Assistant as in around her all the time?? At that point, Magnus getting impatient, simply swung Rimie over his shoulder as she giggled and they walked out the door.

  Trac said as he was closing the door. “I’ve already got some ideas for Magnus’ big desk, ma—“ The door closed.

  Lia looked around the room. No one looked surprised. And as she tried to digest what had just happened during this meeting, everyone started leaving. Everyone that is except for him.

  Lia looked down at the extremely loooong list of to do things on her event planner’s app that was her planning bible. “I don’t think they realize how much time this is gonna take. My flight leaves in 4 hours.” She waved her hands speechless.

  “They’ve thought of that.” Bain set a key in front of her. “We have some furnished apartments in the building. This is one that you can use during your stay. 22nd floor. As long as you don’t mind a roommate.”

  “For how long? An event this size I usually start around six months before.” Bain didn’t need to know that her little fledgling (not even one year old) company had never had an event this size. Let alone one with a carte blanche budget! “This will take every minute of the day to get something like this planned in 13 days!”