She stood as Grady hit the floor on his back. He grunted in surprise. She moved away from him, inching toward the bathroom. Tears burned behind her eyes and she blinked them back. Grady looked shocked as he sat up. She didn’t even bother to glance at his friend Eric.
Grady frowned, staring at Mika as he got to his feet.
“Get out of my house,” Mika said softly. “Both of you get the fuck out of my house.”
Grady was obviously confused. “Babe―”
“Don’t!” she yelled at him, cutting him off.
She moved toward the bathroom slowly. She wanted a place to run to if Grady tried to touch her. Her heart was breaking. She knew he would hurt her when it was time to go home. She expected that kind of pain when it came time to tell him goodbye. She never thought he’d pull something as agonizing as this.
“Get the hell out of my house now. Don’t come back, Grady. I mean it. Don’t ever come back. Take your damn friend with you.” Her voice shook.
“Mika,” Grady growled. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me? Get the fuck out of my house, Grady! If either one of you touches me, I swear to God, I’ll have my uncle kill you both. Do you hear me? Get out!”
“Why are you reacting this way?” Grady was staring at her as though she’d lost her mind. “I’m trying to protect you.”
She stared in horror at Grady. “Is that what you call this? Protecting me? I realize you weren’t happy about the whole forced-to-mark-me thing. You and everyone else has made it very clear to me that I’m just a mere human, and how you only think werewolf bitches are good enough for you. I’m sorry that you had it rough growing up the way you did. I get why you don’t want to hook up with a human after the treatment you got since you’re not of pure blood.”
Grady paled at her words, and then his mouth tensed into a firm line as he stared at her. He didn’t cut her off or move, though. He just stood there listening.
“Even knowing how you felt about me being human, I at least figured you had to feel something for me. Even just a little something. I will not be passed between you and your friend like a twenty-dollar whore! Being tag-teamed by two men is not a fantasy of mine. It’s insulting that you care so damn little about me that you’d even want to see another guy fuck me. Maybe saying I don’t share was too mild a hint for someone like you that I’m totally into monogamy. Get out of my house now, and take your damn friend with you.”
“That’s not how it is,” Grady growled.
“Fuck you. Get out! I mean it, Grady. Get out of my house and don’t ever come near me again.”
A snarl tore from Grady. “You’re marked by me. You can’t just throw me out. I’ll go insane and hunt you. I’m in mating heat!”
She jerked her chin up and glared at him. She held on to her anger so she didn’t totally fall apart in tears from her broken heart. “Then I’ll buy a big damn gun and shoot your ass if you come after me. Get. Out. I never want to see you again.” Her voice broke.
Grady growled again. He jerked his head to Eric. “Go.”
Eric left the bedroom and Grady’s head snapped in Mika’s direction, eyes gleaming black in a way she’d never seen before. “I don’t know why you’re so damn angry. Eric is very popular with women. Most women would jump at the chance of having two men in their bed.”
She blinked back tears. “I’m not most women. Leave, Grady.”
He shook his head. “I won’t do that. Tell me why you’re pissed off at me.”
Her anger slipped away and pain took its place. “I’m not pissed.”
Grady frowned. “You’re scenting of anger.”
“Then take a bigger damn whiff, asshole! Inhale my pain.”
Grady sniffed and she saw confusion on his face again.
“For a man so concerned about not hurting me, you just did the one thing that hurt me the most,” she said softly. “I could have chalked up you not wanting a relationship with me to your childhood, and the rejection of your human side you must have suffered from your stepmother. I could overlook and forgive you for making it so damn clear that I’ll never be enough for you because I understand how important it is for you to mate a werewolf, so you get acceptance from the pack.”
Hot tears fell down her face. Grady took a step toward her. Mika shook her head at him and threw up her hand, and he stopped advancing on her. Mika wiped at her tears and backed up so she was in the bathroom.
“Don’t ever come near me again, Grady. You didn’t need to protect me from you physically. I needed protection from you hurting me inside. I can’t believe I gave a shit about you. I can’t believe— Just get out.” She slammed the bathroom door and locked it.
“Babe?” Grady was right on the other side. “Open the door.”
“Don’t ever call me ‘babe’ again. You lost that right. You lost all of your rights. Goodbye, Grady.” She closed her eyes and didn’t bother to stop the hot tears falling down her face.
“Son of a bitch,” Grady roared from the other side of the door. “I thought you’d be excited about the idea.”
“I’m taking a shower,” she lied. “You made me feel dirty.” That part wasn’t a lie.
She turned on the water and then ran to the window. She unlocked it and carefully slid it open, praying the sound would be covered by the loud water pouring from her showerhead.
Mika was out her window in seconds. She ran around the house—and that’s when she saw Eric.
He was leaning against a Mustang and staring at the house. He turned his head and saw her.
Fear hit Mika hard. Would he yell out to Grady that she’d escaped? Shit! She sprinted down the sidewalk barefoot.
At the corner, she waved down a woman in a car and the woman actually stopped. Tears were freely flowing down Mika’s face.
“Are you all right?” The woman looked concerned.
“I had a fight with my boyfriend. I’m afraid he’ll come looking for me. Can you please give me a ride to my uncle’s house? I can give you money when we get there.”
“Get in.” The woman unlocked the door. “Where does your uncle live?”
Gratefully, Mika climbed into the car. She gave directions and felt relief as the woman pulled away from the curb. She’d gotten away from Grady and his friend. She wiped at her tears.
“Thank you so much.”
The woman reached over and patted her leg. “We’ve all been there, honey. I’m glad to help.”
Chapter Ten
Minnie handed Mika whiskey with ice. Uncle Omar wasn’t home, thankfully. Minnie had taken one look at Mika’s tearstained face and bare feet, and had dragged her into the kitchen. She’d made both of them drinks and sat down across from her.
“What happened?”
Mika used a napkin to blow her nose. “He brought home another guy, telling me he was afraid he’d hurt me in mating heat. He said the other guy doesn’t suffer from it and wanted the guy in the room with us during sex. He asked me if I’d ever fantasized about threesomes.”
Minnie’s eyes widened and she took a good gulp of her whiskey. “Whoa. No shit? Who’d he bring?”
“Eric somebody. I forgot his last name. Blond, about six feet tall, and he looks like a surfer.”
“Eric Voigt.”
“That’s him.”
Minnie stared at her. “And this made you cry and obviously run away from home without your purse and shoes?”
Mika’s mouth fell open. “Did you hear what I said? He brought his friend into my house and wanted the three of us to go to bed together!”
Minnie sipped her drink and then slowly smiled. “And this hurt you? Eric is hot. Hell, Grady is hotter. You could have been the filling in a hot-man sandwich. Where did I raise you wrong?”
“Unbelievable.” Mika glared at Minnie. “Picture this. You’re in your room and Uncle Omar walks in to tell you how he brought home another woman so the three of you can have sex together.”
The smile was gone from
Minnie’s face in an instant and anger burned in her eyes. “I’d kill him.”
“Why?”
Understanding dawned in Minnie’s expression. “If he touched another woman, it would kill me.”
Mika nodded. “Exactly. You really love him, and the idea of him touching another woman kills you inside, right? The idea of Grady touching another woman does that to me. It kills me to think about it. He brought a man into my home and wanted that guy to climb into bed with us, Minnie.” Hot tears filled her eyes. “What would Uncle Omar do to a man who even thought about touching you?”
Minnie downed her drink. “They wouldn’t find all the body parts of any man who touched me. Omar would see to that. He’d tear the man apart a piece at a time.”
“Because he loves you, because the idea of you being with another man hurts him. Grady doesn’t give a damn about me. I thought he’d get over the anti-human thing he has if we spent time together. Maybe I was stupid enough—hell, I was stupid enough to even hope he’d fall in love with me.” She wiped at her tears. “I fell for him, Minnie. Oh God. I fell hard for him.”
“Baby…” Minnie stood up and walked around the table. She sat next to Mika and pulled her into her arms. Her fingers brushed through Mika’s hair to try to soothe her. “I’m so sorry.”
“Me too. It hurts. How could he do that? How?”
“Men are different. You don’t need to be told that. Maybe he thought he was doing something nice.”
Snorting, Mika shook her head against Minnie’s shoulder. “Don’t bullshit me. He brought a guy into my home, Minnie. Into my bedroom.”
“I know.”
“You can’t tell Uncle Omar. He’d kill him.”
“You aren’t kidding about that one. He might have given you to Grady but he would kill him if he found out he’d offered your body to his friend as well.”
“I want to go home.”
Minnie tensed. “You can’t leave. You’re marked, baby. It’s not close enough to the end of mating season for you to be able to leave. Grady would go insane and come after you in a matter of days.”
“Fine. I won’t go home. I’ll travel around so he won’t find me. It’s not as though he can track me if I decide to fly to Washington to visit one of my friends, or get a rental car and just take a sightseeing trip on my way home.”
Minnie suddenly moved and forced Mika to look at her. She shook her head. “You don’t understand. Just because mating season comes to an end… Hell. Your uncle told you so much about us, but he left out the entire important woman-to-man shit.
“If you split on a man who’s marked you during mating season, he goes insane. His need for you will drive him out of his head until it’s all he can think about. They totally lose it. The sex keeps them sane when mating heat strikes. Since you’re marked, only sex with you will do it for him. If you run, and he were to go insane, well…until he has you again, he won’t just ‘get over it’. If he goes long enough hunting for you, and he doesn’t find you? Most don’t ever recover from it.
Horror engulfed Mika. “I just thought it would stop when mating season ended. I mean, Uncle Omar said something about hurting Grady so it took him a while to recover, until mating heat was over, so I thought―”
“Damn idiot.” Minnie cursed. “He said that?”
Mika nodded. “The night Grady marked me and brought me here to tell Uncle Omar. He said that was the only way to not hand me over to Grady.”
“Look, something like that could have happened if Grady had never mounted you, but now he’s totally bonded to you through mark and sex while he’s in heat. The only way I can see to do this is if we maybe put him in a damn coma so he doesn’t suffer missing you through the rest of the mating heat. I wonder how hard that would be.”
Mika stared at Minnie in shock. “A coma? Are you kidding me?”
“No.”
“You can’t put him in a coma. He could die.”
Minnie shrugged. “If you run, one of you will die for sure. He’ll track you down and be so nuts, he’ll probably kill you. Mating heat is very painful. He can try to have sex with other women but it won’t stop his suffering. You are what he craves and needs.”
Mika picked up her glass and downed the contents. “I’m stuck, is what you’re saying.”
Minnie downed her drink and then grabbed the bottle to refill their glasses. “Welcome to the wonderful world of being a female in a male-shifter world. Be happy you aren’t mated to the son of a bitch. Then you’d never have a way of getting away from him and the entire pack would consider you his property.”
“Was being mated that bad?”
Minnie nodded. “I admit he was really awful. I’ve seen a lot of really happy couples but I was in a nightmare. My mate was horrible and he was abusive. I was trapped and no one would help me. It was a long time ago though. Now if a mate is abusive, he will get his ass kicked until he learns not to do it.”
Mika sipped her new drink. “Really?”
“Really. We had a guy beating the shit out of his mate. Omar and Elroy went and kicked his ass. They told him for every bruise his mate had, he’d get twenty. He stopped hitting her pretty damn fast after a few rounds with the men. He’s too afraid to abuse her now.”
The silence stretched into minutes as they nursed their drinks. Mika finally sighed. “Grady will be coming for me, won’t he?”
Minnie nodded. “He’ll be coming.”
“I was afraid of that. What if that guy is still there?” Mika fought tears. “I won’t let him touch me, Minnie. I don’t want anyone but Grady.”
“When Grady comes to get you, I’ll talk to him. I know you don’t want Omar to know what he did, but I’ll explain to Grady what will happen to him if Omar gets word of what he tried to pull. He won’t be bringing any more men home.”
The doorbell startled them. Minnie sighed and stood. “Stay put. I’ll take care of this.”
Mika finished her second drink. She figured Grady was the one at the door. Eric must have raced into the house to tattle that she’d fled. It wouldn’t have been hard for Grady to figure out where she’d headed.
Grady stormed into the room and growled low at her. “What the hell do you think you’re doing by running from me? You could have been harassed by a male!”
“I want to talk to you,” Minnie demanded from behind him. “Don’t ever just push past me again and storm into my house. We need to discuss Mika.”
Grady jerked his head in Minnie’s direction. “There’s nothing to discuss but the fact that I’m taking her home now.”
Minnie snarled at him, showing teeth. “If you ever bring another damn man into her home, I’ll personally cut your balls off. Are we clear? If I tell Omar what you tried to do to her, then he’ll kill you. She’s not into that.”
Mika saw Grady pale. She reached over and grabbed the bottle of whiskey and poured more into her glass. She sipped it and glared at Grady while she got shitfaced. It was helping to numb the pain he’d caused her.
“I tell Minnie everything. Almost, anyway. She doesn’t know how we really met.”
Minnie frowned. “What does that mean?”
Grady growled. “Let’s go, Mika.”
“Is your friend gone?” Mika still felt pretty angry. “If you want him to get fucked so much, you could always fuck him. How about that one? Or I’ll watch you get fucked by Eric. You deserve to get bent over for what you did.”
Grady was shocked at her words, and it showed. He stared at her. “I don’t know why you’re so damn upset. I’m trying to protect you, damn it!”
“And yet you ended up hurting me worse emotionally than you ever did physically!” She slammed her drink down so hard the glass broke. She stared at the spilled contents that splashed over the tabletop and glass pieces. “Sorry.”
Minnie moved around Grady and started cleaning up the mess. “Don’t worry about it, baby. You’re upset.” She shot Grady a glare. “Leave her here for the night. You’ll survive until morn
ing without her. She’s not much of a drinker and that was number three. She’ll pass out soon, so you can collect her in the morning.”
“No.” Grady inched toward Mika.
“Is he gone? Swear to me he won’t be back.”
Grady crouched down next to Mika’s chair. “He’s gone. I won’t bring him back to your house. Let’s go.”
She sat there. “I don’t want to be anywhere near you right now.”
Cursing, Grady grabbed her out of the chair and lifted her into his arms as he straightened. He headed for the door. “We’re leaving.”
“Put me down.” Mika didn’t fight, but she said the words.
He paused at the door and shifted her in his arms to open it. His Jeep was in the driveway. “We’ll talk about this at home.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. I’m stuck here with you. Minnie explained what would happen if I leave. I don’t like you anymore, Grady. I don’t even want you touching me or talking to me.”
Grady looked a little pale as he shifted her again and opened the Jeep door. He deposited her gently into the passenger seat, put on her belt, and slammed the door. She watched him round the Jeep and climb inside. He drove silently back to her house.
Eric’s Mustang was gone. Grady pulled into the driveway and then lifted her out of the car. She noticed he’d attached her key ring to his keys as he unlocked her front door. He must have taken them from her purse. He carried her to her room and set her on the bed before leaving. She heard the front door slam, and in seconds he was back in her room. He stared at her from the doorway.
“Don’t ever pull another stunt like that again. I can’t believe you sneaked out the bathroom window.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“Damn it, babe. I’m sorry, all right? If I knew you’d freak out this way, I never would have suggested bringing Eric here to protect you.”
“Get out of my room.”
“I want you.” He paused. “I need you. It’s been hours.”
“Go fuck Eric.” She climbed off her bed and stumbled as she staggered to her bathroom. “I’m really taking a shower this time.”
Mate Set (Mating Heat Book 1) Page 12