Runaway Mate

by Cecilia Lane

  Gray tongued his teeth. “See, you’re doing fine right up until that last bit. You’re talking like a man who wants to get his face beat in.”

  Bentley ignored the threat. “Why do you think she came here in the first place?”

  “To get away from a piece of shit ex-fiancé, the way I hear it.” Gray slid a glare to the man and took another pull from his bottle. It took everything in him not to smash the thing over Bentley’s head.

  “She hasn’t worked in years. Her little news job was nothing more than fashion commentary. She needed something to get her name back out there.”

  Gray grunted. He didn’t want to waste words on the asshole next to him. But what surprised him was the sincerity of Bentley’s scent. Under the too-strong body spray, anyway. The man believed what he said.

  “You don’t believe me and that’s fine. But maybe this will convince you that she’s not what she seems.” Bentley reached into his jacket and drew out a stack of paper folded into thirds. He opened it slowly and flattened it on the bar before sliding it over to Gray. “She’s here to further her career.”

  Gray laughed harshly. “You know even less about her than I thought. She would never do such a thing.”

  Bentley’s mouth hitched up at the side and he tapped his fingers against the papers. “I thought she cared about me once, too. Go on, take a look. This is the real Meghan.”

  Gray kept his expression neutral as he paged through the contract in front of him. The name alone made him want to growl. Real Shifters of Montana. As if there weren’t vampires also living underneath the town. But they would probably be featured in a spinoff.

  Proof that he was being used stared him in the face. And Bentley, that fuck, hadn’t changed expression or smell. Gray didn’t want to believe the contract was real, but Bentley didn’t smell of a lie. This was a fake Meghan, not the one he’d fallen for. Despite Bentley’s scent, Gray knew there was a piece missing. The asshole wouldn’t show up in a shifter town to offer congratulations and condolences.

  Meghan wouldn’t do this. She wasn’t the sort to exploit others. That was Bentley’s deal.

  If he was right, Gray couldn’t be with her. A show like that inside the enclave was begging for trouble. Not just for him, though his bear rumbled unhappily in his chest. The cameras alone would be too much stress. He was sleeping better, but only with Meghan at his side. How quickly would that change if she turned out to be using him and the town? Then it was only a matter of time before he was caught shifting in his sleep, if he didn’t outright gut someone.

  Everyone else’s dirty laundry would be aired right along with his.

  He couldn’t believe Meghan was capable of something like that. Not after her reaction to those photos the douche canoe at his side released.

  The memory of those made his hands clench into fists. The fucker was soft. Gray doubted he’d ever been in a real fight. He’d love to be Bentley’s first.

  He turned to the final page. Right above the printed Meghan Wilcox was a swirled signature and date for right before she arrived in town.

  Bentley leaned in close. “Does it bother you knowing how many men out there jerked off to her?”

  Gray let the pages fall flat and he twisted in his seat to put cold eyes on Bentley. The man flinched. Gray knew his eyes had gone gold and he didn’t give a shit. He wanted the man scared. The stink of it filled his nose and energized him. “Does it bother you to know you’ve never seen her come? I guess we’re not all blessed below the belt.” His knuckles cracked when he flexed his fist. “You should go.”

  Bentley stood with the grace of a man desperate to keep his calm exterior. He tapped his fingers against the contract once more. “You hold on to that. I have other copies.”

  Of-fucking-course he did, because they were already living in a television show and the man relished his role as the villain.

  Gray kept his eyes on the fucker to make sure he left. Then he refolded the contract and stuffed it into his back pocket.

  He was on his feet the moment the other mates walked into the bar with Meghan. She turned and laughed at something Rylee said and jumped when his fingers wrapped around her upper arm. He nodded to the others and drew Meghan back outside.

  “We need to talk.” He glanced around. Were the cameras already watching? Where would they be located? Fuck, he couldn’t let Bentley mess with his head. He was so close to getting everything he wanted. That prick wasn’t going to destroy him. No. He was going to think everything through before acting on instinct.

  “What’s wrong?” She jerked her shoulder out of his grasp and stopped. Her eyebrows shot together in confusion.

  His bear rolled through him. He wanted to change. He wanted to track down Bentley and make sure he’d never be a problem again. Gray fought the beast to keep to his human side. It wasn’t time for fur.

  He reached for her again and she took a step back. A deep inhale brought her scent into his lungs. Something tangy and sweet layered over the light, fresh scent that was pure Meghan, but even that was slowly covered with a tinge of fear.

  Gray stuffed his hands in his pockets to keep from appearing a danger. “Will you come with me, please? We need to talk.”

  Her lips pressed together in a tight line, but she nodded. More than that, she followed when he took a step toward his truck. Inside, she pressed her back against the passenger door and folded her arms over her chest. “What’s going on?”

  “You tell me. Why did you come here? Why this place, specifically? Wolfden is closer than we are.” Fuck Bentley. The man had gotten into his head. But damn, he had proof. Gray needed to know the truth.

  Confusion played across her features. “I didn’t really plan anything. I just wanted someplace where I could hide out for a while. Getting a full day’s drive away seemed safer than heading to Colorado.”

  “And it wasn’t because we were the first enclave to out ourselves? It wasn’t because you had some TV deal?” Gray swallowed hard, and enforced himself to scent the air. He had to know the truth.

  She was a mixture of emotion. Guilt, sadness, anger.

  He didn’t wait for her attempted denial. He pulled the contract from his pocket and laid it on the seat between them.

  “Where did you get that?” she asked in a shaky voice.

  “Does it matter? What the fuck, Meghan? Is this all we were to you?” The unspoken question hung heavily between them. What they had gone through, what they had experienced, was it nothing? He didn’t know which would be worse: if she had used him all along or if she actually cared for him and still planned to use him for her ambitions.

  “Yes, it matters. Because my mother brought it to me after the pictures were released. I sent her packing without signing a damn thing.” She snatched up the sheaf and rustled through to the end. Her fingertips scrubbed along her signature. “This isn’t mine. She forged my signature to get under your skin.”

  Truth.

  “It didn’t come from your mother.” Clever, too. Mimsy was removed from the entire situation. Bentley believed he told the truth and didn’t trigger any alarms with Gray. He probably knew just enough of who to target and what to say to cause damage. Then he’d fallen for it hook, line, and sinker. “Bentley brought it to me,” Gray growled. He felt like a fool.

  “Bentley.” Her long breath ruffled her bangs. “Why can’t he just leave us alone?” Her eyes fell closed. “I understand if you don’t want to see me again. I can clear out tonight. I just keep bringing trouble down on your head. It’s not fair to ask you to deal with it with your registration on the line.”

  “Fuck my registration. My record is clean again, thanks to you. And fuck everyone who keeps messing with you.” He reached for the contract and tore it down the middle. Her stormy eyes opened and focused on him again. “If they want to get to you, they have to go through me first. I’ll be your muscle.”

  Action felt right. The whole conversation, tense as it was, had been good for them. He didn’t fly off the hand
le or order her out. He did what a good mate was supposed to do and listen. Now he had to convince her his doubts were gone.

  But even then their future was uncertain. She lost one job, true. But others would come along. He warred with himself, wanting to pull her closer and tie her to him but also push her away before he destroyed her life.

  Meghan shook her head slowly with a sad smile barely lifting her lips. “I don’t have anything to offer you. I don’t have a job. As of a couple days ago, Mimsy said I don’t have any money. Everything in my trust has been spent. I don’t know where to go from here.”

  “You should go, but not for anything you’ve done. I’m the one who can’t offer you anything. You have a whole life ahead of you. I’m broken inside, Meghan.” Time for his own truth. “My bear wants to fight me all the time and you’re the only one who’s been able to make it stop.”

  “Doesn’t that mean I should stay?” she interrupted.

  “Not if you want anything good in life. I have a rough job that could kill me any day. I have a bear that makes me fight and shift in my sleep. I could hurt you and not even know I did it. I’m not ever going to be able to afford month-long vacations overseas or a mansion to live in. I’ll drive this truck into the ground before I buy something else. You could do so much better.”

  “My track record says otherwise.” She crawled from her side of the truck and straddled his lap. “How can I do any better? I don’t care about the vacations or a big house. You’re a good man. You’re brave and kind. Your entire job is based around helping others. You saved me before and I doubt you’d ever hurt me.” She pressed her forehead to his. “I want you.”

  His body reacted the same way it always did when she got close. His heart pumped his blood faster and straight to his cock. His bear, so recently wanting to tear and rip, sank back into his psyche with a relaxed sigh. “You deserve all those fancy things. You deserve the world. You won’t let anyone keep you under their thumb and you work for what you want.” His thumb brushed over her lower lip. “I won’t fight you if you want to stay. I can’t. Because you’re everything I want.”

  More needed to be said. He needed to explain everything, from the pull he felt for her from the first night to the mark he wanted to lay on her shoulder. But there was no rush. They had time, now. She wouldn’t disappear into a memory or someone he only saw on television.

  Good thing, too, because with her in his lap and pressed against his chest all he could think about was kissing her.

  He claimed her lips before she could say another word. If it was rejection, he didn’t want to hear it. If it was acceptance, he wanted to feel it.

  She whimpered and drove her hands into his hair, holding him to her as her lips parted under him. It was the answer he needed.

  Gray groaned and slid his tongue deep to taste her. Her fingers tightened in his hair and the gentle tug prompted a sharp jerk of his hips. He spread his palms across her back, sliding up and down and wishing nothing separated them. By the Broken, he wanted her. Right then, again and again, forever.

  “Fuck, Meghan…,” he moaned with his lips against the side of her neck.

  “We should head inside,” she said a little breathlessly.

  She pushed up to her knees to move and he dragged her back down. “We should go back to my place.”

  “Gray,” she laughed, “your friends are all here for you.”

  “And they’ll be there tomorrow.” He tried to capture her lips in another kiss, but she locked her hands against his chest and leaned away. Gray groaned, “Fine. One drink, then we leave.”

  She succeeded in wiggling off his lap, then leaned close and kissed his cheek. “Two drinks.” She launched herself out the door and out of his reach. “And no chugging them. That’s cheating.”

  “I prefer to call it creatively winning,” he defended and followed her back into the bar where his clan and sister and friends and mate all wanted to celebrate a victory in his life.

  Chapter 21

  Gray’s phone chimed for the tenth time since he left his cabin to pick up Meghan for dinner. He pulled to a stop next to her tiny clown car and answered with a combative, “What?”

  All he wanted after a boring day at the firehouse was to see his mate. His skin crawled with the need to be close to her. No calls summoned the clan and kept him distracted. Time in the weight room didn’t do a thing to soothe his instincts. He’d noticeably been on edge to such an extent that the other mated men ragged on him. They called it the new mate jitters and fuck them for not warning him how terrible it would be.

  He had to tell her soon. Along with the jitters, he was losing control of himself a little more when they slept together. He knew what to expect after the first time his fangs pricked her skin. But his bear wanted her claimed and the urge to mark her grew stronger every time she came apart in his arms.

  Gray forced his fingers to loosen around his phone. He didn’t need to crush the thing into pieces. He could handle a quick call. Even if Meghan’s door was just feet away.

  “You haven’t checked your email or the news at all, have you?” Tawny drawled.

  “What the fuck do I need to check my email for? I work with and live next door to my closest friends and you’re a phone call away.” He reached the end of his truck and spun around. Meghan cracked open the door and cocked her head at him. He waved her back inside. “What’s going on? I’m about to head out with Meghan.”

  He heard Tawny sucking a breath between her teeth. “I might reconsider that, if I were you.”

  Gray wiped a hand on his face and scratched his beard. Meghan took a step closer. The sympathy and caution in her sense nearly knocked him flat on his ass. “What’s going on?” The question was meant both for his sister on the phone and his mate just feet away.

  “There is a video of you,” Tawny said.

  “It’s Bentley,” Meghan said in his other ear.

  “I’ll call you back,” he told his sister. To Meghan, he said, “What now?”

  In response, she sighed and handed him her phone.

  It felt odd watching his other side. The video was the same one Bentley shoved under Judah’s nose when he tried to get Gray arrested. The sound was low but he could still hear the pound of his paws against the ground and the sharp chuffs and growls of warning. The yells of the abductors were nothing compared to the panicked sounds of struggle from his mate.

  When she hit the dirt, that was when rational thought took control. The puff of air leaving her lungs brought him down from full predator to intelligent beast. He wanted to kill anyone who would try to harm a woman, but he knew answers needed to be had. Justice played no part in it; that could be found by his claws. Who would take such a sweet woman and why, that needed to be solved.

  The slam of the door with her on the other side was the moment the footage cut. Whether he went after the cameraman or it’d been selectively edited, he didn’t know. The rest of the night was just as ingrained in his head. The first full scent of his mate entering his nose, the brush of her fingers against his skin when she handed him the towel, his alpha calling him out on his shit and warning him away.

  Bentley tried to take her and it’d only driven her into Gray’s open arms.

  “It’s getting a lot of traction. Thousands of views are coming in every minute,” Meghan murmured. “We can stay in. We don’t need to go anywhere tonight or however long it takes for this to die down.”

  “Fuck that. I’m not letting some rejected man-boy force me into hiding. I was cleared of this. No crime was committed. That asshole should be the one to hang his head in shame for setting it up in the first place.” Thinking of the night still made Gray furious. Bentley fucking Moore had been able to talk his way out of any trouble by claiming it was all a misunderstanding, but Gray knew better. The man’s every action since only highlighted the lengths he’d go to for control. He planned to abduct Meghan and terrify her back under his thumb.

  And this hit piece? Just another sad attem
pt to exert control over those better than him. Gray wouldn’t hide his face and not just because he didn’t want to give Bentley the satisfaction. He wanted the man to realize how little he and his actions mattered.

  He pushed the phone back toward her then wrapped his arms around her middle and spun her around. “We’re going out.” He set her on her feet and grazed his lips down her neck. “Then I’m taking you home and making you scream loud enough for him to hear all the way back in his sad, lonely home.”

  Meghan’s breath caught the back of her throat and a sexy little noise tumbled out. Maybe they didn’t need to leave immediately.

  Hogshead was packed. Twinkling lights wrapped around nearby branches and rafters sparkled between the press of heads and bodies. The outdoor deck lined with lights and smelling strongly of trees and the nearby river held enough people Gray worried the wood would hold. Through the door was little better. Each table inside was jammed to the gills.

  Gray didn’t think it would be a problem, until it was. He ushered Meghan to the packed bar while they waited and ordered a couple drinks. That’s when the trouble began.

  He didn’t know what he expected but it wasn’t the way they were treated and talked about. Too many eyes were focused on them. He drew worried and anxious gazes from the human tourists. Meghan was the target of tense and angry stares.

  The looks weren’t the worst of it. It was the gossip that got to him. Meghan remained blissfully unaware, human ears protecting her and only giving her a dull thrum of voices. But he heard all the words. They called him dangerous and crazy. A mad animal that would hurt somebody, hurt Meghan.

  The whispers about Meghan were worse. Those came from his friends and acquaintances and people he grew up with. They lumped her in with Bentley and saw her as a threat. She was using Gray, using them all.

  He stiffened by the second. He wondered briefly how they even knew about the idiot reality show, then realized it was the exact ploy used against him. Bentley wanted them both chewed up and tossed around so he spread a liberal amount of bullshit about them both.