Captive Mate (Mismatched Mates Book 2)

by Eliot Grayson

  I scrambled to my feet and pressed myself to the wall.

  It might actually work, and Matthew was coming through the door.

  I’d been bitten before, more than once, by alphas trying to get control of my power for their own purposes. But shamans, being both shifters and magic-users, had a lot more control over the formation of a mate bond than the usual submissive mate would. When I’d been bitten with my magic available to me, I’d prevented the bond from taking, tearing it apart from the inside before it could get its hold on me. On the one occasion when I’d been bound like I was now, it had taken — but I’d broken it with the brute force of my magic once the bastard thought he had me, and it was safe to let me loose.

  Only that one scar remained, since the bond had been completed before I’d gotten rid of it. I hated the sight of it, and though my shifter healing had long since made it inert, I could still feel it, like a phantom limb, reminding me of the violation I’d felt when the wound was made.

  Of course, the shifters who’d tried to mate me were dead — with one exception. I’d seen to that, even when it took me a while to make it happen. Remembering that helped most of the time.

  But it didn’t help right now. A thud against the door echoed through the bathroom, and the door cracked down the middle. I jumped, my heart pounding. If my spell had only gone one way, as intended, no worries. But now? With me affected too? I might not be able to break the bond once I got out of my manacles.

  Matthew might not let me out of the manacles and give me the chance.

  Or I might be so overwhelmed by the spell, and the bond, that I wouldn’t even want to try.

  That terrified me most of all. To have my will taken away from me? Overridden by magical urges I couldn’t control? Just like I’d done to him…

  Fuck, no, fuck. I was not going to feel bad about it. About anything.

  Especially not when his claws flexed and the door peeled away from the frame like it was made out of paper, the broken lock and the doorknob clattering to the floor.

  Chapter 4

  Near But Not So Dear

  Matthew shoved the remains of the door out of his way and stood framed in the gap, his shoulders filling it from side to side. Yeah, maybe he wasn’t quite as big as his brother, or the hulking beast who was guarding the bedroom door. But he was tall, and broad, and an alpha; he had sixty pounds and five inches on me at the least.

  And he was looking at me like I was his next meal. His eyes glowed, and his canines had lengthened.

  Ready to pierce my flesh and make me his, whether I wanted it or not.

  “Matthew,” I said, trying for calm, even though my body quivered with the force of my rapid heartbeat. “Matthew, don’t. You don’t want to mate with me. I’d be a terrible mate. You hate me. Remember? I don’t cook and I don’t submit and I don’t —”

  I broke off, all my other undesirable traits fleeing my mind and the words withering on my dry tongue as he stepped forward, slowly and deliberately. It was so much worse than if he’d rushed me. Another step, and now he was halfway across the bathroom floor. Why couldn’t he get it over with?

  Another step, and I wanted to scream. He was only a couple of feet away, close enough that I could almost feel the heat of him.

  Think, I had to think, there had to be a way out of this…

  And then it came to me, just as he took the final step that would bring him right up against me.

  I went limp, my eyelashes fluttering and a small moan escaping my lips. Hitting the floor was going to hurt, but not as much as how badly he’d need to rip up my neck to get his bite to take.

  His arms shot out and clutched me against his chest. My adrenaline spiked even higher. He might not believe I was fainting. Not with how my heart was racing. He scooped me up and carried me out of the bathroom, burying his face in my hair and shuddering. I stayed pliant, dangling in his arms like a rag doll. Predators liked to chase their prey. That was my experience, anyway — if a rabbit played dead, I’d poke at it, but I might not be as inclined to eat it.

  Matthew carried me through to the bed and laid me down, wrapping himself around me and nuzzling my neck. Each one of his exhales heated my skin and paradoxically made me shiver. His cock jabbed into my side. It felt huge.

  Gods, he was heavy. And hot. I was nearly suffocating, with my face pressed into his shoulder. He smelled like a forest in the summer, humid and rich. A strange sensation crept along every one of my nerves, a prickling, sparking awareness. Was this how magic felt to people who didn’t use it? Who couldn’t control it? I hated it, but I also couldn’t quite resist it. It made me want to tip my head and expose my neck even more, offer myself up like a not-so-virgin sacrifice.

  Give in.

  That snapped me out of my fugue. Giving in wasn’t an option. If Matthew mated me, I’d be as good as his slave. He’d force me to remove the spell, and then I’d have a mate who hated me, and I’d be the Armitages’ tool. Matthew wouldn’t be stupid enough to give me access to my magic until he was sure I was under his control.

  I stirred a little, as if I was coming around. Matthew’s arms tightened. Slowly, trying to keep him calm and soothe his instincts, I slid my arms up and wrapped the one that wasn’t trapped under him around his ribs. I clutched a handful of his shirt with the other, and I rubbed my face against his shoulder.

  Like a mate. Like a lover. Like someone who wasn’t a threat and was already Matthew’s.

  “Arik?” he whispered, and brushed his lips over the skin just below my ear. “Arik, I know you’re awake.”

  Apparently we were still going with the serial-killer horror-movie vibe, then.

  “Hold me,” I whispered back, praying I wasn’t fucking this up. So far so good — no new holes in my skin. But that switch could flip again at any second. “Keep me safe?”

  Matthew’s arms tightened around me. “You’re safe. No one’s going to touch you. I’ll rip their throats out if they try. You’re mine.”

  His teeth grazed my jugular. I forced myself not to stiffen in his hold.

  No, nothing to get worked up about here. Just lying in my bespelled captor’s arms, completely relaxed — because why wouldn’t I be, right? — with his massive erection prodding me and his teeth a millimeter from ripping my throat out, manacled to keep my magic inert and locked in with no hope of escape.

  And the worst part was, I wished I could let go enough to pretend it was real for myself, and not just for him. You’re safe. No one’s going to touch you. That was a fantasy I couldn’t afford. A protector like Matthew, strong and decent and devoted…no. Not happening in reality, and not in my imagination, either, if I knew what was good for me.

  “Thank you,” I murmured, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. He vibrated against me, and I grimaced. No kissing, then. I needed him chilled out, not fired up and ready to fuck. “I know you won’t let anything happen to me. You’d never hurt me. You’d never let anyone else hurt me.”

  Every word burned my tongue like acid. Maybe this was the real torture: being forced to voice my own deeply-hidden longings as a lie.

  But it worked. Slowly, slowly, he started to relax — although his erection didn’t go anywhere. Maybe that was going to be permanent for a while. I grimaced again, this time in sympathy. Or maybe even empathy, because I’d been half-hard pretty much since I came into Matthew’s bedroom, and that hadn’t shown signs of softening, either.

  Fuck this spell. If it’d been cast by someone else, he’d be so dead once I got my hands on him.

  At long last, a while after the light through the windows had shifted to show it was afternoon, Matthew raised his head. He’d spent the time in between just breathing me in, his arms still locked around me and his body half-sprawled over mine. I’d been trying to zone out, to reach some kind of state of Zen, but my aching stomach was too much to ignore. So I lay there, miserable, trying both not to tense up too much and not to relax into his hold like the sweet, helpless little mate I’d been posing as.
>
  His intense dark blue eyes fixed on mine, hard and cold as lapis lazuli. They looked a lot less insane; when he’d burst into the bathroom, he’d been like one of those cartoon characters with the swirly spirals going opposite directions in each eye.

  But he looked far from happy, with a deep furrow between his thick straight brows and the corners of his lips tipped down.

  “I think I’m in my right mind.” He said it like it came as a bit of a surprise to him. “I can think clearly.”

  I swallowed hard. On the one hand, great — no biting. On the other hand — well, if he was thinking clearly, that meant he hated me again. That shouldn’t have bothered me.

  But I needed him on my side, right? Of-fucking-course it bothered me. At least he hadn’t let go of me yet. One big hand was splayed across my lower back, and the other between my shoulder blades. Maybe that meant I still had some leverage.

  “I’m afraid to move,” he said a second later, bursting my bubble. “I think you were right, much as it pains me to say it. We needed to be…closer.” The last word dripped with distaste, and his lip curled.

  An unfamiliar sharp pain lanced through my chest. What the hell was that? Was the spell acting up again?

  “I guess we do,” I said, my voice gone hoarse. I couldn’t even clear my throat, it was so dry. “Can we get something to eat though? Seriously. I think I might faint for real.”

  His lips twisted in something smile-adjacent. “I knew you were faking.”

  At least one of us did.

  “Yeah, well, it worked,” I said sharply. “You didn’t want to be mated to me any more than I wanted to be mated to you, so you’re welcome.”

  Matthew sighed, but he didn’t reply to that. “Hey, Luke?” he called out, only slightly louder than if he’d been talking to someone in the room. Right. The were-mountain had been listening this whole time, and that wasn’t fucking humiliating at all. “Can you get someone to bring us something to eat? Probably a lot to eat.”

  A grunt from outside the door was our only acknowledgement.

  Matthew rolled us both, flipping so that he was on his back and not halfway on top of me anymore. He flopped his head down on the pillow with a groan and closed his eyes. His left arm was still around me, but he threw the other over his face.

  I wriggled my legs, trying to get some feeling back into them. Gods, I wanted to shift and stretch my legs so damn badly. Speaking of.

  “When am I getting these manacles off?” I asked bluntly. There wasn’t much point in beating around the bush. All my plans to use Matthew’s feelings against him had gone down in flames. He was too fucking volatile. Fuck that spell, anyway. I’d rarely hated myself so much as I did right then. “What’s it going to take?”

  “If Ian gets his way, they’re going to be permanent,” Matthew replied, without bothering to move his arm and look at me.

  Something cold slithered down my spine: maybe a drop of sweat, or maybe just sheer terror.

  “Only until I get a hold of a hacksaw.”

  Matthew snorted. “Don’t think hacksaws work on those. We got them from that freaky mage. Pretty sure nothing short of an atom bomb would break them.”

  “I didn’t mean for the manacles. I meant for my arms.”

  That got a reaction. Matthew’s arm flailed off his face, and he turned and stared at me. “The fuck you are. Hack off your hands?”

  “Better than living like this forever,” I said grimly, meeting his gaze levelly. “I can’t shift. I can’t do magic. This is hell. It’s worse than being physically crippled.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You’re trying to get me on your side. It isn’t working. And like fuck we’re letting you anywhere near a hacksaw, anyway.”

  Well, he had a point there. My own arms wouldn’t be my first target. I could think of a few things I’d like to do to that asshole Ian with something sharp.

  Or Nate. Although if there was any justice in the world, I’d kill him with some form of beverage container. I’d hold that thought for later, when I had the time. I didn’t think the fantasy would get old anytime soon.

  “Whatever you think about my motives, I’m not going to stay like this long-term. So you can either figure out a way to make that happen, or assume I’ll make it happen on my own.”

  Where the fuck was that lumbering moron with our lunch? Actually talking to Matthew hadn’t been on my agenda. I was in serious danger of starting to…

  Hang on a minute. I wasn’t just in serious danger of telling the truth, I’d been telling the truth. Without even thinking about it. No filtering, no spinning, no manipulation — just whatever was on my mind. I went rigid with horror. Now that I was conscious of it, I could feel it, a barely-there pressure in my mind nudging me toward spilling my guts.

  I focused hard and said, “I’m not hungry after all.”

  Matthew was staring at me again. “What the fuck, Arik?”

  “Never mind.” Fuck. It had taken a little bit of effort to lie, and that simply wasn’t on. I lied like I breathed, and I didn’t apologize for it — and if I had, I would’ve been lying. “I’m starving. When do you think they’re going to get around to feeding us? Aren’t you supposed to be the pack leader?”

  “Yeah,” he said, his voice tight. “I was, until someone cast a spell on me that made me incapable of doing my job.”

  “That’s what you get for negotiating with that son of a bitch Kimball,” I spat back, stung and furious. “You should’ve never trusted him for a second when he contacted you trying to make ‘peace,’ like that was ever going to happen. And when you saw him with Jonathan fucking Hawthorne? What the fuck were you thinking?”

  “I didn’t see him with Hawthorne until you’d already cast your fucking spell,” Matthew snarled, his eyes flashing. He popped up, his arm sliding out from under me and dropping me to the bed with a bounce. “And by the time I did, all I could think about was getting you out of there safely, back home with me where I could protect you from the psycho presumed-dead warlock and that creepy fucking Kimball shaman. Not to mention Kimball himself. You told me you were his long-lost son and I believed you, because I would’ve swallowed any bullshit you fed me, but the way he looked at you was not the way a father ought to look at his kid.”

  “Yeah, and I hadn’t put my spell on you when Kimball called you,” I yelled right back. “So what’s your excuse for that? Too fucking stupid to kill him when you had the —”

  “That’s your solution to everything?” Matthew shouted, his face going red, and the tendons in his neck standing out with tension. “Kill him? Kill everyone? You’re a fucking murderer, Arik, and you’re no better than Hawthorne. And speaking of which, you haven’t even started to explain what the fuck he was doing there —”

  The door opened, and both of us broke off, panting, turning in unison to glare at the newcomer.

  Who happened to be Nate, carrying a wooden tray piled with enough sandwiches to feed a small army — or in other words, barely enough for two hungry shifters. There were some water bottles, too. I nearly drooled.

  He stared at us, his dark eyes wide. “Matthew, have you lost your shit completely? In bed? With him? And don’t get me started on how everyone in the pack is standing around the bottom of the stairs listening.”

  “We’re getting to know each other,” I said coyly, wriggling my hips suggestively. “Matthew’s a lot of fun once he loosens up a little.”

  Matthew’s fists clenched so hard I thought his knuckles might pop right out of his skin. “We have to stay close or I go crazy,” he said through gritted teeth. “Touching. And don’t get me started on how you and Ian ought to be keeping the eavesdroppers out of range while I’m compromised.”

  Nate’s cheeks flushed, and I bit back a smile. Score one for Matthew.

  And since when was I on Matthew’s side? Well, I’d be on anyone’s side if the other side had Nate on it, to be fair.

  “Ian has a lot on his plate,” Nate said defensively. “Because he’s t
rying to be the pack leader and the second at the same time.”

  “Can you put the tray on my desk?” Changing the subject. Probably smart, given that there wasn’t really a good reply to that. Definitely score one for Nate, damn him. “And then clear out the audience. Please,” he added grudgingly, as one of Nate’s eyebrows rose.

  “Yeah, all right,” Nate sighed, and crossed the room to put the tray down on a messy desk set against the wall next to one of the windows. He stayed as far as possible from me, going in a semicircle rather than directly. He turned and looked at Matthew, a wistful expression on his face that I wanted to slap right off. How dare he look at Matthew like that, all affectionate and fucking stupid? “I promise we’re working on it,” he said, and left without waiting for an answer.

  The door clicked shut behind him and the lock turned.

  Chapter 5

  You Don’t Know Me at All

  My nose twitched, picking up the smell of ham, and Nate fled my mind. Ham. Actual meat. I rolled away from Matthew, nothing in my head but the need to go and eat everything in sight, and I yelped as a muscular arm wrapped around my middle and yanked me back onto the bed.

  “Touching, remember?” Matthew said gruffly, his voice coming from way too close to my ear. He pressed up behind me, his chest against my back, a wall of heat and strength.

  “I can get the tray,” I gasped. “I’ll bring it back. Just let me at the sandwiches before I eat you.”

  He laughed, and I felt it more than heard it. “I wouldn’t say no. I’d rather do it the other way around, though.”

  Oh, and that — that put images in my head. Lots of them. Vivid ones, starting with Matthew pinning my hips and sucking my cock down his throat, and rapidly moving on to me on my hands and knees with my ass in the air, and Matthew busy with his lips and tongue between my cheeks.