Little Mate

My Mate's Secrets

Dzhan

Two weeks. That’s all it took me to track her down and stay in her life. Even in the times I can’t be around, I still keep an eye on her. After a lifetime without her, I can’t miss even a second, so I won’t. I don’t care if it's crazy or what my good psychiatrist will have to say about it.

Roxanne is even more beautiful than I remember her, as someone come from a dream to torment me with that beauty, to tease me and play with the limits of my restraint. Straight black hair, sleeked to perfection, golden skin that combined with her long luscious lashes compliments the light green of her eyes. Today they are framed by the sharpest, most subtle cat eye I have ever seen. And that red lipstick staining her alluring lips… it all makes my head spin with the need to reach out and ruin her perfectly curated look and redo it in my own vision. The makeup smudged over her face, mixed with my c*um as I finish on her face, painting her as mine, so no one, not even that fiancé of hers whose ring she still wears, will ever think to take her away from me. God, how I wish I could tear that ring off her finger and throw it in the trash where it belongs together with that Xander and all the other people who think they have any claim on her when she’s mine, only f*ucking mine.

Soon, I tell myself as my fingers play restlessly with the pen I used to write her that note while she was away, her eyes roaming through the crowd searching for me. Because despite the bat in her hands when she walks around her big empty house at night, she needs me just as much as I need her. I can smell it on her every night. She just hasn’t realized it yet. Or more, she hasn’t allowed herself to admit it out loud.

I don’t think she feels our bond though. She feels my presence, but not the mate bond that’s tied me to her for all those years. Years in which she turned her life upside down until nothing’s left of the girl I once met. Not that I know who she was before, it’s just… deep down I know there’s more to the polished professor with her strict clothes and her thick-framed glasses, and her seemingly uneventful life. Secrets that even my hacker-witch friend couldn’t help me unravel.

Her birth certificate says she’s thirty-three, but she doesn’t look older than twenty-five, and even the makeup and glasses can’t add the years to match her lie. And it kills me because I don’t know why she’s lying. Why does she pretend to be someone she’s not? Sometimes it feels like she put those twelve years between us on purpose, so they could be another wall to separate us, and it makes my blood boil to think that way. It doesn’t matter though. I will make her forget all about her restraints. I will make sure to crumble every one of her walls until nothing’s left but the truth about who she truly is — mine— and what she was made for — me. For now, I will play with her a little more, tease her the way her existence teased me my entire life, even when I was too young to understand what that pull towards her was. And I will learn everything there is to know about her, catch up with the years she stole from us both, and claim them again.

I wait. Like a love-sick puppy I wait under the window of her office, lurking in the shadows until she comes back into my view. The anticipation builds up in me at the thought that soon all her doubts whether I am real or not will find their answer. I’ve left my stake on her with my little note and I can’t wait to collect my price. Will she love my little gift? Will it freak her out? Sometimes it feels like she likes the thrill of being chased. And I like the thrill of chasing her. It makes me jittery all over, the pen rolling between my fingers in quick succession as my heart speeds up in my chest and my breath hitches in my throat the second she opens the large door to her office.

Her cheeks are flushed from the light wind and her eyes are wary because she spent half her lunch break walking around campus, searching the crowd for me. And now, here it is, my gift to her, the proof that I am not just a figment of her imagination. Her gaze immediately lands on the note I left her. She pauses, startled, eyes going wide with… is that fear? No, I think satisfied. It’s pure horror. Her face goes pale, her posture completely shifts, becoming more defensive, cautious, as she walks to the desk and reaches out with a shaking hand to grab the note. Welcome home, little mate. I wrote it as a joke, a sign for her that our game is about to begin. Come Monday I will be an official part of her life and she’ll have no choice but to accept me.

I wrote her my note with excitement, my heart warming up at the thought of her anticipation for me. I know she already needs me. Late at night when she can’t sleep, she gets out of bed to search for me and I can smell her arousal even from my hiding spot. It drives me wild to know she’s inside that house, warm and wet for me, turned on by the thought of someone, me, lurking in the shadows and ready to snatch her whenever the hell he feels like it. She likes being chased and spooked, my little mate, she’s just too prude to admit it. Soon I will help her get out of her shell and finally blossom.

Her expression now makes doubt creep inside me though. Her brows are furrowed, and her skin has become even paler as her eyes run through my note again and again, until it slips from her hands and lands on the floor like something useless, meaningless. Did she not like my gift? Why is she trembling? What the hell is going on? Anger rises in me, mixed with fear as my legs start to shake, the pen in my hand snaps in two under my fist.

Roxanne remains frozen in the middle of the room with her eyes wide but unseeing as she stares at the note on the floor for the longest time. At some point, she slowly comes to her senses. She leans down to grab the little piece of paper and then crushes it between her fingers, rage written all over her face. My heart skips a beat. Why is my mate angry? I can see she doesn’t like my gift, but it is no reason for her to get so mad, right? Why does she react this way now? She’s been enjoying our game so far, so what’s changed? I am missing something, I realize as I lean against the facade, letting the cool stone calm me down because I am spiraling again and I can’t have it, not right now. Otherwise, I might break into that office and steal Roxanne away and then our game will be over. It can’t be over because I have a point to make and she has things to pay for first.

Her assistant, that crazy-haired girl Jaia, rushes to the office, cheeks flushed, and starts chattering, making comments about f*ucking Xander and how cool he is and it’s anger that rushes wild in my veins now. What the hell is this b***h doing? Roxanne is mine, not Xander’s. She can paint her face and change her name as much as she wants, but at the end of the day, she belongs to me, just like I belong to her.

She doesn’t seem to care though. No, she laughs with her TA, returns the jokes, and makes new innuendos and at some point, it’s like she’s doing it on purpose. Does she know it drives me mad when she talks about him, to him? Probably. Probably that’s why she’s aroused again, the sweet scent of her engulfing my entire body and I am hard, again. I remain hard, aching for her until it’s her time to get back home and when she does, I follow. Her perfume and the scent of her juices make me follow her like a lost pup, my cousin’s texts and my father’s calls remaining ignored like they usually do.

Roxanne doesn’t go straight home tonight. She parks outside a bar, one of the classiest in town, and rushes inside, so I have to run after her. The warmth and the noises from the bar hit me with their intensity. Loud conversations, faded lights and too many colognes all hit me in the face and after the fresh cold air outside that’s been burning my lungs as I ran after her, hidden among the trees in my wolf form, it’s like my brain goes into overload now that I am human again. For a moment I loose her from my sight and anger and fear engulf me as I fight to separate her scent from the crowd, my heart beating rapidly with the urgency to find her.

My legs carry me to the bar and I order a beer, the barman raising a brow at me and it takes me a second to realise she expects to see an id. This is embarrassing. I do look older for my age, plus the last thing I need is Roxanne seeing the entire thing and deciding I am too young for her or some other stupid s*hit. She’s not looking my way thankfully, so I quickly take my card out and shove it at the barman’s face harder than expected. She only rolls her eyes at me and hands me the bottle, but I don’t pay her any more attention as I watch my Roxanne walking through the crowd.

She reaches a table at the back, her head raised high, her shoulders stiff. The woman who greets her and draws her into a hug is someone I never expected to see with her though. It’s another one of my cousins, my adoptive cousins this time. Cassie Radke. What the hell is Cassie doing here and how does she even know Roxanne? She’s never mentioned it before. Well, we are not close and she hasn’t had any occasion to see my sketches, because we rarely talk, but that’s not the point. Cassie knows Roxanne! Not only does she know her, but she’s now all over what’s mine, reaching out and grabbing Roxanne’s hands even when it’s evident Roxanne doesn’t want to be touched with the way she retracts from Cassie’s clutches.

They take their seats and give their orders, and it’s Cassie talking most of the time while Roxanne only nods and gives cold polite smiles, but doesn’t do anything to contribute further to the conversation. That’s my girl, not giving way to Cassie’s bullshit, not until Cassie says something about Julien, her brother, and Roxanne’s face goes even paler. My attention is on them as I use my wolf senses to hear every word.

“I haven’t seen Julien in years, Cassie, I don’t think I will be of any help,” Roxanne says, shaking her head in denial, which only makes Cassie’s eyes fill with tears. What the hell is going on and why haven’t I heard of it?

“Roxie, you are the only one who can knock some sense into my brother, please. He’ll listen to you.”

Roxanne flinches at the way Cassie says her name and shakes her head again. “What the hell makes you think so? We were never close anyway.”

Cassie’s upper lip trembles as she looks away and I can sense her heart speeding in her chest. For what is worth she does look worried even if I am not sure why. Her brother is old enough to fend for himself and is not someone who gives the impression of needing any kind of help ever.

“You know why,” she finally says, her voice muffled by the crowd. “You are all we have left of Tristan and if there’s someone to…”

“Don’t say his name!” My mate snaps and raises to her feet, tossing some coins to pay for her drink. “This is too much. I can’t deal with this s*hit. I am leaving. Don’t ever call me again.”

Her words make Cassie pause, but then she reaches out and grabs Roxanne’s wrist and everything in me burns to rush there and snap her feeble fingers away, tear her entire hand off if I have to so that she’ll know never to touch what’s mine without permission. But why does Roxanne allow this to continue when it’s obvious she’s uncomfortable with it? Her big eyes are already on the exit, her entire body twisted that way, yet she stays. She stays…

“Please, Roxie. I can’t lose Julian too,” Cassie pleads, the tears already falling down her pale cheeks.

With a sigh, Roxanne stops fighting. She looks at Cassie with exhaustion and a sad smile lands on her lips. “Text me his number then. But I don’t promise anything. God, what am I even supposed to tell him?”

Cassie finally lets her go. “Thank you!” She shouts after Roxanne who all but runs out of the bar the second she’s free of my cousin’s grip, mumbling curses under her breath.

I jump and follow her outside and stop to a halt when I find her leaning against the facade, eyes closed, her chest rising and falling in quick succession as if she’s trying to calm herself down. The rapid beats of her heart echo in me and mine joins her because she’s never been this close to me before. Not when she’s awake at least. There’s something odd about her. She’s upset and I don’t know how to make it better. The wolf in me screams to reach out and take care of our mate, to soothe her, but I don’t do it. I don’t know why, but I just can’t.

It takes everything in me to walk away from her tonight. I know she senses me passing by her, our shoulders brushing, but she doesn’t open her eyes to confront me, to even acknowledge me. In a second I am gone and she just stands there, waiting for the creature lurking in the shadows to reach out and snatch her into the night. I don’t plan to make it this easy for her though.

Hidden among the trees watch her intently and when she finally opens her eyes, her cheeks flushed by the cold autumn wind, she seems confused for a moment. A second later she gathers her composure, her head raised and with a curse on her lips, she rushes to her car. It’s right before she’s to unlock the door when her phone buzzes with a text and her eyes widen, her breathing getting rapid in a heartbeat. A satisfied grin spreads my lips as I mumble the words she reads from the screen.

The next time you let anyone touch you without my permission, I will break their hands, so be careful, my Roxanne.