Forbidden Mate (8 page)

“I really love your place,” she said. Helen ran a
finger along the fireplace mantle. This was a home where memories could be
made. She could forget her worries and learn what it meant to really breathe. “Do
you both live here?” She had to know how they were related, if at all.

“Marco’s like a brother to me. We’ve shared the
house for years.”

It was odd that two very eligible bachelors were
still single, living way out here on their own. Were they trouble? Maybe they
were both playboys, only interested in loving and leaving. Helen didn’t want to
be another notch in Targus’s belt. For once, she wanted to be taken seriously.

****

He couldn’t believe she was standing in his living
room.
 
When he thought about it, she was
the first female to visit their place. If he had his way, she’d also be the
last. Targus had paced the wooden floors thin after Helen left in the
afternoon. Knowing she was his mate, he worried about her every second she was
away from him. But she was a human, so he had to play by a new set of rules.
Coming off as overbearing and controlling would push her away, not attract her
like a she-wolf.

Targus couldn’t believe his life could change so
dramatically within hours. One moment angry with the world and mourning his
chance to mate a royal princess, the next solely focused on one female. Nothing
mattered but her. He’d heard of the mating call from Marco and others, but he’d
never experienced it firsthand.

He wasn’t sure why Marco was giving him a hard time.
He was the one pushing him to find a female of his own. Even now, he paced the
far corner of the room, his eyes fixated on Helen. It must be her human heritage.
She was a forbidden fruit Targus should deny, but how could he ignore fate?

“It’s late to be out in the woods, little one.”
Marco was partially hidden in the shadows, the light from the lamp occasionally
highlighting the planes of his face. Was he trying to scare Helen away? They
often tried to fill tourists with fear and tall tales to keep them away, but
Helen was different. He didn’t want her to leave. He regretted his choice to
keep her a secret from his friend. He’d been too busy coming to grips with his
own feelings.

“I’ll be sure to escort her home myself,” said
Targus. “Anyway, didn’t you say something about taking a run?”

His friend needed to fuck off in a hurry. He only
had a few hours to impress his woman, and it wouldn’t be easy. Targus would be
playing a guessing game, trying to figure out how to please a human while
making his intentions clear.
 
He’d run
the gauntlet to be a royal suitor, but he had absolutely no training on how to
deal with an outsider. Did gifts of flowers and store-bought treats actually
prove the virility of human males? In their world, instinct ruled everything,
and when there was a question, winning by brute force proved a male’s worth.

“No.” Marco stood his ground, even crossing his arms
over his large chest. “I have nowhere else to be.”

“Why don’t you have a seat,” he said to Helen,
motioning to the sofa. “I’ll just be a minute.”

Targus stormed over to Marco, grabbed his sleeve at
the shoulder and practically shoved him into the kitchen. The swinging doors
flapped back into place once they were alone in the small room.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” He kept
his voice low when he felt like screaming the words. “You’re going to ruin this
for me!”

“Ruin what? She’s a fucking human being.”

“And?”

Marco glared at him with enough malice to make most
men fold. Not him. “Stay away from her, Targus. She’s forbidden.”

“Since when do you care about following the rules?
You’re the one going against the monarchy at every turn.”

“You know damn well why!”

“Whatever. You’re not my alpha or my father, so stay
out of my love life.”

He turned to leave the kitchen, but a hand to his
shoulder held him back. “Don’t be a fool. Send her home before it’s too late.”

Targus turned fully around, looking his friend in
the eyes. If Marco wanted to live out his days lonely and bitter, that was his
prerogative. Targus tried to convince him to be open to the possibility of a
new mate, but it always fell on deaf ears.

“She’s not just any girl—”

“You can’t mark her! If you reveal yourself to a
human, you’ll be outcast or worse. You know our rules.”

“I don’t care, and since when did you?”

He still couldn’t understand why Marco cared so much
about human politics all of a sudden. Just last night he’d been plastered at
the bar, picking fights and making a fool of
himself
.
The number one task on his to-do list was to piss off the royal family.
Although Targus could understand his hatred of humans for their role in his
mate’s death, he wouldn’t give up Helen. He’d even risk his place in shifter
society.

“We’re better off on our own, Targus. If you care
about me at all, you’ll listen. Get rid of her.”

Targus’s head was pounding. He rejoined Helen in the
living room, hoping she hadn’t heard anything said in the kitchen. She sat still
on the sofa with her hands in her lap. Her long hair fell over one shoulder,
her dark eyes looking up with enough innocence to make his heart melt. She was
such a slight thing, too fragile for their world. All his protective wolven
instincts rushed to the surface.

“How long are you in town for?” he asked, walking
around the room. Her scent was invading his body and mind. The mating call, in
combination with the growing moon, made his cock uncomfortably hard. He needed
to mate. But he had to bide his time. Humans liked to prolong the courtship to
an obscenely long period. The last thing he wanted to do was scare her off.

“Four nights.”

Only
four nights to court her?
His heart raced, his fangs
lengthening. He couldn’t let her leave.
But from her perspective,
there was nothing to keep her here—no love, no attachment, not even a budding
connection.
There was no way he could win her human heart so quickly.

“So short?”

“We’re hunting
Chupacabras
.”
She giggled,
then
stopped herself. “It’s a scheduled bus
tour, so we don’t have much time.”

He sat next to her, his body reacting when he
smelled the sweet scent of her shampoo. He’d been raised with shifters,
she-wolves more interested in hunting and fighting than taking care of
themselves. Even the she-wolf bartender in town tried to hit on him, but he had
no interest. “There are a lot of legends around here. Some say they’ve seen men
change into animals.”

“Targus!”
Marco’s
voice boomed in the room.
A warning.

He wanted his friend to leave him the hell alone, to
let him make his own choices, whether right or wrong. “Marco, I know what I’m
doing.”

Just then a loud rap on the glass window behind them
made Helen gasp. Without curtains, the outside world was a black void, the
inside of the cottage reflecting back at them. Targus wasn’t sure if he should
stay inside and argue with Marco or investigate.

Then he picked up the distinct sound of an animal racing
around the exterior.
A wolf.
This was their territory,
carefully mapped out and claimed. Any other wolf should know better than to
skulk around their home. If it was a challenge, then he was ready to face it
head on.

“I better make sure nothing’s damaged,” he said,
excusing himself from the cottage. Once outside, the cool note in the air
brought his senses to life and doused his arousal. He took a deep breath, absorbing
the natural scents. There was definitely a wolf nearby.

****

“So, what made you come out here tonight?” asked
Marco. “I thought you’d be smarter. Apparently I was wrong.”

The little human was nervous, her hands folded into one
another as if seeking shelter from his presence.

“Targus invited me to dinner.”

“Before that,” he snapped. “Why were you in the
woods?”

Her body jerked when he raised his voice, her fear
perfuming the air around her. His claws threatened to break free just from the
scent.

“I–I was looking for
you
actually…to make sure you were okay. It’s not every day I find
a man asleep on the street. I thought you might be hurt or need help.”

He shook his head and scoffed. “The only one who
needs help right now is you, little lamb. You don’t know what you’re getting
yourself into.”

“It’s just dinner.”

He wanted to say that Targus had much different
plans for her, but he bit his tongue. He was trying to sabotage his best
friend’s chance at love because he wanted her for himself. Yet the thought of
any female filling the void in his heart made him feel physically ill.

Was it wrong to love again? Would a new mate tarnish
his old memories? Marco shook away his thoughts, his mood growing more volatile
by the second. His heart and mind were in an epic battle, tugging him in two
directions. He hoped Targus took his advice before the little human destroyed
them all.

Chapter
Six

Helen felt like a cornered animal. She continually
turned to look at the door where Targus exited, hoping he’d return any second.
No such luck. She was trapped alone with an unstable man who apparently
despised her. Helen wasn’t sure what she did to get on Marco’s bad side, but
she wished he’d look at her with lust in his eyes rather than revulsion. He had
beautiful eyes, unique amber outlined in natural kohl. The rest of his features
were dark, his skin a golden hue.

“I’ve never had a roommate before,” she said, trying
to make conversation. He just stood there studying her. It was unnerving. “Do
the two of you get along?”

“We stay out of each other’s way.”

She swallowed hard, looking toward the door again. He
wasn’t making this easy for her. “You don’t find it dangerous living way out
here?”

“What’s there to be afraid of?” he asked, truly
confounded. She didn’t doubt the man was fearless. There was something
animalistic about him, something so imposing that anyone or anything would bow
down to him. Marco stepped closer. His body was tight. The material of his
shirt hugged the hard lines of his muscles.

“I don’t know…wild animals, the
Chupacabra
?”

He shook his head.

Before she could think of something else to say, she
was saved by the door creaking open. Targus returned, bringing the fresh scent
of pine into the cabin. “False alarm,” he said.

“What was it?” she asked.

“Probably just a wolf.”

Her jaw dropped a degree. A wolf crashing against a
window seemed like a good cause for concern in her books. Targus appeared
nonchalant, as if it were as commonplace as a chipmunk.

He came and sat right beside her on the sofa. The
cushions sank from his weight, forcing her to lean into him. Was his shirt
inside out? She forced herself to stop ogling his chest and looked up to his
eyes. He was already staring.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t make dinner,” he confessed. “If
I’m being perfectly honest, I didn’t expect you to show up tonight.”

His invitation had probably been a friendly remark not
to be taken literally. She felt like an idiot for showing up. “That’s okay. I’m
not really hungry, anyway.”

“Your body says otherwise.” He reached out and
placed his palm against her stomach. She immediately sucked in her gut, not
wanting to repel him more than she had. “It’s growling.”

“Maybe a bit hungry.”

She’d been too excited thinking about all the events
of the past day to eat breakfast or lunch. Even now, with her stomach grumbling
against her will, food was the last thing on her mind.

The heat from Targus’s big hand scorched past the
thick layer of her sweater. The slight
movement of his fingers
made her pussy throb
with need. She gasped from the new sensations
coming to life within her. Even the brush of her jeans against her sensitive
folds was undoing her. He leaned closer yet, the shadow created by his massive
shoulders swallowing her whole. Her personal space had been breached and
trampled on. The heat of his breath left a trail along her neck. Helen closed
her eyes, suddenly under a spell she had no desire to escape from. She was
drifting, only able to focus on the scent of his earthy cologne and the feel of
his fingers through her hair.

This was exactly what she hoped to avoid. She needed
to keep control and not fall for the tactics of a much more experienced man.
She was a fool for coming out into the woods to meet a stranger. But she’d be
lying if she said she wanted him to stop. Something deep and dark inside her
had been unleashed since coming to this off-the-map town and meeting three of
the most tempting men in the world.
 
Part
of her was living a fairy tale, insisting she was a character in a great love
story. The other part screamed at her to screw her head on straight and get the
hell out of Dodge.