Saving His Mate (A vampire-werewolf romance) (10 page)

She ignored calls from her packmates to jump in and play volleyball and sidled up to Rex who was talking with Lauren and Max, Grant’s second-in-command. He was one of her favorite packmates and she was so happy he’d found someone.

“You didn’t have to get that,” Rex murmured as he took the beer and wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

Even if she felt off-balance by what he’d said earlier, she loved how affectionate he was. There was no guessing where she stood as far as that went. “It’s your party, you’re not going to do anything but relax.”

The heated look he gave her in response made her toes curl in her sandals. When a plastic beach ball flew past them, hitting Lauren in the head, the jaguar shifter playfully batted it back at a group of the partygoers and quickly excused herself to join them.

“Give us a few minutes?” Rex asked Max, who raised his eyebrows but trailed after his mate. Rex then took Margery’s martini and set it on a nearby table next to his beer before taking her hand in his. He linked his fingers through hers, his grip reassuring. “Take a walk with me.”

“What about the party?” she asked as they headed down the private wooden boardwalk to the beach. Not that she really cared. She loved being alone with Rex.

Music was blasting, everyone was relaxed and drinking and she knew in an hour or so they’d move it to the beach for a bonfire. But for now it was just the two of them. There were a couple boats idling out in the water, the nearly full moon gleaming down on everything. He didn’t respond until they reached the end of the long boardwalk. “What’s going on with us?” His voice was so low she almost couldn’t make out the question above the softly crashing waves in front of them and the party noise behind them.

“What do you mean?” He’d probably picked up on her emotions, something that was a good and bad thing. She gestured toward the surf, wanting to sit in the sand closer to the ocean. Even though that vampire was still out there, she and Rex were two strong supernatural beings. She wasn’t worried about being ambushed. Especially not so close to the pack.

As they sat in the sand, he kept his fingers threaded through hers and he turned to face her. “Something’s bothering you.” A statement, not a question.

She sighed, knowing she needed to be honest. She might be new to this relationship stuff, but he deserved her honesty. Even if it would hurt if he told her that he didn’t want to live with her. As she started to respond, her hair blew slightly back as something whistled past her face.

Rex threw his body over hers, tackling her against the soft sand. Something thudded behind them. An arrow. It took her less than a second to realize they were under attack.

“He’s shooting from the water. Stay low,” he ordered as he practically dragged her down the beach.

She shoved up from the sand and sprinted with him. A few thuds trailed after them, but none too close.

“You want to end this now?” Rex’s eyes glowed intensely bright.

Without him having to explain what he wanted to do, she nodded. If that bastard out there thought he could hurt them on pack land, he was dumber than she thought. She heard the engine and knew they had only moments to make a decision. She stripped off her dress and shoes, leaving her in her bathing suit, as Rex slid his shoes and shirt off. Without a word, they both hurried toward the water, using their incredible speed to swim toward the boat.

It was starting to pull away, the shooter likely realizing the mistake he’d made. He might be good with a bow and arrow, but aiming from a moving boat had to be damn hard.

Rex pulled ahead of her, using his incredible speed as he cut through the water like a torpedo. The engine roared and panic jumped in her throat as the boat started to flee. She wanted this to end now, not wait for this asshole to come after them again.

Calling on all her strength, she stroked harder. Her fear blossomed into something sharp when she saw Rex jump from the water into the boat. As she reached the idling vessel, full-blown adrenaline took over. She clutched at the side and pulled herself up only to collapse in relief when she saw Rex standing next to a pile of ash already turning muddy as it mixed with the ocean water. She’d known he was strong, but damn.

Before she could swing herself over, Rex grabbed her under her arms and hauled her up, pulling her close. She shuddered at the sensations punching through her. He was safe, unharmed.

“It’s over,” Rex murmured. “Stupid fucker thought we had the money Stanley stole. He wanted it back.”

Which meant the money was still out there. Not that Margery cared about that. She kept her arms wrapped tight around him as she leaned her head back to look up at Rex. She might be relationship challenged, but when it came to this male she had to tell him how she felt. If something had happened to him and she’d never gotten the chance it would have shredded her. He deserved to know this was more than just physical attraction and more than just the mating call. “I love you, Rex.”

His eyes glowed brighter than she’d ever seen them, his expression dark, hungry and so full of love it made her knees weak. He wasn’t holding anything back now. “I love you too, and I’m not moving into that empty, fucking condo. I’m moving in with you whether you like it or not.”

She laughed at his almost angry declaration. “Good.”

“Good?”

“Uh, yeah. I don’t want to live without you.” Even with her loving and supportive pack this week she realized that she’d been missing something. Rex was it.

“Thank God because I
can’t
live without you. Hell, I can’t believe I’ve lived hundreds of years without you. You make everything better, Margery. I sound like an idiot but around you everything is brighter and more beautiful.” He looked almost bewildered as he spoke.

As if he couldn’t believe he’d found her. She knew what he was feeling because she felt the exact same way.

She grabbed his face in her hands and tugged him down to her, needing to taste him. Their salt-slicked bodies molded to each other as their lips and tongues clashed in a fervent erotic mating. Something told her that as soon as they made it back to shore and got this mess straightened out, they’d be skipping the rest of the party and spending it back at her—their—place. That was more than fine with her. She wanted to seal their bond physically and have him drink from her again—claiming her in the most primal way.

Epilogue

Two months later

Rex’s body tightened in anticipation when he heard the front door open, just as it did each time Margery walked into a room. The front door quietly closed and that sweet lavender scent made him go rock hard. He was like a trained monkey. All he had to do was smell her unique, erotic scent and he was ready to go.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he called out from the living room. It was still daytime so the drapes and hurricane shutters were pulled tight, but the sun should be setting in less than an hour. And he had a date planned for them. They’d gone straight from sleeping together to living together and now he was making up for it, taking her out every chance he got. He’d also put an engagement ring on her finger.

He wanted every male, regardless of species, to know she was taken. She deserved the courting he’d planned to give her and he wanted marriage. He’d been human at one time and some dormant part of him needed to make the commitment even more official.

“Hey, babe.” She strode into the room carrying a takeout bag of what he guessed was some of her favorite chocolate, buttercream cupcakes if the scent was any indication. She set the bag down on the coffee table along with her purse and keys.

He set his laptop on the cushion next to him and before he’d straightened she was straddling him. Her summer dress pushed up to her thighs, revealing beautiful, tan skin. “You’re in a good mood.”

“I don’t have to work tonight, I have extra cupcakes that I don’t have to worry about my mate stealing, and I’ve got the sexiest mate there is.” Her smile was infectious as she raised up and slid her panty-covered mound over his unfortunately covered cock. That was about to change soon. “How’s work going?” she murmured as she started working the buttons of his shirt free.

“Good,” he rasped out, already unsteady at the thought of her hands all over him, of getting to kiss and touch her everywhere.

For the past couple months he’d been working on a new project, creating a private, intricate database for supernatural bounty hunters to information share, among other things. Right now work was the last thing on his mind though, especially when his mate’s scent of pure lust was relentlessly teasing him.

As she slowly continued undressing him, his patience snapped, as it so often did when it came to Margery. Grabbing her hips, he stood and headed for the bedroom.

She giggled lightly, her hands moving to clutch onto his shoulders as he hurried. “It’s going to be one of those nights, huh?”

“Definitely.” Which was basically every night. He couldn’t get enough of her. He’d thought this all-consuming lust for her would have faded a little, but it grew each time they were together, each time he pushed deep inside her and each time she gave him her blood.

As he laid her out on the bed they shared, his throat clenched with a no longer foreign emotion. He loved this female more than life itself and planned to show her every day for the rest of their lives.

Before her, he’d been a man caught between worlds, hunting his own kind and never fitting in with them. Never fitting in anywhere. Now he’d found a pack, friends, and more importantly the female he loved more than anything.

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Saving His Mate!
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Excerpt from

Claiming His Mate

by Savannah Stuart

Copyright © 2013 Savannah Stuart

Lauren Hayes shoved a wayward strand of hair under the knit cap she wore as she slid up to the outside back wall of the quiet, two-story house. The black cover over her hair had nothing to do with the chilly October weather. Right now she was all about blending into the shadows this cold fall night. Which meant dressing in all black, like a sneaky burglar.

Because she was about to do something stupid. Incredibly stupid. She inwardly berated herself.

There was no turning back now. Shifters were notorious gossips and word had spread through the grapevine that Grant Kincaid, alpha of the Kincaid wolf pack in Gulf Shores, Alabama was on a honeymoon.

With his new human mate.

That by itself had shocked the shifter world. Kincaid’s father had been a brutal bastard—before he’d died. A shitty alpha who’d hated anyone who wasn’t supernatural. Or at least that’s what Lauren had heard.

The current alpha was two hundred years old and she was twenty-five so it wasn’t as if they’d ever run in the same circles. She’d also heard Grant wasn’t like his father and from the brief meeting she and her pride had with him six months ago, she had to agree that he seemed pretty decent.

Even if he was a stubborn ass who refused to give her family back what was rightfully theirs. Now that the alpha was out of town, she and some of her pridemates had decided to break into his house.

To steal from him.

Maybe steal was a bit of a stretch, she thought as she moved against the side of the house. Wind whipped around her, sending another shiver racing through her. She was simply taking back something that belonged to her family’s pride. She had to remind herself of that. Her sister was getting married in two weeks and the broach the elder Kincaid had taken from her family almost a hundred years ago was supposed to have been a wedding gift when the oldest Hayes daughter got married. The piece of jewelry had been in their family for centuries. Well, the jewels had been. Three, four-carat—
colorless
—diamonds and a handful of emeralds had been passed down from oldest daughter to oldest daughter in some form of jewelry ever since. When Lauren’s mother had received a necklace from her mother, she’d had the jewels put into a broach instead.

And Lauren desperately wanted to give it to her sister Stacia as a wedding gift. She deserved it.

Since Lauren was one of the few shifters on the planet who could mask their scent from other shifters, vampires and pretty much all supernatural beings, she’d been more or less volunteered for the job by her cousins. She also had a knack for breaking into places. Not that she was normally a thief. Her cousin Tommy, however, was. When she’d been twelve he’d taught her a lot of tricks, including picking locks and hotwiring cars. Her parents had been so pissed when they’d found out. After she stole back what was rightfully theirs, she bet they’d be glad she had those extra skills. Of course they’d be angry at her for doing this, but she’d known if she told them they would have ordered her not to. She figured it was better to do this then beg forgiveness later.