Page 17 of His Runaway Mate

And that is how we end up breakfasting on the balcony. I am wearing a light blue sundress with an A-line skirt that billows whenever I try to walk about, as if there’s a constant unseen breeze blowing specifically for me. It’s very dramatic. It’s not my usual style, but I do quite like it.

“Where did he find a dress to fit me so quickly?”

“He sent out to our tailors and dressers,” Rex explains. “They are more or less on standby for the pack. Fescue finds it distressing if anybody is dressed inappropriately.”

We can look out over almost the whole city here. We are at least twenty stories up, much higher than the loft I went to sleep in last night. Of course Rex has the best of everything, including an incredible height to fall from if anything were to happen to the balcony.

I don’t know what it is about very tall buildings that give me almost endless intrusive thoughts, but I don’t know that anybody should ever be up this high unless they’re in an airplane and then they shouldn’t be in a plane either.

I try not to show that being all the way up here is making me feel faintly ill. Besides, it could be the alcohol that did it. A bird flies past, because of course it does. We are at the same level sparrows soar.

“Once I mate you, all this silliness will be over,” he says.

“What?”

“This silliness with your little rebel splinter pack. It’s time you all came home.”

“We are home,” I say, immediately defensive of course. He really doesn’t take us seriously. I guess given he has walked into the heart of our pack twice now and done what he wanted, he probably doesn’t. “We are our own home.”

He gives me an indulgent look.

“I am sure you think that,” he says. “But the truth of the matter is, you are not equipped to lead a pack, and they need a firmer hand than someone like you is ever going to provide.”

He stands up next to me, about a foot away from my chair and looks down at me. He is so fucking handsome. I can feel my body reacting to him with that infernal chemistry that is so much worse than hating him.

He could have fucked me when I was in his bed. I could have woken up being mated. He could have ripped the choice from me, and he didn’t, and that’s almost worse because it tells me he knows how inevitable this is. We’re going to fuck, and he’s going to make me submit to his cock.

I know all of that without him having said a single word to me about it. He takes a step back and crooks his finger at me.

“Kneel for me,” he murmurs, his voice deep and dominant.

“Why?”

“Why is not the response I want from you when I give you an order,” he says. “Yes, sir is what I’m looking for.”

“You’ll be looking for it for a long time,” I say.

He lifts a brow at me and gives me a look long enough to make me squirm beneath it. Once he sees my discomfort, he smirks. He knows what he does to me. He knows I am awed and aroused. He knows that I want him to take me.

“I will give you three choices,” he says. “You can kneel for me here, or you can go and bend over the bed and present yourself, or we can start our life together the way you probably need us to—with me spanking your hot little ass until you’re so desperate for my cock you beg for it.”

“I am never going to beg you for anything,” I say, knowing even as I say it that those words are going to come back and bite me as ironic foreshadowing.

He smirks at me. “You are going to be so fun to tame,” he says. “And all of your little friends, too. I’m going to break all of you. I’m going to teach you how to behave. And it all starts with you, in this room, asking me nicely for my cock once I’ve turned your sassy ass red.”

I blush all the way to my toes. I don’t know how he is doing this to me, but I know it is not fair, and I know that he knows exactly what words to say to make my whole body feel as though he’s already been inside me, already knows me, has already claimed me.

“Fuck off,” I mutter, trying to push that feeling away.

He reaches out, takes me by the hand, and spins me up from the chair, smacking my ass hard at the same time. I gasp from the shock of the slap, but there are so many more to come.

He was not lying about my choices. I end up over his knee on the bed. I am held there, in place, as helpless as I have ever been against his superior strength.

“You are such a naughty girl,” he says, his dark voice laced with delight as he spanks me over the skirt and then under it. He lets his hand drift down, fingertips running lightly over the fabric covering my sex before he spanks me again.

He’s going to drive me mad, I know it. I am not going to be able to take this.

“I know what you’ve been up to all this time. All these little ploys to ensure your group has my attention. And why? Because this sweet pussy is unmated and you need her to be fucked.”