Page 23 of His Runaway Mate

“We did it right,” I confirm, which is the plainest way I can say that I feel like my entire interior has been rearranged.

“Did you shift?”

“No.”

She frowns at me. “But when a female shifter mates with her mate for the first time, she shifts. You should be a wolf right now. Unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Unless he’s not your fated mate. Unless your inner she-wolf didn’t rise for him…”

I walk away. More than anything right now, I need to do some work. It’s the only way I am going to regain some semblance of sanity. A shower, too. That would be nice. About time I used my corporate bathroom.

She follows me into my office, throwing theories out at me. “There’s still time,” she says. “If you mated recently, the transformation might not be on you yet. He shouldn’t really have let you go. It’s irresponsible.”

“He didn’t let me go. I left,” I say. “And I am fine. I’ll shift on my schedule, when I feel like it.”

“I don’t think that’s how that works,” she says.

“I’ll be fine. I promise. You don’t need to worry about me. None of you do. We’ve got a lot of work to do. I’d like to get some more videos made today. We don’t want to start skipping days on the schedule.”

Laura gives me a guarded look, but nods, because I’m refusing to talk anything but professional matters. I know that I’m supposed to be shifting, but I don’t feel like it. I don’t feel anywhere close. I feel… what do I feel? Kind of sore and tired and a bit hungover. I am tender.

I want to get my work done.

What I don’t want to do is transform into a feral animal who has to be held down and fucked for her own sanity. They say you only shift once you fuck your fated mate, but they don’t say it has to happen involuntarily. I get to choose what kind of animal I am. I chose to be human. And in control.

It takes a little while for the buzz to die down, but once they realize I am serious about getting things back on track, everyone gets back to work. We all have schedules and deadlines. I know it seems as though I have no control over my pack, but the truth of the matter is they know what to expect from me when it comes to the work we do here. We take it seriously. We go all out. So once I get back to work, everybody follows my lead. That’s what real leadership is. Setting an example and having others fall in line because they want to, not because I’m a big, smelly wolf creature.

I want to bury myself in the familiar, and for an hour or so, it works. There are moments when I actually get to forget I ever met Rex Regent.

Then I move, or something aches or throbs, or just for no reason at all, flashes of the sex we had keep coming to mind while I’m trying to focus on some content for new brand deals. It’s very distracting. I feel as though I’ve lost the full and independent use of my faculties, and I do not like that.

CHAPTER 7

Rex

I thought she would be back by now. It has been three days since I mated with Nicky, and three days since she ran back to her converted warehouse to hide from me.

“Do you think it was wise to let your mate leave, sir?” Fescue asks the question as he pours my coffee. Usually I appreciate his input, but this is not one of those times.

“She has to come to me of her own accord. That’s what submission is,” I tell him, scrolling through the news app on my phone. There’s a lot of foreign movement at the moment. Markets are volatile and they need my attention. Unfortunately I am unable to give them much of it, because a certain she-wolf is occupying most of my mind.

“I did not meet the young lady directly, but she did not strike me as overly submissive, sir. It is possible it is not in her nature, and waiting for it will more than likely end in tears.”

I look up at Fescue. “Is there any part of my life you do not feel inclined to comment on?”

His expression closes. I have offended him, and I know it. But I do not want to hear how to handle my mate. Especially not right as I am wondering if I handled my mate badly.

I close my eyes for a moment and think about going and claiming her right in the middle of the warehouse. I would put money on her having gone right back to work. That is how we both operate. It is one thing we have in common past the obvious.

No.

I will not go back and claim her the same way twice. That is not the way to take command of this sassy little female who already owes me her body and her future. We are bound, and she will have to come to her senses on that. I have done all that is necessary. All I have to do now is sit back and wait until her instincts drive her to me.

* * *

Nicky