Page 42 of His Runaway Mate

“I think I outrank you, bud.”

He turns to give me the full benefit of his most dour stare. “I can assure you, young lady. You have no rank in this pack at all. I want to make that very clear. Fate may have decreed you to be the alpha’s mate, but there are other things that matter here.”

“Like what? Vague things?”

“Get up,” he says. “Have a shower.”

“Get the hell out of my room.”

“It’s not your room,” he tuts. “Would you like me to call Mister Regent? I can have him come out of his meeting to handle you. I am sure he would be in the sort of mood that would result in you being handled.”

That gets my attention. I don’t know if Rex would punish me again, but I can guess that he wouldn’t like being pulled out of his meeting over something like this. There is a chance he would spank me, and if that happened I’d fucking lose my shit.

Instead of dealing with any of that theoretical fuckery, I wrap the sheet around me.

“I am going to have a shower,” I say.

“Good.”

I go and shower, and in the process almost forget that I am annoyed right now. The shower is amazing, high pressure from all angles in a tiled enclosure that has one of those fancy one-way windows that looks out into the forest.

It feels good to be clean, though I have nothing clean to put on. I end up padding out into the bedroom, hoping the uptight guy in a suit is gone.

He is not.

He has laid out several heinous outfits on the bed, each one more grievous than the last. They are fifty shades of beige, with some white thrown in.

“What is this? Clothing for a couch saleswoman?”

The man gives me a scandalized look.

“I’m going to need your name,” I say, though of course I already know it because we’ve been introduced and he already repeated it once, but I can tell it annoys him to be asked. “So I can tell Rex why I suddenly look like the back of a woman’s clothing catalog from 1993.”

“Fescue,” he says. “I believe I already gave you my name. I also told you to call me sir.”

“Oh. Right, sorry. Do you have anything that doesn’t look like I’m about to try to open a checking account in 1984?”

“I do not appreciate your attitude,” he says, turning away from me so I don’t see the slight curl of the side of his mouth. I got him. Ha.

“I don’t appreciate your attempt to convert me from a twenty-something woman to a dowager countess in a period drama.”

“Alright,” he says. “That is enough, Miss Love.”

“These clothes are enough. Enough to…”

He sweeps them all up in his arms and marches out of the room.

* * *

Rex

We take a break from the meeting and head out for a bit. I decide to go and check on my mate, who was fast asleep when I got out of bed this morning. My day begins at five. I am sure hers does not start until much later.

Fescue is leaving our room with an armful of clothing. He looks more perturbed than usual.

“How is she doing, Fescue?”

“She is entirely impossible, sir,” he says. “She is opinionated, rude, and outright disobedient… I believe you have met your match.”