Page 42 of Collared Mate

“I would,” he says. “If you needed me to. It’s not comfortable down there, but it is safe.”

I frown at him, realizing that he’s really my only obstacle. Whatever Tinker is here for, she’s not built like a guard. She’s not going to take me down. Jacob needs to be distracted, that’s all.

He looks at his tablet again, and I am left wondering what to do with myself.

I end up taking a nap. Which feels anticlimactic. And also strangely safe. Up in the simple bedroom, which is far too small by my normal standards, I lie down on the same bed Henry spanked me for being an absolute brat on, and I close my eyes.

I don’t know that I have ever been protected before. We had guards at home, of course. My father insisted on security, and Rick kept it up. But they were always sort of hovering at a distance in a professional way, and I felt as though they barely cared.

Can’t say that about Jacob or any of the others. They’re almost as invested as Henry is in making sure I do what he wants.

I think about being hunted, how Rick probably has no idea what’s going on, and how he obviously doesn’t care that he left me to be more or less used and abused by whatever Russian he thinks he selected for me.

I might have to hate my brother now, which sucks because I was starting to feel a little closer to him. I thought I understood him, and maybe he got me too. Now I realize all the times I thought I was bonding with him, he was letting me think he cared so he could get rid of me.

My eyes well up with tears, thinking about my family and all I’ve lost and all I might still have to lose. Rick’s not safe. I’m not safe. We’re the only two left. Once we’re both gone, someone else will lead the pack.

And that’s the point. Someone else is going to lead the pack. One of the old guard. One of the rough men who should know better than to fuck with the Swales.

I open my eyes and sit up.

I can deal with this. I don’t know what Henry and Hades and whoever else he has working for him are doing, but I don’t have to sit around like a princess under guard. I can go out and I can rip throats out of every single one of those old fucks, starting with Kyle, until I’ve killed the would-be usurpers.

As I sit up, the weight of the collar around my neck shifts, and I am reminded that I am currently contained to my human form. That’s a pity, but I guess I could go to a fire station and get them to cut it off for me.

I want to be out there, doing things. I want to solve these problems myself. I want to go and kick my stupid brother’s ass. I want to feel myself in my most ferocious form and sink my teeth into the deserving flesh of those who have wronged me and my family.

Henry is trying to put me in a cage. Trying to deny me my true wolf self. He thinks it’s safer this way, if I am protected and cooped up, but he’s wrong, and my barely napped self knows why.

I am a she-wolf, born of alpha lines that have stretched back through history. I was not made to be kept, contained, and certainly not protected. I’m the one who is supposed to be out there running protection. That’s why I was doing what I was doing. Not that anybody asked.

I was finding predatory men, and I was taking them out of the food chain. I was good at it. I felt good doing it. Now, this is the life Henry wants for me? Sitting around in rooms? Being a vessel for his seed? Denied my own wildness?

It makes me furious.

I reach for the collar and try to remove it. The latch is some kind of complicated fucking thing. Maybe it needs a key of some kind? The way the metal is snugged together feels complicated.

I mess with it for a while, trying to see if it will jiggle loose. It’s frustrating because I can’t look at it directly, I can only try to see what’s going on with it in the bathroom mirror, which is downstairs in a bathroom we all share, which makes me feel like I’ve walked through the looking glass into an alternative dimension where nothing is anything anymore.

Someone’s left their toothbrushes in a cup on the sink. Green and black. Hades and Tinker, I bet. Wonder how they met. They seem like an odd couple until you watch them interact, and then it’s obvious how much he adores her. Kind of cute, really. I’ve not seen a lot of really cute relationships in my world. They’re usually polished and on display like everyone involved is in an emotional glass case.

I think about it a little more. I want this fucking thing off. It’s humiliating, and it’s a sign Henry thinks I can be easily contained with a silver trinket. Silver, I recall, is a pretty soft metal. This is obviously an alloy of some kind, but maybe…

Tinker has a lot of tools. She’s even got a toolbox, I discover when I peek into the room she and Hades share. It’s sitting at the foot of the bed, along with a bunch of other tech junk.

I sneak in and open it up, looking for something to…

Ah. Pliers. First thing I see. Well, are they pliers? They look kind of like it, but they also look like the inner jaws are sharpened up, so they can be used to cut things. I take them and go back to the bathroom. Once there, I lift up the collar and take the tool to it.

To my shock, it actually works. It’s not even hard. The metal jaws come down through the ring of metal and slice it like it’s made of butter. It comes off my neck easily when I snip it a second time.

“Huh,” I say to myself, looking down at the two sections of cut collar in one hand, and the tool in the other.

I feel instantly guilty. I don’t know why. I’m allowed to do whatever I want. Henry had no right to put that collar on me. He has no right to keep me here. I’m not his wife. I’m only his…

Mate.

Fuck. Stupid fated mate bond making me feel things I don’t want to feel, like bad about disobedience.