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I took her hands from my shirt where they were doing everything but actually ripping the fabric. “Retract those claws kitty, he’s not going to touch her. He’s her mate.”
“And when he decides he doesn’t want to wait any longer?” Sasha pulled her hands out of mine and started pacing the room. “She’s broken, Grimm. I don’t think she’s ever going to come round and mate him.”
“Maybe so. But that’s not our business. It’s Carbon and Winter’s.” I rubbed at the skin between my brows, trying to stave off the tension headache that was brewing. “But I can promise you one thing. He will never, ever hurt her.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he’s her mate,” I shouted.
I said the word with feeling this time. Like it meant something. Something important to me. Discomfort itched across my skin. I felt bare. Exposed.
Sasha froze, looking at me with fresh eyes. Looking at me like there might be hope. Willing me to say words that would untangle this mess between—not just our friends, our family—but us.
“It’s true. Not all mating bonds are perfect,” I growled. “Not everyone treats their mates the way they should. But I can vouch for my own and Carbon is a good guy. He wants what's best for her. Now that he’s met her, he’ll put her first. Above everything. And yes, by everything I mean even protecting her from himself.”
The hope in her eyes was slowly melting away, opening up a void of hopelessness. A chasm which echoed the emptiness inside myself even as I drilled my point home.
“If that means riding out the Chaos sitting outside of his own room in a pair of dirty jeans and bloodied boots because Winter kicked him out so fast he didn’t have time to change, then that’s what he’s gonna do.”
She glared at me. No doubt wishing she could tear my throat out.
“So it's that easy, huh? To resist the mating urge?” Sasah demanded, her bittersweet scent invading my office to the point that I wanted to tear my own hair out.
“No.” I leaned back against my desk and looked up at the ceiling. “It’s a complete and utter bitch to resist. It pulls at you every second. All you want is to surround yourself with your mate. Touch her, taste her. You want to fulfill the bond and sink your teeth into her throat. And make her yours.”
“But Carbon’s gonna resist, right?”
“Yes,” I nodded without apology. “He will. Because that’s what’s best for Winter. She needs someone to stand by her as she puts the pieces back together. Not some dick and a bite.”
“And he’s the one who gets to decide, right? For both of them?” I growled, low in my throat. Warning her not to push this any further. She did anyway because my mate was fucking ruthless. “And what about you, Grimm? Oh, alpha-of-alphas?”
“What about me?” I deadpanned, refusing to give in to her goading. “I have zero interest in Winter, save keeping a roof over her head for as long as she stays with my pack.”
Sasha rolled her eyes and stalked right up to where I was standing. “Do you get to decide for us, too?”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” I sneered as she rubbed herself against me, offering her neck up for my bite.
Her scent was an echo of the volcanic emotions swirling inside me. Bittersweet loss, spicy anger, and lust. Thick and dangerous with need. Everything that was Sasha was curling up into my head and tugging on what little brain cells I had left to rub together.
Fuck. It would have been so easy to step aside and let the beast give her exactly what she was asking for. To savage her. This girl smelled like cotton candy and a live electric wire. It was patently obvious that Sasha was determined to be the death of us both.
“Are you gonna stand there and pretend like you don’t want to throw me down on this desk and have your way with me right now? ‘Cause I can smell you, too, Grimm. I feel you every time you walk into a room. The Goddess is there, singing in my blood, urging me to go to you. To throw myself at your feet. To climb you like a tree and claim you with my pitiful human teeth—”
I pushed her away and yanked open the office door. “If that’s all you wanted to talk about, you can see yourself out. Just mind you don’t take a wrong turn and end up in my omega’s den again. Don’t think my Sgt. at Arms would take kindly to you encroaching on his territory twice in one day.”
“Fuck you, Grimm.” Sasha stormed away but spun back at the last minute. “You and I both know it’s only a matter of time before your Sgt. at Arms caves. Then you’ll be nursing those righteous blue balls all on your lonesome.”
Sasha slammed the door.
I listened to her stomping all the way up the stairs before I collapsed into my chair and the remnants of my mate swirled around me.
If only I could. If only I could let myself claim what I wanted. But you couldn’t escape bad blood and Sasha didn’t deserve my past tainting the rest of her life. All I could do was take my Goddess-damned cock in my hand and stroke it to the scent of my mate permeating my office.
And imagine fucking her brains out on that desk in front of me.
Sasha didn’t need to know that it was her lips I would picture around my dick as I came in my hand. Or her tits I wanted to paint with my seed. Or her pussy I would make weep all over my face as my wolf took his fill of her nectar.
She didn’t need to know any of that.
