Mate Set (Mating Heat Book 1) Read online

  She couldn’t do any more. She knew that. She shut off the water.

  Down the hall, her bedroom door was shut and the house was ominously silent. She wrapped a towel tightly around her and ran for the kitchen. She yanked a bottle of vodka off the top of the fridge and uncapped it as she went to the sink. She opened the towel and poured the clear booze over her injured breast. It was the strongest alcohol she had in the house. She shut her eyes and hissed through gritted teeth as the alcohol burned her injured skin.

  She reached for the phone next and dialed Minnie’s cell number. She moved so she could see down the hallway. Her bedroom door remained shut, the house still silent. Had Grady left? Was he in her room? She was too afraid to risk walking to her room and opening that door to find out.

  “Hey,” Minnie greeted. “How’s life?”

  “Listen to me,” Mika said softly. “Do not freak out, and if Uncle Omar is there, get the hell away from him now. I’m in trouble.”

  Silence greeted those words. “Hang on, Mel. Let me go outside so we can have some privacy. Omar is having a few of the pack over.”

  Mel was Minnie’s brother. Heart pounding, her eyes locked on her closed bedroom door, Mika waited for Minnie to get out of the house so she couldn’t be overheard by Omar. She tried to calm her pounding heart.

  “What happened? Are you all right? You sound like you want to cry.”

  “Don’t freak out. Promise?”

  “Fuck. How bad is this?”

  “Grady accidentally bit me during sex. What do I do? I cleaned it. I scrubbed the puncture wounds with soap and poured alcohol over them. They bled well so that will help push out the saliva, right?”

  Silence.

  Then she heard something on the other end of the phone thump and she heard Minnie softly curse. “Sorry. I dropped the phone. Shit. Oh, shit. Shit!”

  “I know. Grady is…upset.”

  “Upset?” Minnie hissed. “He’s upset? How the hell did he accidentally sink his damn teeth into you while he fucked you?”

  “I…damn. He bit my breast when he came.”

  “What the hell was any part of you doing in his mouth when he came?” Minnie was hissing and growling softly. “He’s old enough to know better. He’s not some damn pup who’s new to sex and— Shit! Are you sure it was accidental?”

  “It was an accident. Trust me.”

  Minnie took deep breaths. “It’s going to be fine. It wasn’t a deep bite, right? More like a scratch? The condom didn’t break, right? You’re good if it was just a scratch and the condom held. Matings don’t take without sperm and saliva together.”

  Mika eyed her breast. It was still bleeding. She used the towel to pinch the areas that bled. “Uh…it’s more than scratches. He punctured the top and bottom of my breast around my nipple. We weren’t using a condom—and he partially shifted.”

  Silence again. Then the sound Minnie made after long seconds of silence almost made Mika drop her phone and she had to jerk it away from her ear.

  Minnie howled loudly in rage. Mika heard glass shatter next, and then Minnie panted into the phone. “Minnie? Calm down. What just broke?”

  “I threw a chair through the damn sliding glass door,” Minnie said softly. “Shit. I lost my temper. Here comes Omar and Elroy and some of the guys to see if I’m all right.”

  “Don’t you dare tell them!” Mika pleaded. “Please?”

  “I have to go. I’ll be there soon. I won’t tell, but Omar’s going to find out the second he gets a whiff of you and realizes you’ve been mated.” Then Minnie hung up on her.

  Mika hung up the phone. She closed her eyes and let her head hang. Minnie’s words rang in her head. You’ve been mated.

  She was so fucked.

  Chapter Twelve

  Half an hour later, Mika finally worked up the nerve to walk to her bedroom. The silence was eerie. She’d seen that Grady’s Jeep was still in her driveway so he was still in her room. She’d started to fear that he’d hurt himself when he’d torn up her bedroom. As afraid as she was to face him, her worry for his well-being finally got her to move down the hallway.

  She opened her door slowly to stare in horrified shock at the devastation he’d created.

  Her dresser was in about twelve pieces and all her clothes were thrown all over the room, as though an explosion had hit. Her bed was also in pieces. The mattress and box spring were shredded by what looked like knives but she knew Grady had done it with his claws. Her other nightstand was destroyed too. Her walls were down to bare studs in a lot of places and insulation showed where the plaster was broken or just gone. The ceiling fan that had been above her bed was torn out and hung in a broken mess of wires and snapped blades.

  Hot tears flooded her eyes as she realized it was going to cost her a fortune to fix it. She swallowed and inched into her room, avoiding broken wood and stuffing from her mattress.

  Grady wasn’t in the room. She stepped over one of her bedposts, a smashed dresser drawer, some of her clothing, and inched around broken glass from her lamp. She made it to the bathroom and peered in—it wasn’t destroyed. The bathroom window was wide open though, and Grady wasn’t there.

  She turned and carefully studied her bedroom again, still horrified that Grady had done this. Her stunned gaze returned to the ceiling fan. She wondered idly if the torn wires could cause a fire. She wiped at hot tears falling down her face. Grady was gone and he’d destroyed her bedroom.

  While she picked up clothes from the floor, looking for something to wear, she silently wondered if he’d have hurt her if she hadn’t run from the room. She stared at the destroyed mattress with all the ugly slashes through it, remembering she’d been on that bed that he’d attacked with his claws. She fought back more tears, knowing crying wasn’t going to fix this mess.

  She found that he’d left her closet untouched. She got her suitcases out and went through her room carefully so she didn’t cut her feet. She salvaged what clothes she could from her smashed dresser drawers. She removed her clothes from the closet and made sure the ceiling fan switch was off.

  She dragged out her suitcases and shut the bedroom door. She left her suitcases in the hallway. She didn’t want to go back into her room but knew she’d have to go in there to pack up her bathroom things. She could stay in the spare bedroom for now.

  Where was Grady? His Jeep was in the driveway but she hadn’t seen his clothes in her room when she’d moved shit around, looking for her things. He’d stripped in her bedroom so they should be there. They weren’t. That meant he hadn’t left her house through the bathroom window on four feet and fur. He’d climbed out that window on two legs, wearing his clothes.

  Anger surged through her. He’d sneaked out the window to avoid her. The coward. He’d gone wild after biting her and he had just sneaked out, not even bothering to check on her. She fought the pain and anger that welled.

  The doorbell rang.

  Was he back? She wondered if he was calm enough now to talk or if maybe he’d just come back to get his Jeep keys. She walked slowly to the door and took a deep breath. She straightened her shoulders, unlocked the deadbolt, and swung the door open wide to face whatever mood Grady was in.

  Minnie was pale and tears swam in her dark brown eyes. “I didn’t tell your uncle a thing about what happened here. I told him I got into an argument with my brother so he thinks I went for ice cream to calm myself down.” Minnie stepped into the entryway and grabbed Mika, pulling her into her arms in a tight hug. “Are you all right?”

  Mika gripped the taller woman tightly around her waist and shook her head. “No.”

  “My poor baby. Where is Grady? I want to talk to him. He knew better than to touch you without condoms. It was stupid! I know you don’t understand a lot about this but damn, it was stupid of him to fuck you without protection. The stronger you scent of them and sex, the more they get the urge to mate you. It was just a matter of time. He―”

  “Is gone,” Mika cut off Minnie’s rant.