Mate Set Read online

  It sounded as though he were tearing her bedroom apart. She heard wood snap and things being thrown. She hugged herself hard, shaking, and wondered what the hell had happened.

  Something wet tickled her arm under her breast. She looked down and saw red on her arm and on her breast. She stared in shock as she realized what she was seeing. There were sharp teeth marks and three puncture wounds on her breast. She gripped her breast. It hurt. She examined the underside of her nipple where she found more bloody punctures.

  Her knees collapsed under her. She sat there, stunned. She yanked her hand away from her breast as if she were on fire. She heard something smash in her bedroom as wood splintered. She closed her eyes.

  It all made sense now. “Oh God,” she whispered.

  Grady had bitten her breast, drawn blood, and she knew what it meant when a werewolf bit a woman during sex. She’d been told enough times. He hadn’t used a condom either. He’d lost control just the way he’d feared he would. She’d felt hair on his back and he’d had sharp teeth so he’d been partially changed during sex. He was freaking out and in a rage in her bedroom because he’d done the one thing he swore he’d never do.

  He’d mated himself to a human. He’d bitten and mated himself to Mika. Her breast was still bleeding. She felt a drop of blood splatter on her. She stared at her naked thigh and another drop marred her white skin. She heard Grady roar in rage down the hall and glass broke.

  Mika pushed to her feet and ran for the bedroom door. Grady was still down the hall in her room. She wasn’t sure if there was anything left to break in there but it sounded as though he were still trying from the loud noises she still heard.

  She ran into the hall bathroom and stared at the bite marks on her breast. She turned on the water as she kicked the bathroom door shut. Grady was going to hate her. He was going to resent her and every day he was going to look at her the way he’d looked at her when he’d leapt from the bed.

  She squeezed her breast and pushed out more blood, forcing the wounds to bleed. She washed her breast, splashing water. Maybe he hadn’t bitten her hard enough. Maybe the blood had pushed out whatever saliva had gotten in. She scrubbed the wounds with soap, ignoring the pain. Maybe the mating hadn’t taken.

  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 proof 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 was still shut, the house was silent. Had Grady left? Was he still in her room? She was too afraid to risk walking to her room and opening that door to find out.

  “Hey,” Minnie chuckled. “How is 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, she waited for Minnie to get out of the house so she couldn’t be overheard by Omar. Mika 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. She heard something on the other end of the phone thump and then 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 a 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. The sound Minnie made after long seconds of silence almost made Mika drop the phone as she had to jerk it away from her ear. Minnie howled loudly in rage. She heard glass shatter next. 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 in a few hours and realized you’ve been mated.” 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 room. The silence was eerie. She’d seen that Grady’s Jeep was still in her driveway so he was still in her room. She 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 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 now destroyed too. Her walls were down to bare studs in a lot of places and insulation showed where the plaster was just gone or broken.

  Hot tears flooded her eyes as she realized it was going to cost her a fortune to fix it. The ceiling fan that had been above her bed was torn out and hung in a broken mess of wires and snapped blades. 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 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 the bed 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