Unrequited Mate Read online

  Nico stood in ready stance, his expression blank.

  After a moment, Hill shrugged. “Have it your way.” He advanced, pushing Nico into the corner, peppering his sides and face with lefts and rights. The cut which had started to heal opened up and bled.

  She flinched with every blow, silently willing her mate to fight back. Do something. She shot to her feet. “Fight! Hit him!”

  Finally, Nico moved. He ducked one of Hill’s hooks attacked with a flurry of lefts and rights, moving the other wolf backward with each punch. She hollered again, bouncing, the crowd roaring to life with her. By the time the first round ended, the energy in the gym had spiked. Vibrating with adrenalin, she plopped next to her cousin and blew out a breath. One round down, two to go. She knew each match was only fifteen minutes long, but this one had seemed much longer.

  Bell shook her head and chuckled. “You’ve got it bad.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” She gave her a sideways glance. “You love him.”

  “I do not,” she barked louder than she intended. “Don’t be ridiculous.” She leaned into Bell’s side. “I might not want him, but I also don’t want him getting hurt.”

  “Uh-huh.” Bell giggled. “You still love him.”

  “Whatever,” she grumbled. In all honesty, she thought about him all night. Could they have a future together? Her heart said yes. Her brain said no. Self-preservation insisted the chances were fifty-fifty he’d find someone else to cheat with, despite his proclamation of waiting for her.

  The bell rang once more, and the guys went back to fighting. Their bodies moved with grace in a perfectly choreographed dance. He avoided a few of Hill’s jabs, but the ones he couldn’t sidestep he took to the body, absorbing the punishing blows. Back and forth they went until a well-placed cross slammed him to the floor. The ref stood over him counting, while her anxiety surged.

  “Get up, get up. Come on. Don’t let him best you,” she murmured, garnering another grin from her cousin. Her knee bounced with nervous energy as the count got to six, and he still hadn’t moved. At eight, he stood, dancing on the balls of his feet and nodding to the referee. “Yeah! Kick his ass!”

  Chapter Seven

  When the bell sounded at the end of the second round, she breathed a sigh of relief. Other than being knocked down, he went toe to toe with Hill. Nevertheless, his face had been bloodied and his chest heaved from exertion. One more time, he’d have to stand up and fight. In the end though, she couldn’t make heads or tails of his actions. A part of her wanted to believe he did this for all the right reasons, but should someone actually get the crap beat out of them for love? To prove their feelings? It reminded her of the barbaric gladiators.

  The crowd broke out in cheers, bringing her attention back to the match. He stood against the ropes, blocking punches while Hill tried to find a weak spot.

  She jumped to her feet. “Nico!” Her hands fisted at her sides as she watched in horror. “Now. Hit him now! He’s dropping his left hand!” If she could have paced, she would have. Anxiety knotted her stomach, and fear clogged her throat. “Hit him!”

  She didn’t know if he heard her, or if her mate had been baiting the wolf in front of him, but he came out swinging. Most of the blows landed on the body, but he connected some with Hill’s face. The wolf staggered, stepping backward, but Nico didn’t let him get his feet under him. He continued his assault. He pummeled Hill with lefts and rights until the referee got between them and stopped the bout.

  He raised his hands in victory and howled. The she-wolf inside her preened and answered her mate. His gaze locked with hers, and she went weak in the knees. Lust burned bright in his brown eyes. She gasped, unable to break the connection between them. The corner of his mouth kicked upward in a devastating smirk before he winked and got rushed by the guys. Bodhi hoisted him up, while the others gathered around.

  Bell hip-checked her and laughed. “So much for not being into him. I guess this means you’ll be making up?”

  “What?” She gave her cousin a look. “What gave you that idea?”

  “Um…hello….”

  “I can appreciate a good match when I see one.” She sniffed. “Besides, I’m sure he’ll have more than enough company tonight.”

  “Pfft.” Bell swatted at her. “Go get him.”

  She hurried down the stairs, trailing after the crowd following Nico. What she’d say if she got close to him, she didn’t know. Congratulations didn’t seem appropriate or enough. She could hear raucous shouts from down the corridor. Women and men passed her by as though she didn’t exist. Maybe it’s for the best. As she came around the corner, Bodhi stood at the locker room door. His relaxed position belied his stiff movement when a grimace pulled his lips into a thin line.

  “Are you okay?” she whispered, walking to him.

  “Yeah, nothing a little TLC won’t take care of.” He gave her a small smile.

  “Is…is he in there?” She hated the hesitation in her voice.

  “Hayden—”

  “No, Bodhi, I don’t want to hear your lecture. Is he in there?” She crossed her arms.

  “Look, if you’re going in there, you need to be prepared to mate him.” Her brother grabbed her arm. “He’s doing this for you. All of this. Don’t let the pains of a teen dictate the agony of an adult.”

  “It’s not like that, Bodhi,” she muttered as she squirmed under his gaze.

  “It’s not?” He chuckled. “Sis, you have been acting like you’ve lost your best friend from the moment we left for school.”

  “Why do you care? Why are you on his side?” She wouldn’t give any credence to what he said.

  “No one else is,” he murmured. “He’s a guy. He did something stupid.”

  “So I should just forgive him and act like it never happened?” She couldn’t believe what her brother had said.

  “No. Not at all. I believe he deserves to pay for his mistakes. But, how long does he pay? How long do you go on hurting yourself and denying the one person who can complete you?”

  “I don’t have time for this conversation. Is he in there or not?” Her hands went to her hips.

  “Yes, he is.”

  She pushed past him, but he grabbed her arm.

  “Think about what I’ve told you. Don’t be stupid about this.”

  “Your concern is noted.” She wrenched free then shoved through the door into the locker room where Reagan pawed at her mate, who lay on a bench.

  “Get your hands off him,” Hayden snarled.

  Reagan laughed. “If it isn’t the stuck-up bitch. Why don’t you go back to your little group of losers and let the real women tend to the men.”

  “I’m not going to tell you to get your hands off of him again.” She growled, advancing on the little slut touching her mate.

  “Get out of here, Reagan. I already told you no. I don’t want you here.” Nico’s gaze locked with Hayden’s.

  “Excuse me?” she huffed. “No one turns me down!”

  “There’s a first time for everything,” he quipped. “Now see yourself out and don’t come back.”

  Stomping her foot, Reagan squealed and left. Hayden shook her head before going in search of a first aid kit to clean up Nico. When she found it, she returned and sat on the end of the bench. “Not a word.”

  “I wasn’t going to say anything.” He held up his hands.

  “Good.” She opened the box and pulled out saline solution and some gauze. Grabbing a towel off a cart beside her, she laid it on her lap. “Put your head there.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He closed his eyes, letting out a sigh.

  She poured some of the solution on the gauze and dabbed the cut over his eye. “I don’t understand why the fuck you’d want to do this to yourself.”

  “I guess I’m trying to win my mate back, and I’ll do whatever it takes for that to happen.”

  She hesitated for a second then returned to c
leaning his wounds. “That’s stupid. You should have said no to this barbaric show of machismo.” She grabbed a fresh piece of cotton and went back to work. He hissed, stilling her hand. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. You’re allowed your pound of flesh. I deserved it.” He let her wrist go.

  “Shut up.” She snatched the antibiotic ointment.

  “As you wish.” He grinned.

  “This doesn’t change anything.”

  “Of course not.” A thread of humor laced his words. “Have lunch with me.”

  “Why?”

  “Call it a thanks for tending to my wounds.”

  She eyed him speculatively while opening a butterfly strip. “Only lunch?”

  “Only lunch.”

  “Okay.” She scrunched up all of her trash. “Go get a shower. You stink.”

  He sat up then pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Thank you.”

  ***

  “Remember, quiz tomorrow on the difference between a zygote and an embryo,” Professor Phillips announced while dismissing the class. “Also, my office hours have changed. I will only be available Monday, Thursday, and Friday from one to three p.m.”

  She dumped her book into her backpack and stood, thankful biology was her last class for the day. The lecture time gave her a chance to think about last night, about her reaction to seeing Nico fight for her. In some weird way, seeing him fight made her stomach flutter and her heart skip a beat. Watching him as she had also twisted a visceral part of her. She equated it to Darwinism. The strong only sought out the strong, and her wolf saw demanded she claim the man.

  Which led her back to the lunch date she’d agreed to. In those last moments spent in the locker room, a part of her wanted to know when. Yet another part liked the idea of it being spontaneous. Before she left, he’d grabbed her hand and tugged her back to him. His dark eyes blazed with desire seconds before he dipped his chin and claimed her mouth. His arm banded her, pressing her flush to his body. The kiss, exploratory. Lazy. He tasted her. Sipped from her lips. He’d coaxed her into it, drawing out her desires. Hayden had wound her arms around his neck. It had felt like coming home. So right she didn’t want to let go.

  Almost a little too perfect.

  When he drew back, wonderment and a hint of awe had filled his features. In the next second, he’d schooled his expression before walking toward the shower, leaving Hayden to stare after him.

  As she pushed the classroom door open, she spotted him waiting for her outside, his arms crossed over the wide expanse of his chest and his feet evenly spaced apart. The air of authority and dominance rolling off of him made a shiver of delight roll through her, and her wolf preened at seeing her mate. She turned and marched down the hall in the opposite direction. Why no, I didn’t see you standing there.

  The farther she got from him, the less her body hummed with energy. Her wolf paced and snarled at her.

  “Done with classes?” His silky-smooth voice wrapped around her, knocking her off–kilter. She should have known he’d catch up. “I thought you saw me standing there waiting. Or did you ignore me?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Liar, liar pants on fire.

  “So I thought we could grab some lunch today and talk.” He kept pace with her, parting the crowd with ease.

  “Talk about what?”

  “Us.”

  “There is no us.”

  “Oh I beg to differ, little wolf.” Taking her hand, he led her over to his truck. “Get in.”

  “No.” She growled. “I mean, wait. I thought I’d have a little more time to prepare for this.” She scratched her forehead. “Right now?”

  “Damn it, Hayden. If you don’t get in the fucking truck, I’ll put you in the vehicle, and you won’t like it.” He loomed over her like a predator cornering its prey. “Your stubborn pride is getting in your way. It’s always gotten in your way.”

  Everything he said hit below the belt. He stated the truth with such vehemence it stung. “Whatever,” she snapped, getting up into the waiting vehicle. “Always such a know-it-all asshole.”

  “And here I thought we’d made progress.” He closed the door then hurried around the front of the truck and got in.”

  “A kiss does not make a relationship.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really.” She gazed out the passenger window as the trees whipped by. What she wouldn’t give for a greasy burger right at that moment. Her stomach gave an appreciative growl, and he cocked a brow at her.

  “Good thing one of us is willing to take care of you.”

  “Don’t start.”

  Once he parked, he turned off the truck, and she jumped out. Together, they found a booth away from prying eyes and ears.

  “So, talk. What did you want to say to me?”

  He folded his hands on the table “Are you going to listen, or insult me the whole time?”

  Ouch. “I’ll listen,” she muttered while picking at the corner of her menu.

  “Good.” He gave her a curt nod. “I’ve wanted to mate you since the moment I laid eyes on you. If you hadn’t been so young, I would have taken you to the Strawberry Festival and marked you as mine. But, it didn’t happen that way.”

  “Instead, you went out, got drunk, and brought home a random girl who you slept with.”

  “Yes. But, then again, you haven’t been so lily-white in all this either, have you?” His gaze bored into hers. Knowledge and a bit of jealousy shimmered in the flecks of amber surrounding his irises.

  “What are you talking about?” She licked her lips growing more nervous by the second.

  He snorted and crossed his arms over his chest. The muscles of his biceps and forearms flexed, and she swallowed hard. “Adam.”

  Gut punched, she stared at him. Adam, the first boy who took a liking to her in high school. When she and Nico couldn’t spend time together, Adam and she did. He also bestowed her first kiss, among other things. Things she didn’t want to talk about with her mate. “What about him?”

  “Oh, little wolf,” he growled. “Don’t play stupid with me. I know the truth.”

  “What truth?” She tried to glean how much he knew.

  “How many times did you jerk him off? How many times did that sweet little pussy of yours cream itself when you watched him come?”

  A rush of heat filled her, and her cheeks burned with embarrassment. “How did you find out?”

  “I could smell him on you,” he grumbled. “I should have killed him.”

  “Brute.” She curled her lip in disgust. “Mom and Dads wouldn’t have let you. Besides, I didn’t get anything out of it.”

  “But you wanted more, didn’t you?”

  If he had a point, he needed to spit it out. “So what if I did?”

  “So, you deemed it okay to get your pleasure, but I was supposed to sit back and do what? Stay chaste?” He sat back when the waitress approached. Once they gave their order, he leaned in again. “Did you put me on so high a pedestal, when I fell, I shattered?”

  When he put it like that…. “No, I…. Well, I….” She frowned. “You hurt me.”

  Chapter Eight

  “I know I did, little wolf,” Nico whispered. “I never meant for you to see me in such a light. But everything you did from the moment you saw me, was intended to hurt me. You yearned for payback. Are you done yet?”

  Each statement was a stinging blow to Hayden’s ego and pride. The walls she’d erected cracked and crumbled. “I may never be done. Let me ask you a question, Mr. Smarty Pants. Before you set foot in the room with her, did you think about me? Did you think about the consequences of getting caught?”

  The waitress brought their food out, and Hayden’s stomach soured. She knew the answer before he opened his mouth, and perhaps it had been why she hesitated to fool around with Adam.

  “The truth is, no, I didn’t think of the consequences. But a moment of weakness shouldn’t
define the next three, or four years of our lives.”

  “I craved affection. I experimented because I wanted to know what it meant to be cherished—especially when the man preordained to be my mate screwed some arbitrary piece of ass.” She played with a fry on her plate, unable to meet his gaze. “That’s what you did to me. That’s what you lowered me to.”

  “And if you’d listen to me, little wolf, you’d hear I’m trying to apologize for my transgressions. I’m trying to make this up to you because I see your pain every day and have to live with the fact I caused it. I did this to you. I did this to us. I’m sorry. I wish I’d never had a moment of weakness. I wish I didn’t have a moment of fear. I wish…fuck…I wish you’d look at me again like I hung the stars and moon. Like I was the only wolf for you.” He cleared his throat and pushed his plate away. “I have ached to hold you. To touch you. I miss you so damned much, it’s as if I am missing a part of my soul. And, I don’t know what to do to fix us. Tell me what to say, baby. Tell me how to act. Tell me what you want from me, and I’ll gladly give it, if it means I can be in your arms again. My life is nothing without you, and I can’t stand it anymore.”

  Everything in front of her blurred into a blob as the first tears rolled down her cheeks. “You are my life,” she sobbed. “But my heart is broken. Even if you glued it back together, sure the pieces will fit, but the cracks will show.” She wiped the tears from her eyes. “I’m not a starry-eyed little girl anymore.”

  “No you’re not.” He cupped her cheek, and she nuzzled his palm. “You’re a beautiful woman who requires her mate to heal her. To care for her. You yearn for me to repair the damage I have caused. You need to be loved. Let me be the man who shows you what it means to be loved and cherished. To be kept on that pedestal. To wake up knowing every day I am right beside you. Give me the chance to make this up to you. I-I know I can’t ask for your trust just yet. We’ll work toward it together.” He gave her a lopsided grin and tapped the end of her nose.

  An hour later after they’d eaten and talked, they returned to her room. She placed the key in the lock, and he stilled her hand then turned the knob, stepping inside first. He made a quick circuit of the room then motioned her to enter.