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REJECTED MATE Chapter 73
I hadn’t underestimated the depths that these bastards would stoop. Griff and I might have set up a trap to wipe them out if we’d known they would try a stunt like this. Now, we were tired, wet, and half-naked, staring down the barrel of a gun.Anxiety seized my heart in an icy grip, and all the relaxation I’d gained from the bath evaporated. Clutching my towel around my chest, I stepped in front of Griff, trying to create a barrier between him and the gunman. My wet hair streamed water into my eyes, and I swiped it out of my face.Griff snarled. “Get behind me.”“It’s not me they want,” I said.“Listen to your mate, woman,” the gunman snarled in a familiar deep voice.My jaw tightened. “What’s wrong, Malachi? Can’t you face my mate in a one-to-one fight?”“There will be no public challenge,” he said.Griff moved in front of me and raised his palms. “Put down the gun, step out from the shadows, and fight me like a wolf.”The gunman chuckled. “Your feisty mate is more likely to step in
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I stumbled to my feet and pointed it at his chest. “Who are you?”“No one.” He stepped back, his hands raised.I squeezed the trigger, firing a bullet in the doorframe, making him yelp. “Don’t think you can outrun a gun, because I’ll shoot you in the head if you make me chase you down the hallway naked.”His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “Don’t shoot me. I had nothing to do with this.”“Get inside.”He took a step toward me, his hands raised.“Who sent you?” I asked.“No one.” The door clicked shut behind the man, making him flinch. “This was supposed to be a robbery, and I got paid by a man in the pub to play lookout.”“Who?”He turned to the corner of the room, where Griff’s wolf now rose from an unmoving black lupine. “Him, I suppose. He said you had something valuable. I didn’t know anything about the gun.”My eyes narrowed. Malachi probably wouldn’t keep someone so weaselly in his inner circle, nor would he want any of them to think he couldn’t face Griff in a fair fight. Expo
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“What if Malachi lost control of his emotions and ordered Griff’s execution?” I said. “Or decided to shoot Griff himself?”She tilted her head.“All of that is possible, so we have to put pressure on him to bring forward the alpha fight?”She barked a question.“Didn’t he seem to care too much about what others thought?”She nodded.“That’s a weakness.” My gaze darted to the dashboard, which said eleven fifteen. Closing hours for pubs in my time had been eleven, but judging by the amount of people still crowding the drinking establishment, there didn’t seem to be any restrictions. “We’ll get a huge crowd and psych them up to watch the ultimate alpha battle.”Beki’s happy bark told me that it was a good idea.Without needing any directions from Ramsey, Griff stopped the car at a paved square. In the middle of it stood a statue of a shirtless Malachi, standing with his arms outstretched. Behind it was a brick mansion with long, narrow windows designed to make it look like a miniature ca
REJECTED MATE Chapter 74
Sweat broke out across my brow as Malachi descended the steps with a small group of henchmen who each carried weapons. I gulped. Worms of anxiety slithered through my gut, making me want to gag. There were pistols, shotguns, crossbows… the type a person could shoot at a distance and never get hurt. I glanced up into the windows, finding them also stationed with gunmen.Shit.Malachi had come prepared.But that didn’t mean all was lost.The crowd fell silent, and a few of the people who had been cheering recessed into the throng.“Seize them,” the alpha snarled. “Griffiths will watch my wolves fuck his woman before I send him back to Hell.”Griff’s furious growl made my skin tremble. He extracted a gun from his jacket and pointed it at Malachi’s head. “The first one of you fuckers who approaches my mate will get a bullet between the eyes.”The men hesitated.My breath hitched. Threatening the henchmen would only go so far when there were sharpshooters aiming guns at us through the wind
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My stomach tightened. Was this a concussion, or was he simply dazed? If I rushed to his aid before the fight restarted, I couldn’t guarantee the crowd’s reaction. It was one thing for Boris to separate them—nobody knew our strategy. Healing Griff’s swollen face would be cheating.Beki whined, but the sound was mostly a reluctant agreement.Boris stood between Malachi and Griff. “We’ll start again, shall we?” he said, sounding like a ringmaster. “When you fight as men, I want you upright. If the fight continues on the ground, you both shift into wolves.”My brows pinched together. “What on earth is he saying?”Beki shook her head.I curled my hands into fists. For his sake, Malachi’s curse had better be there when he shifted.“Hold this.” Griff shrugged off his jacket and handed it to Boris.After that, he pulled off his shirt, making the crowd roar their approval. A few people wolf-whistled, making my lips tighten. This wasn’t a bloody strip show. Griff was just trying to avoid a situ
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My throat thickened, and I walked over to Griff before the crowd carried him away. My mate stood tall and proud, with a glow to him that I hadn’t noticed before, not when we had been alive, not on the walls of my cell, and not even during our second chance at life.Griff was whole.The magic that had been his by birthright shone through his eyes like beacons, bringing out the golden flecks in his irises. His newfound power radiated off his body and tingled across my skin. At that moment, the noise and the crowd disappeared from my awareness, and it was just Griff and me and our love.Griff cupped the side of my face. “I couldn’t have done this without you.”“This is your victory,” I murmured. “Congratulations.”He closed the distance between us and pressed a gentle kiss on my mouth. I let my eyes flutter shut as the roar of the spectators washed over us. Griff’s lips were soft, swollen, so the kiss was tentative. Even so, his touch filled my chest with warmth and love. I remained stil
REJECTED MATE Chapter 75
Griff lowered me onto the mattress and climbed on top of me to press kisses on my cheeks, along my jawline, and down my neck. Each press of his lips on my skin made tiny detonations of rapture across my nerves.As he reached my collarbone and sucked on it, he tore open the front of my shirt. “Cathy,” he said in a deep drawl that made my spine tingle. “You’ve made every dream I’ve had since I can remember come true.”I glanced down at Griff, meeting eyes that reflected in the moonlight. The swelling on his face had completely healed now, his features communicating the depth of his desire. My breath quickened. He was so unfeasibly beautiful and so mine. It took every effort to say, “You couldn’t have defeated Malachi if you weren’t already capable.”With a happy growl, he tore open my shirt and sports bra.“I’ll never get tired of seeing you naked,” he snarled, his gaze caressing my bare skin. “You’re the most gorgeous sight.”Heat spread across my skin, and I licked my lips.Griff slip
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“It’s been like that since the moment we met. I needed you so much that it burned. Now that I’ve defeated the bastard who stole my pack, I finally feel worthy of your love.”“I loved you with or without the position,” I said.He placed a soft kiss on my lips. “Even so, I finally feel like your equal. There’s only one woman for me, and that’s you, Cathwulf Aibek.”We exchanged slow kisses until our eyelids turned heavy, and I drifted off to sleep. My heart filled with warmth and joy, and I wasn’t sure if the feeling belonged to me or Beki. It was probably both. We were so close to achieving perfect happiness. All we needed to do next was return to Shifter City without attracting the attention of Hades.Out of the darkness of my mind’s eye emerged a dream of tall pine trees that stretched up to a bright sky without a trace of the sun. Pinecones and twigs cracked beneath my bare feet, and I glanced down to find myself in the body of a prepubescent boy.My heart skipped a beat. I was Grif
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