The Tyrant Alpha's Rejected Mate (Five Packs #1)(79)

“There’s more once you finish that,” he says.

There are at least three eggs, twelve ounces of steak, and another eight of ham on this plate.

“This is good.”

He makes a noncommittal grunt and goes back to conveyor-belting food into his mouth. His hair’s stuck up in the front. I’ve seen it this way before. When he fights, he gets sweaty and disheveled. This messy is different, though. It makes me squirm. Makes my chest feel wide open.

It’s just the two of us in this peaceful, sun-filled cabin.

I’ve never been alone with a male in his home. That’s how things are arranged now, right? So that the lone females aren’t ever alone with males. I’m either at my place with the girls, or up at Abertha’s cottage, or we’re at the lodge helping Old Noreen, or we’re at the laundry with Cheryl and whichever protected females pulled the short straw that week.

In Killian’s father’s time, it was different. Lone females had to attach themselves to someone to get fed, a sympathetic mated pair or a male. Or males.

That would’ve been worse. But that doesn’t make how things are now good.

There’s a knock on the front door. I startle. Killian doesn’t even turn his head.

“Ignore it,” he says.

I sniff. It’s hard to make out with all the food, but it smells like Tye.

Killian growls. His dusky blue eyes flash gold. He points his fork at me. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Sniff.”

I snort a laugh. “I can’t not smell.”

He glares. A tic in his temple flutters. “Try.” And then he sighs. “It’s Tye. He’ll come back later. After you’re fed.”

I set my utensils down. I’m full anyway.

He glowers. “You’re not done.”

“I’m full.” After a second, I tack on, “Thank you.”

“You didn’t have dinner yesterday.”

I lift a shoulder. My nerves are too jumpy to get any more down, but I say, “You don’t double up when you miss a meal.”

“I do.” He grins, pops a bite of steak in his mouth, and chews. I can’t stop watching his jawbone work. It’s cut so sharp, it’s like watching a machine.

My stuffed belly clenches. Not with hunger.

Oh, crap. It’s not heat again? So soon?

I flutter the collar of the T-shirt. I’m not particularly hot, but it can’t hurt to get some air moving.

Killian’s eyes track my movement. “You in need again?”

I gulp and choke on nothing. “No.”

I push the plate away and cross my arms tight to my chest. And I stop looking at his jaw. And his throat bobbing as he swallows.

I should get up and start the dishes. That would give my hands something to do.

But my body is heavy. I don’t want to move further away. I can’t.

What’s going on with me?

Panic flares, skittering inside me, and then there’s a pulse through the bond, cool and calm.

My gaze flies to Killian’s. He’s watching me. And he seems confused, too. Perturbed.

He narrows his focus, and the pulse between us becomes a flow from him to me. The cool and the calm develops dimension, a smoothness, almost a scent. Toffee.

I press my palm to my chest. The sensation runs over the back of my hand, like a shaded stream in summer, a lazy current that soothes feverish skin.

I can’t suppress a small smile. This is magic.

Killian feels it, too. I know he does. He’s blown away, too, he’s just playing it cool by focusing on his food.

Killian’s lips curve the slightest bit, and he scoops up his last forkful of eggs. “After this, we’ll shower and head to the gym.”

We will? I thought I’d go home. Shower. Process.

“Can’t leave ‘em unsupervised for too long. They start brawling.”

“Don’t they go to the gym to train to fight?”

“Yeah, but if you don’t watch them, they break shit.”

“I can go back to my cabin.”

He shakes his head before I finish the offer. “You know you can’t, Una.”

“Why not?”

“Heat,” he says as if it’s obvious.

Which it is.

I’m not even sure why I’m arguing. Yeah, I want to hide in my room, and tell Kennedy everything, and brush my teeth, and think. But the reality is that I can’t even bring myself to walk across the room to the sink. I can’t fathom being so far from him that I can’t hear him breathe.

My wolf is pretty much rolling her eyes at me, but some weird biological event doesn’t magically change everything. Yesterday, I had my own business. My own place. My own life.

So now, just like that, I’m tethered to Killian? Like the dog Eamon Byrne’s mate keeps in their backyard so that when he sneaks out at night, she knows? I don’t want to be Max.

If I’m going to try and figure this thing out with Killian, I want to decide—not my primal instinct.

Eventually, after the silence has stretched well past awkward, Killian sighs and lets his fork clatter to his plate. “We should get going.” He reaches for my dishes and stacks them. Finally, I can stand, too. He clears the table, and I wander to the doorway.