Jager kissed her temple. “Leif and I both know that, love. I, in particular, have learned that from firsthand experience, more than once.”
When Jager and Daylen first met, she’d caught Jager sword fighting with another werewolf in an alley while she was on patrol. She’d even managed to get the drop on Jager, using a karate move her mate hadn’t expected, and had almost ended up arresting him.
Daylen kissed Jager’s cheek. “And don’t you forget it. I guess I’ll go inside and keep Roxie company while you two whack at each other.” She then headed off across the lawn to the mansion.
Leif had just enough time to lift his sword to block Jager’s when he swung it in his direction. Leif then pulled his sword back to make a strike of his own. Jager’s next blow had Leif spinning away. He used the momentum, taking a slashing cut that would have sliced across Jager’s ribs if he hadn’t blocked it.
Letting the familiar rhythm of thrust and parry take over, Leif gave as good as he got. The stretch of his muscles and the need to concentrate on Jager’s next move helped relieve some of the agitation the mating urge had caused. Leif had deliberately challenged Jager for that very reason. Jager was one of the best swordsmen of the Protectors. The man didn’t go anywhere without his sword, and until recently, even slept with it in his bed. The only one of the Protectors who could get the better of him was Saskia, their leader.
After fifteen minutes of intense sword play, Jager backed up and lowered his sword.
Leif lowered his so the tip rested on the grass as he bent over trying to catch his breath.
“Give me a couple of minutes,” he panted. “Then we can go again.”
Jager was breathing just as hard. He used his hand to wipe sweat from his brow. “Is there something you want to tell me?”
“No. Why?”
“Well, for starters, you don’t usually practice this hard. And for another, you’re pounding on me as if you’re trying to distract yourself from something.”
Leif straightened. “You’re the last person I thought would complain about a tough sword workout.”
“Hey, I’m not complaining. The way you’re acting just reminds me of how I was before Daylen and I become mates and I had to convince Daylen not to arrest my ass every time she saw me.” Jager gave Leif a hard stare, then scratched his chin. “If I didn’t know better, I would say your mating urge has you in its claws and you’re trying to ignore it. You weren’t like this when we first arrived here, so I’m guessing it happened when you went to the store for Roxie.”
Hearing Jager accurately guess what was bothering him, Leif dropped his sword and jumped on the other warrior. Having caught Jager off guard, Leif knocked the larger man flat on his back and straddled his chest.
“What the fuck?” Jager snarled.
Leif kept him pinned and lowered his head until he was in Jager’s face. “Not a word.
Do you understand me? Don’t tell anyone, especially Roxie.”
The scowl on Jager’s face disappeared as he started to roar with laughter. “You found your mate,” he said through peals of laughter. “You should see your face. You look as if the hounds of hell are after you.”
Putting his hand over Jager’s mouth, he quietly snapped back, “Would you keep it down?”
With a hard shove, Jager pushed Leif off him and stood. His laughter had settled down to a chuckle. “So it’s true?”
“Yes,” Leif said with disgust.
“You’re a stupid fuck if you think you can run away from the mating urge. Accept it.
Being mated is not as bad as you think it is. It’s actually the best thing that ever happened to me. I never knew what I had been missing in my life until I found Daylen.”
Leif shook his head. “I will not accept it.”
“So what do you plan to do? Just ignore it and hope it goes away?”
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
Jager picked up his dropped sword and shook his head. “You’re delusional if you think that. There is no ignoring the mating urge. What’s the problem with her, besides you not wanting a mate? Is she a mortal?”
“Yes. There’s nothing really wrong with her. She’s just not what I expected.”
“She’s ugly? If that is the case, you could always put a bag over her head while you screw her.”
Leif let out a wolfish growl and launched himself at Jager, not liking the insult to his mate. Jager easily sidestepped him then slowly started to back away toward the mansion.
“See, you’ve got it bad, Leif. You say you don’t want her, but you’re quick to defend her.
You’re buggered, man.”
After watching Jager go inside, Leif picked up his sword. Shit, Jager was right. Of course the asshole had had to prove it to him in the most direct of ways. Jager may have been right, but that didn’t mean Leif was going to meekly accept his fate. He was going to stay strong. He wasn’t going to let the mating urge get the best of him.
Chapter Two
Leif was in a foul mood. It was the next day, and he was once again at Roxie’s place.
This time he was with Kye and Dirk. He’d also volunteered to take another shift of protecting her. He figured being here would give him a good enough excuse not to talk himself into going to the grocery store to see if his mate was working today.
He went into the kitchen, wondering if there was any coffee. Sleep had not come easily last night. And what he did get was filled with erotic dreams of claiming his mate.
He’d woken up with an aching hard-on. All he could think about was getting his mate under him and taking her in every position imaginable. He’d taken a cold shower this morning, which hadn’t cooled his libido any. Jerking off hadn’t done much to take the edge off, either. Even now, his cock was semi-hard.
Spotting the full pot of coffee, Leif crossed over to it and took a clean mug out of the cupboard. It was almost noon, but it already felt as if he’d been up for days. He needed caffeine, and lots of it.
Kye came into the kitchen and helped himself to a cup of coffee as well. He glanced over at Leif, went over to the fridge and took out the milk and dumped some into his mug. “You look like you didn’t get any sleep.”
Leif shrugged. “It was just one of those nights when I couldn’t shut my brain off.”
Kye put the milk back and moved to stand in front of him. “I guess we’ll be making another pot of coffee soon then. Dirk and Roxie are upstairs again doing whatever they do on her computer. Listening to them talk about it puts me to sleep.”
Roxie was a web designer and had been teaching HTML to Dirk for months now.
He’d even coded a few web pages of his own. Not that Leif understood their technical speak anymore than Kye did.
“That should keep the two of them busy for hours,” he said.
“Yeah, the two computer geeks are happily in their element.”
“I wouldn’t let Roxie hear you call her a computer geek,” Beowulf said as he walked into the kitchen. He smiled at Kye. “I wish she’d stick to the computers, though lately, she’s been experimenting with her magic to see what other neat tricks she has that the rest of us don’t. And you know nothing good can come out of that.”
Every werewolf had a spark of magic inside them. It was how he and the rest of his kind were able to shift into their wolf forms. Roxie had a little bit more magic than the average werewolf. She not only could shift into a wolf, she could also shift into a half human/half werewolf form. No other werewolf could do that. She also could keep a werewolf in wolf form for twenty-four hours and freeze a person in place for as long as she wanted. Her great-great-great, etc. grandmother had been a mortal with magic of her own, or so Leif had been told. This magic had finally been passed down to Roxie, who supposedly was very similar in looks to her grandmother. Her grandfather, Royce, was still around to attest to that. Werewolves weren’t immortal, but they were very long-lived, living up to three thousand years old. Royce was well over a thousand and had found another mate who at one time had been a mortal like his first mate.