The Alpha's Warlock (Mismatched Mates #1)

by Eliot Grayson

Or at least, maybe he could have been, a long time ago when we were kids, if my father had been the kind of guy to let me make friends.

But after the night Jared and I first had sex, Ian stopped talking to me. Stopped looking at me, either, even though I could always feel the prickling sensation of someone staring when I had my back to him.

You're dying, Nate,” and the sound of my name, spoken almost kindly, nearly broke me.

I took my hands off my face and looked up at him, and was shocked to see how pale he was, and how stricken. He turned away and got up off the couch. Maybe I'd imagined it.

that I was safe, that I was more than a walking, talking liability that no one trusted.

like treating me like a leper while I dated his cousin, or accusing me of trying to kill him, or assuming I was a lying scheming bastard, or maybe agreeing to mate-bond with me when he couldn't stand the sight of me.

This weird fatigue that had a hold of me

Was it better to be useful, and therefore used, or useless and left to die?

I was me, not someone else's leftovers, and Ian was Ian, not just Jared's cousin, and I was not going to be anyone's second — or default — choice, ever again.

“You're bleeding, you have blood on your hands —” “Don't care,” he grunted. “Long as it isn't yours.”

AHHHHHHHHH

because I'd never felt safer in my life.

What did a guy do when his hostile asshole werewolf mate started to, like, be nice to him? Sweet, even?

I was a means to an end. No one thought I was good for anything except to be a pawn.

How dare he! Ian’s claws were amazing.

like the ghosts of all the dicks sucked in the corners of the room were haunting the place even when the bar, sorry, lounge, was closed and the drunks were at work nursing their hangovers.

Fucking annoying. That was my job.

How had Ian noticed when I hadn’t?

His words rang in my ears over and over again, proof — like I fucking needed it — that I was nothing but an inconvenience in his eyes.

How were you supposed to reach your potential if you didn’t even know what steps to take to get there?

He was worth whatever I had to give, because how many truly honorable men had I met in my life?

He was holding me, and he was petting my hair, and his hands roved all over me like he needed to check that every part of my body was present and accounted for.

He leaned down and kissed me, a simple, chaste peck that still felt like all the great kisses in history rolled into one.