The Wallflower Mate

7

For the first time, Mary had the sudden urge to fling all the food in front of her at someone just to satisfy her anger. Instead, Mary took a deep breath set down the large spoon in her hand and turned away. Several witty and petty responses floating around in her head, but she swallowed them all down.

If he wants to think that way, she'll allow it. Why would she allow it? He wasn't anybody significant she needed to prove herself to. There was no reason to contend with him. Yet this proved to her she needed to keep her distance from him. Honestly, she wanted nothing to do with him at this point.

"Now, that you are all fed, I'll be going," she announced while washing her hands.

After wiping them on a hand towel that she brought. She stuffed her washed cooking utensils into a tote and slid it over her shoulders. She turned to look at the group of men and forced a smile to appear on her face.

She could see it on their face. Some of them were looking at her with pity on their faces. Alpha Ryker's face was voided of emotions. She could the deep-set of his eyes drilling holes into the side of her face. Yet she refused to give him the satisfaction of looking at him—even acknowledging him. He was ungrateful. A pain in the ass. She has quite a few colorful vocabulary words she could describe him, none of them very nice.

She nodded her head once before speed walking out of the Alpha's house as fast as she could. Not a minute she would spend here. She'll avoid him throughout his stay here. If the Alpha calls her back, she'll feign sickness or perhaps she would take a long vacation. It's been a while since she traveled. Heck, she has traveled nowhere. Now, was a good time than any—

A muscular hand on her elbow stopped her thoughts, just as she was fishing in her pants to grab her keys. Heat and sexual desires inundated her entire body—compromising her nervous system and her sanity. The smell of sweet cardamom and cloves bearing down on her like cardamom cake. Sweet and sticky deliciousness. Sometimes, it even reminds her of cardamom French toast.

"What are your plans this afternoon?" Alpha Ryker's said from behind me.

"Hm, perhaps I'll find another male to kiss. I heard the bars around here are swarming with unmated male wolves because you know, I'm desperate to be mated," she said pettily.

He looked at her but said nothing to her petty response. Their eyes collided in a silent stare down. Ryker was almost taken aback by how long she held his gaze. There was a defiant shine to her brown eyes, and it excited Ryker in a way that he couldn't understand.

"I see I have offended you." He broke the tense air between them.

"Oh, not at all, Alpha Ryker. Honestly, you are right. I'm nothing but a shallow, unmated female. Now, if you would excuse me, I would like to remove my insignificant self out of your royal presence."

"Now you're just being rude," he replied.

Her lips pinched into a thin line. He frustrated her. What was it about him that spikes her irritation?

She tried pulling her arm from his grip, but he only held on tighter.

"And you can call me Ryker," he added at the end.

Ryker—sounds awfully intimate, which she was trying so hard to avoid. She cannot call him Ryker. However, the name made her body react in ways that she couldn't control. She hadn't even said it out loud, only in her head, and her heart was skipping laps.

"Alpha Ryker is the proper way to address you," she refuted.

"I-I—"

He seemed to have trouble finishing his sentence. Mary's eyes flew from staring at his chin to look into his hazel eyes. Although it was hard for her to comprehend what was going on inside of his head, his eyes were almost always a portal of meadows and forest. They were filled with the deepest and lightest colors of green and copper. His hand tightened harder around her elbow. She could feel the firm prints of each one of his fingers on her skin.