Mated To Magic (Stark Creek Shifters Book 1) by Barb Shuler (free ereaders .TXT) 📕

“Always.”

I leaned in and captured her mouth, which was all I could think about. When I pulled back, I wrapped my arm tighter around her.

“Sleep, baby. When you wake up, there will be lots to do.”

Like tell me who it was that hurt you and how in the hell they got in the bar with a fucking knife in the first place.

I took in a deep, calming breath and let it out slowly. We could be patient. My wolf and I were good hunters, after all. I’d let her finally tell me when she told everyone else what happened last night.

Then…well, you know what will happen next.

8

Mia

When I woke up later that day in Dalton’s arms, I couldn’t help but smile remembering the conversation that we’d had right before I fell back to sleep. I loved this man but, fuck, was he persistent when he wanted to know something. I had managed to stall him, but I wasn’t sure for how long. With a soft kiss to his lips, I tried to move out of the bed, but his arms wrapped tighter around me.

“Babe, relax, please, I need to go pee. Then you can go back to holding me captive in bed.”

With a chuckle, he let me go. I got out of bed and did what I needed to in the bathroom. I came back and watched him for a minute, my shoulder leaned against the door. The blanket had shifted off him and showed his bare chest. Biting down on my lip, I thanked the Goddesses that he was all mine. Last night had sealed our fate. As far as I was concerned, we didn’t need to talk about it anymore.

“What happened to holding you hostage?” He opened his eyes to look at me.

“Hey, it’s only fair. I know you were watching me before you woke me last night.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He gave me a cheeky grin. Rolling my eyes playfully, I crawled up the bed and laid back in his arms, facing him. “Speaking of talking, are you ready to tell me?”

“Nope, and please don’t push me on this. My club and business is just that, mine. I’m going to talk to two of my security team tonight; should you want to be there, you can sit in silently. I was also going to ask you if you could come in and run some training exercises with the team after I fire one of them. If you can’t respect what I need to do, then I will call in someone who can. I know you want to protect me and the girls. I am not trying to be a pain in your ass.” I ignored the snort. “Yes, last night could have gone a lot worse than it did, and it opened my eyes to needing more eyes in that place and training for the ones I do have. I thank the Goddesses for Jay, though. Only a shifter would have been able to stop that situation from becoming deadly. The guys wouldn’t have gotten to the bar in time.”

“I will be sitting in on that meeting. Unless I am needed elsewhere, I am staying at the bar tonight.”

“There’s no point even trying to convince you otherwise, so I’m just gonna go with it.” I pressed my lips against his before closing my eyes and laying my head against his chest. I was trying to ignore the growling in my stomach. I didn’t eat after what happened last night, and I hadn’t eaten since before work yesterday. I knew if Dalton found that out, he would be out of this bed and dragging me with him faster than I could blink. It had taken me three years to get this man into my bed; I wasn’t ready to leave it yet. My stomach growled again, but before I could react, I was being scooped up and carried over his shoulder to the kitchen. “You are such a caveman!”

“You love me.”

“Lucky for you, I do.” We got to the kitchen and he sat me down on the countertop.

“Do you want coffee or juice?” I gave him a look. My answer was always coffee. He knew that was how I started my day and more often than not, he would be making it and bringing it in to wake me up. After handing me my coffee, I said thank you and watched him take the bacon from the fridge and the frying pan from the cupboard. After letting it heat up, Dalton added the bacon to the pan. “When did you eat last?”

“Can I not answer that for fear of incriminating myself?”

“Keep in mind where I am going to be today and tell me if you still want to take that path.” Well now, this wasn’t fair. He would ask Jay, who would unknowingly drop me in it by telling him that I didn’t eat dinner last night.

“Lunch yesterday. Jay offered to get me something last night, but I didn’t feel like eating. I just wanted to get home, shower, and climb into bed. I tried to wait for you so we could talk about our fight, but I fell asleep.”

“Mia, baby, you need to eat.”

“Dalton, love, I can’t when I’m not hungry. I’m likely to bring it all back up if I try and force myself. I was running on adrenaline when it happened and by the time it wore off, I was tired.”

He muttered under his breath as put slices of bread into the toaster. I knew he would be watching me like a hawk now and if he couldn’t be around, then he would have Jay on ‘Mia Watch.’ When he was finished making my bacon sandwiches, he cut them in half and brought them over to me. He moved to stand in front of me. I grinned and kissed him softly.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too. You’re still in trouble, though.” He