Targeted By Love (Between the Greys #1)

15. Rhodes

15

RHODES

I stared at the mark on his shoulder where my teeth had sunk in. I knew exactly what came next. He was going to give me a matching bite.

At the time, I hadn’t realized what I was doing. Heck, I hadn’t been thinking at all. It was 100% on instinct. But now, after having had this conversation, I got it. The feeling, the overwhelming contentment that washed over me after doing something that normally would have been unthinkable, was me starting our bond. That bite was me recognizing him as my mate before I even understood what all of that meant.

I might have gone about it in a very human way, but I saw what was happening. There was something so comforting in that… in seeing that none of this was new to me, not really. I simply needed someone to point it out.

“How do we do the mating thing?” I was beyond ready. “Because let’s just get it done.” That sounded wrong, almost like it was a chore. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I know, love.” He rubbed his cheek against mine. “Trust me, I know.”

More than anything, being mated fully was what I longed for—to seal this bond, to reclaim what I lost all those years ago.

“It might hurt.” His warning wasn’t going to scare me off. And really, I was kind of counting on it. Pain and scents held strong memories for me, and I wanted to savor every second of this for years to come.

“Maybe I want it to.” I hadn’t planned to admit it, but with Maynard, out it came. “I want to feel it so deeply I never forget this moment.”

“I don’t think either of us could.” His voice was softer than I expected. “When you marked me, it was… it was…”

“I’m glad.” He didn’t need any more words than that. The emotions pouring off of him were so palpable, almost as if I were feeling them firsthand.

I ran my finger down the mark on his shoulder. “This is where you’re planning to bite me, right, but on me?”

His body shivered at my touch. “Yeah.”

He pressed his forehead against mine.

“You knew,” he said, “before I even said the words.”

“I did. I was wondering why you didn’t get mad at me, but now it makes sense.”

“No, that wasn’t why. Not fully.” He reached up and cupped my cheek. “I don’t think there was anything you could have done in that moment to make me mad at you. Finding you again—it was everything.”

I bent down and kissed the mark I’d left on his skin. “Do I need to bite you again? To make the mating stick?”

“No, but you can if you want. I wouldn’t stop you.” His rich chuckle wrapped around me like a hug.

He kissed me, long and deep, and I let myself get lost in the feeling, loving every second of it.

Then his phone started going off, and he froze.

“Do you need to get that?” This was a sound I didn’t recognize, and paired with the way his body reacted, I suspected it was important.

“Yes. No. Yes.” He let out a long breath. “This is potentially important.”

“Mark me first,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. I didn’t want to come across as needy and selfish, but the thought of us waiting any longer for me to wear his mark was too much for me. “I don’t think I can go another minute without being yours.”

But I could. I had to wait. We couldn’t go through with this until I had some answers or one in particular. “Why were you hired to kill me?”

He froze, his mouth opening and closing. “It was a job, nothing more. Just a location and saying the target was the best man. I didn’t go through with it as soon as I saw you.”

It soothed the trauma a little. And it would have to do for now. I couldn’t put my brother’s name on my lips and blame him. Not when we were about to mate. I refused to have him intrude on this moment.

“Mate me.”

A growl rumbled in his chest, and he lunged forward, his teeth sinking into my skin. There was a moment of sharp pain, but then everything shifted. The world felt right—perfect, even. And love. So much love.

I stayed like that, soaking in the overwhelming emotion, unsure of what to say as tears slid down my cheeks.

“Mine,” he whispered.

“Mine.” I held both his cheeks. “I didn’t know I could ever feel this loved. It’s like I can feel you—feel your emotions toward me.”

The phone went off again, pulling us out of the moment. The world didn’t care that we’d just marked each other. It kept on turning. But we did, and no matter who it was or what they wanted, it wasn’t going to detract from the importance of what we just shared.

It was one of his brothers. Maynard had to leave to meet with some people—because of me. Fine, not people, shifters. Still, it was about me and this entire mess, and the guilt twisted up with fear wrapped around me. All his stressors right now were directly tied to me, and I hated it.

And as much as I hated that, if this was the journey it took to get to “always and forever,” then so be it.

Things happened fairly quickly from there. We went back to Maynard’s apartment where he left me with Thiago, one of his brothers, while he handled things at the meeting. I’d offered to come, wanting both to be by his side and support him. He growled and that was the end of that. His brother assured me that it had everything to do with my safety and not to take it personally. It was impossible not to, given that every single stitch of this was connected to me.

It was weird having a babysitter, but also… it was fine—it gave me someone to talk to, someone to focus on other than the meeting. Did I ever need the distraction, that was for sure.

My nerves were on high alert. These were people who would kill for a business deal gone wrong. No. Not that they would, they did , and from the sounds of it, fairly often. From what I could gather, I was the biggest “gone wrong” the mafia had encountered in a long time, and that weighed heavy on me.

And then there was the other issue. Someone wanted me dead. The rules were clear: You didn’t let a hit live. And yet here I was, alive and mated to the man who’d been hired to off me.

I hated that Maynard had to leave. I hated pacing the room, waiting for him to get back. I hated that this could easily become my new normal.

“Should it be taking this long?” It wasn’t the first time I’d asked and probably wouldn’t be the last. As nice as his brother was, he was starting to get annoyed by me, and frankly, I didn’t blame him.

“It depends.” Thiago’s reply was different this time, and I wasn’t sure if it was because the answer changed or because he was hoping it would quiet me down. Also—it wasn’t particularly informative.

“Depends on what?”

“On what’s all on the agenda. On who else is there. On a hell of a lot.”

That made sense, even if the answer flustered me.

“Who do you think is behind this?” I asked. “All of it, I mean.”

He looked me straight in the eye, like I was the keeper of all the world’s secrets and he was searching for answers. Finally he settled on, “Your brother, I suspect.”

“Do you think he put the hit on me?” I hated my brother and he hated me back, but he was cheap, and what would he gain from it? It wasn’t like my mom had an inheritance worth bickering over. Besides, she was still going strong. So just out of hate? He wouldn’t do that… probably. And if he did, Maynard would’ve known, right? Or maybe that wasn’t how it worked. Gods, I was willing to follow any possible lead no matter how little it made sense.

“Your brother wouldn’t give a shit if you died, but that’s not the same.” It was the fucking truth. If I died today, my brother wouldn’t waste a single tear unless it was for show. Then he’d find a gallon of them. “Do people know that he is so cold toward you?”

“Anyone who knows him would.” I doubted he announced it on social media or anything like that, but he wasn’t a good actor. “Why?” The more I thought about his question, the more it confused me.

“I think maybe the entire thing was a lesson for him. He pissed off the wrong person and this was to teach him to back off,” Thaigo mused.

“That wouldn’t teach him shit. He does what he wants, when he wants, with no care about anyone or anything. He’ll be dead long before he ever tries to change.”

He studied me for a long moment. “So tell me—you and my brother, you’re mates. Did you always know it was him?”

Talk about a change in direction.

“Know? Maybe not, because I didn’t understand this world. But I always loved your brother. Back then, we were just young and foolish. I guess we didn’t realize what we had could be real.” First love wasn’t forever love. That wasn’t how it worked. At least that was what I’d been told my entire life by people, media, and literature.

“It’s not like that,” he said, scratching his chin. “He wasn’t old enough yet. He wasn’t ready to mate. We don’t sense our true mates until about 25. You don’t want three-year-olds on the playground finding their mates. That’s a whole lot of pressure for a young kid, to know who they are going to one day mate and make a life with. Being young is hard enough.”

I thought about it for a second. “Yeah, that would be kind of… ewww.”

“Exactly. You both needed to grow up, and look how that worked out. You’re happy. He’s happy. And you both might have someone trying to kill you because my brother didn’t carry out the hit.”

“I for sure do.” I was going under the assumption he was teasing and not that he thought that was a tick in the plus column.

“Details,” he said with a grin. Yeah, he was trying to lighten the mood, and I appreciated it. “You any good at chess?”

I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped me. Thiago was a good guy, and I had a feeling even if we’d met in a very different situation, we’d have felt a connection. Not a love match, but a friendship, for sure. “No, I’m not good at chess.”

“How about Old Maid?”

“Old Maid, I can do.” Probably. I’d played it as a kid, and it couldn’t be that difficult to remember the rules.

He walked over to a shelf to grab the cards, but his phone rang. He looked down at it and frowned. “I gotta take this. I’m starving. You?”

The phone went off again. Shouldn’t he be answering it? I nodded that I was hungry, nervous he would miss the call and it might be Maynard. “I’ll make something.”

“Be right back.”

“Okay.” I headed for the kitchen, thinking about Maynard, trying to hold on to the feeling of when our bond first snapped together.

I went from a vision of my naked mate all sweaty and happy to a sharp pain shooting through my arm and my world fading to black. I struggled, trying to get away, to break free from the darkness and the person whose hands were on me, but it was no use, I was fading too quickly.

Fuck.