Pretty Little Mate (Fated Mate Bonds #2)

Chapter 1

one

LIV

The fading energy of the orchard’s dying fruit trees sent a faint but sickly buzz through the air as my feet pounded the dirt again and again.

Our city’s constant rain was only a drizzle, so I didn't bother trying to use my magic to keep it off my skin or out of my hair. The water disappeared before it hit the ground, so I didn't have to dodge puddles, at least.

Jonah was late.

Again.

His tardiness had become a daily problem.

The braid I had my platinum blonde hair tied back in was already soaked, and the sports bra and exercise shorts I wore were equally wet.

I'd started running without him, following our usual five-mile loop through Crescent Orchard. He would catch me, or he wouldn't.

A lot of the time, he did.

Sometimes, he didn't.

It wasn't like the wolves could or would try to remove me from their property for running without him.

I also didn't know anywhere else with a running loop as long and flat as the orchard's, so I wasn't just going to leave because Jonah didn't show. Even if the trees' dying energy irritated me from time to time.

But if he was late because he was fucking the Alpha, I was going to kill him.

Her too, probably.

Hell, maybe I'd just kill all of the werewolves on the property. Wipe out the whole villa. Overrun it with poisonous plants, and watch them slowly strangle every—

The sound of another pair of feet thudding against dirt had me turning my head, finding Jonah jogging to catch up with me. His legs were so long, it wouldn't be too difficult for him to reach me. It never was.

Always a pinnacle of pettiness, I tapped into the bottomless well of magic that made my life hell, and ran as fast as I could. That well had gotten particularly brutal since I'd discovered that Jonah was my fated mate.

I was basically a living battery. Spring magic was all about growth. Energy. Fresh starts. And I was the queen of spring.

A shitty title to have, really.

An even shittier role to play.

The many cracks, bruises, and blisters in various stages of healing on my feet could attest to that.

I would've given anything just to be a fucking werewolf. I'd challenge Gwen for her throne, kill her, and take my place as Jonah's—

Fuck it.

I was spiraling again.

When was I not spiraling these days?

Jonah's arm brushed mine as his ridiculously long, muscular thighs propelled him to my side despite my pettiness.

My magic was almost bottomless, but that didn't mean my body could move unnaturally fast. I was five feet and three inches of battery, which meant no amount of food could make me thicker or curvier, and he was nearly six and a half feet of muscle.

I jerked my arm away from his on instinct. Knowing he had feelings for Gwen didn't exactly make me want to touch him, fated mate or not.

"Sorry. Meetings went long again." Jonah's expression was neutral, when I glanced over at him.

His smooth, dark brown skin glistened with the rain beaded on his skin at random.

I didn't watch it roll down the thick, chiseled muscles on his bare abdomen, even though there was no denying that the man was attractive.

He grabbed my arm when I tripped over a branch I hadn't noticed that had fallen in my path. I shook his hand off again.

"Is that what we're calling sex now? Meetings?

Because god knows it's not me you're fucking these days.

" I was snappy. It couldn't be helped. He'd stood me up for our morning run twice this week already, and four times for our evening run.

That evening run was the only way I could sleep more than a few hours at a time, unless I had someone to fuck in the middle of the night.

Which I basically never did, these days.

Jonah lived in the villa, and couldn't ever be more than five minutes away from the Alpha I consistently fantasized about murdering. He was also in love with her, though he wouldn’t admit it to any one of the three of us, so he and I hadn't gotten anywhere near sexual since he won the Beta challenges.

"You know I'm not with her," Jonah said, completely unbothered by the accusation. "She hasn't asked, and I'm not going to be the one to bring it up."

Why was he unbothered?

He should've been angry, at the very least, that I would even accuse him of touching someone other than me.

I wanted him as angry as I was.

I wanted him possessive and furious and dragging his tongue over the small battery tattoo on my neck, telling me I was his, while—

Fuck.

I was being too specific.

Why was I thinking about Niall again?

I had to stop comparing Jonah to my ex.

I hit the Beta with a burst of my magic, and all he did was run faster.

That was another shitty byproduct of our potential fated mate bond—my magic gave him more energy, instead of hurting, shocking, or irritating him. I sent most men straight to their knees, or hurtling toward a wall at the very least, with the intense energy that buzzed inside me constantly.

Instead, I was powering him to be an even better Beta for the Alpha I wanted to murder.

My sister-in-law was right about me being unhinged.

"How would I know you're not with her? You spend literally all of your time together. I've seen you talking. Laughing. Flirting."

"You know it's not official, Zap."

He always called me Zap. Like the energy drinks at the Werewolf Cafe, which was owned by my sister-in-law who happened to be his best friend before he became the Beta.

Jonah and Kat had grown apart now that he was with Gwen all the time. I was trying to stop that from happening to us too, but it wasn’t working very well.

I skidded to a stop, and Jonah once again grabbed my arm to prevent me from toppling over.

I could've caught myself if he didn't.

Probably.

I jerked my arm away from him for the third time. "It doesn't matter." He and I were technically just friends.

Even calling us friends felt like a stretch, at this point.

We hardly talked.

Mostly, we just ran together and listened to complicated fantasy books that hooked Jonah but weren’t anywhere near romantic enough for me.

I was pretty sure he was just using me as an excuse to get a break from his responsibilities.

It had been five months since I realized that we were fated when I found out that my magic gave him energy instead of sending him stumbling away from me.

Five months of waiting for him to get tired of playing Beta.

Five months for him to decide that his ex-fiancée, the Alpha he was in charge of protecting, could find some other poor sap to follow her around, chat with her, and keep her useless ass safe.

He’d fallen back in love with her instead, even if he wouldn’t admit it.

Assuming he'd ever not been in love with her. Which I didn't completely buy.

Regardless of any feelings, she hadn't forced him to compete. She hadn't forced him to become the Beta. She hadn't even forced him to stay close to her.

That was all him.

Which was why I was still waiting for him to wake up and choose me, instead of just telling him we were fated.

Waiting… and fantasizing about murder. There was a lot of that going on too.

I definitely needed help.

Maybe I'd ask Kat what she did with Callum when he felt stabby.

Then again, even in his angriest moments, Callum's anger had never been charged by the battery that my magic was. His rage was the icy kind. Mine was not.

"Let's just listen to the book," he said.

My anger deflated.

I pulled my arm from his grip and started running again before panic replaced the anger, like it always did.

My bottomless well of energy was the anxious kind, and if I didn't burn enough of it away, it turned into panic attacks. They'd never happened this often before I met Jonah. Perks of finding the other half of your soul and watching him live in the same house with the woman he loved, I guess.

"How did you sleep?" he asked me when he caught up to me, like he always did. He was a steady guy. It was just how he was. Reliable, and caring, and fun.

Not the intense kind of all of those things, though. The laid-back kind. The kind that didn't get involved unless it was necessary.

I should've realized that when Kat was abducted by Callum and he didn't try to rescue her. If any of my family members had been stolen away by someone more powerful than them, I'd fucking destroy that person.

"I didn't sleep," I said, like I always did. "I only really sleep after I've been fucked into oblivion. I should go to the nightclub tonight and try to find someone to wipe me out there."

"You should."

Those two words nearly broke me.

My fated mate, telling me to find someone else to fuck.

By some miracle, I managed not to end up scrunched up in a ball on the dirt in a panic attack.

My murder fantasies kicked back up again. I could practically see my plants strangling Gwen. Draining the life from her stupidly gorgeous face.

Even if he hadn't been in love with her, there was no world in which he would ever develop real feelings for me. Gwen was quiet. Calm. Laid-back. Go-with-the-flow.

I was the opposite of those things. And on top of it, I was spending at least five hours a day running on broken blisters, paying an exorbitant amount in spellcaster fees for healing ointments just to make sure I could continue running more than a marathon every day.

The alternative was to live in a heap on the dirt, experiencing a continuous panic attack.

Being a powerful fae was a real bitch.

The only potential escape from the cost of my magic was my fated mate. Who was not interested in me at all.

Whoop-dee-doo.

I'd really gotten the raw end of this bargain.

Callum had it right with being mated to a pretty little werewolf who wanted nothing more than to snuggle and run an empire of cafes. Even Merrily had it better, and she had been hiding their bond from her incubus demon soulmate for nearly a century.

I'd give just about anything for a soulmate who wanted to fuck the energy out of me in my dreams. Instead, I had Jonah.

He interrupted my thoughts by catching my arm yet again before I could face-plant in the dirt. "You need to take a rest day, Zap."

"Excuse me?"

"You never tripped when we first started running. You're doing too much. I can barely handle this much running, and I'm a professional athlete. Or was, I guess. You need a rest day," he repeated.

"Are you my mate?"

He blinked. "No."

"Then don't try to tell me what I need."

He let out a harsh breath.

We'd gotten along so well when we first started hanging out. We'd laughed and fucked and danced our guts out for a solid week. It had been fantastic.

Now, we were... this.

Which was another reason why I hadn't told him the truth about our bond.

We jogged in silence for a bit.

My murderousness faded as I burned off some of my energy. The emotions that replaced it were darker.

Sadder, too.

"Is there anything else that helps you sleep better?" Jonah asked. He was used to me being moodier before I ran, and chilling out afterward.

"I'd probably sleep better if I was dead."

Jonah rolled his eyes.

Niall would've growled, and fucked me until I took it back.

But I wasn't allowed to think about Niall, so I tried to shove my ex out of my mind yet again. All this shit with Jonah had done the opposite of helping me move on, but I was trying not to admit that to myself.

Jonah's head jerked to the side, and I followed his gaze as some bushes ruffled.

A curly blonde wolf came trotting over to us.

My murder dreams were returning quickly. Faster than the Alpha's wolf was moving.

Jonah's lips curved upward as the wolf came to his side and nuzzled his arm and hand.

The leaves rustled above our heads.

A grapefruit plummeted to its death next to us, of questionable quality because the trees were so fucking old and sad. Nymph magic was probably the only thing keeping them from giving out entirely.

Jonah patted the wolf's head lightly. As I'd expected, Gwen shifted back to her human form without stepping away at all.

I tried not to envy the curves she possessed, so unlike my own, as she stood proudly in front of us with her entire body bare.

Tried not to envy the bouncy, blonde curls that somehow still had life in them after her wolf had run around in the rain.

Or the soft smile she and Jonah shared, speaking of a history between them that I could never compete with. They'd been engaged. He still fucking loved her.

He and I were friends.

I'd never struggled with self-consciousness or comparing myself to other women before. I'd always been proud of who and what I was. But this situation had fucking wrecked me.

There was something in her hand. I studied it openly.

It was a ring.

A gold wedding ring, with a diamond in the center of it. Most immortals didn't even exchange rings. He had to have loved her enough to know she cared about that kind of thing to even bother buying it for her.

"I finally found it!" Gwen exclaimed, holding it out toward him. "Simon hid it in one of his shoes. I've been going through his closet for days."

"What an asshole." Jonah took the ring and inspected it, his lips curving upward.

Nope.

I wasn't doing this.

Not without killing one or both of them.

I hit Jonah with a burst of my magic, and he swore as he released my arm with a jerk backward.

"Don't have sex until I'm out of earshot!" I yelled over my shoulder, sprinting my heart out. "And be careful with the bark against your ass!"

Maybe I'd get lucky and end up too far away by the time they were done with... whatever the hell they were doing.

Jonah caught up to me about eight minutes later.

"Wow. Must've been some really great sex if you're already done," I drawled.

He rolled his eyes at me again.

"If you want to be with her, just be with her," I said. "Immortality goes by faster than you'd think."

"It's hard to let go of the past," he admitted.

Those were among the truest words I'd ever heard. He wasn't the only one who hadn't moved on.

I had to get over Niall though. There was no other choice.

I didn't want this situation with Jonah to be my life. My fucking fated mate bond, which he still didn’t know about.

But what else was I supposed to do? Abduct the man and force him to be mine? As much as I appreciated abduction in the right situation, this wasn't one of those. I knew that too well to even bother considering it.

I gave Jonah one of my earbuds, and we listened to our boring audiobook as we ran together.

Unfortunately, that was the best part of my morning.