Chapter 78 – Kidnapped by My Mate Series II: His Lost Queen

Filed To Story: Kidnapped by My Mate Novel (Belle & Grayson) Online Free by Annie Whipple

My nails dug into the palms of my hands, extremely close to punching Grayson’s stupid smirk off his stupid face.

“What did you do to Liam?” I demanded.

Grayson’s casual expression quickly turned into a scowl. “Who?”

I rolled my eyes. “You know who I’m talking about. Liam, Liam Blackwood. My friend. He’s about this tall”—I held my hand up over my head—“brown hair, obnoxiously charming.

“He disappeared after trying to protect me from you. Tell me what you did to him.”

Grayson shook his head, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. But any man who you call charming shouldn’t be around you anyway.”

My nostrils flared. He was acting way too casual to be telling the truth.

“If you hurt him,” I started, “I swear I’ll kill you. I don’t care how big and intimidating you’ve gotten. I will not allow you to hurt the people I care about.”

His eyes narrowed at my threat, automatically darkening. “Care  about?” he repeated. “Exactly what is the extent of your feelings toward this man?”

I knew at that moment I had said the wrong thing. I didn’t want Grayson to have any more of a reason to hurt Liam.

“As I said before, he’s my friend.  Nothing more. And I would like to know what you did to him.”

“I have done nothing to harm your friend,”  Grayson responded. “I think it’s a good thing that this man isn’t hanging around anymore. I don’t like other men around my mate.”

My temper rose, hot and sharp. I was extremely close to grabbing the silverware on the table and stabbing it into his hand.

“I’m not your mate. You have absolutely no right to act possessive of me. You gave

~me~ up.”

A low growl left his chest, causing me to take a step back. “I did no such thing. You are mine, Belle. You always have been and always will be. Now, come sit and eat some breakfast with me.

“You look exhausted, and I can hear your stomach growling from across the room.”

“I already told you I’m working.” I quickly peeked over my shoulder, relieved when I saw that Jerry wasn’t watching me anymore.

“And if you think I’m serving you, you’re very, very  wrong. I would rather eat glass.”

His expression softened. “I don’t want you to serve me, Belle,” his voice was much softer than before. “I just want you to eat. When was the last time you had a proper meal?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“It most definitely is,” Grayson retorted.

My jaw clenched. “I seriously don’t get why you even care. You didn’t care when I couldn’t get any food at your pack house. I was starving, too scared to get food for myself and you—you…”

I swallowed roughly, remembering Grayson hitting me and telling me that I was more trouble than I was worth after he found out I hadn’t been eating.

“I don’t even know why I’m telling you any of this. I’m not eating with you. I’m not serving you. I’m never doing anything with you ever again. Now leave me alone.”

I turned to leave but was stopped when Grayson caught my arm. He stood, looking at me with determined eyes. His dark expression only softened when he zeroed in on the unshed tears pooling in my eyes.

I quickly wiped them away.

“You don’t have to serve me. You don’t even have to eat with me, but I’m not going anywhere. As long as you’re here, so am I. You’re my mate. You’re in pain. The closer I am to you, the better it will be for you.”

“I’m fine,” I bit back. I yanked my arm out of his hold, taking several large steps back to prove my point.

What I didn’t tell him was that my mark just burned more and more with every step I took. “I’ve gone several months without you and have done just fine.”

Grayson glared at the new space between us. “You don’t have to lie to me, Belle. I can feel your pain through the bond. And I can see it in your eyes.”

He stepped forward, gently placing his hand on my upper arm. His thumb caressed the skin soothingly. “You’re not alone,” he said quietly. “I’m in pain too.”

I knew I should push his hand off of me, but the sparks that came from his touch felt too good. “You are?” I asked.

Even if I was mad at him, something inside me hated hearing that. I didn’t want him to be in pain. I mean, I wanted him to go jump off a cliff, but…

Grayson nodded. “Of course I am. I may not be experiencing the same thing you are because I’m not human like you, but I’m still suffering just as much.

“You have no idea how much it killed me to be away from you. And it kills me now being so close to you and not being able to touch you—to comfort you. Our mate bond is starving.”

“Keep working on that whole ‘not touching’ thing,” I told him, yanking my arm away from his grasp yet again, even when my body screamed out its opposition.

“I have to get back to work. Leave me alone. I mean it.”

I didn’t look back at him as I walked away, and thankfully, he didn’t fight me as he watched me go.

GRAYSON

My jaw clenched as I watched Belle rush around the diner, working her butt off.

It was physically painful to stay in my seat while my mate, the absolute love of my life, was pushing her body past its breaking point right in front of me.

And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

I had been sitting there for hours. The only reason I hadn’t already pounced on her and dragged her ass back home was that I understood where she was coming from.

I had been there; I had witnessed everything that Azazel had done to her. And she thought it was me. She had every right to be upset. She should be upset.

This was a shock to her. She needed time to process that I was back in her life and that I still wanted her.

She needed to see that I wasn’t going to push her—that I was willing to work to earn back her trust and let her come to me. This entire situation was in her hands.

But that didn’t mean her constant rejection of me didn’t frustrate the hell out of me.

I was extremely tempted to use the power of the Mortars to persuade her to listen to me, but I knew that wasn’t the right thing to do. It wouldn’t fix anything. She needed to be in control.

I needed her ~to decide to come to me and hear me out. I couldn’t expect to earn her trust back by using my powers to force her to listen to me.~

But staying away from her was killing me. Not holding her in my arms, relieving her pain, taking care of her mark, telling her how much I loved her—I wasn’t sure how much more I could take.

I couldn’t get the way she had looked at me when I had found her out of my head.

There was so much fear, so much pain in those gorgeous blue eyes. I never wanted her to look at me like that.

And then the panic attack started…

I knew she saw my red eyes that I was unable to hide when I first came crashing into the diner. I couldn’t keep my vampire back, no matter how hard I’d tried.

He wanted to see our mate and fought to the front of my consciousness to do so.

Thankfully though, Belle didn’t ask about my change in appearance or red eyes, and I was able to hide them before she saw them again.

Maybe she thought she imagined them, although that was probably just wishful thinking on my part.

The moment Belle started panicking, I ordered everybody out of the diner, using the power of the Mortars, telling them not to return until I had left the diner.

It didn’t cause them any harm; in fact, they wouldn’t remember a thing.

The only person I hadn’t ordered out of my way immediately was the vampire boy.

Liam Blackwood.

I knew who he was right away. The son of Jeffery Blackwood and a powerful vampire in his own right.

He knew who I was too. I saw the recognition in his eyes when he stepped in front of my panicking mate, trying to protect her from me.

To his credit, though, he didn’t seem nearly as afraid as I would have expected him to be.

It still took everything in me not to rip his heart out and shove it down his throat when he attempted to keep me from my Belle.

The only reason I didn’t do exactly that was because I could smell Belle’s scent all over him and his all over her. They were obviously friends.

Or used to be. I wasn’t allowing him anywhere near my girl ever again.

That’s why I told him to walk to Canada. Perhaps it was a strange order, but I needed him away from her, and it was the only thing I could think of.

He was a vampire, so he should have been less than a quarter of the way there by now.

Yes, I lied to her when she asked me if I had done something to him. But she would have liked the alternative far less.

He wouldn’t be back for days, giving me just enough time to earn Belle’s trust back and get her as far away from here as possible—without causing a scene by killing her friend in the meantime.

Murder probably wasn’t the best way to get her to talk to me again, although it was becoming increasingly difficult to convince my wolf and vampire sides of that fact.

I looked for Belle for months.  I thought of nothing else. How could I? She was my mate, and she was missing.

I had no idea where she was or if she was safe because she kept her damn mental barriers up the whole time.

It only took my former beta attempting to kill her for her to drop her walls and finally let me in for me to figure out where she was. And now…

Now she was standing right in front of me, and I had to force myself to stay away from her.

She was in pain. She was moving slower, and she looked exhausted, with huge bags under her eyes. I could tell she wasn’t sleeping. Was she not eating either?

I watched as she took an order from two women at a booth across the diner, my fists clenching beneath the table when I noticed for the hundredth time that she had lost a considerable amount of weight.

She was still as gorgeous as ever, without a doubt, but was no longer healthy. My wolf was buzzing in my chest, fuming over the fact that our mate wasn’t well taken care of.

Male werewolves took great pride in providing for their females, and I was completely failing mine. It was killing me.

The little outfit she was wearing didn’t help hide all the weight she had lost either.

It also didn’t help stoke the fire building within me.

The short skirt stopped right beneath her ass, and the top she was wearing wrapped around her breasts like a second skin.

The white apron she had on helped to accentuate her already generous-looking curves, matching the black heels on her feet, which elongated her legs. God, she was beautiful.

But, unfortunately, I wasn’t the only person who noticed her beauty. Every time I caught another man’s eyes lingering on her a little too long, uncontrollable fury consumed me.

I couldn’t even stop myself from growling at them, flashing my fangs and red eyes, barely satisfied when they scampered away in fear. They were lucky I didn’t kill them on the spot.

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