Chapter three

Wilder

"All done, boss."

"She get moved in okay?"

"You sure you don't want to go say hello?" Ryan smirks, because he knows my views on this.

I shake my head. "There's no need for that. I'm not even sure she knows I work here, and we know nothing about each other."

"You know how to change that, right? You talk to the woman. She is your mate, you know."

I give him the side eye. "She doesn't know that."

"You telling me you think she's stupid? That she didn't figure that bit out by herself?"

I've considered this, but I still don't know how to handle it. "That's not why I bit her."

Ryan looks like he has so much more to say. "So you're just going to have us all deliver various forms of chicken to her, and not explain why? Don't you think she'll find that confusing?"

"As you've said, she's not stupid. She'll figure out you guys are lion shifters and that you're bringing her dead birds. It's flattery. A gift. Everyone knows happy cats bring their humans dead birds."

"Yeah, I don't think she's gonna see it that way, bro. It's weird."

"It's traditional," I correct.

"You know what women like? Time. Women like when you give up time to them. And effort. Sending your minions with chicken nuggets isn't exactly the same thing."

"I'm not trying to woo the woman."

"Aren't you? I don't even like women, but I have to admit—" he pauses and lets out a whistle. "That woman is something else."

"Which is exactly why I can't do anything about our bond."

Now he"s staring at me like he thinks I"m stupid. "Because she's beautiful and tempting? You're mated."

We've had this discussion so many times and it's exasperating. "Mating implies there was consent. So no, we're not mated. I marked her so that my dad couldn't, and that's it."

"You're going to have to talk to her eventually."

"And I will. As her teacher. That's all she needs from me." I pause one last time in front of the mirror before heading down to the back-to-school event, hating that my presence there is mandatory.

This is an event mainly for conduits to mix with students; I don't know why they want staff there. These students are all adults, it"s not like they actually need supervision.

But I do want to get eyes on my mate, whether I actually claim her as such or not. My auxiliary reporting to me that she is well is not the same as seeing it with my own eyes. This event will give me that excuse, while giving me the option to keep my distance, which I desperately need to do.

I would have loved to have been there to see the look on Delaney's face when Ryan knocked on her door and handed her a box of chicken nuggets, but I absolutely cannot make this personal.

I'm getting to the event late enough that it's already in full swing. The school's back lawn is lit up with a bunch of white lights that soften the space up and make it feel just a little bit romantic. Which is what a bunch of college co-eds need—a romantic setting in the dark.

It doesn"t take me too long to find Delaney, even though she's trying to blend in. The thing she might not have discovered yet is that blending in isn"t possible when you"re Delaney Duncan.

I heard students gossiping about the princess attending here when there was an article written up about it, and I wish people"s opinions of her weren"t so skewed by the media. She"s not a character or an icon to be dissected, she"s just a young woman trying to figure out her path.

"You just going to watch her brush people off all night?" Ryan asks.

"Don't you have somewhere else to be? Wouldn't want your man to get too lonely."

He barks out a laugh. "Good one. We both know I'd kill anybody who tried to touch him. Nice deflection though. What's up with the self-inflicted torture?" Is it that obvious I'm watching her?

"I shouldn't want her. She's way too young for me, and it's not like she's going to forgive me for biting her against her will anyway. She thought she was going to walk away and I… I'm sure she hates me. And she has good reason to."

He nods, offering no further commentary. "What's up with her security guards? They look at her like she's something to snack on later when they get hungry."

All this time I've been so focused on her that I hadn't really noticed them. She's not looking at them in any certain way, but there's definitely tension. She's subconsciously angling her body toward them, catching herself, and straightening out every few minutes. Like she wants to turn to them but is being stubborn about it. "I don't know. To find the answer to that means I'd have to talk to her, remember?"

He stands with me for just a moment, content to watch Delaney because she's fascinating. Then he slaps me on the back and saunters off. I let him walk off without complaint, because I assume he's just going to find his date. Which he does, but then he and Mark both go talk to Delaney together.

What is his game?

I take a few steps closer, trying to hide behind whatever I can, more intent on somebody else's conversation than I've ever been before. Delaney's eyes are slipping back and forth between Ryan and Mark, a slight line of confusion on her brow, but then she gives them a wicked smirk and starts running her hands up their biceps.

What the hell? How come she gets all flirty, flipping her hair over her shoulder, leaning into them, giggling? A giggle should not cause me to get hard. Especially not one from across a busy garden at a work function. It's just not done. My cock is a fucking traitor. Didn't he get the memo we can't have her?

The only good thing about this situation is that I'm not the only one being bothered by it. Those two meathead security guards look mighty agitated at the attention my auxiliary and his mate are giving her. None of them seem to know that Ryan and Mark are in a closed relationship with each other, but it doesn't appear that Ryan and Mark have remembered that either, because they're flirting right back with Delaney.

Mark wraps an arm around Delaney's waist as Ryan tucks her hair behind her ear, leaning in as if he's going to smell her, but the result is actually much worse. His lips brush her cheek, her cheeks blush, and she palms the side of each of their faces and pulls them in.

I hadn't realized I'd gotten so close to the lot of them, but somehow I'm able to intercept the never-gonna-happen kiss before it gets any closer to completion. I shove the two shifters that are supposed to be under my watch aside and face the woman I've claimed, heart pounding in my chest and fury rising in me that she'd dare to touch or look at another lion.

I sit there breathing heavily, much like Tarzan after swinging through the jungle, feeling stupid when Ryan and Mark start cracking up behind me.

She knew I was watching. "You knew I was watching," I say out loud. I know, the redundancy is dramatic, is it not?

"Oh I'm sorry have we met?" she asks with sass.

"You—" I start, trying to control myself. I try to take a few steps back, I really do, but somehow I end up getting closer to her. Weird. "You don't touch them."

She looks around me to give Ryan and Mark attention. and I fucking growl at her. What the hell is going on?

Her eyes widen. "You're not serious right now. I will look at whoever the hell I want to look at."

I"m so close to just cussing her out and throwing her over my shoulder and dragging her away from all these people, but I remember myself. I'm a member of the staff. A distinguished member, I might add. Here I am sitting in a semi dark corner with a student, making a complete ass of myself.

I straighten my shoulders and pluck some invisible lint off my shirt. "Fine."

She smirks at me, realizing she's gotten under my skin and it's so damn hard to not retaliate, but I made my bed, and now I have to lie in it. This wasn't supposed to be a real mating, I just didn't want my dad to have her. That's what I need to remember.

"Good evening, Miss Duncan," I say, trying to walk off.

"Professor Wilder?" she calls out sweetly. "I think you forgot something."

My feet stop at her command, and I turn to look at her; right as a big bowl of red punch leaps out of her hands, upturns itself, and washes over me completely. It saturates my clothes instantly, pours down my shirt, flattens my hair, and makes me sputter at the cold, sugary stickiness of it.

I feel her breath as she grabs my now very wet lapel so she can pull me close and whisper in my ear. "If you think I'm going to make this easy on you, you're wrong. I know what that bite meant. You just opened yourself a whole can of worms, so you better be ready." She licks a stripe up my neck before sauntering off, leaving the party because you don't stick around after a mic drop like that.

I watch her ass and her hips sway as she leaves, disappearing into the night and into the steps of her dorm, leaving me trying to figure out where exactly I went wrong. But I know the answer. It was the second I decided to mate her against her will, without even getting to know her. I figured the research I had done was enough to satisfy me that we could get along should we need to, but maybe I was wrong.