An Inconvenient Mate Read Online Free PDF Page B

fought separately over the past few years and performed with the same stone cold precision as they did together. Anything was possible, but Malachi didn’t consider this one probable.
    “Five forty-two,” Rule growled. “She’s just across the fucking hall from you. Now, will you at least consider my request that you wait twenty-four hours? Mating heat and negotiations with your mate’s uncle doesn’t go hand in hand, Malachi.”
    “The candle room.” Ashley’s tone echoed with interest now as she sat up in her chair, ignoring the rest of Rule’s statement.
    “Damn,” Stygian growled. “I don’t know what scent she was using when we came up the hall, but it was so damned sexy I think even I was aroused.”
    “The one she used later was just as good. I don’t know where she got those candles, but the coya would seriously love the person who made them. They smelled like heaven last night. I swear, the scent of lavender had me sleeping like a baby,” Ashley sighed.
    And that was nothing less than the truth. The scent of those candles had taken out the stale, acrid scent of too many strangers tracking after one another in the hotel. It was a hotel scent, one all hotels carried and all Breeds found unpleasant. But the candles’ scent later in the night had been relaxing, a soothing blend that had eased Malachi as well, just as the earlier one had been so evocative of sex and seduction that it had intensified his arousal. He should have known the scent was coming from his mate’s room. He should have realized she hadn’t run far.
    “Hey Mal-baby, make sure you find out where she got them,” Ashley pleaded prettily. “So I can get some for the coya.”
    Ashley’s coya, who was Malachi’s as well, was the much loved, in some cases revered, female alpha of the Coyote packs.
    “We need all our senses alert for this meeting.” Rule sighed, casting Malachi another hard glare. “Lawe will be arriving within days, and when he does, our mission here will begin in earnest. Mating her now will only endanger her.”
    Malachi felt something shift inside him. A dark edge of primal denial raising its head with a shift in the calm he normally kept himself centered with.
    “She’s already in danger.” He knew it. Had sensed it. But it had only been after her friend had whispered something to her and her gaze suddenly raked the room with a flash of terror in the cobalt blue depths.
    “You don’t know that, Malachi.” Despite his denial, Rule tensed further, his tone becoming darker.
    “Something frightened her, sent a particular scent of fear rising from her,” Malachi stated as he straightened from the wall he had been leaning against, angry tension making him restless. “A fear I’ve only scented after our women were raped in the labs.”
    The three Breeds he faced came to instant attention then.
    A low growl rumbled in Stygian’s throat. Ashley’s gray eyes narrowed, her hand dropping to the knife sheathed to her thigh as she rose slowly to her feet, but it was Rule’s reaction that, despite the genetic tie to Isabelle, still surprised him.
    His lips flattened, nostrils flaring as he flexed his fingers against the arms of the fine leather chair he sat in. Rage flashed in his ice blue eyes, burning like a cold flame before Rule managed to quickly bank the emotion.
    The battle for control was short, but obviously difficult. Turning his head slowly, the commander flashed Ashley a look as the corner of his lip lifted, flashing a wicked sharp canine as a rumbled snarl vibrated in his chest.
    “I have the room two doors down from her,” Ashley stated, her gaze savage as she gave Rule a sharp nod. “Emma is two doors the other way. Trust me, no one will harm her while she’s in her room.”
    Malachi and Stygian were both across from her.
    And Rule expected him to stay away from her?
    His mate?
    His mate who carried the scent of fear and of a woman’s soul scarred in one of the worst ways possible?
    Did he