MATE AND HIS LOVER 11

6. You Don't Want Her

It's not a nice thing to think about a guy glaring down at you is sexy. But Helena can't help it. Especially when he's shirtless.

Ethan's body is sweating from the heat of his anger. It's only a matter of time they begin to steam. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Thanks to a chain of dense forests they were able to hide from six flying harbingers of death who returned to the Cauldron after the failed hunt.

Now everyone is safely back at the motel. Helena, Ethan, their friends, the keeper Lyla, and Chocky are at the restaurant in the middle of the night. The rest of the guests are sound asleep in their rooms.

Bess wants to help defend her friend. "She wa—"

"Leave us alone," Ethan commands, not taking his eyes off of Helena who has lowered her gaze. "Everyone," he says.

Perhaps it's his tone. Or the look on his face. Or maybe it's because he's an Alpha's son. The others couldn't defy his order. They leave.

Once it's just him and her, Ethan takes a few steps closer to her. "I thought you were just a shameless liar, but now I see you are a hopeless fool, too. You couldn't even do a survey without getting anyone killed."

"No one died," she mumbles.

That only riles him up more. "Yeah? What the hell you think was happening when I came between you and the dragon? Was it showing you its teeth out of hospitality?"

"I didn't ask for your help," she mumbles again.

The already very thin thread snaps. He grabs her arm. She looks up at him startled.

Ethan angrily takes her towards the entrance. Too upset to suspect the tingles and goosebumps behind his abs at the feeling of her soft skin.

"What are you doing?" Helena says, trying to free her arm.

"Letting the hospitality continue. Sorry for interrupting before."

"No!" She says, putting all her weight on her heels to go against him. No force on earth can take her back to the Cauldron. But Ethan's arm is doing a pretty good job of it. "Please! I'm sorry! I don't want to die!"

He stops and lets her go. Her cowardly pleading annoys him even more. "What? You said you didn't ask for my help. Weren't you handling it fine before I interfered. I'll let you get back to it," he says and reaches for her arm again.

"No, please, please. It would've killed me if it weren't for you!"

"Then why were you talking like that to me," he demands.

"Because you are the reason I was there in the first place!" She crossly says while her eyes begin to glisten. "Isn't that what you wanted? Then why did you help me? And why would I be the fool for doing something you made me do?"

"Wow, aren't you cheeky now? I made you go? Like someone made you lie that day?"

The tears that were beginning to form in her eyes abruptly stop. He had brought that up. Her instant response is looking down.

He is quick, too. Holds her chin and pulls up her face, forcing her to meet his eyes.

Her guilt ridden gaze pierces his chest.

He didn't expect that.

She's not even hurt. Only rattled a little at having seen a dragon up close. That's nothing compared to everything he had been through because of her lie.

So why should he feel guilty about this?

"You think I'm going to let you off the hook that easily? I'm just getting started. I don't care how much you whine or cry, like no one cared what I said that day. You got away with your lies behind that innocent looking face. I won't fall that," he says before walking away.

Helena narrows her eyes at the challenge. No matter how much she tries to be nice and redeem her past, her mate makes it impossible for her to do so.

And he does that while being incredibly handsome, as she had noted when his face was closer to hers a moment before.

———

Thanks to her blunder, Ethan at least now knows the locations of all the dragons as he saw them rise up to the sky at one of their's cry for help last night.

Over phone he updates his father on his next move. "I can't work with them," he adds at the end, referring to Helena and her friends.

"Ethan, only a few more days left. You can't give up now."

"We don't need her to capture the dragons. She's only in the way."

"Her?"

"The witches," Ethan corrects, "they are useless."

"But you asked for this one," Robert says to his son. Ethan's condition for accepting this task was that he got to choose which of the student wizards or witches he will work with. He picked one out all the final years' files the principal sent. And the principal sent two more students later to be of help.

Ethan rubs the back of his head. "I know! But she's... useless."

"Then we'll get someone else. I'll ask she's to be replaced immediately—"

"No!" Ethan says, surprising himself.

"No? Didn't you say you don't want her?"

"I— uh, Yeah, I don't want her. I don't want anyone. My friends and I are enough for the job."

Robert sighs. "Ethan, not this again. I told you already, you need to work with members of a coven on this. It's important. I know you can get the job done on your own. But that's not why I sent you there. If you don't like the trainees they sent, I can have them replaced. But one way or another, you are going to let the coven assist you."

Ethan grunts out of frustration.

"I'll call their princi—"

"No, I'm good."

"You are good? You don't want someone else in place of her?"

He doesn't. It can't be anyone else but her. "No. She can stay. I'll work with her and her friends."

"Good," Robert says, "that's what I'm talking about. Go easy on them a little though."

Ethan smiles and shakes his head.

After the call, he thinks about what his father said. He doesn't have much choice but to do this with the witches. Might as well it be with her. At least he can get back at her a little.

But it's hard to do that if on first day itself she walks into a deathtrap. He doesn't want her life. He only wants to make her life miserable while she's here.

Maybe he went overboard a little. Maybe he should've eased into his revenge. He didn't know before how much of an idiot she was. Now he does. He'll have to adjust his tactics. That's all.

Ethan goes down to the restaurant, hoping to see her. He can maybe— apologize to her and bring up her spirits a little before she's ready for his hostility.

That thought, however, disappears as soon as he sees her.

Her hearty laugh echoes in the hall as she narrates the story of the dragons and her great escape.

His fists clench. Last night she acted like she was afraid and distressed because of what happened at the Cauldron, and now she's finding it funny?

Scratch off apologizing to her. Or even the thought of sending her back home again. By her hysterical laughs, she seems she can take a few dragons that he throws at her. And maybe more.

He turns around and heads back up to his room with an unwitting smile.