Rejection (The Mate Games 2)

The door opened, and Derek stood there, a sly grin on his face. “Well, hello gorgeous.” His smile twisted into a frown as he slid his gaze to Alek. “Thor.”

Alek crossed his arms over his chest and rolled his eyes. “There’s not a stick large enough in this realm for me to be mistaken for my brother.”

For a second, I wondered how literal the whole Loki/Thor thing was, but then my brain got caught trying to figure out why Thor would need a stick.

“A stick? You mean like his hammer? Is that a euphemism?”

“He wishes. No, a stick to shove up his arse, Sunny.”

“Ohhhh. Gotcha. That makes way more sense.” Realizing I’d gotten off topic, I turned back to Derek.

“No cupcakes this time?”

“Nope. I’m not the one that needs to apologize.”

Regret flashed in his eyes. “Yeah... I guess I do owe you one.”

“What? You?”

Alek stepped forward, his entire countenance changing as he went from quiet amusement to simmering fury. “Explain yourself.”

Derek’s eyes widened as they shifted between the Novasgardian and me, his words coming out in a rush. “You know... for the whole sniffing around your door trying to mount you and everything.”

A low rumble left Alek’s chest, causing Derek to speak faster.

“Not that I touched you or anything. But it was super not cool of me. I’ve just never been exposed to an unmated female in heat. It was... wild.”

“Honestly, I wasn’t even aware of anything that was happening until Kingston got to me. So, apology accepted, I guess?”

“Can you... uh... call off your Viking?”

“No,” Alek answered for me.

I faced him, placing a palm on his chest. “It’s fine. He was just acting on instinct. Nothing happened.”

“You’re damn right. If it had, he’d be dead, or at the very least, dickless.”

Derek blanched, looking far less happy to see me than he had when he opened the door. “So, uh, where is Kingston?”

“What do you mean? He’s here. Alek tracked his phone.”

Shaking his head, Derek left the doorway only to return a moment later with a sleek silver phone. “This fucking thing has been ringing non-stop for the last two days.” As he said it, the cell started to go off again, the hauntingly beautiful ringtone catching me by surprise. “See what I mean?”

“Is that classical music?”

“Yeah, that froo-froo piano shit he’s always playing. Here, you might as well take it.”

I accepted it with a confused frown. “You want me to take his phone?”

“You’re his mate. It’s basically yours by default, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think that’s how this works...”

The phone stopped ringing, the call rolling to voicemail, but a text came through mere seconds later.

D: Kingston, you’d better call me unless you want me to get on the phone with your daddy.

Alek snorted. “Pup got himself in trouble.”