The Wayward Mate

Chapter Fourteen.

“Why? You have guards.” I stated, knowing that Nightingale was going to kill me when he found his mate.  

She sighed and looked down at the bedspread. “I’m sick of feeling helpless, like I need others to protect me.”

The look in her eyes told me that someone had hurt her badly, that she’d been abused. I fully understood why she wanted to learn self-defence but unlike when I train the enforcers, this would be one on one and I would need to know exactly what happened to make her feel the need to protect herself. If I decided to help her that is. “Tell me what happened and I will teach you.”

A tear slid down her face as Riley nodded and bowed her head. “How much do you want to know?” She muttered.

“Let me in your mind and you won’t have to tell me.” I whispered, waiting for her to comply.

Nodding I felt a rush of emotions, memories, pictures.

“So movie marathon?” I asked Matt and Jesse who were lying on either side of me on the spongy green grass of the school oval, looking up at the clouds, it was a beautiful day and I had on a pair of jeans and a long sleeved, tight white shirt. We were discussing what we were going to do tonight.

“Well some of the boys on the team were coming over to play Black Ops, eat and watch a few horrors.” Jesse chuckled, knowing full well that I would be there, probably acting like one of the boys- I was pretty pro at Black Ops and I could match them in an eating contest but never win- they’re teenage boys, like I’m going to beat them in an eating contest.

You’d think that I’d be fat if you saw the amount that I ate and you’d have a conniption if you had to pay the food bill on one of our sleep overs. But I love running which keeps it off and my metabolism is good to me.

“Fine, but the movies can’t be horror- can we watch Beastly?” I asked hopefully, getting groans in return.

“We’ve seen it like five hundred times and although you may not be sick of seeing a shirtless Alex Pettyfer, we all are. Anyway with seven football players like us to protect you and scare away the monsters you’ll be fine.” He looked over at me and winked.

“You wish.” I scoffed, rolling my eyes. After a few seconds of silence we all cracked up laughing.

“You’re going to get it now!” Matt jumped up and grabbed me, Jesse, Archer and James- all from the football team and friends of theirs and mine following suit.

“Don’t you even dare!” I screamed as they all descended on me, fingers wriggling over my body, tickling me till tears were running down my face.

“Uncle!” I screamed.

They all laughed and fell back onto the grass with me, apart from Matt who pinned me down, still tickling me.

“M-matt s-stop!” I yelled at him.

“Not until you say ‘Matt is the hottest stud muffin in the whole wold’.” He grinned evilly at me, still relentless in his torturous tickling.

“B-but why would I lie to you?” I asked innocently as he stopped tickling me so I could hear me.

“Wrong thing to say!” He yelled.

“Fine! Matt is the hottest stud muffin in the whole wide world!” I screamed, much to the amusement of Jesse, Archer, James and all the guys who were playing football and who had stopped to watch my torture.