Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 65871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 329(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 329(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
When a billionaire Russian mafia boss promised my mother he'd look out for me, he didn't just chase me down despite my best efforts to run. He bared my ass and spanked me until I was in no doubt that he expects to be obeyed.
Then he made sure I knew he could see how soaking wet I was for him.
But as he finally yanks my panties aside to mount and rut me brutally right here on his private jet, I know it's not just because he's lost control. It's because he's an alpha shifter.
And I'm his mate.
Publisher's Claimed is the second book in the Bound Mates series but can be read as a standalone. It includes spankings and rough, intense sexual scenes. If such material offends you, please don't buy this book
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
CHAPTER 1
Alexei
“I’m dying, Alexei.”
There are some battles even the strongest of us are destined to lose. My best friend is calling to say goodbye. An ocean separates us, and thousands of miles besides, but I feel her presence as keenly as if she were right here with me. Her voice brings with it more than sound. It brings back the scent of youth, of freedom, of good times spent with a good friend.
Lilly has always been the strongest woman I know. She still is, but the sickness has sapped her strength. It will take all of her soon. She is fading in spite of all the fight that has always been in her.
“I can send money for treatments,” I say.
“There are no more treatments. The doctors have done everything they could. It’s over for me, Alexei. I’m not worried about myself anymore. It’s Anya I worry for.”
“Why? Is she not by your side?”
Lilly coughs, and gasps for breath. It takes painfully long moments for her to respond.
“I did not tell her I was sick. I wanted her to live. She needs to go to college. She needs to live the life I could not. But I cannot… I don’t know where she is.”
“Don’t worry,” I tell her. “I’m going to fix this.”
She chuckles. “You can’t fix this, Alexei.”
The hell I can’t.
My plane is fueled within the hour. There are nine hours between us, an extra hour for driving because the plane can’t land close enough to the hospice where my oldest friend is languishing. Every minute feels like an hour as a sense of urgency descends on me and becomes more pressing with time. I should have checked in on Lilly more often, and sooner. I should have ensured she had access to proper medicine. I should have come to see her, instead of just sending letters and having phone calls.
On paper, she and I should not be friends. A man in my position has very few social ties with females. The only woman I should ever fraternize with is my mate—who has yet to materialize. Lilly is an exception to every rule I have.
She befriended me when I was but a boy, the oldest son of a tyrannical father who regularly beat me because he believed it would make me a better, stronger leader. She was a stray, taken in by my mother and put to work in the kitchens.
Our friendship was an unlikely alliance, a secret we had to keep because if we were caught speaking or playing, there would be hell to pay for both of us.
Lilly was always there for me without question. She hid me in potato sacks when my father’s rages would become too intense, and she would distract me with funny stories and sweet antics on the occasions I was too slow to avoid being caught.
I owe Lilly my life. If not my actual survival, I owe her my sanity and my character. She is the only reason I continued to believe in good things and good people. It has been far too long since I saw her. Over twenty years.
How did time pass that fast? We left childhood behind, our paths diverged. She married and moved to America, I continued in the family business. We lived the lives we were supposed to live—and now hers is ending.
I should have come to see her earlier, but life in Russia is harsh, and does not stop for sickness or friends. It demands the worst of me.
The hospice is a white-washed, low-slung building with flowers on the outside. A weather-worn sign declares the name: St. Michael’s Hospice. The path to the door is cracked in places, and the door itself is covered in cobwebs in the corners. It is not dilapidated so much as it is unkempt. I am glad that it is oriented toward the sun. Several sliding doors face a garden with an overgrown lawn where butterflies dance across weedy flowers. They are happy with their lot, and for a very brief moment, as the warmth of the sun bathes the back of my neck, so am I. It is the happiness that can only be sensed in the midst of deep sadness, that very peculiar feeling that surges forth in the middle of despair.
I enter Lilly’s room with a fistful of her namesake flowers. The sliding door is open into the garden, and a bumblebee floats in through the door, crawls onto my flowers for a brief moment, then goes on its way. There is plenty of time for the little creature to work because my oldest friend appears to be fast asleep in bed. She was a larger-than-life creature once, but now her silhouette is frail beneath blankets that conform too well to the shape of her perishing form. The smell of the lilies and the fresh air in the room are not quite enough to mask the scent of a dying person.