Dear Enemy, You're My Mate

Chapter 59 **

Patricia

"Have you ever been so scared of the world that the only way to survive is to roar and pretend you're a tiger when, in reality, you're a fraud, a kitten hiding behind a wall?"

Dior takes my hand as we stare up at the ceiling. His head is propped up on his palm, and I'm curled to his side. The morning light is dancing in through a crack in the blinds, and part of me doesn't want to get up and save the world. Not when I'm this bubbly and excited about what the future might hold in store for us.

"You're not high, are you?"

I playfully slap his chest. "Hey!"

He chuckles. "Come on! It's too early for poetry, even for you! Like goddamn, what time is it? Eight in the morning, and you're already turning into the female version of Shakespeare?"

I'm cracking up but trying hard not to, and while I try to sound strict, my voice comes out all giggly instead. "Shut up, Lavigne!"

Dior breathes a laugh and pulls me to him. It's a miracle I slept at all next to him, considering my brain is already planning out ideas on how to seduce him for more sex.

Sighing, I place a hand on his chest and then hoist myself up over the guy with my legs resting on either side of him. Surprise lights his face, and then he smiles.

"Good morning to you too."

I smile back, studying the dimples on his face. I'm wearing Dior's oversized t-shirt, and my bare ass seems to have awakened the hot guy's morning appetite.

I bite my lower lip and brush a strand of hair away from my eye. "You don't think we completed the mate-bond too early, do you?"

"No," Dior whispers. "Sure, we haven't gone on any romantic dates together yet, but in the end, you know me better than anyone, and I would be a fool not to mark you when you were willing."

I giggle and jump out of bed. "Good answer!"

Dior sits up. "Where are you going?"

I pick up a pair of leggings and slink into them. My hair is a mess, but I don't need to express style and perfection for where we are headed. I put it up in a ponytail and face my mate.

"We are saving Alice," I inform him as I pick up the crystal orb from the table to give it a rub. "Finn, time to wake up!"

Dior immediately grabs some clothes from the floor with a rather stressed expression. His odd behavior picks my interest until Finn stands in the room with the biggest of grins.

"Patricia!"

The fairy approaches me with his arms outstretched, but a growling, very-jealous Dior stops him.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing?"

Finn lifts an eyebrow at Dior. "I always hug Patricia in the morning."

Dior widens his eyes, and his jaw slacks ever so faintly. "You do?" He clears his throat, and the mate-bond tells me he is both hurt and disappointed with me. He got the wrong idea. "What is the relationship between you two, anyway?"

My lips part. "We are friends."

Finn nods. "Yeah, I wouldn't steal Patricia from you," his lips curl into a big smile when he notices Dior's mark. "Oh, you guys finally completed the mating ritual, huh? Congratulations!"

Before Dior can react, we are both lifted from the ground by a happy and celebrating Finn. The fairy is a head taller than Dior, maybe more, and he is packed with more muscle, which I suspect must leave a sour chew in the alpha's mouth. Dior is used to being the biggest.

"I'm so proud of you!" Finn sounds like a teary-eyed mother. "You finally found each other!"

My feet are dangling above Finn's knees while Dior is squirming in the arms of the oblivious fairy. It's not after Finn has spun us around the room before he finally lets us go.

Dior steps to the side, eyes suspicious and comically wary of the friendly fairy as he speaks. "Thank you."

I beam up at Finn. "Now that I've found my mate, it might be time for you to find your second chance soulmate?"

Finn breathes a laugh and shakes his head. "No, for as long as I'm a prisoner in the crystal ball, I can't find a new mate, and it's not like I need one either way. Love isn't for me, Patricia."

"It's so sad to hear you say that since it sounds like you once regarded the mate-bond as sacred and a road to finding true love."

"Yeah," Finn agrees sadly. "I believed in it once, but that was a long time ago. We fairies live immortal lives, yet sadly, we don't forgive easily."

I touch Finn's arm to offer him support and give him a little pout while Dior silently observes us, probably entertaining the idea of throwing Finn out through the window.

"You will find someone," I promise Finn, praying I'm right. My friend is such a sweet man deserving of finding another mate. "And hopefully, they are smarter and way more beautiful than my mate."

Dior gasps and the I'm-fucking-insulted glare he gives me is utterly priceless. "Oh, now you've done it!"

I laugh and rush out through the door, aware of Dior chasing me down the staircase. He has way longer legs than me, but one can try to outrun him! I dart into the kitchen and scream and laugh like a maniac when I'm picked up from the floor.

"I got you now!" Dior announces. "You're all mine for the taking!"

I kick with my legs, but Dior hardly seems to notice. I'm in what I would like to call a hedgehog position, all rolled-up and helpless as Dior dances around with me.

"You smell so sweet," Dior nibbles at my neck, sucking in a sensitive spot that makes me cry out. "Oh, are you ticklish? How amusing."

"No, stop that! Put me down, please!" I'm laughing tears and barely breathing. I judge I've gone into shock. "Help me! Finn! Anyone! Dior is harassing me!"

Finn calmly walks down the stairs and then dries a fake tear away from his eye upon seeing us. "Ah, it's so lovely seeing young love so early in the morning!"

"No, it's not young love!" Dior is tickling my sides, and I swear I just peed a little—so fucking humiliating! Yet I can't stop laughing. "Finn, help me! Dior is trying to murder me!"

Finn ignores me by walking to the fridge, and Dior smirks at me, wiggling his eyebrows with a devilish glint in his eye. "Looks like your bodyguard has left your side, princess—whatever will you do?"

Panic hits me, and I flail in his arms, only for the bastard to lean in and rub his peppered chin against me. "You're so soft!"

"And you're prickly!"

"You think I need to shave?"

Dior leans back, and I tilt my head, smiling at him. "No, I like the caveman look you got going on."

I might have ruptured his last nerve. "Do you have a death wish?"

I shriek, and then I'm brought over to the couch, where Dior attacks me with a million kisses. In the back of my head, I realize the pack will be here in an hour to plan our battle strategy, but it's hard not to focus on your mate when you're in the honeymoon phase.

My eye finds Dior's blue. "Shouldn't we get ready for war?"

Dior sighs, nodding. "We should."

Finn is munching on a sandwich, mumbling his reply. "I'm all set, but to be honest, I'm not sure how to use the water element in battle. Kyra wasn't violent, and I'm not a master coming up with new techniques either."

I laugh evilly, already entertaining the idea of freezing Riley to death for murdering my parents. Violence is never the answer—Alice liked to preach that sentence, but I don't expect there to be another solution in Riley's case. If I let her live, she will find someone else's life to ruin.

"Oh, I have a couple of ideas we can try," I tell Finn with a smile covering my lips. I'm excited about merging. "What do you think of giant, flying ice shards in a tornado?"

"Using both the elements?" Finn asks in a voice that tells me he didn't regard that option before.

I shrug. "I don't see why not?"

"True," Finn laughs. "Ice tornado it is," he says and turns to observe Dior with a wicked grin. He seems curious about my mate. "And you—what's your magic trick?"

Dior winks and gives us a secretive smirk. "I got a few of them up in my sleeve—you will see. I promise not to make you disappointed. Tonight, darkness is our friend."