Novels by Cynthia Robert

Delilah's POVI'm sorry. I love you. I can't stop this.Then Thalia touched his arm and he looked away, and I was alone.I don't remember leaving the balcony.One second I was sitting in that chair watching Thalia touch Mateo's arm and the next I was in a corridor somewhere with my heels clicking against stone and my lungs refusing to open. I must have stood up and walked out but the memory of doing it was gone, buried under a buzzing in my skull that drowned out everything except my own heartbeat.My legs carried me past doors and windows and wolves who didn't look twice at me because I was nobody. Just the Beta's unranked step-daughter stumbling through a hallway at a party she wasn't supposed to be at.The nausea hit me without warning. One second I was walking and the next my stomach heaved so violently that I barely made it to a corner before I doubled over and vomited. My hands braced against the stone wall while bile and the dinner I'd barely eaten burned up my throat. I gagged

Delilah's POV My hands went numb first because I was gripping the edge of my seat so hard that my fingers lost all feeling while the applause thundered through the hall below, but I couldn't let go. If I let go I was going to fall apart right here on this balcony in front of wolves who would look at me and see nothing but an unranked girl having a breakdown at a ceremony she wasn't even supposed to be at.On the stage, Celeste Thorne rested her hand on Dante's arm and he didn't pull away or flinch or do anything except stand there with that dead expression on his face while a beautiful blonde woman touched him like she had every right to, and my stomach lurched so hard I tasted bile at the back of my throat.Arranged mating. The words kept hitting me and bouncing off because they didn't make sense. Dante was mine. Dante loved me. Dante had packed a bag and hidden it in our shed and mapped a route through three territories and whispered four months and then forever against my skin whi

Delilah's POV "Just us."He led me up the stairwell and he was right about everything. Nobody checked us, nobody cared. The balcony wrapped around the upper level and from our seats in the back corner we had a perfect view of the entire hall below.Hundreds of wolves in formal attire filled the floor, grouped by pack with their Alpha families at long tables near the front. I spotted Alpha Corbin at the head of the Nightshade table with Luna Catherine beside him, both commanding and regal in a way that made every other table look small. Dad sat next to Alpha Corbin with Mom beside him, and she kept touching the necklace at her throat and looking around with wide eyes, still taking it all in.Dante sat next to his father in a charcoal suit that fit him like it was made for his body, and even from up here I could see the breadth of his shoulders and the strength in how he carried himself.My men. Down there in their suits, playing their roles, being the perfect sons for a few more days.

Delilah's POV He lined himself up and pushed in slowly, stretching me around his thick cock inch by inch until he was buried to the hilt and we both gasped at the fullness. He pressed his forehead against mine and stayed there with his cock throbbing inside me while my pussy clenched and adjusted around every inch of him."Nothing is going to stop us," he said with his eyes locked on mine. "We get through this Summit and then we disappear. You, me, and Dante. Forever.""Forever," I echoed, and he started moving.He fucked me slow and deep with long strokes that dragged his cock along every sensitive spot inside me until I was trembling beneath him. His hand gripped my hip and tilted me at an angle that made him hit deeper and I moaned against his shoulder while my nails raked down his back hard enough to leave welts.The bed creaked beneath us and we both froze, listening for footsteps in the hallway. Nothing came, so he picked up the pace again, and the urgency of knowing anyone cou

Delilah's POVIt was finally three days to the day we were supposed to disappear.I was standing at my bedroom window counting them on my fingers like I had every morning for the past week when Mom knocked on my door and poked her head in with that worried crease between her eyebrows."Sweetie, come downstairs. Your father wants to talk to all of us before breakfast."My stomach tightened. "About what?""I'm not sure. He's got that serious face on." She tried to smile but it didn't quite land. "Come on, don't keep him waiting."I followed her downstairs and found Dad already seated at the head of the table with his jaw set and his shoulders squared, wearing the expression he wore when every word out of his mouth was going to be an order disguised as a conversation. Dante and Mateo were already in their seats. Dad picked up his coffee, waited for Mom and me to sit, and spoke."The Annual Alpha Summit is next week. We've been invited as honored guests this year." He took a sip like he h

Delilah's POVWhen I woke again, sunlight was actually streaming through my window this time and I tensed, waiting for the nightmare to continue.But warm arms tightened around me and Mateo's voice murmured in my ear, "You're awake. You're safe. We're still here."I turned to find both of them watching me with concerned eyes and my whole body relaxed."How are you feeling?" Dante asked as he brushed hair back from my face."Okay," I whispered. "Better. The nightmare was just so real.""I know, baby," Mateo said as he pressed a kiss to my shoulder. "But it wasn't. We're right here and we're not going anywhere."We lay there for a while longer with their hands on my skin, but eventually the sun rose higher and they had to leave before my parents woke up."We hate leaving you," Dante said as he pulled his shirt on."I know," I said. "But you have to."Mateo kissed me one more time. "We'll see you later. I promise."They climbed out my window and I watched them disappear into the trees be

Seraphina's POVThen the next morning Ezra came back from a long patrol and nodded at me in the hallway the way he always did, tired and distant, and the urge to grab his arm and tell him everything just to stop the poison eating through me was so strong I had to bite the inside of my cheek until it bled. He was a good man. He didn't deserve what I was doing behind his back, even if our marriage had been empty from the start.I told myself I would end it. I would go to the chamber one last time and tell Dax it was over. I would burn the notes and close the passages and learn to live with the hollow ache of giving him up.Then I found a note tucked behind the loose stone in the garden path. Three words in that sharp handwriting. "I need you."And every promise I'd made to myself crumbled like wet paper. I went back that night, and the night after, and the night after that, hating myself and wanting him in equal measure.One night he barely got the panel closed before he grabbed my hi

Seraphina's POVThat night set the pattern, but the pattern didn't come all at once.The first note I left him was clumsy. I tucked it behind the red book with the gold spine on the third shelf, the one nobody ever pulled because it was a tax ledger from forty years ago, and I spent the entire next day convinced someone would find it before he did.I couldn't eat or focus on the linens I was folding or the silver I was polishing because my brain kept circling back to that piece of paper sitting in a wall crack with my handwriting on it, proof of what I was doing with my sister's husband written in ink that anyone could read.He found it that evening. I knew because at dinner he rested his hand on the back of his chair when I walked behind him to refill the wine, and his fingers tapped twice against the wood. Just two taps, but my whole body flushed so hot I nearly dropped the pitcher, and I had to set it down on the sideboard and press my palms flat against the cool wood until my hand

Seraphina's POV We met in the chamber twice that first week and three times the next, and each time it got harder to leave. He'd hold me after until the candles burned low and I'd have to pull myself out of his arms and get dressed in the dark while he watched me from the bed, his eyes tracking every piece of clothing that went back on like he was already planning how he'd take it off again.Walking back through the passage alone was the worst part. The cold air hit my skin and he was still everywhere on me, the bruises on my hips from his hands, the ache between my legs from how hard he'd been, the rawness on my neck where he'd sucked the skin until it marked.I'd get back to my room and climb into the bed I shared with no one, and the sheets would be cold and they'd smell like nothing and the emptiness of it would hit me so hard I'd curl onto my side and press my face into the pillow just to muffle the sound of my own breathing.Then I'd do it again the next night, and the next, a

Seraphina's POV"What's wrong? Did I hurt—""Lie down." I shoved him harder and he let me flip him onto his back, his cock sliding out of me and slapping wet against his stomach. I climbed on top of him and straddled his hips, and the look on his face when he realized what I was doing made the heat between my legs pulse so hard I almost came from that alone."Sera—""Shut up." I reached between us and gripped his cock, slick with my arousal, and lined him up. Then I sank down onto him in one slow drop that had his head falling back against the pillow and his hands grabbing my hips so hard I knew I'd have bruises shaped like his fingers.The angle was different from on top, deeper, pressing against my front wall so that when I rocked my hips forward his cock dragged right across the spot that made my vision blur."You feel that?" I planted my hands on his chest and rolled my hips again, slow and deliberate, grinding my clit against his pelvis while he throbbed inside me. "That's what y

Seraphina's POVThe rest of that day crawled. I served meals and folded linens and smiled at people who didn't see me, and the whole time that note sat folded in my pocket like a coal burning through the fabric. Every hour that passed between me and the library felt like a year.Dinner was the worst part.Octavia sat at the head table with Dax, her hand on his arm, laughing at one of the advisors while I refilled wine glasses and tried not to look at him. He sat perfectly still with his face like carved stone, and the only sign he was aware I existed was the way his hand moved to rest on the back of his chair when I walked behind him.After dinner I waited until the corridors emptied out, then walked to the east library the way I always did in the evenings, keeping my pace slow and unhurried like I was just a girl who liked to read.The third shelf was near the back wall, half-hidden behind a reading chair that nobody ever sat in. I found the red book with the gold spine and pulled it

Seraphina's POV "Breathe." Dax caught my arm and turned me toward him, his eyes steady even though I could see the tension running through his shoulders. "Ezra left before Octavia to check on the southern border patrol. He won't be back until this afternoon.""You don't know that for sure.""I know my Beta's routine." He finished lacing his shirt and moved to the chamber door, pressing his ear against the wood. "The passage leads out behind the kitchens. The morning shift won't have started yet if we move now.""If we're lucky." My voice cracked on the last word.He turned back and crossed the distance between us in two strides, his hand coming up to cup my jaw."I will get you back to your room. No one will see you. Do you trust me?"I opened my mouth to say yes and the word wouldn't come out.Because I'd trusted people before. I'd trusted my parents to protect me and they'd poured boiling soup down my back. I'd trusted that the world would be fair to me and it had given me a dorman