Nathaniel Frost, King of the Toronto pack, guides me smoothly from my fiancé’s side. It’s that easy for him to simply overwhelm me and render me helpless. It’s dizzying, almost exhilarating, definitely terrifying.
“I haven’t tangoed often,” I manage to warn him as he pulls me far too close.“It isn’t my strong suit, either,” he quips, though his feet prove he’s lying as they somehow manage to avoid my clumsy ones. “Don’t expect any dips or fancy footwork.”I snort; I can’t help myself. “With all due respect, Your Majesty, that’s about ninety percent of the tango.”“You’re wrong,” he informs me. “And while we’re dancing, call me Nathan.”My mouth drops open. I quickly compose myself and try to shock my brain into remembering what, exactly, my body should be doing. Step, step, step, close. Step, step, step, close. Maybe all those dance lessons Mother forced us to take really were a practical choice. If Vivianne Dixon ever imagined that her daughter would be tangoing with the Pack Leader…But this man isn’t truly our King. He’s a usurper. He’s an enemy, and our bodies touch from ankle to chest. His intense gray eyes lock on mine as one of his large palms splays across my lower back. This is nothing like dancing with Ashton. I don’t feel like Nathan is holding an imaginary version of me.“You’re the one who invoked the Right,” he whispers.I freeze, and he takes advantage of the moment to trap my foot with his own. To anyone watching, it’s a stylized pause in the dance.“What did you do in London?” he asks, moving one hand to my hip. I swear the heat from his palm burns through my dress. And yet, somehow, he still seems cold.“I worked.” The physical contact is unbearably distracting. Or maybe the conversation is distracting me from the physical contact and that’s what I really want to focus on. Either way, it’s interminable and I’m thankful that tangos aren’t long.“What kind of work?” He’s not out of breath. He’s not flushed and clammy. Somehow, only one of us is affected by the other’s proximity and it’s mortifying.“Just office work. For an architectural firm.” We move again, a cross-step that requires more concentration as I desperately try to recall those adolescent ballroom lessons. And I realize that’s the point; he’s picked this specific dance, which, despite his protesting, he’s much better at than I am. He’s trying to muddle my thoughts with his closeness.I’m being interrogated via “Por una Cabeza.”Pretending I don’t know his game, I add, “I wanted to truly embrace the reality of being human. Were I to choose that path.”“And you did it without any support from pack members abroad?” He sounds more impressed than incredulous.Is it a trick? Is he mocking me? I can only answer honestly. “I don’t know any pack members abroad.”“Ah. Well. Now you do.” His leg smoothly tangles with mine, and I have no choice but to lean into his body.“You’re not abroad. You’re right here.” I pull back but he leads me in a turn and stops my momentum suddenly.His face is so close I see flashes of blue against the gray of his eyes like a ring of icicles around his pupils, but his tone is molten heat. “Yes, I am.”My knees almost give out.The song finishes but he doesn’t release me for a long moment. I’m not sure how I want the interaction to end, but just the fact that it is ending is a relief and a disappointment all at once.No one has ever sent my emotions—and libido—spinning as out of control as he does with just a few words or a glance.“It’s been a true pleasure, Bailey,” he says finally.“Same, Nathan.”When a king tells one to call him by his first name, one should try it out at least once.He grins. I’ve caught him off guard. Composing himself, he tells me, “Should you visit London in the future, call the royal office. There may be…opportunities to discuss.”And he just walks away like we had a totally normal interaction. He walks away and leaves me standing alone, under the sudden scrutiny of the entire ballroom.The throne room is empty and cold, and I shiver in the darkness. It’s not the temperature causing me to tremble; he’s here with me, his hand on the nape of my neck. His grip is soft but strong, lightly possessive as he steers me toward the dais.The King wants me. And I pledged that I would do anything for him.The thin straps of my gown tear away like paper, leaving me bare before him. He’s standing in front of me now, his eyes flashing silver, collecting up every faint trace of light, every stray glimmer from the unlit candelabras on the walls and lines of illumination leaking under the doors.A predator’s eyes that can see in the dark and take in every bit of me.As he’ll take every bit of me.He doesn’t need to take. I’ll give all of myself, gladly. When he pulls me into his arms, I surrender control of my body over to him. His shirt is butter-soft, but it’s still too much against my aching, oversensitive breasts. I need more than a feathery brush of fabric. I want his fingers, his mouth, I want him to reach up and pinch my nipples while I ride his cock.“Please,” I whisper as his lips tease my jaw.“Grovel before your king,” he commands, and I fall to the floor with a cry as pain shocks through my knees. He offers me no comfort. “I said ‘grovel’.”He plants his shoe firmly on my shoulder and exerts steady pressure, until my burning skin meets the freezing marble. Then he strolls in a circle around me, every second of silence building my anticipation. What will he tell me to do next? What will he make me do next?And when, oh please, when will he make me do it? I can’t bear the wait, can’t stand the way the stone warms as it leeches the heat from my body.He kneels behind me and grips my hips, pulling them back, sliding my upper body along the floor with painful resistance. He grinds against me, still fully clothed, and I know my juices are smearing across the front of his trousers. He’s so hard and so big, and I’m totally at his mercy. Only a zipper and his self-control stand between us.He jerks a fistful of my hair and I let out a
Ryan, however, has changed. When I left, he was a chubby, baby-faced Black kid with a penchant for blue lipstick and metal band t-shirts with illegible fonts on them. He grew up into a broad-shouldered dad-type who, yes, is wearing a band t-shirt, but who is also comfortable cooking dinner at a stove with twelve burners.If they saw how people live outside the pack…“So, it’s a marriage of convenience, then? Just to dodge the Dave?” That’s a little depressing. “You know, I always thought you were gay, Ryan. I just thought you were afraid to come out.”“Oh, I am,” he answers without hesitation. “It’s not just a marriage of convenience for Hannah. She’s helping me out, too.”“And the fertility clinic helped us out, as well.” Hannah picks up her half-empty beer bottle and tips the neck toward me.“The gay dude and the asexual woman somehow had trouble conceiving,” Ryan says with mock regret.“Wow, I feel like an asshole for not knowing any of this,” I admit.“You’re the one who invoked t
“They are! I don’t even know what’s going on in the pack. I haven’t talked to anyone for five years. I come back and there’s all of this political scandal happening, and now my best friends are accusing me of being a spy or something.” This is too much. I rise from my stool. “You know what, I’m gonna pass on dinner. Thanks, though. You have a lovely home.”“Don’t be like that,” Hannah huffs.Ryan holds up a plate. “But it just got done.”I stop at the kitchen door. “Why do you even want me in your house if I’m so suspicious?”“Because you’re our friend, dummy.” Ryan puts the plate on the island. “But you’ve been gone for five years. You’re out of practice.”“Out of practice?”“The pack is a different now. If we don’t know who to trust, you don’t, either. And one stray word…” Hannah’s expression falls. “I’m not afraid you’re going to run out and betray us. I’m afraid that until you’ve been here longer than a week, you might get yourself—or someone else—in trouble without even knowing y
“…And that’s what they were talking about at the—Bailey!” Clare snaps, waving her hand in front of my face.“Sorry. Too many mimosas.” That’s a lie. I’m not even tipsy after two of them. I try to focus on what she was telling me. Something about renovations on her master bathroom. “You were saying something about how they couldn’t take a wall down?”“Are you okay?” Tara asks me with genuine concern.Do I admit to them that my head is all over the place after the ball? That I’m not sure where I belong in the pack? Because if my best friends don’t trust me after that, there’s no guarantee that my sisters will. Plus, their husbands don’t seem like big fans of the new king.And it’s impossible to feel like my sisters’ mates aren’t an invisible presence at the table with us.“I’m fine. I just…” I laugh and shrug. “I don’t really get the renovations thing. Or the domestic stuff. It’s not that I don’t care. I just can’t relate.”“Yet,” Clare reminds me. “Have you gotten an event planner? Lup
“It’s been great getting together,” I say, summoning up my best impression of our mother’s passive-aggression. “But I have to go.”I push my chair back and stand, and a crackle of energy pulls my attention to the restaurant’s doors.I feel him before I see him. It’s unnerving. But I look toward the door knowing that Nathan Frost will be there. And when our eyes meet as he enters, it’s clear that he feels my presence, too.Five years ago, I would ask my sisters if that magnetism were real or if I’m just imagining it. But I can’t do that now. I can’t trust that they won’t tell their mates on me.The maître d’ is leading Nathan in our direction. At least, the maître d’ is trying to lead; Nathan is actually a step ahead. It’s too late to avoid him. Our paths will cross.I don’t want to see my sisters’ reactions, so it doesn’t matter that I can’t tear my gaze away from Nathan’s. He doesn’t try, and I know I’m not imagining this anymore. I can’t walk away from the table because if I walk to
“Why wouldn’t they—”“Because they’re afraid that what you did will spread!” Mother snaps, loud enough to be overheard, so she immediately lowers her voice again. “You were the first werewolf in a hundred years to reject the transformation and invoke the Right of Accord. Everyone was terrified that you’d opened the floodgates. People wouldn’t speak to us because they were afraid of losing their young, too!”It never occurred to me that by invoking the Right, I might inspire other teenagers to take a break and consider their futures with the pack. I don’t see how it’s a bad thing, but I do see how my parents would interpret it that way.She isn’t done lecturing me. “You put your sisters’ futures at stake, as well.”“They did all right for themselves,” I say under my breath. I’m the youngest. They had already undergone the transformation and their mating pacts had been arranged. “And it’s not my job to live their lives for them.”“It’s your job to behave in the interests of the pack. No
I take a seat across the big coffee table from him, on the other sofa. I would rather chew my own foot off to escape a snare than get close to him. “Well, I’ll have to take your word for it. I didn’t have any contact with other werewolves while I was there.”His expression totally changes to one of utter mortification. He puts a hand to his chest. “Oh no, Bailey. I hope you don’t assume that I was accusing you of anything. I just wondered if you’d chosen to…try it out on your own.”“I wouldn’t even know where to begin.” The thralls oversee the magic that lets us control whether we shift our forms on the night of the full moon. I have no idea how to accomplish the change without the ceremony. “It sounds like that would be stupid and dangerous.”Still, his sad, apologetic eyes seem so sincere. “I would have thought it very brave.”I don’t know how to respond to that, so I nod, and we sit in unbearable silence.“I think we should clear the air, Bailey.” His tone is gentle, oddly intimate
Ashton takes my hand again and lifts it to his lips. He brushes a kiss across my knuckles and says, “because they don’t understand who we are, what we are. Now that you’ve seen what their lives are like, is it what you truly want?”Do I truly want a life where I get to pick my own mate? To decide when to have children or if I even want them? In a world where people are free to love whomever they choose, regardless of breeding potential?“Within the pack, we have stability.” He leans in just slightly, his eye contact becoming more intense. “You will never be without a home, without food. They don’t protect each other out there. I know you’ve seen it.”“I have,” I admit reluctantly. I saw the consequences of simple mistakes, the uncontrollable havoc wreaked on long chains of human lives. The human world, even with all its flaws, showed me freedom that I couldn’t have as part of the pack. But I don’t know what it actually means to be human; I always had the option of going home.I was ju