The Lion's Den

The iron gates of the Steele estate loomed ahead like the jaws of a beast, untouched by the seven years I had spent running.

Stepping out of the sleek black town car, the bitter New York wind whipped through my dark coat. I stood on the gravel driveway, staring up at the sprawling, gothic mansion. It was exactly as terrifying and magnificent as I remembered. Every stone reeked of old money, dark secrets, and werewolf elite.

My chest sank into my ribs in a crazy, threatening beat. Go back, my wolf within me said. He's here. The Alpha is here.

I clamped down on my fear. I was not so terrified anymore, as I was a pregnant nineteen-year-old. I was a mother. Ethan had been safely packed off by my nanny, Mrs. Higgins, to a fine suite in one of the luxury hotels in Manhattan. There could be no chance of my carrying my six-year-old son--with his conspicuous silver eyes--into a house where apex predators were at home, until I had heard with certainty what Richard’s will required.

I shouldered my shoulders up the steps of marble, and banged the massive doors of mahogany wide open.

The great hall was stifling. The odor of white lilies and perfume costing a fortune concealed the underlining, anxious pheromones of the elite of werewolves. There were billionaires, pack Alphas, and high society vultures in the house wearing mourning black like it was a ball and not a funeral.

The instant I entered the door the low murmurs went among the people. I could feel my judgmental looks creeping on my skin.

Is it not Vivian who is a bastard daughter of Vivian?

The man expelled on account of that vulgar scandal?

She even dares to display her face.

I held myself up, and wore a mask of pure indifference on my face. Let them whisper.

What are you doing here in the world?

This was a dripping voice of absolute venom, soft, elegant. I turned slowly.

Vivian Hart. My mother.

She was as impeccable a portrait as ever of a mourning widow in a perfectly made Dior black dress, with a fine lace veil tacked to her already exquisitely arranged hair. but beneath the mask of the poor widow about whom she was weeping, her eyes were cold and sharp and full of enraged panic.

Hello, Mother, I said evenly, without shrinking away, as I did. "I'm here for Richard."

Vivian came too near, and with her clipped nails, sank her nails brutally into my forearm. You fool of a girl, she said inwardly, but her high-bred smile never fell, as the spectators were watching. "You are a walking scandal. Will you tell me how hard I have worked to get my place in this family? I would as soon as you do anything to put my portion of the Richard estate in danger, personally destroy whatever sorry little existence you have created.

I glanced down her hand, and glanced up to her eyes. And let go of me, I said, and my voice sunk down to a dangerously low note.

The very power of my personality made Vivian blink in open-mouthed surprise. She put my arm free, with a half-step backward. She had not time to recuperate, when another, nauseatingly sweet voice interfered.

"Vivian, darling, let her be. It's a funeral, after all. We must forgive former... misdemeanors.

Camille.

She was floating in the crowd like a poisoned bird. Dominic's fiancee. The lady who had bragged about things that sent me up to the streets. She had a huge, blinding diamond on her left ring finger--a continual, loud, boastful remembrance of the fact that she had been destined to be the future Luna of the Steele Pack.

Camille paused before me, up and down, with just veiled disgust. "Sophie. I wonder why they even allowed you to pass through the gates. You ran out of whatever money you stole out of us seven years ago?

I did not steal anything, Camille, I told you, and knowest thou, I am looking at you. I came here because the lawyers ordered me to. Trust me, the last thing I want to do is to see you in the same room.

The lips of Camille, gleaming to almost a vile sneer. "Listen to me, you little tramp--"

The great two-levered doors to the main study broke open with a bang.

The cold of the huge foyer dropped to a freezing point. The chatter died instantly. The chink of champagne glasses was stopped. The air was so full of so much repressive, overwhelming power that a few of the smaller wolves in the room naturally lowered their heads, exposing their necks in submissiveness.

My lungs seized. All the nerve ends in my body blazed like a wild burning fire. My wolf-self banged herself against the sides of my ribcage, and howled one desperate word.

Mate.

Dominic Steele came into the room.

He was devastating. Seven years had erased the last traces of his youth, and left in its place, a hard, ruthless, glorious Alpha. He had a highly black suit that fitted snugly over his wide shoulders. His face was set in stone and his jaw tensed, and a black, deadly fierceness that was obeyed unquestioningly filled him.

Camille instantly changed her face to perfect devotion, which she did by dropping in front of him and extending her hand to him. "Dominic, my love--"

He didn't even look at her. Right over the head of Camille his footsteps rang out on the marble floor.

since his predatory, silver eyes were fixed wholly on me.

Panic seized my throat. I attempted to step back but I could not move my legs. The doomed love affair had been slumbering out its seven years, and burst angrily into reunion. It was a bodily thrust, a cable of uncut crackling electricity, drawing me toward him.

The people made a way through him as the red sea. Domic came to a halt within half-inches of me. He was so near that I could feel the heat of his blistering body. I might have detected the minute particles of tempest-grey in his grey eyes.

He looked down upon me, with heavy, ragged breathing. He resembled a starving man who was on the verge of being given a feast.

Sophie, he rasped, and his gravelly voice gave a shock of pain right down to my heart.

"Domic," I managed to whisper very desperately struggling to retain my walls. I have come here to receive a will. Then I'm gone."

He moved closer, crowding me. The civilized mask of the billionaire melted and the bestial creature was released. His head was down, his nose stretched flat against the tender shell of my ear--when he drew a deep, several seconds-long breath.

I froze. Oh, God.

I had embraced Ethan just before going out of the hotel.

Dominic stiffened to the last. His enormous hands then flashed out, and were clamping my hips between their teeth. His silver eyes were blown wide when he pulled back, his pupils were dilated so far as to make them almost entirely black. the mere, horrible possessiveness in his eyes startled me.

You smell like baby shampoo, growled Dominic and his voice quivered with a threatening, earth-shattering understanding. "And you smell like my blood."