The Silver-Eyed Ghost

I shouldn’t be dreaming of the man who ruined me. Especially not when the physical proof of our forbidden sin is sleeping soundly just one room away.

The mate bond does not take logic into account, and it does not give a thought to the seven years that I have been running.

When I was in Los Angeles design studio, I was not in the heavy, suffocating darkness of my dream. I was again in the gilded spacious cage of the Steele property. The smell struck me first--a catharsis of winter pine, black musk and the burning, cracking ozone of an Alpha wolf whose mastery was momentarily failing.

Dominic.

The mahogany doors to my bedroom threw open, and the lock plunked closed with a boggling finality. He came out of the dark and his tailored suit was totally incongruent with the carnivore, savage darkness in his silver eyes. He was my stepbrother. Someone else was engaged to him. He was a lone descendant of an unscrupulous kingdom.

And he was my fated mate.

You are meant to think that you can get away with me, Sophie? His voice was dark and gravelly command that gave me a treacherous shivery up and down my spine.

He swept the room three hisses, his huge body forcing me up against the wall. My breath hitched. I should have pushed him away. I should have screamed. But when his huge, rough hands grabbed hold on me, and I was lifted with my hips against his torso, where it felt so hot and painful a moan forced its way out of my throat. The warmth that was emitting between us was intoxicating, fading all the rational thoughts.

I called his name Dominic, I said; the name seemed like poison to my tongue. "We can't. Camille--"

Forgot her, he growled and his lips touched the tender flesh just below my ear. His teeth brushed my pulse point and my wolf within howled in pure submission. "You belong to me. Only me."

His jaws dropped on my mouth, and it was insisting, tearing, and utterly desperate. It was not a kiss of endearing, it was a name. His hands in my hair and he pulled my head back, as his tongue in my mouth, possessing every inch of me. The slap of his body on mine sent a shudder of glowing flame directly to my heart. I scrambled to hold him, my nails plunging into his costly suit jacket and giving up to the all-consuming forbidden heat.

"Mommy?"

I gasped, my eyes flying open.

My heart was beating on my rib-cage as a caged bird. The gloomy bedroom of the Steele mansion disappeared, and in its place was the gray, diffused streetlights that passed through the huge windows of my loft in Los Angeles. I leapt over my drafting table, half a blue-plan of an architectural design in my cheek, my breath gasping and shallow.

I was still flushed, and humming with the phantom warmth of the touch of Dominic. I clenched my thighs together, and swore at myself. Seven years. Seven years too late when I had been chased out of New York, pregnant, penniless, and heartbroken, my traitorous subconscious was still serving him on a silver platter.

I wiped an aching hand over my face and swiveled my chair.

Ethan stood in the doorway of the studio, rubbing one eye, which was sleepy, with his little fist. My beautiful, six-year-old son.

Mommy, I am hungry, mumbled Ethan and his large pajamas covered his small body.

"I'm sorry, baby. Mommy fell asleep working." I had to smile a warm smile, and thrust the remnant of the erotic dream into the deepest depths of my mind. I got on, and my joints creaked and took a step to pick him up in my arms.

Ethan looked over my shoulder, as I picked him up, and upon my messy desk. On top of a stack of swatch pieces of fabric lay the latest issue of Forbes Magazine.

The face on the glossy cover, upon which I looked out, made my blood run cold.

Dominic Steele. He appeared older than he had done in my dream. His jagged lines of the jaw were and his tailored charcoal suit more full of sheer ruthless power. The headline of his photograph was: THE Apex predator: How Dominic Steele built a multi-billion dollar empire into a global monopoly.

"Who is that?" His small finger was pointing to the magazine, and Ethan asked.

My throat closed up. Just... just a businessman, darling. Someone mommy must read to work.

Ethan raised his head, and looked over the cover with a degree of intelligence too great to be possessed by a child of six. "He looks mean." And afterwards he turned and looked at me with a blink. And so are his eyes like mine.

I gave a shudder of pure panic. I stared at the eyes of Ethan--the very, very pronounced colour of molten silver that was Steele, blood. It was an hereditary mark which no distance could ever remove. Dominic would have done anything to part with me in case he ever laid his eyes on those eyes... in case he ever knew that the child he believed that I had aborted was alive and breathing...

Shaggy-haired eyes, baby," I lied smoothly and kissed his forehead. "Come on. Let's get you some pancakes."

I took him into the kitchen, and the security of my habit brought me down to earth. I was no longer the frail, unsophisticated, bastard illegitimate daughter of a socialite. I was Sophie Hart, senior designer with one of the high end interior design houses in the West Coast. I had constructed myself and my son a castle. We were safe here. Untouchable.

That is what I thought at least.

The morning was broken by a sharp, startling buzzing of the intercom of the loft. I narrowed my eyebrows and looked at the time. It was barely 7:00 AM.

I put Ethan to the kitchen island. "Stay here, bug. Let me see who that is."

I went to the security monitor and pressed the button. "Hello?"

Certified courier to Miss Sophie Hart, a chastisement voice answered. "Requires a direct signature."

A knot of discomfort developed in my stomach. I called him by buzzing on his door, and went into the corridor to wait. After a few more moments a man in a rigid uniform presented me with an electronic clipboard, and handed me a thick and heavy envelope.

It was not a regular business envelope. It was dense, silvery-textured ivory parchment. And imprinted on the seal in black, crimson wax was the crest of the Steele Pack.

The air in my lungs vanished.

I rolled the door and tore the envelope open and my hands trembled. The letter, as inside, was a formal, typed letter of the elite law firm of Steele family.

Dear Miss Hart,

It is our heaviest regret to announce you the death of your stepfather, Richard Steele. Last night he had yielded to his disease. According to the rigid provisions of the final will and testament of Mr. Steele, you have a legal obligation to be present during the reading of the will which will happen immediately after the funeral. The service is going to take place in New York within 3 days.

His failure to attend will cause the forfeiture of the assets previously discussed in Section 4 of his directives immediately, and they have a significant impact on your immediate family. I had to cease reading, the parchment fell out of my shaking fingers and waved over the hardwood floor.

Richard was dead. The man who had never been less than decent with me in the house was gone. but through the sorrow there came a horrible discovery tearing at my throat.

GREATly worry your nuclear family.

My mother, Vivian. She would be there, certainly prepared to set her toothed bills into the fortune. There would be Camille wearing the title of the fiancee of Dominic as a crown.

And Dominic would be there. The Alpha, who broke my heart.

I turned round and saw Ethan swinging his legs with immense joy without knowing that we were in a protective bubble which just burst. Going back, I would be into the lion den. However, in case I said no, with the finances gambling of my mother, I might lose the bread and roses I needed to keep Ethan safe forever.

I had no choice. As many as seven years of running were finished.

I was going back to New York. And this time, I was bringing the Alpha's secret heir right to his front door.