5. Stupid risk

Elle

“I’m not Lily!”

The king’s body covered mine, one knee between my legs and his hand locked around my wrist. Heat poured through his open shirt—far too much, even for a Lycan—and his rough breath against my throat said he was barely holding together.

“Dominic, listen to me.” I shoved at his chest with my free hand. The muscle beneath my palm felt hard enough to bruise me. “James made a mistake. I only used her name to get inside.”

His mouth stopped an inch from my skin. “You came into my room dressed like that and gave my secretary the name of the woman he sent to my bed.”

“I didn’t know what she was being paid for.”

“Then you’re either lying or reckless.” His gaze moved over my face, dark and unfocused. “I haven’t decided which.”

“Get off me and I’ll explain.”

For one ugly second, I thought he would ignore me. His fingers tightened, gold flashed in his eyes, then his jaw clenched. He released me so suddenly the cold air felt like a slap.

Dominic backed away, dragging a hand over his mouth. I sat up and switched on the bedside lamp. Warm light exposed what the darkness had hidden.

The immaculate man from the royal broadcasts was gone. Dominic stood barefoot, his black shirt open and damp with sweat, dark hair across his forehead. His eyes were bloodshot, pupils blown wide, every muscle drawn tight.

He was still terrifying. He was also in trouble.

“What did you take?” I asked.

“Nothing willingly.”

His gaze cut to a low table where a crystal tumbler sat beside the bourbon. A finger of amber liquid remained. Understanding settled cold in my stomach.

“Someone drugged you.”

“You figured that out quickly.”

“You’re sweating in an air-conditioned room, your eyes look like hell, and you just mistook a stranger for a woman you paid to have sex with you. It wasn’t a difficult diagnosis.”

His mouth hardened. Any other Alpha might have punished that tone. Dominic only stared, as if my voice were another problem his mind could not solve.

Then my wolf howled.

The force folded me forward. I caught the mattress as she threw herself against my ribs. She had been silent through every stupid risk I took to enter this room. Now she clawed toward Dominic with a need close to pain.

He heard something. Maybe not the howl itself, but the answer it ripped from my body. His head snapped toward me, and the air changed.

“What the hell are you?” he asked.

“At the moment? Confused.”

He crossed the room before I saw him move. I should have stepped back. Instead, I remained on the edge of the bed while he stopped between my knees and lowered his face to my neck.

He did not touch me. He only breathed me in.

My wolf went wild.

I grabbed his shirt without meaning to. Dominic made a sound too deep to be human, and his hands closed around my hips. His control should have frightened me. Knowing it broke because of me was far more dangerous.

“Your scent,” he said against my skin. “I don’t know it.”

“You don’t know me.”

He lifted his head, angry at the hand gripping my waist and the instinct he could not command. A Lycan King ruled because his wolf was stronger than every Alpha beneath him—and the man could still rule the wolf. Dominic looked as if both halves had turned against him.

“Let go of my shirt,” he said.

I looked down. My fists were buried in the black fabric, holding him close.

“Why?”

His eyes burned gold. “Because if you keep pulling me toward you, I’m going to believe you mean it.”

I should have opened my hands. Instead, I dragged him down and kissed him.

For half a heartbeat, Dominic didn’t move. Then his control shattered.

His mouth took mine, hard and hungry. One hand slid into my hair while the other dragged me to the edge of the mattress. The kiss tasted of bourbon and fury. I bit his lower lip, and his growl vibrated through us.

No one had ever kissed me like he was angry at the distance between our bodies.

I wrapped my legs around his waist. He lifted me and pinned my back to the wall. Cold plaster met my shoulders; everything between us burned. His mouth moved down my throat, and my head tipped back before I could pretend I did not want it.

“Tell me to stop,” he said.

The words were rough, almost painful. His hand held my thigh beneath the hem of my dress, but it did not move higher.

I opened my mouth. Nothing sensible came out.

Dominic raised his head, forcing me to meet his eyes. “Say it, and I stop.”

I had come to save my parents, not lose my mind in a stranger’s arms. Yet my wolf pleaded for him, and every place he touched felt starved for more.

What I had believed was my bond with Soren had been a gentle warmth. This was wildfire, brutal and consuming, and I hated Soren even more for teaching me to distrust the part of myself screaming the truth.

But what truth?

I reached for my wolf, demanding the one word that should have made this clear.

Mate?

She answered with another desperate howl and pushed me closer. No certainty. Only recognition and a pull neither of us understood.

“I don’t know what this is,” I whispered.

“Neither do I.” His forehead pressed to mine. His breathing was ragged, but his gaze was clear. “The drug is in my blood. You are somewhere deeper.”

The confession hit harder than the kiss.

His grip flexed on my thigh. “Yield to me.”

The royal command rolled through the room, heavy with the power that made entire packs bow. My wolf dropped low inside me, not frightened but aching to obey. I felt the answer gather in my throat.

Then I saw the folder on the floor.

It had fallen open when Dominic threw me onto the bed. Dad’s signature showed at the bottom of the first page, and Soren’s name sat above it in cold black print.

The sight ripped through the haze.

Soren had already turned one false bond into a weapon. Whether this pull was real, poisoned, or born from my second life, I would not let instinct decide for me again.

“Stop.”

Dominic went completely still.

His wolf rumbled beneath his skin. His fingers trembled once where they held me, but he lowered me to the floor and stepped back. The effort carved harsh lines around his mouth.

I tugged my dress into place. “My family is in danger. If you don’t listen tonight, a man you are about to make Alpha will destroy us.”

His gaze dropped to the folder, then returned to my face. “And you thought lying your way into my bedroom was the best method of securing an audience?”

“No. It was the only method your people left me.”

Instead of fury, reluctant respect crossed his face before the heat swallowed it. He braced both hands on the dresser and bowed his head.

“Leave,” he said.

My stomach dropped. “You haven’t heard me.”

“Not the suite.” He looked over his shoulder, eyes burning. “Leave this room before I forget how hard you made me promise to stop. Sit in the parlor and do not walk out that door.”

“Is that a royal order?”

“It is the last piece of control I have left.”

He went into the bathroom and slammed the door. A second later, the shower came on with enough force to strike the tile like rain.

My wolf surged after him. I caught the doorframe instead, gripping it until my nails hurt.

“Absolutely fucking not,” I whispered to her. “We are not following the drugged king into the shower.”

She did not appreciate the distinction.

I forced myself into the parlor and picked up the succession folder. My hands shook as I straightened the pages. In the black window, my reflection looked thoroughly kissed—swollen mouth, loose hair, one dress strap hanging low on my shoulder. I fixed what I could and tried not to think about the powerful man standing naked under cold water ten feet away.

That lasted perhaps three seconds.

The shower ran until my breathing settled. When the water stopped, every muscle in my body tightened again.

Dominic emerged several minutes later in dark pants and a clean white shirt, buttoned almost to his throat. Water still clung to his hair. The civilized clothes did not hide the predator in him, but his face had regained the cold composure I knew from the royal broadcasts.

Only his eyes betrayed him. They moved over me once, slowly, and heat flared before he crushed it.

He crossed the parlor. I held the folder between us, but he took it from my hands and set it on the table without looking down. Then his fingers closed around my chin.

His touch was controlled now. That somehow felt more dangerous.

“Start with the truth,” Dominic said. “Who are you, and why did you impersonate Lily to get into my bed?”