Chapter 7: On His Command

POPPY’S POV

I kept my voice completely void of anger, which took more effort than anything else I had done tonight. 

“I want you to understand that clearly. You might have bought me however,” I turned around to pin him with my death glare. 

“I am not a toy and I am not something you use. I will make every single day you spend in my presence something you deeply regret."

The silence that followed was just long enough to make me think he had dismissed that too. 

I looked away from him but then his hand moved from my waist and his fingers curled around my chin.

He turned my face toward his with a pressure that wasn't painful but left no room for argument. Those amber eyes were very close and very serious in a way they hadn't been before.

"That tongue," he said quietly, "is going to get you into trouble you're not able to handle."

I returned his stare. "I'm not afraid of you."

Something moved behind his eyes. "I know." His thumb traced the line of my jaw and I hated that my pulse responded. "That's what makes this interesting."

He held my gaze for a moment longer and then released me and looked away as if I had already stopped being interesting. And it was somehow the most infuriating thing he had done yet. 

“My plans for you go considerably beyond what you're imagining, pet.” He patted my head. “Try not to limit yourself."

I had no idea what it meant and I didn’t want to find out either. I turned back to the window and said nothing for the rest of the drive.

I didn't trust my voice and I didn't trust whatever was happening in my chest. The night blurred past the glass while his hand stayed on my waist and I stared at nothing and told myself the warmth I felt was anger.

It had to be anger.

The drive was longer than I expected and when the car finally slowed and I looked up, the words dried in my throat.

The pack territory spread out on either side of the road like something from a movie. There were manicured lawns and asphalt-smooth roads.

The trees looked like they had been placed there deliberately by someone with too much money and a very particular vision. 

I was startled at the mansion that appeared at the end of the main road. It rose against the night sky with the kind of authority that made it clear this place had never needed to announce itself.

Big didn't cover it. Beautiful didn't either.

It was at that moment that I became aware of the dress I was wearing.

The women had put me in it without asking and I had been too numb to object but now, stepping out of the car into the open air of a place with people and light and eyes. 

The fabric covered my front perfectly but it was a backless gown that stopped exactly at my waist. 

I was certain Grey could steal a peek of my ass if he looked. With his towering height, it wouldn’t be difficult. 

I crossed my arms instinctively and eyed the picturesque mansion in front of me. Grey was already moving toward the entrance.

He didn't look back. He didn't offer a jacket or a word or even the basic acknowledgment that I was standing outside in the night in something that barely qualified as clothing. 

Cade fell into step beside him and I stood beside the car for a moment with my arms folded around myself before my feet decided that standing alone in a strange pack's driveway was worse than following the man I hated.

So I followed.

The inside of the mansion was exactly what the outside had promised. I was stunned by the high vaulted ceilings and the staircase that curved upward.

There were people in uniforms moving quietly through corridors and a butler who appeared at the door and took Grey's jacket without being asked.

None of them even spared me a look and I wondered if this was a normal occurrence in this house. 

Their Alpha bringing in a strange, half-naked girl. 

"Maids will see to whatever you need," Grey said, without looking at me. "Staff and butlers handle the house. Everything functions whether I'm here or not because I prefer it that way."

He glanced back once and something flickered across his face when he saw my arms still crossed over my chest. "I prefer to be alone," he added, as if he were warning me about something.

I said nothing. I was still trying to decide what to make of all of it.

The grandiosity of this place and the people in it and the way Grey moved through it.

A part of me felt almost overwhelmed. Although I had grown up as the Beta’s daughter, I was always denied the luxury of life and my parents weren’t as wealthy as him. 

Heck, Grey could buy our pack five times over and I doubted it would affect him.  

But what I knew was simple. I would not become a part of this place.

I would not be described as someone that existed to serve the Alpha of Nightfang. I had been sold but that was something that had been done to me, not something I was.

And I would die making that distinction before I let anyone here forget it.

He led me to his office on the upper floor and the door swung open onto a room that smelled like him, dark wood and something warmer underneath.

I walked in because I had run out of options for not walking into rooms.

"Cade." Grey didn't look at his Beta. "Leave us."

Cade glanced at me once, and then he was gone and the door clicked shut and the room was very quiet.

Grey moved to his desk with that unhurried ease he seemed to do everything with. I watched him lean back against it then he folded his arms.

I didn’t flinch as he looked at me with those amber eyes that caught the light in a way that made it hard to look directly at them.

“What is it?” I snapped, already exhausted from everything. “You want to read my duties to me or something? Because I’ll have you know…”

The rest of my words died on my lips when his half-smile came back. I knew the words he would say next were going to be nothing but trouble. 

And I was right. 

“Strip for me, Poppy," he said.