IN ANOTHER MAN'S ARMS

Osric's POV

If I stayed in that ballroom for one more second, I was going to rip Magnus Blackthorn's hands off his body.

So I left.

I smiled at the last councilman who wanted to shake my hand, made some excuse about needing air that I didn't even hear myself say and walked out through the side corridor as fast as I could without looking like I was running. 

The applause and laughter followed me down the hall, muffled behind the heavy doors, but they couldn't drown out the snarling in my head.

I shoved open the terrace doors, and the cold night air hit me like a bucket of ice water.

It didn't help at all.

I braced both hands on the stone railing and bowed my head, my chest heaving as I fought to drag my wolf back under control. 

He was pacing right beneath my skin, so close to the surface that my gums ached where my canines wanted to push through, and every breath I took came out as a low, rumbling growl.

Her scent was still all over me.

Vanilla and jasmine clung to my hands, my suit and my collar, and every time I breathed in, it hit me all over again. 

It was soft and warm and so achingly sweet that it was slowly driving me out of my fucking mind.

Through the open doors behind me, the music drifted out into the night. It was the same slow, seductive song we had danced to, and my eyes slid shut as the memory came rushing back.

I could still picture her in that dress. It was black silk that shimmered like liquid darkness every time she moved, clinging to every curve of her body until I couldn't think straight. 

I could still feel the bare skin of her back beneath my palm, so impossibly soft and warm, and the way she had shivered when I touched her. 

Her eyes had been shining up at me, full of so much fear and uncertainty, and all I had wanted in that moment was to take every single thing that had ever hurt her and burn it to the ground, until the only thing left in her eyes was joy.

And I could still smell the moment her body had answered mine.

When I pulled her closer and my thigh slid between hers, her scent had changed. It had turned richer and sweeter and so heavy with arousal that my mouth had literally watered. She had wanted me. 

She had been glaring at me, but her body had softened against mine like it had been waiting for me her whole life.

Then I had felt that strange, burning hum beneath my palm, right at the base of her spine. It had spread warm and electric up my arm and straight into my chest, like something inside her was reaching out for something inside me.

I had been seconds away from kissing her in front of every pack in the region, and I hadn't even cared.

My jaw clenched so hard my teeth ached as I remembered how it ended.

First Alaric had stormed in like a thundercloud, and then that smug bastard, Alpha Magnus Blackthorn, had shown up.

I hadn't kept up with every detail of Tyra's life the way I wished I had, but I'd had notifications set for her name for years, every article, every award and every conference she spoke at. 

And in almost every photo from every one of those events, he had been there. Sometimes he was standing in the background, and sometimes he was standing right beside her, smiling for the camera with his hand resting on her shoulder.

He was her director, a colleague, and judging by the way she had laughed in his arms tonight, a friend.

I didn't know which pack he belonged to or what he really wanted with her. All I knew was that I disliked him immensely.

His heartbeat had been far too steady when he walked up to us. 

Most wolves would have been on edge, walking into the middle of two Alphas whose wolves were practically clawing out of their skin. 

But he had looked almost amused, like he knew exactly how badly he was getting under my skin and was enjoying every second of it. He had smelled of expensive cologne and arrogance.

And now that scent was probably all over her.

I pictured his hand sliding low on her bare back, his fingers brushing the edge of her gown, and her stumbling into his chest while he steadied her. 

I could still see the way his eyes had moved over her, like she was something he had already decided belonged to him.

Hot, blinding rage surged through my veins. I wanted to storm back inside, drag her away from him, pin her against the nearest wall and claim her right there, in front of everyone, so that every single wolf in that ballroom would know exactly who she belonged to.

I bit down on the thought so hard I tasted blood, forcing myself to drag in one ragged breath after another.

"She's ours," my wolf snarled in the back of my mind. "Why are you letting him touch her?"

I pressed my palms harder against the cold stone until it bit into my skin.

"Because she doesn't want us," I muttered hoarsely into the dark. "Because she said no."

The memory hit me like a punch to the gut.

I remembered the day she walked back into our house, the moment her scent hit me and my wolf roared to the surface before I could stop him. 

I remembered the shock and then the pure, blinding joy of finally finding her after years of feeling hollow, years of wondering whether the Goddess had forgotten me. 

Then she had looked at me with nothing but terror and disbelief, and I had felt the bond twist painfully inside my chest as she backed away from me.

She hadn't formally rejected me, but she might as well have.

And Alaric had known.

My own twin had known all these years and said absolutely nothing.

My hands trembled against the railing as I remembered the grim, knowing look on his face that day, the look of a man who had been carrying a secret so long it had stopped feeling like a lie.

I let out a long, shaky breath through my teeth.

"Goddess, I want to hate you so badly for what you did," I whispered to the night.

But even as I said it, I knew I couldn't.

I knew my brother better than I knew anyone in this world. 

We had shared a womb, a nursery, a bedroom and every single scraped knee and broken bone of our childhood, and in twenty-seven years, I had never once seen Alaric make a decision without thinking it through from every possible angle first. 

It was the thing I loved most about him and the thing that drove me the most insane.

And the worst part, the part I hated admitting even to myself, was that deep down, I understood why he had done it.

I had watched the whispers and the stares wear her down every single day since she came back. I had watched her flinch when people said "defect" behind her back, and tonight I had watched her shake on that dance floor. 

If the pack had found out ten years ago that the wolfless girl was mated to both of their heirs, they would have eaten her alive.

But he should have told me. She wasn't just his. She was mine too, and he had made that choice like I wasn't even part of the equation.

Understanding why he did it didn't make the betrayal sting any less.

A familiar scent drifted toward me on the breeze, woodsmoke and sandalwood, and my shoulders went rigid.

"Speak of the devil," I muttered under my breath.

The terrace door opened behind me and slow, measured footsteps crossed the stone, stopping a few feet away.

"Couldn't stand the party either?" I asked tightly, not needing to turn around to know the root of my problems was the one behind me.