All Chapters of Forbidden Affectionate : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Chapter 1: MeridianKae's PovThe one rule of the Meridian Summit that nobody says out loud but everybody follows is that you do not cause a scene.You come in, you sit down, you negotiate whatever cross-pack dispute has been rotting for three years, and you leave with your territory intact and your dignity more or less where you left it. That is the deal. That has always been the deal.I fixed my cufflinks in the elevator on the way up because I'm the kind of man who notices when something is crooked and physically cannot leave it that way.I was going to the thirty-second floor of the Halcyon Building.And that place has the specific kind of tension that only exists when you put fifteen Alphas in a room together and tell them to behave. I walked in at eight fifty-eight, two minutes early because I'm never late and I'm never first, and I took my seat on the east side of the table the way I always do.Alpha Gregor Vane was already at the head of it. He was seventy-one years old and h

Chapter 3: ElaraKae's PovI looked at the name and message on the screen for three seconds and then I looked at Lucian, the man who had not flinched once since confessing to murder in front of fifteen Alphas.He was looking at his Beta's message like it had reached through the phone and grabbed him by the throat.I took the phone and turned the screen back toward myself and read it again.“They know about Elara.”****"Who is Elara?" I asked.Lucian stood up and held his hand out for the phone and I pulled it back because I am not in the habit of handing things to people who haven't answered my questions."Kae." He said tiredly."Who is Elara?" I repeated.He looked at me and something moved across his face, and then he sat back down and pressed both hands flat on his thighs and breathed out once through his nose."Give me the phone and I will tell you everything," he said. "But I need to call Karl first because if Karl sent that message it means something has already happened and I n

Chapter 5: ElaraKae's PovI stood in that stairwell and let Karl Whispere's last sentence settle over me the way cold water settles, slowly, until there is no part of you it hasn't reached.Someone at that table tonight ordered my father's death.I have thought about my father's death every day for six years and I have never once let myself say the word murder out loud because the moment you say it you have to do something with it.And I was not ready to do something with it until I was ready to do something with it properly and completely and without leaving anything on the table.I turned and looked at Lucian. He was already looking at me."We should go meet her," I said."Kae…""We meet her now, Karl, where is she?"Karl looked between us once and then he moved and we followed him down the remaining stairs and out through the east exit.The the service road was empty the way Lucian had said it would be, no cameras, no light except what came from the building behind us.Karl took u

Chapter 7: DorianLucian's PovThe name on my screen was one I had not expected to see tonight.Dorian Vael was calling me at two in the morning from a number I had never saved, which meant he had mine and had been holding it for a reason, and the reason had just arrived.I looked at Kae and he looked at the screen and something shifted in his expression, quick and controlled, but I caught it."You know that name?" I asked."Junior Alpha, smaller territory in the western corridor." He kept his voice flat, but his jaw was tight. "Nobody significant.""He had someone follow us from the building tonight."Kae looked at me then, and the corridor was narrow and we were close and the space between us had been doing something all night that neither of us had named yet."Answer it," he said. So I did."Lucian." Dorian's voice was the kind of smooth that takes practice, the kind you develop when you learn early that people respond better to calm than to pressure. "I heard about your evening."

Chapter 9: ArchitectElara's PovThe location I sent was a parking structure on Venn Street, level two, northeast corner, because it had no cameras and two exits and I had used it three times before tonight without anyone finding me here.I arrived forty minutes early because I always arrive forty minutes early and I stood in the dark and waited and thought about the look on Kae Armstrong's face when he read Ren Cole's name.I had expected anger. What I had not expected was the stillness, the specific quality of it, like a man absorbing something he had already suspected and was finally being given permission to know. It was like the kind of stillness was worse than anger because it meant the decision was already made and everything after it was just execution.Kae Armstrong executing a decision was not something I wanted pointed at me. But here we were.I heard the car before I saw it, Karl's vehicle coming in from the south entrance, and then three doors and three sets of footstep