by Sierra Dean
I swayed, but Dominick held me steady. The whole room had turned to look at me.
“I don’t want to risk letting you get away,” Lucas whispered, but the microphone amplified it through the atrium. He reached into the pocket of his suit and pulled out a robin’s egg blue box tied with a blue ribbon. Tiffany blue. He set the box on the podium, and a few women nearby squealed.
“Oh God,” I choked, trying to catch my breath but unable to fill my lungs. The room was stifling. “Oh my God.”
“Secret…” He smiled at me, and I braced myself against Dominick. “Will you marry me?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
There was only the clouded, static-filled silence of shock. My ears felt packed with cotton, like I was coming down after a long flight. I knew people were talking amongst themselves, and Dominick’s mouth was moving, but I all I could hear was the pounding of my heart.
I’m dreaming. I’m dreaming. It’s the only explanation. Any minute now someone is going to burst into flame, or something totally surreal will happen to prove me right.
But it didn’t get much more surreal than having a billionaire propose to you in front of two hundred witnesses.
I opened my mouth, but my tongue felt dry and swollen. Lucas was smiling hopefully, and the rest of the room was wide-eyed and eager. Like sharks circling in blood-filled water. Scanning their excited faces, I saw two who didn’t match the general exuberance of the rest of the room.
Morgan looked horrified. And at the bar—the Asian girl long forgotten—Holden was staring at Lucas with his mouth slack and his eyes brimming with murderous intent. I’d known it was a bad idea to bring him. I hadn’t known how bad until that instant.
A photographer stepped in front of me, and I was blinded by a flash.
As the dots of light swam in my vision, my brain started to function again, shifting from full stop into high gear. Lucas had proposed. This wasn’t a dream, and there were real people here waiting to hear my answer. Two of those people were dead set on proving Lucas’s pack wasn’t strong enough to withstand an invasion. And his relationship with me was essential in proving them wrong.
If I said no, Lucas’s authority as king would be decimated. He would be publicly humiliated.
He cleared his throat and stuffed his hands into his pockets, looking downright sheepish. I didn’t need a mate bond with him to know he was nervous.
“Yes,” I whispered.
People in the crowd began to mutter, asking each other, “What did she say?”
I swallowed hard, clearing away the lump in my throat, and forced a smile for everyone, but especially for Amelia and Ben. “Yes,” I repeated, louder this time. “Yes, I will marry you.”
The crowd erupted in a deafening cheer. Lucas jumped off the stage and cleared the room in a heartbeat. He swept me up in a lung-crushing hug and kissed me as the photographer started clicking again, flashes blotting out the rest of the room.
“Thank you,” he said into my ear.
“We need to talk about this,” I whispered into his.
I pulled Lucas into a pristine, never-used student lounge and locked the door behind us. He opened his mouth, about to say something that would no doubt make me feel he had no choice but to put me on the spot. Or how he’d believed the gesture was genuinely romantic. I could hear the excuses and explanations rattling around in his brain as clearly as if they were my own.
Apparently anger did wonders to make the mate bond stronger. Marriages everywhere would thrive if they had this kind of connection.
“What the hell were you thinking?”
Of the reactions I could have had, this wasn’t the one Lucas had been expecting. He took two steps back and blinked at me as if I’d slapped him. “I thought—”
“Did you think?” I threw myself down on one of the new leather couches and rested my head against the plush back.
“I needed to show them you and I were a team. That our relationship wasn’t a passing fancy, or we were faking the soul-bond. They could see our mate bond. This was the easiest way to show them you belonged to me.” There they were, the rationales and excuses I’d foreseen.
“I know why you think you did it, Lucas, but none of those are the real reason. You could have proposed months ago if you’d wanted to.”
“You wouldn’t have accepted months ago. You’re only now realizing what’s at stake here.”
“Are you sure this isn’t about Desmond?”
Lucas crouched in front of me, taking my hands in his and waiting until I looked at him before letting them go. “I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t jealous of the emotional connection you two share. But this isn’t about a competition. This is about our survival.”
“Drama queen.” I smiled weakly.
“No. That would be you now, officially.”
“Queen. Jesus.” I dropped my head into my cupped palms. “Lucas, I can’t even shift. How am I going to be queen of the fucking werewolves?” I didn’t mention my surreal partial shift. I still hadn’t wrapped my head around what it meant, and I wanted to ask Grandmere about it before I told Lucas.
He tugged me to the edge of the couch and lifted my hands over his head so they were draped around his neck. With his forehead against mine and the comfortable, familiar scent of him filling my nose, it was impossible to hold on to my anger. I couldn’t remember what I was angry about.
Fucking empathy.
He kissed me, treading lightly in case I bit or punched him. I did neither. When I didn’t resist, he slid his hands under my thighs, his fingers tickling my bare skin, and dragged me closer to him so he was wedged between my legs. His lips trailed down my neck, hot breath prickling my skin with a wave of goose bumps.
When his tongue grazed my throat I inhaled sharply, but I didn’t stop him. His hands continued their quest upwards, bunching my dress around my hips. His natural fragrance mingled with a spicy aftershave, making him smell exotic and reminding me of the flavor he’d once had. When his tongue stroked mine, I responded with months of pent-up feeling.
Since Lucas and I had met almost a year earlier, we had treaded a fine line between platonic and passionate. Our chemistry had never been in question, but until this moment I hadn’t realized how much I wanted to obliterate the line. I didn’t know if the new mate bond was responsible for my vigor, but whatever the reason, I found myself arching against him to lessen the distance between us.
“Lucas…” I breathed his name against his kiss-roughened lips, and he seized my mouth again with such intensity I forgot whatever words I’d intended to say.
He pushed me backwards onto the buttery leather of the couch, his body covering mine. His height and build were similar to Desmond’s, but being with Lucas felt different. Where Desmond was willing to let me be a little pushy, Lucas was clearly set on being in control of this whole show. Although I liked being in charge, there was a thrill of the unknown to wonder what he would do next.
My jacket was tugged off and thrown to the floor, followed shortly thereafter by my dress. The material puddled on the ground with a hushed sigh, as though it was speaking secrets as it fell. Chilly air brushed against my bare skin, hitting home how exposed I was. Knowing we were mere feet away from hundreds of socialites and millionaire businessmen did nothing to quell the rising need between us. If anything, Lucas seemed more excited than he ever had on our previous trysts.
Probably because he could sense I wasn’t readying myself to stop him.
I wasn’t going to stop.
Keeping me pinned with an exaggerated thrust of his hips, he pulled away from a breath-rattling kiss and met my gaze. His eyes were bluer than I’d ever seen, but tinged with a circle of citrine around the iris. His normal staid expression was gone, replaced with something wild and needy.
“Don’t ask me to trust you,” I rasped, raking my fingernails against the fine layer of stubble on his jaw. His eyes closed, and he rubbed his face into my hand like a cat begging for attention.
; “If you don’t trust me by now, I’m done asking.”
“Good. Too much talk.”
I lifted my back from the couch to kiss him. As my tongue explored the sensitive planes of his mouth, he unclasped my bra and added the small swatch of lace to settle with the rest of my clothes. Lucas’s suit jacket, tie and dress shirt gave the floor a full evening-wear selection. I ran my thumbs along the exaggerated ridges of his pelvis, then trailed my hands upwards over the firm expanse of his hard-earned six-pack.
“Take off your pants,” I growled.
He lifted me by the waist as if I weighed nothing and pushed me back down. Blue eyes glinting mischievously, he licked my lower lip, and his fingers teased at the waistband of my underwear. Without breaking eye contact, he took my hand and placed it against his still-clothed erection. “Do it for me,” he insisted.
I nearly broke his zipper.
When he was naked, I let out a sharp gasp of appreciation. There must be some special side effect of werewolf DNA that made the men well hung, and I wasn’t about to question it since I definitely benefited from the results.
Lucas wound his fingers around the waistband of my underwear and gave a demanding tug. I arched my hips and then, at last, we were both totally bare.
“I’ve wanted you for so long,” he said into my ear.
I wrapped my legs around his hips, angling my pelvis so he was pressed over my opening. I shuddered, my body trembling with the anticipation of what was to come. “I know.”
“I’m never letting you go,” he promised.
Lucas had made so many promises he had no way to keep, but this once I was willing to let him lie about, since I wanted to believe it. In his arms I could pretend he had asked to marry me because he loved me. With him trailing kisses down my throat, and his mouth latching onto my breast, I wanted nothing more than to believe this was the way things were supposed to be. That all the crazy, fucked-up bullshit had been for something good.
He drove into me with a hard thrust, and I cried out, my nails digging into the warm skin of his shoulders. Over and over he pumped until our bodies found their rhythm, and I met each thrust with an arch of my back and we were both slick with sweat.
When we were both on the brink, hovering on the precipice of orgasm, something in my head said, Open your eyes. I obeyed and found him staring at me, his blue irises nearly swallowed by the ring of yellow-green. He held my face between his palms as he dug deep with one last, shuddering thrust. I gasped, but no sound came out.
It took us a moment to breathe again, and when I finally did, he brushed sweat-dampened hair off my cheek and smiled. “Now you really are mine.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Fun fact: vampires can smell sex.
I had always known it was the case, but seeing the look on Holden’s face when I met him back at the bar was a harsh reminder. The disgust that flashed in his eyes was enough to make my stomach churn with guilt.
“Hope you had a good time, Mrs. Rain.” His gaze darted to the flawless six-carat diamond and platinum ring Lucas had insisted I put on after we’d gotten dressed. The damned thing was so absurd I wanted to ask him to take it back and trade it for something more subtle, but I suspected male ego and diamond size were closely related.
“It’s complicated.” The excuse sounded weak even to my ears. Was I really going to try using werewolf politics to justify running off to have sex in the middle of a party? I frowned and stayed silent when he glared at me.
“And someday you’ll explain to me why it’s okay for you to sleep with two werewolves, yet it’s out of the question to cross the line with me. But I couldn’t give a damn about that right now. You brought me here tonight to help find Lucy, and that’s why I’m here. So unless you feel like flaunting your lovers in my face a little more, let’s get our job done.”
A slap would have hurt less than his cold tone.
The walk from the Rain School of Business to the English department offices wasn’t long, but it might as well have taken ten years given how uncomfortable it was. Holden walked four feet ahead of me the whole way and didn’t say another word after we left the party. Before we ventured out I made my final round of official handshaking and apologized to our visiting guests for leaving so soon. Lucas wasn’t thrilled, but he didn’t argue.
It was impossible for me to ignore that the smell of my coupling with Lucas would be obvious to every werewolf in the room. Dominick and Morgan had both looked disappointed—for different reasons—but our Southern envoy seemed to take me seriously for the first time that evening.
Guess I really was Lucas’s mate now.
I didn’t know how to feel about the upgrade, and I was already having misgivings about our carnal display in the student lounge. It wasn’t that I felt sleeping with him had been wrong, per se, but something about it didn’t sit well.
Holden’s reaction didn’t make me feel any better about it.
The cranky vampire burst into the English building and let the solid wood door close in my face. Yup, he wasn’t handling it like an adult.
Since it was late in the evening on a Friday, there were no classes in session. The halls had an empty, echoey feel to them, making the whole building seem haunted. Without the bustle of students giving the walls life, all that remained was a musty, unsettling gloom. I matched Holden’s pace, then overtook him. This was my hunt, and he didn’t know where we were going.
In the basement I led us through a labyrinth of halls until we were standing outside Oliver Mayhew’s locked office door.
Holden sniffed the air. “Doesn’t smell sinister.” The tone of his voice implied I might be wrong in my assessment that Mayhew was the villain. I’d had plenty of opportunity to doubt myself in the past week, but this wasn’t something I was uncertain of.
I pulled out the bobby pin I’d used to keep my bangs pinned back, and they thanked me by tumbling into my eyes. “He’s involved.”
“Whatever you say.”
The bobby pin slipped into the lock, and I twisted it several times until a satisfying click shouted into the silence of the hall.
“Where’d you learn to do that?” Curiosity overtook his default surliness.
“Keaty 101. He locked me in a closet with no light and nothing but a box of toothpicks. Told me if I made it out, he’d train me.”
“And if you didn’t?”
“Keaty has plenty of skeletons in his closet already. I don’t think another one would make much difference to him.” I was matter-of-fact about it, but the truth was the memory of being trapped in that closet gave me the creeps. I didn’t do well with cramped spaces, and in seven years I don’t think I’d totally forgiven Keaty for doing that to me.
“He and Sig would get along swimmingly.” Holden opened the door, and the dark interior grinned like an open mouth.
When I stood, I brushed against his chest. We both froze. He broke away first, choosing to slip into the foreign room instead of staying in contact with me.
“What are you looking for, exactly?”
I let out a breath before following him into the office. “Anything that proves Mayhew met with the girls alone. With the exception of Lucy, all the girls were carrying on relationships with Gabriel, and from what I gather they had a bit of a time-share system.” Mayhew’s desk chair squeaked when I sat down.
“Your Gabriel?”
“He’s no one’s Gabriel now.” I hit the power button on the desktop computer and waited as the fan kicked in and the familiar Windows chimes bonged. By some stroke of idiot’s luck, the computer wasn’t password protected. That also probably meant I wasn’t going to find anything juicy or useful.
Holden picked up the professor’s Day-Timer and started paging through it. “What were their names?”
“Trish, Angie and Misty.”
As a full-blooded vampire, he didn’t need any light to read the contents of the book. I would have been able to make out some detail, but not with the same clarity. While he checked b
ack through Mayhew’s old appointments, I started snooping in Outlook. It was about as titillating as I’d anticipated. There were several messages from Gabriel, but none were incriminating. The only message from any of the missing girls was one from Trish Keller asking for an extension on a term paper.
One message was flagged, and I clicked it open. The sender was listed as E. Marx.
Dear Professor Mayhew,
I’m writing as a follow-up to our discussion after last Thursday’s class. I gave a lot of consideration to your thoughts, but I don’t think I’ll be able to pick up the work at this point. I have to focus on sciences. I will stop by your office tomorrow to have you sign the withdrawal forms. Again, I’m very sorry. I hope I’ll get another opportunity to take your class before I graduate.
Sincerely,
Ellory Marx
The name didn’t mean anything to me, but the flag Mayhew had placed on it made me uneasy. I printed the email and took a final look at his inbox. When it didn’t tell me what he was up to, I turned off the computer and stood. Holden was still paging through the Day-Timer, and it didn’t take superhuman night vision to know he looked concerned about something.
“What did you find?” I moved closer, careful not to touch him, and peered over his shoulder.
“He had several meetings with each of the girls, but in the last two weeks he’s met with Lucy three times out of his regular office hours. The names never overlap. He’ll meet with one girl three or four times, then moves on to the next. You’re sure Gabriel wasn’t involved with Lucy?”
I shook my head. “I enthralled him.”
Holden closed the book with a smack and tossed it back on Mayhew’s desk. “I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me.”
“When did that change?”
“About the same time I stopped taking my orders from you.”
He gave me a tight-lipped smile that had nothing to do with happiness. “Well look who’s got all the power now.”
