by Angel Payne
An enlightened—and admiring—grin spread across my lips. “Hmmm.”
“Hmmm…what?”
“Nothing. Except maybe that we selected your code name prematurely, Your Ladyship.”
Cam smirked. “That so? What do you suggest for a new one?”
I tapped my chin. “Buffy.”
She grimaced. “Buffy?”
“Cute and cheerleader-y on the outside. Bad-ass bad guy killer on the inside.”
“Oh.” She mockingly preened. “Well in that case, Badger girl, lead on to the ball.”
I took a turn at the grimace. “Guess I have to, huh?”
She snorted in commiseration. “Let’s make it quick and painless. I need to take care of your king tonight, in more ways than one.”
Chapter Ten
‡
ENTERING THE BALL was, shockingly, kind of fun. Grand productions like this had never been my favorites, even during the days of officially being a politician’s kid. The princess girl novelty of it all wore off after my tenth birthday, when Disney Channel was replaced by Nickelodeon and all I wanted to be was a normal kid hanging at the mall in a bucket hat and cut-off shorts. I’d never enjoyed any red carpet since.
Funny, what a few years—and a long red wig and green contacts—could do.
When I climbed out of the town car at the LeBlanc Tower, nobody batted an eye. Not the small press corps, the jittery fans, or even the Tahreuse dignitaries, lined up to greet Camellia and Evrest with all the pomp and circumstance they could have possibly drummed up for the occasion. With my earpiece hidden beneath my “hair”, I wasn’t even distinguishable as a member of the local security detail. Literally, I had no name; was just one of Cam’s modern-day ladies-in-waiting, like Orielle and Freya—who bore that comprehension with a lot more pouts and huffs.
I was euphoric. Completely free to do my job, though right here in plain sight: the whole purpose of the op to begin with. Positioned nearly at Cam’s side, I could protect her best without anyone raising the slightest inch of an eyebrow.
“Crown Jewel’s at the red,” I murmured, hoping Jagger and the team could hear me over the crowd. Though held back by barriers, they went berserk the moment Camellia disembarked from the car.
“Copy that, Badger.” Jag’s response was crisp and cool, as if he were merely running me through conditioning drills at the Center. “Please hold her there until our mark.”
“Don’t think that’ll be an issue.” I watched Cam charming the pants off every person in the throng, posing for pictures and signing everything from posters of the Arcadia-set movie she’d once been a crew member of, to the hokey royal couple merchandise that every shop in town was hawking now.
After thirty seconds, the comm line crackled again. “Big Wolf is in position and ready to go.”
It wasn’t Jag this time.
It was the voice for which I’d been steeling myself over the last six days. The voice I’d last heard in my ear, softly growling my name as early sunlight streams buffeted us from the world for a few last, miraculous minutes.
The voice pouring just as much longing and arousal into me now.
I pushed my way past clutching lungs and rubbery knees, intoning in return, “Roger that, Wildcat.” Syn’s radio name was the guys’ nod to the bible story from which the ancient version of his name had come; I derived a completely different meaning. It was impossible to think of the man at the height of sexual temptation and not think of some dark jungle beast, on the hunt for his primal fulfillment…
I forced myself to take in the spectacle of the night, instead. It was damn near impossible not to. The Tahreuse council had spared no funds to ensure the ball would be an event to remember. Twinkle lights spiraled the trunk of every tree. From their branches hung hundreds of golden lanterns, illuminating the entrance road in a glow that seemed almost celestial. The red carpet also covered the entrance path into the Tower, where the low stone ceiling was lined with billowing white drapes that concealed more twinkle lights.
The décor treatment served a higher purpose: to bump the “wow” factor once guests entered the main party area. Once someone stepped foot into the huge cavern itself, with its soaring walls glittering with the embedded blue gemstones, it was impossible not to gasp. The cavern’s natural beauty was enhanced by colored party spotlights, glistening ice sculptures, and handcrafted local furniture with white cushions, accented by vases bursting with mountain wildflowers in every shade of blue imaginable.
“Holy mother of wow.”
Camellia’s exclamation made me laugh. I wasn’t alone. Mayor Trieste, who’d taken advantage of the photo op to escort her from the car to this point, gave an indulgent chortle. “My citizens shall be happy to know your reaction, Lady Camellia. They have worked hard all week on the event.”
“Obviously.” She beamed a dazed smile. I swore Trieste grew another inch taller. Buffy had slayed another one.
But one man in the kingdom was gutted more than all the rest by her—a fact nobody disputed as soon as he entered the room. As King Evrest Cimarron strode to the middle of the white dance floor, looking every inch the dark wolf indeed, a hush fell over the room. Tonight, the king made even wolfish look distinguished, exchanging his traditional black doublet for an outfit tailored in ivory, matching the accents on Cam’s gown. Like her, he accessorized in gold: the hook-and-eyes on his doublet, as well as the buttons up the sides of his pants, were gleams of the polished color. His thick black hair was slicked back from his face, emphasizing every prominent, handsome angle.
“Holy. Shit.” Cam seized me by the wrist. “Brooke—”
“Yes?” I grabbed her back, suddenly concerned.
“Hold me up.”
“Camellia? Cam? Are you feeling all right?”
“Look at him. Look at him!” She visibly gulped. “Would you be feeling all right? How the hell does he expect me to move, when he comes in looking like that?”
I squeezed her hand encouragingly. “I think he might feel the same way.” The longer I watched Evrest, watching her with unblinking focus across the gaze that exactly matched her gown, the more sure I was about the point.
“Wh-what’s he doing now? Ohhhh, no. Is he really—”
I couldn’t help a tiny laugh. “Inviting you to dance? Errmm…yes, Your Ladyship, he is.”
She groaned beneath her breath. “By his own damn Creator. What is he thinking?”
Silence. Mine. On purpose. Just for a second. “Seriously?”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
“All right, then. Beside the fact that he looks ready to crawl out of his skin if he doesn’t touch you again—”
“That part, I can deal with.”
“He’s claiming you. Now. Publicly. While the whole kingdom, and the world press, are watching. It’s as much for them as you. He’s telling them that he’s not just kicking off this party; he’s starting his life—and you’re the key to that. He’s telling them that you’re here to stay, and they’d better get used to it.”
As I spoke, the edges of her mouth quirked. Before she replied, they bloomed into a wide smile. “Badger…I think I like you.”
I squeezed her hand one more time before letting it drop. “Buffy…go dance with your man.”
My chest warmed, watching her walk into the lights to be reunited with Evrest. The applause swelled in equal measure, an irony since the couple in the middle of the dance floor were clearly oblivious to anything but each other. With their foreheads lightly touching and their eyes completely closed, they began to sway as the band played Why Don’t We Fall in Love with a slow, sultry twist. Few people in the room were able to rip their stares from the sight. Despite the pace of the music, the king and his fiancé didn’t just shuffle back and forth like a pair of teeny-boppers. They moved against each other with their legs and hips, their arms and hands, like a poem given physicality.
Like a pair of lovers who couldn’t wait to get naked with each other.
I
couldn’t watch them and not think of Samsyn.
And how we’d moved together like that, too.
I suddenly needed air. Badly.
As if a wool blanket were thrown over the room, I sucked in a harsh breath. My wig wasn’t a glam masquerade anymore. It itched and clung. My contacts burned in my eyes.
I was vaguely conscious of tapping the comm link. “Robin Hood, do you have eyes on the dance floor?”
“Affirmative,” Jag answered.
“Perf. Badger’s taking a recon lap on the patio.”
Though I couldn’t see him through the crowd, the delay of his scrutiny was tangible. “You feeling okay, B?”
“Fine,” I hissed. “The dress is tight.” Lie. The gown was damn near custom-fitted for me, but right now the million-layered skirt suffocated just like the wig. “I’ll be back in five.”
Once out on the terrace, I inhaled gratefully. The night flowers had started to bloom, weaving their natural perfume in with the breeze off the lake. The sky was clear except for a few frothy clouds, drifting across the moon like designer meringue atop a cream macaron.
The view demanded more than a cursory glance, but first things first: I’d promised Jag a thorough check of the area. Fortunately, with nearly everyone mesmerized by the Ev and Cam show on the dance floor, I was finished in a couple of minutes. The shadows on the far side of the terrace beckoned as an ideal spot to re-file my thoughts into proper order.
Until a bunch of them moved. With a huge hulk that felt, looked, and smelled all too familiar.
From that darkness, his gaze beamed first. It was always the first thing I noticed about him. So reassuring yet strange, how that hadn’t changed. Even now, even after everything, my feet stopped as my heart indulged a giddy whirl, locked in the power of his brilliant blues.
I kept borrowing a page from the book of Cam, unable to move even as he did, stepping forward with his warrior-dragon surety. Yep; even with his clean-shaven jaw and his hair pulled into a gleaming knot, I could imagine him brandishing a broadsword and racing into battle. His doublet was black—as if I’d doubted that choice—with the shoulders and upper torso inlaid with silver threads. Those swirls guided the eye toward the medallion pinned to the middle of his chest, etched with the twined dove and hawk of the Cimarron family crest.
“Dammit, Syn.” I struggled for a flippant laugh but came up short. “You scared the crap out of me.”
“Just as you frightened me.”
I readily embraced confusion. It trumped having to notice the rest of his luscious outfit. The tight fit of his traditional red breeches. The polished boots that hugged him up to the middle of those massive thighs. Shit, did the man have amazing legs… “What? Why?”
“You turned white as the dance floor in there.”
He’d noticed?
Don’t shuck your panties, girlfriend. Of course he noticed. You’re on the vital team. If you fall over, he has to worry about replacing you.
“I’m fine. It just got stuffy. The dress—”
“Looks fucking perfect.”
His sandpaper voice jerked my head up. His countenance matched, turning so rough that he seemed to age a year before my eyes. His thick brows lowered over the new intensity in his eyes.
“It—it does?” And could I have sounded any more like the dip-wit teenager I’d tried so hard to make him forget?
He moved in by another step. Clenched his fists, as if preventing himself from taking a second. “You are the most beautiful woman in this whole damn place.”
I nodded inside with a little grin. “I think your brother might disagree.”
He didn’t acknowledge that. “It really looks like stars.” Finally reached out, fingering one of the skirt overlays. From there, it was simple for him to drift his hand over, brushing my hand with his.
Time stopped. Heat bloomed. Inside seconds, turned to a thousand bolts of fire up my arm, through my body. Breaths stuttered in and out of my lungs. Once more, I was small yet huge, joyous but terrified, lost yet found…but oh, so very sure of the woman in me, affirmed by every inch of the man that was him. Unbreakable. Unfathomable. Unbelievable.
But for a moment, I believed.
And gave in.
“Samsyn.” Wrapped my hand around his. Trailed my index finger down the length of his. Shit. This was wrong and ill-advised on so many levels but he was the damn moon and I was the helpless tide. I looked up, longing for him to see what other parts of him I already touched…in my naughtiest thoughts.
“Astremé.” His voice was sequoia tree bark. His gaze darkened as I curled my finger around, stroking up and down his long, thick digit. I didn’t miss an inch, from the firm web at the root to the broad fingernail at the tip.
“I’ve…missed you.”
He swallowed. “I have…missed you.”
Here went nothing. Or perhaps everything. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Did you…think about it?”
I didn’t explain “it”. The silver shards in his gaze confirmed he already knew. “Yes,” he snarled softly. “I thought about it. All of it.”
My lungs refilled with air that felt made of tingles.
God, really? Was I thinking shit like that, let alone feeling it? Right now?
I cleared my throat. Forced myself to step back. “Sorry. Shit. Sorry.”
Syn snarled softly. “Brooke—”
“Forget it.” I smoothed my dress, preparing to got back inside. “I’m—it’s all right. Just…forget it. We have work to do.”
I indulged one last glance Syn’s face was tight, conflicted, and unspeakably gorgeous. There was a question in his eyes too—but before I could answer, the terrace was flooded with noise. Camellia led the way, towing King Evrest by the hand. They were followed by what could only be described as a small mob.
“Hey!” the little brunette exclaimed. “Jagger, you were right. We found her.”
“Found wh…” My query faded as I finally focused on the faces behind Evrest and her. The faces—at first, as foreign to me as my own tonight—but after taking in the specific features, were as familiar to me as home.
Because they were home.
“Dad! Mom!” Though Veronica Valen wasn’t my biological mother, she’d joyfully filled the role since I was eighteen months old. Technically, that also made her “Mom”. “Oh my God. Look at my groovy parents!”
Dad, who’d maintained his senatorial crop over the years, sported a black shag and mustache a la Sonny Bono in the 1970’s. Appropriate, since Mom had traded out her short blonde curls for a sleek Cher look, a la the Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves era. She had spiky fake eyelashes to go along with it, and red lips she was careful not to smudge on me as we hugged.
“Lady Camellia very sweetly offered to let us come join the fun,” she explained.
“We couldn’t turn down the chance to see our girl in action,” Dad added.
“You’re not supposed to see me, Dad. That’s the point.”
“Which is why you’re one of the most stunning women in the room?”
Dad was one-upped on the comment by a guy who moved in from behind him. The dude finished off the comment with a saucy wag of brows that more resembled a pair of muddy caterpillars. I almost wrote him off as a creepy hanger-on, until he flashed a glimpse of crooked teeth—the teeth I’d made crooked, when attacking him for spilling fruit punch all over my Hannah Montana Halloween costume one year.
“Dillon?”
“Hey,” he chastised as I dove in for a crushing hug. “Don’t scratch the merchandise too much.”
“Asshole.” I punched his shoulder. “Your ‘merchandise’ is just fine. As a matter of fact, a few sweet chicas around here might be interested in logging advance payments for it.” I cupped my hands and mouthed Freya’s name. The woman’s crush on Dil had been legendary for years.
He rolled his eyes. Probably would’ve tacked on a growl, if Mom didn’t flip her Cher locks with diva poise, then wink at the ma
n behind me. “Guess what, Samsyn Cimarron? We can see you back there.”
Well. The man had more than one surprise entrance up his sleeve tonight. As Syn slipped around me with grace that belonged on the dance floor, my stomach swirled with more girlish butterflies. As he leaned in, scooping up Mom’s hand then winking back at her, all the butterflies drowned—in the puddle now known as me.
“A pleasure to see you, as always, Madame Valen—or shall I say Madame Cher?”
“‘Veronica’ is fine, Samsyn. You know that.” Even she went all girly-flustered, smoothing the front of her red sheath gown. “Especially since they spared me the horror of having to wear anything with feathers, beads, or cut-outs.”
“Cut-outs?” Dad did a perk-and-smirk. “You didn’t say anything about the cut-outs option.”
“Not an accident, sweetheart,” Mom rejoined.
As everyone laughed, Dad scooted closer to her. Nuzzled her ear and muttered things none of us could hear. Probably a good thing.
“Oh my God.” Camellia gave me a soft shoulder bump. “Your parents are so cute.”
“Yeah, they are.” I smiled at the two of them, cuddling each other like the sun rose and set in each other’s eyes, and suddenly, everything was all right in the world. “Sometimes, in a weird way, I’m kind of grateful for what happened to us. Losing so much that night…well, it made all four of us more aware of what we did have.” When understanding softened her eyes, I went on, “Political life is rough on marriages, even outside Washington. So many of my friends had estranged parents, or had to deal with scandals about cheating and lying…shit.” Contentment morphed to horror. “Not that such a thing would ever happen with Evrest and you. I just—”
She cut me off with a chuckle. “Chill, girlfriend. He and I had to go through a lot to even get here.” Her gaze, gone even mistier with emotion, drifted to the king. If it were possible, Evrest was an even more dashing figure out here, his brocade clothes and elegant hair contrasted by the wood flooring and rustic furniture. “We’re solid—and we’re going to make sure it stays that way.”