by Lacy Danes
The scent of sweat and arousal clung to the room as the small gathering of London’s elite fluttered about this out-of-character evening wedding ball.
Scandalous was what the Ton called the odd time. If they only knew the true meaning of this hour: that the duke had interesting friends, friends like the Zir, and some could not face the light of day.
Jordan tugged on the bottom of his tight-fitting yellow-and-gray-embroidered waistcoat. His presence was needed here this night. For Ilmir. He frowned. Well, the truth was that Ferrous said Jordan needed to be here. That was the only reason he had come. He had no clue what Ilmir had done this time as Ilmir had gone missing since their return from the Isle three days past. Typical Ilmir. Cause a fuss and hide. This event would pull him out, however, as their brother never missed one of the Duke of Hudson’s events. When they found Ilmir, they would learn of his folly, and steps could be taken.
But where was he?
Jordan glanced to the right and tensed as his gaze touched on a group of finely dressed ladies and gentleman. Slowly, each one turned their heads to stare at him. Cold eyes. Colder thoughts. Chills washed his neck.
No warm haze of Zir likeness resided in that direction. Nothing resided that way but the prickly stress of humans. Not that he disliked humans. Some were tolerable. Some he called friends, though his friends did not reside here this night. Besides, he was part human himself, or so he liked to think. The truth was that the Zir knew little about themselves.
Each set of eyes settled on him. Thoughts slammed, same as always, into his mind.
“Gracious! Look at the white streak in his hair,” one woman thought.
Jordan frowned.
“I bet he is equally wild as he looks in the act,” thought another.
He paused, then turned his gaze back to the woman, whose stare had touched on him last. The tall, black-haired woman smiled at him with red full lips, then flipped open her fan and waved it vigorously.
The man to her right smiled and inclined his square, feathered hat in acknowledgement even as his mind sniped, “Another one of the four. Do they not realize they simply do not belong here?”
Conceited bore. If he had an inkling of his wife’s thoughts or how many of the guests here in this room frequented Samgor’s Den…
Jordan’s back tingled. Did they believe their false smiles made him feel at ease? Oh, the look on their faces if they could see their thoughts about him slide, slick as butter, into his mind. Once their thoughts did, it was impossible to imagine he belonged here, no matter his fine clothes or polite manners.
Wait! He had not been able to read thoughts in a year. This elemental power had been the first of his to dwindle. He smiled a genuine smile. The surge in power had to be a residual effect from the bite. Maybe he had refrained from biting for too long.
He turned away from the couple, swallowed, and set his chin. He needed to tell Ferrous about this when they were together next.
If his bite caused this, it was a mixed blessing. His powers increased, but he’d killed a woman. Sorrow hung around his heart. He also now was once again aware just how out of place he and his brothers really were amongst the Ton. But then, socializing with anyone at this high a level in society had always grated on him.
He wiped the disapproving reactions of England’s elite from his conscious mind and concentrated on the task at hand: finding Ilmir.
He pushed through the cluster of gents to his right and past the musicians who played as young and old alike danced in the middle of the room. Several pretty women attended this night. One could very well be his mate. His lips turned down, and he grumbled. He would never bite one of them. When a peer’s daughter went missing, it was noticed by all. He narrowed his eyes. An entire class of women was untouchable because their eventual deaths caused complications for the Zir. Finding an enticing reaction from paupers and prostitutes had become tiring decades before.
A gasp came from beside him, and a round, short woman dressed in a grapefruit-colored gown that matched her cheeks shied away. “Odd man… I thought the four stopped attending civilized events.”
Then again, maybe Jordan should bite one or two of them. The left side of his mouth curled up into a lopsided grin. He was starting to sound a bit like Ilmir. His brow pulled tight. He could not have that.
The music ceased, and everyone slowly turned toward the south end of the ballroom. Jordan lifted his head and gazed through the small crowd. Finding one of his unusually tall brothers here should be easy. He fidgeted with the cuff of his black evening coat and then focused his attention on the man at the head of the room who had captured the guests’ attention: the Duke of Hudson.
The chatter in the room dulled to a low hum. A man with golden hair and cold brown eyes called out from beside Jordan, “Hudson, get on with it. I have skirts to chase.”
A sinister smile flirted across the Duke of Hudson’s lips before altogether disappearing. “Indeed, Bedmond. And keep your old man away from this.” He turned to his left and held out his hand. A slender woman placed her white-gloved fingers into the duke’s open hand and stepped up beside him.
Jordan’s vision hazed and warped in a colorful wave, heightening details at the center of his focus. He shook his head and looked down to the highly polished wood floor. His sight returned to normal.
What just happened? His vision never colored except after he had bitten. He locked his jaw, and his chest labored. He slowly raised his gaze back up at the duke and the woman who stood the same height beside him. A rainbow of colors radiated out from her.
He choked.
The woman… He closed his eyes, and the image from the beach came back to him…
Golden hair lit up with the sun. The pearls of her aristocratic dress played against the tips of his fingers as he gently laid her on the grass for dead.
His throat tightened. He had bitten her three days past, and she…lived.
Oh, bloody hell.
His body shook.
She was his mate.
Heat coursed through his flesh and burned through his cock, which swelled and pressed painfully against his trousers. His mate. He shifted his stance and placed his hand at an angle to disguise his engorged erection. Damn. He glanced about the room. This couldn’t be possible. His attention snapped back to her.
“Lords and ladies, I present to you my new wife, Her Grace, the Duchess of Hudson!” His Grace raised her fingers to his lips and kissed her gloved knuckles.
It was her. It really was the same woman. Jordan had touched that wrist. Had taken her bracelet. His treasure of her death. His fingers fisted, and he stumbled forward, seeing nothing but her golden hair, slender nose, full, angelic lips and noble cheekbones. All held the color of life. Not death.
She had wed Hudson.
He bumped into the gentleman who stood before him.
“Mind your step.”
How could she? He continued forward without pause. After five hundred years of frustration and loneliness, he had found his lifemate, and Cupid had poisoned the arrow.
She had married another, and tonight would bed her husband.
Not him.
His feet moved as if he glided, pulled by a rope to her. This was wretched! His vision streaked, danced and swirled in blue and gold ripples, making his stomach flip.
Yet he’d found her!
The room hummed and dropped away. He stepped in front of her, shaking. He stared down at eyes so green they reminded him of a serene, moss-covered pond. A shiver raced from the tip of his toes to the white streak in his hair.
“You survived.” His deep and raspy words barely left his mouth.
Her eyes widened, and her skin paled, accentuating the freckles across her nose. “Pardon? Do I know you, sir?”
She had freckles… His lips turned up into a genuine smile. Freckles. He wanted to know every tiny detail about her.
A weighty force pressed upon his shoulders, buckling his knees.
Hell.
He kn
elt before her, bent low, and stared up at her like a peasant in awe before a goddess.
The image of her as he had dragged her from the water—blood and seawater trailing over him and staining his clothes—slid through him.
Now this distortion stained his soul.
He had left her…
Left his mate for dead.
How could he not have known? He licked his lips with a tongue that held no moisture. The scent of orange blossoms and cherries filled his flaring nostrils. Her scent. The scent of her blood.
She’d had no wedding ring on her finger that night. He opened his mouth and grasped her hand. She needed to know she was his mate, a love for all time…
Thick-gloved fingers wrapped about his forearm, and his scales prickled in familiar warning. Ilmir.
“Please excuse him, Your Grace. He is truly in his cups.” Ilmir’s calm, deep voice slashed through his beautiful rainbow fog.
The censure of the room came crashing back to Jordan’s senses.
Ilmir’s breath pressed to his ear. “You are making a dangerous spectacle.”
Jordan turned his head toward Ilmir and narrowed his eyes. How dare he? The man had done everything against all mores his entire life.
“Jordan.” Ilmir glanced at the woman before them. “Is this…” His gray eyebrows rose over his pale, ice-blue eyes in question.
Jordan remained silent and continued to glare at his brother. Beyond his grayish-white hair, his well-tailored evening attire made him appear the perfect, elegant young gentleman. Appear… Jordan frowned and ground his teeth together. How dare he act noble? Here. Now. He wanted to grab Ilmir by the ear and drag him outside, but nothing was as it should be tonight, and this act too had strings.
Hudson stepped before them, blocking his new duchess from view. A deep frown scarred his face. “I suggest you listen to your brother. Your family is in enough of a public tumble, which I will help you out of, but this…” His brow arched, and dreaminess glazed his eyes. An odd smile flashed across his lips, then disappeared.
Ilmir wrapped his arm under Jordan’s and pulled him to his feet. His breath warmed Jordan’s ear. “Don’t fret. If she is yours, no one can deny the fact. Not even her.” Ilmir slowly turned him from his beauty.
Jordan wobbled and swayed, his shaking legs unable to support him. He floated as if he was a bloody cork in water…water so unfamiliar and deadly. Deadly? He mentally jarred himself. He was water. Water could never kill him. He’d found her, and he would not leave her here for Hudson’s use.
“Act inebriated.” Ilmir gripped him hard and almost dragged him through the crowd.
Like the devil he would! Jordan glanced back. Her eyes, huge emerald pools that spoke of a deep soul, watched him as she talked to an older woman at her side. He pulled against Ilmir’s grasp. “Release me.”
Ilmir’s fingers tightened. “No, brother. This is not how we untangle this.”
“This is not yours to untangle.” He could not leave without saying more to her.
She needed to know. Know what had happened.
She needed to know she was his mate.
Not Hudson’s.
“Release your fingers,” he ground out, and the sacs in his mouth swelled. He jerked his head back—that was not supposed to happen unless he prepared to bite—and clenched his teeth, holding his lips closed on the poisons that swelled in his glands.
He glanced around the room. Bloody hell! His body changed against his will, and he did not know what those changes encompassed. The room watched them. What was happening to him? He firmly planted the soles of his shoes on the marble floor.
“No!” Ilmir’s fingers dug into his flesh. “Not until I have you in a carriage. She will not disappear, Jordan. I assure you.” He laughed a mocking chuckle and yanked him through an open door. “She is a duchess.” He kicked the door closed with the heel of his boot.
“To hell, Ilmir.” His angry words smoked out of his mouth and singed the fabric on Ilmir’s coat. Damn smoke. He’d just breathed smoke. He stared at the lightly glowing spot on Ilmir’s sleeve, and his eyes widened. He had never done that before.
“Quite so. Hell has had me and enjoys my flavor.” The sleeve of Ilmir’s coat puffed, smoldering. “Now listen and listen well, brother. That there”—Ilmir pointed back into the ballroom—“is the Duke of Hudson. This is his home. If we slight him, we have no remaining allies in London. Do you understand?” Ilmir brushed at the singed fabric and continued to stare at him as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.
Of course Jordan knew where they were. But— Bloody hell! She was his! His! “Ilmir.”
“Control yourself. You cannot do this badly.”
Jordan’s fists shook in anger. “As if you should give that guidance. You have never thought of anyone but yourself!”
Ilmir nodded. “Correctly stated. And you have seen the consequences. Be the good whelp you always are. Or go your own path and we all fall.”
“Fall? We can’t fall.” But Ilmir was correct about one thing. Confronting her here in front of a room full of people when he was uncertain of his body’s changes was a poor plan. He sighed and rolled his shoulders. He needed her alone. And now.
A nervous laugh escaped Celeste’s lips as the immense man before her was dragged across the ballroom by another man almost as large. Goodness. What a spectacle.
“Make haste!” A woman’s sultry voice heard only in her head pierced her ears.
Celeste flinched. The red wine she held in the intricately carved crystal glass sloshed up the edge and spilled down her dress, splattering on the floor. Not again. This was one of the most important days of her life, and she had gone daft, hearing voices once more. She stared down at the red wine now spreading like blood across her new pink silk. She was the spectacle once more.
Celeste dug her fingers into her grandmum’s forearm to steady herself. When would this madness stop?
“Are you well, dear?” Grandmum’s brown gaze, filled with compassion and warmth, met hers.
Celeste glanced into the crowd in the direction of the man who had knelt before her so ardently, and shook her head. No, not at all. How did she admit that her legs trembled from what had just occurred? That her heart raced? She didn’t. She couldn’t. Not really. Not ever out loud.
Truth be told, she had not one inkling of what that man was about.
She stared at the blue-eyed man as his brother dragged him out into the parlor and shut the enormous wood door. She swallowed hard. What man—let alone a mysterious, oddly attractive giant—would fall before her in such an impassioned manner? Even for the new duchess, the display was over the moon.
Still worse was that her reaction had nothing to do with the fact he had alluded to her incident. She bit her lower lip. No, be truthful, Celeste. He had said, “You survived,” which implied that he knew she’d woken up on a deserted shore alone, with her dress torn to rags. If the duke found out…
It would only be a short time before he learned she had no knowledge of how she’d gotten there, or of the marks on her neck, and of the voice in her mind.
Her father’s angry voice as the family physician examined her still lingered in her head. “The family will be cast out if you speak of this madness to anyone. His Grace will not have you. I will not have another word about it. You will do your duty.” He had even gone so far as to have her maidenhood verified. When she had asked him to search for her aunt, he had slapped her cheek so hard that the sting lingered for hours.
Chills swept up her spine in a wave. Thank the stars it had not left a bruise on her face.
She ripped her gaze from the now-closed door to her husband.
The duke stood the shortest of the group of men who gathered to tease him and congratulate him on obtaining his second wife.
She inhaled deep, sighed and closed her eyes. The way that man had stared at her… Blue eyes that she swore rippled like the water of the sea. Heat coiled about her body, and she shivered. Gracious. H
udson did not regard her in the same manner. Nor did the simple thought of his eyes cause the same intense physical reaction. She shifted her stance in an attempt to relieve the discomfort building in her core.
“Go after him.” The woman’s voice sloshed through her head again.
“No.” She couldn’t. No matter how intrigued she was by the other man’s strange gesture, this marriage was her duty. But that man-Jordan, he was called- had information. What exactly did he know?
Her memory of that night wavered in and out of foggy moments. She and her aunt had been crossing the channel, Celeste chattering nervously because she feared traveling by water. That memory faded, then jumped to the excitement of being almost home, and then…she awoke alone on a deserted beach in the blazing sun, her dress stained with mud and blood, with that scab on her neck. No one could explain to her what happened, and the gaps in her memory tormented her. Later, she’d first heard the woman’s voice in her head.
What did that man know? Could he answer the questions that drove her crazy? She would be a simpleton to follow him. Yet…follow him was what she needed to do.
She glanced at Grandmum. She would do anything for her. Her father she had no intention of ever talking to again.
“Do you need air, dear?” Grandmum’s gloved hand gently patted hers. “The odd hank of white hair, I found most intriguing.” Her gravelly voice breathed low against Celeste’s ear. “It suited him. Though, I wonder how that came about?”
Celeste stared at her. Why had Grandmum called that to her attention? She didn’t want to know anything about the gentleman…except what he knew of her arriving on the shore. Knowing more about him would only lead to a tangled ball of vexation. She was a new wife, and her duty was to her husband.
“He will be back. Deal with him now, not later.”
She snapped open her fan in an attempt to rid that woman’s voice from her mind. Hudson glanced at her, nodded, then turned and headed with his fellows toward the billiards room.
He had no interest in her at this moment. “Which means you will not be missed if you follow the strange man…”