by L. C. Davis
He groaned and let his head drop back against the tall booth.
“Hey, you said ask anything,” I reminded him.
“I did, didn't I?” He gave a short laugh and stuffed a piece of bread in his mouth to buy himself a few more seconds. “The short answer is yes.”
“Give me the long answer,” I said, thoroughly enjoying the fact that I'd found a way to make him squirm.
He rolled his eyes. “Some don't care, but most of us try to avoid fucking other wolves because of the attachment. Even then, just about everyone has... fraternized at some point or another. Especially on the full moon. Everyone except Ulric, obviously.”
“Not sweet, innocent Clara,” I said doubtfully.
“Oh, I've caught Jason coming out her apartment once or twice.”
“Jason and Clara?” I blanched. “But he's so... Jason.”
He chuckled at my reaction. “I know. Doubt he's her type, but the moon makes everyone go crazy, especially unmated fleurs. The rest of us try to stick to our subs, but what happens on a full moon stays on a full moon.”
“Until now,” I reminded him. “You just told me.”
“Hey, you didn't hear it from me.”
I grinned mischievously. “Nope. I'm thinking now I own you.”
“I don't go that way, kiddo. Not even for you,” he scoffed. “Now if you ever decide you want a new master...”
“My contract with Victor isn't exclusive,” I purred. “And don't try to change the subject.”
“Sheesh. Okay, fine. It's probably already pretty obvious, but Brendan and Clarence don't just take care of Foster's emotional needs. They share him as a sub, but there's no relationship there otherwise. I'm pretty sure even that's tapered off since Hunter and Maverick moved in.”
“All very informative, but you've let out two crucial pieces of information,” I said formally.
He rolled his eyes again. “Me? Nah, I don't screw around with anyone in the pack. I haven't even been with anyone since, well, you know.”
I hoped my blank stare would prove that I didn't.
He cleared his throat. “Never mind.”
“Why don't you?” I asked, strangely relieved by the revelation.
“I dunno, it would just feel weird. I kind of feel like I'm responsible for all of them in some way, you know? They're like family.”
“That's admirable, actually.” Sebastian was full of surprises, but my admiration wasn't enough to distract me from my curiosity. “And Victor?”
He gave me a strange look. “You sure you want the answer to that question?”
“Why wouldn't I?” I laughed. “It's not like we're married. He can do what he wants. I know he's been in session with all of them, but I also know that's not always sexual.”
“Okay, I would say Victor has been with,” he paused as if calculating in his head, “everyone in the house except your dad.” He shuddered at the awful mental image he had conjured for the both of us.
“What?” I laughed. “You're kidding.”
“Nope.”
The look on his face told me he wasn't joking. Not a bit. “Even Clara?”
“Yep. They were up to a lot of no good back in our younger days. If it makes you feel any better, it was purely physical and it was over years ago.”
“What?” I echoed. The idea of Victor being with the others didn't bother me since I already knew he was a bit of a player—he had told me as much, even though I couldn't remember how it came up—but Clara? “He's gay.”
“Not gay, bi,” he corrected. “Common misconception, but I'm actually the gay one. Vic has always played for both teams.”
I fell back against the booth, still unsure of why I was struggling so much with this new revelation. Maybe it was just the fact that it was Clara. When it came to Victor, I couldn't view any of the others as a threat, but her? Why it even mattered to me made no sense. Victor and I were just dating and it obviously wasn't exclusive.
“He seriously never told you he swings both ways?” Sebastian asked in disbelief.
I shook my head.
“Shit. I wouldn't have said anything, I just assumed you knew.”
“It's fine,” I said stiffly. I gave an awkward laugh, trying to collect myself. “It's not like it matters, right? So he likes women and men. That's perfectly normal.”
“Let me ask you a question,” he said, resting his arms on the table. “If it was another female wolf from a different pack, would you care?”
I thought about it for a moment before deciding. “No,” I admitted.
“Then it's not the fact that Victor is bisexual that's freaking you out, it's the fact that he was with Clara specifically,” he said, as if that solved the matter.
“But why?” I asked. “Why does that scare me? I love Clara, she's family.”
“Maybe that's your answer right there. Betrayal from family cuts deeper than the rest, even if you know logically that it isn't really a betrayal.”
“I mean, I wish they had said something instead of letting me just think there was never anything between them,” I admitted, shaking my head. A much earlier conversation with Clara flashed in my mind. It was right after I had been sedated for attacking Jason in the dungeon and she was taking care of me. The far-off look in her eyes as she spoke of Victor's feelings for me haunted me now and wouldn't leave my mind no matter how hard I fought it.
“Look, I never should have said anything,” he began.
“No,” I said quickly. “I'm glad you did. It's clear neither of them were going to.”
The waitress came to interrupt the awkward silence that followed. Once our food was on the table, I took the first opportunity to change the subject. “So, will you be taking jobs again now that the hunters are gone?”
“Nah,” he said, stabbing a hunk of dripping meat with his fork. “We've had enough close calls that I've decided to stick around and keep an eye on the pack.”
“Is that really the only reason?”
He gave me a tight smile and took a sip of his wine. He looked pleasantly surprised by the taste. “I'd be lying if I said this whole courtship deal wasn't a factor in my decision.”
His puppy-brown eyes searched mine for something. “What is it?” I asked, curious.
“I don't know,” he said, ripping off another piece of bread only to toss it on his plate. “It's probably just me being an idiot, but the way you're acting makes me wonder if I actually stand a chance.”
I reached across the table and rested my hand on his forearm. “You make it sound like I'm the one who's out of your league and not the other way around.”
His eyebrows knit into a perplexed frown. He finally relaxed as if he'd given up trying to figure out whatever it was that was bothering him. “You are. Even aside from the fact that you're probably one of the mythological creatures our entire religion is based on, I don't deserve you. Neither does he, but I'm a big enough man to admit that Vic is a hell of a lot closer to being worthy of you than I am.”
“Don't be so sure about that,” I said with a wry smile. “You both have your positive qualities.”
“And negative ones, I'm sure.”
I smiled wider.
“Well, let's have it. Give me the side-by-side analysis,” he said, sitting back and folding his hands studiously on the table in front of him since he had already finished his meal.
I laughed, but stopped abruptly when I realized he wasn't kidding. “You're serious?”
“Lay it on me, I can take it. I'd like to know how badly I'm beat.”
I took a sip of wine to buy some more time. “If you say so. Who first?”
“Victor,” he said, smirking. “And start with the negatives.”
I pursed my lips and struggled to keep a neutral expression. “Okay. Victor is brooding and a bit overly dramatic at times. He thinks he knows everything, and he probably does, but he flaunts it and it alienates everyone around him. Happy?”
He blinked. “I'm kind of surprised that you have
such a realistic perspective of my brother, but yeah.”
“As for the positives,” I said pointedly, taking a deep breath. “Victor is passionate and deep and he challenges me.” The corner of my lip tugged slightly as I picked at my napkin. “Most importantly, he respects me. He respects my choices and my feelings.”
“Ah,” he murmured. “That explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“Why I don't stand a chance,” he said a bit sadly. “I guess I was hoping that whatever it was that made you love him more was something I could work on, but I can't ever be like him where that's concerned.”
“Why not?” I asked, surprised by his response.
“I can't ever put your feelings first if it means putting you in danger,” he said firmly. “I know this is going to sound misogynistic, but I don't trust your judgment. Not when it comes to yourself. You've got a self-destructive streak like I've never seen before, and I know you'd throw yourself on the pyre if you thought for a second it would save someone else. What happened in the dungeon is proof of that. You see Victor as supporting your choices, but all I can see is him enabling your suicidal tendencies and I won't be a part of that.”
I listened, feeling a strange mixture of irritation and comfort at his words. “That's never going to change, is it?” I asked softly.
“Not as long as a world without you in it is my own personal idea of hell,” he said dryly. “But that's okay. If Victor is the one who gets you in his bed at night because he protects your feelings, so be it. At least I'll be able to sleep knowing I've protected everything else.”
“You make it sound like it's all a done deal,” I murmured. “Like I've already made my decision.”
He gave me a knowing smile. “You already have and we both know it.” He squeezed my hand. “Doesn't mean I don't appreciate this. There was a time when you wouldn't even willingly be alone with me in the same room.”
“There was a time when I had reason not to,” I reminded him.
“I know, and I'm going to regret that for the rest of my life,” he admitted. “I always wanted to be the one who kept you safe. Seems like I just ended up hurting you.”
“But you have kept me safe. Everybody makes mistakes, Sebastian. God knows I have. I know I've hurt you, probably in ways I can't even remember,” I said, observing him more closely, like the weary shadows under his eyes or the slight curve of his lips might betray the answer if I watched him long enough. “You and Victor are the only ones who've always been there for me. That's why it hurt so much when you left. I know you had reason to, but I never even realized how much I'd come to depend on you being there until you were just gone.”
“It was hard,” he said, his eyes downcast. “Seeing you become the thing that killed our parents, it got the best of me and I'm not proud of that. It was too hard to be around you, not because I hated you but because I felt like something else had taken over, replaced you.”
“I did give you reason to think that,” I murmured. “I suppressed the part of me that you fell in love with.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “That's not true. If I had just stayed and tried to look past the surface like Victor did, I would have seen that you were the same person you always have been. You were just struggling and I abandoned you when you needed me most. I can't ever undo that.”
“I've already forgiven you, Sebastian,” I said, placing my other hand on top of his.
“I haven't,” he said, clearing his throat. “But you can't change the past, right? All I can do is give you my word that I'll never leave you again. Not even once you and Victor are officially mated.”
“You're so quick to assume,” I said with a sigh. “You know, you never let me give my analysis of you.”
“Oh boy,” he said, chuckling. “Okay, let's hear it.”
“Starting with the negatives,” I said wryly. “You're as stubborn as I am, maybe more. You've played dumb for so long I think you've actually started to believe it. You never challenge yourself, you just get by on your strength and your personality when you're perfectly capable of being thoughtful when you want to be.”
I took a deep breath, feeling my blood pressure rise. “You are misogynistic. You think you know my own mind better than I do and maybe you're right, but that doesn't matter. You don't have a romantic bone in your body and you miss all my cues because your head is so far up your own ass you --”
“Easy there, you're not making confetti,” he interrupted, looking down at the shredded napkin pieces in front of me.
I froze when I realized what I was doing and tossed the pieces in the empty bread basket to hide the evidence. “Sorry,” I murmured, blushing. “You uh, get my blood boiling.”
“I can tell,” he said, blinking. He looked down at his hands. “I'm sorry. I had no idea I was that intolerable.”
“But you're not,” I said earnestly. “You make me angrier than anyone else, but you also make me laugh more than anyone else. You push me, sometimes to the brink of sanity, but I'm a better person when I'm with you. You're all of those annoying things, but you're also sweet and funny and protective and so compassionate towards the other members of the pack. You're a natural-born leader, and a good one. Whenever I see the way you are with the other wolves, the way you care for them and put their needs above your own without even thinking, I fall a little more in love with you.”
He stared at me in shock. “You love me? And you're admitting that freely?”
I laughed, embarrassed. The words had just flown out of my mouth with no resistance. “I guess I do.”
Something changed in his expression. It was still earnest and surprised, but his jaw was set and his eyes twinkled with something like determination. He took my hand and brought it to his lips. “I love you, too. Guess that much is obvious, though.”
I smiled. “Yeah. Kinda.”
He looked up and flagged the waitress over for the check. A moment later, he handed her his card before turning back to me. “I have an idea.”
“What?” I asked, curious.
“You'll see when we get there,” he said, glancing at his watch. “We need to hurry, though. It's about ten minutes away and it starts soon.”
“I see you're not having any difficulty with the roman numerals now,” I said pointedly, finishing off my wine. “Tired of playing dumb?”
He grinned sheepishly. “Old habits die hard. Ready?” he asked, helping me out of the booth once the waitress returned with his card. He dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the table and escorted me out.
“Yeah, but where are you taking us?” I asked, intrigued.
“I could tell you but then I'd have to stake you,” he said, ignoring the valet's strange look as he took the keys and opened my door.
I giggled. “I like the new, mysterious and spontaneous Sebastian.”
“I'll keep that in mind,” he said, grinning. He took off towards the city and further away from the Lodge.
The ride was a short one, which was good, because the anticipation was working its way through my veins like silver. He came to a stop in front of the tallest building on the skyline, which happened to be the Bergendorf Hotel. I gave him a strange look as he led me inside.
“Trust me,” he said, leaving me by a set of luxe white leather sofas in the lobby while he went over to the front desk. He paid for something and came back with a key that had a gold plated tag marked, “Presidential.”
My side-eye intensified but I let him take my hand as he led me onto the elevator that took us to the very top floor. “While I can respect this as a very spontaneous and lavish attempt at getting in my pants, this isn't exactly what I had in mind when I said romantic.”
He laughed. “Just trust me,” he repeated.
The elevator chimed as it came to a stop on the top floor. The rooms were further apart than any hotel I'd ever been in, and Sebastian stopped at a room that had its own half of one hall. He unlocked the door and motioned for me to wait outside.
&nbs
p; I obeyed, curious as to how he was possibly going to pull off a seduction with me outside of the room. A moment later, he returned with a blanket and a bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice, grinning from ear to ear. “One more stop. Follow me,” he said, jogging towards a door hidden at the other end of the hall. He cast a glance behind us and pushed it open.
“That sign says employees only,” I said in a harsh whisper.
He rolled his eyes. “Now you obey the rules. Come on, hurry.”
I let him usher me into the stairway only because I was more afraid of getting caught than anything. “We're not supposed to be up here,” I said, following him reluctantly up the stairs.
“Who cares?”
“I do!”
“Look, if we get caught you can just work your psychic magic. I've seen Victor do it plenty of times. He was always bailing me out when I ditched class.”
“I'm not Sarah, I don't feel right altering people's minds for kicks. Besides, I don't even know if I could pull off something like that,” I admitted as he opened the door. Fresh air filled the stairwell along with the muted sounds of the city below. “Are we on the roof?”
He laughed. “Just relax. Come on out, it's beautiful.
He wasn't lying. It was beautiful. When I stepped out of the stairwell, I could see beyond the city and well into the wilderness for miles and miles. The only limit was the foggy blue range of mountains that overlooked the Lodge.
“Oh, wow,” I breathed.
“Told you just to trust me,” he said, busying himself with something to my right. I couldn't bring myself to look away from such an incredible view long enough to find out what it was.
“Sebastian, this is incredible,” I murmured, walking closer to the ledge.
He stopped what he was doing to watch me. “Careful, don't want you to fall over.”
“You can calm down, I don't want to off myself anymore,” I assured him, stopping to sit just shy of the ledge.
“I'm glad to hear it, but you'll have to excuse me for not taking any chances where you're concerned,” he said dryly. “Come on over here.”
I turned to see that he had spread out the blanket and the champagne bucket was sitting off to the side. “You seriously just rented the presidential suite of the nicest hotel in the city for a blanket and some champagne, didn't you?”