by Amy Pennza
He could see the understanding dawn. “That’s what you came here to do tonight, isn’t it? Finish our bond.”
It was no use lying to her. “Yes.”
She pulled her chin from his grasp. “Just like that? Without telling me any of this?” Anger fired in her eyes. “Once again, you just swoop in and make huge, life-changing decisions for me without even bothering to ask how I feel about it?”
His own anger rose. He gestured to the bed. “Five minutes ago, you seemed to feel just fine about it.”
“This isn’t about sex! It’s about my life!”
A frustrated growl tore from his chest. “Your life is exactly what I’m trying to save! Don’t you get it, Lizette? Rumors have flown for years. The other Alphas are already suspicious about the number of latents who Turn here. If I don’t claim you, someone else will.”
She covered her throat with her hand. When she spoke, her voice trembled. “You know, I wondered why you called me back.”
“Lizette—”
“I thought, why now, you know? You sent me away like a piece of unwanted furniture, and then you summoned me back.” She let out a short, harsh laugh. “You called me your wife.”
“You are.”
She flung her fists to her sides. “I’m not. You don’t want me, Maxime. You want what I can do for you.”
“That’s not true.”
“Oh yeah? You mean you want to mate me because it’s your heart’s desire? Because you love me?” She lifted her chin. Her eyes glittered. “Tell me you love me.”
He hesitated. She didn’t use her senses like she should, but he couldn’t bring himself to slip a lie past her. She was his. His wolf had claimed her long ago. Besides that, he was Alpha. It was his right to take her. The lux catena would take care of the rest. That’s how things were done, how they’d always been done. The mate bond formed. Love came later.
In the fireplace, the logs snapped and burned. The only other sounds were Lizette’s shallow breaths and his heavier ones. Into the silence, he said, “I care about you.”
“That’s not enough.”
“You’re thinking like a human. The lux catena—”
“Please. I’ve seen your chain of light up close.” She spat the words with such venom, he took a step back.
She advanced on him. “That’s not love. It’s obsession.” An odd light entered her eyes. “You said my parents had this Gift, too. They lived outside a pack.”
Where was she going with this? For the first time in his life, he didn’t have the upper hand in a conversation. And it sucks. He took a cautious breath. “That’s right.”
“What if I moved away? You said I can’t turn off my Gift. But what if I lived far away from a pack? If I went into hiding like that wolf in Spain? If I’m not around any latents, I can’t Turn anyone, correct?”
“In theory.” His wolf leaped to attention. Furious. The emotion bulged inside him, threatening to explode the calm he was trying to project. He felt a muscle tick in his cheek. “But do you really want to live as your parents did? Cut off from your own kind…your friends?” Cut off from me? “Remy is your only cousin.”
“I don’t know.”
She was actually considering it? “This is your home.”
A small, sad smile touched her mouth. “I’ve never really had a home, Max. I don’t fit in anywhere.”
He reached for her. “That’s not true—”
She put out a hand. “Please don’t presume to know anything about what my life was like before you brought me here.”
Desperation unfurled in his chest. She was threatening to leave him. He was drowning. He grabbed a lifeline, and it made his voice cruel. He flung a hand toward the balcony and the forest beyond it. “You’re one of two Bloodsingers in the world. You’d really leave hundreds of latents to die just because you can’t stomach the thought of mating me?”
She sucked in a gulp of air. Shock and what might have been hurt glazed her eyes. “I d-didn’t…” She swallowed. “I didn’t think of that. I just need some time.”
“We are out of time.” He leaned toward her. “In case you haven’t noticed, most mated pairs only have one child. Our population has been dwindling for over a century. Your selfishness could doom our entire species to extinction.”
Anger blazed in her eyes. “You can’t blame the entire population crisis on me. I didn’t even know I had this ability until five minutes ago. You’ve dumped a ton of information on me, and now you expect me to just accept it and move on? At least give me a little while to process it.” She gestured toward the suite’s double doors. “I’m here, you’ve made sure of that. I can’t go anywhere.”
Max’s fingers twitched with the need to grab her—to close the space between them and make it impossible for her to leave him. Inside, his wolf bucked and thrashed.
Her face was a pale oval framed by the dark cloud of her hair. She stared at him, obviously waiting to see what he would do.
“You’re right, you can’t go anywhere.” His words were more for his wolf, but he could tell they struck a nerve. Her jaw clenched. “You missed dinner and then some while you and Remy were having your adventures in the woods last night. I’ll have food sent up.” He turned and headed for the door.
“Am I a prisoner?” she called after him. By the tone in her voice, she had already decided the answer.
He couldn’t turn around. If he did he wasn’t sure he’d be able to walk through the door. He dragged air into his lungs. “You said you needed time to think. This is your opportunity.” He left the room, her angry gasp on his heels.
12
Lizette glared at Max’s back as he stepped through the door. The bastard didn’t even turn around. He decreed, and he expected her to obey. Par for the course. She was used to feeling angry after their confrontations. Outrage pounded through her so fiercely she could have choked on it.
But now there was something else.
His touch had ignited something in her…an ache. Her skin felt too tight for her body, her nerves pulled taut. She glanced around, searching for something to throw at the suite’s double doors. The lamp on the bedside table was tethered by a cord, so she grabbed a pillow from the bed and chucked it as hard as she could. It sailed past the end of the bed and thudded on the ground well short of the doors.
Someone knocked, and she tensed, prepared for Max to storm back in...but the expectation fled almost as soon as it came. This was his bedroom. He didn’t need to knock. Besides, he’d never respected her privacy before. Why start now?
The knock sounded again. She found her throw blanket on the floor and settled it around her shoulders.
“I’m coming!” She hurried to the door and opened it.
Remy’s worried face filled the doorway. “Did you fall? We heard a thud.”
She looked over his shoulder. Dom sat on a low bench against the wall, his arms folded over his chest. “Wow, two guards. Shouldn’t you guys be wearing matching outfits or something?”
Remy raised his eyebrows. “What’d you do to Max? He tore out of here like his ass was on fire.”
“Excuse me? Try flipping that around. Do you see Max being forcibly removed from his apartment and dragged back to the Lodge?” She made a show of glancing over her shoulder. “Is Max locked in this room?”
“The door’s not locked.” Remy jiggled the latch.
“And I suppose you two are just sitting out here for some R and R?” She gestured to the empty hallway.
Dom stood. “Why was Nathan Hallerton’s brother in the forest tonight?”
Nothing like skipping right over the small talk, Dom. “Max already asked me. I’ll tell you the same thing I told him. I have no idea.”
“You haven’t had any contact with Nathan?”
“Why would I? We dated for four months when I was nineteen years old.” She leaned against the door frame. “I know I don’t have the most robust social life, but at least give me a little credit, Dom.”
Dom gro
wled low in his throat. “I won’t tolerate disrespect.”
Remy stiffened and faced him. “Back off, Dom. She was just being funny.”
“She’s not taking this seriously.”
“And you take everything too seriously.”
Dom’s eyes lightened. “Some of us have to be grown-ups. Not everything in life is a joke.”
“Funny,” Remy said, his voice dropping a register. “Sure looks like one from where I’m standing.”
Lizette blinked, and Dom had Remy pinned against the wall. She shoved away from the door. “Hey! Take it easy.”
The men ignored her. Dom pushed his forearm across Remy’s throat. “I’ve had about enough of your crap.”
Remy’s eyes blazed, his humorless smile revealed the tips of needle-sharp fangs. His anger was slow to burn, but once it caught fire he was one of the most aggressive males she’d ever seen. He tilted his head forward until his nose was almost touching Dom’s. “Do something about it. I dare you.”
Lizette’s heart jumped into her throat. “Dare” was perilously close to “challenge.” Remy knew that. As Beta, Dom couldn’t back down from a challenge. If Remy threw down that gauntlet, there was only one way out of it—a fight to the death.
Fury boiled between the two men. Lizette hovered in the doorway, the blanket clutched in her sweaty hands. She couldn’t let them fight each other. There had to be some way to stop this.
Her mind jumped from one thought to the next. She could scream for help, but that might just goad Remy into saying the ritual words. Touching them was out of the question with their wolves so close to the surface. She had to get their attention—distract them somehow.
“Remy.” Her voice croaked, and she cleared her throat. “Remy, stop.” Words clunked through her head. “Remy…s’il vous plaît, arrête.” Please stop.
The low growling cut off like someone had scratched a needle across a record. Remy jerked his eyes to hers. He blinked as if waking from a dream. “Lizette?”
“Y-yes.”
“Tu. You should use the informal. And never speak French in front of Max. Your accent is horrible.”
She sagged against the door. “Okay.”
The tension drained from Dom’s shoulders. He released Remy and dropped his hands to his sides. “I’m…”
Remy pushed away from the wall. “No, it’s… I’m—”
“It was my…”
Oh, for heaven’s sake. Lizette rolled her eyes. “You’re both sorry. Fighting is stupid. You’re both idiots.”
Dom scrubbed his hands over his face. “I’m going to get some air.” He glanced at Remy. “You okay here?”
“Yeah, I’m cool.”
Dom nodded and walked away, taking the last of the tension with him.
Lizette exhaled. “Are you going to tell me what the hell’s going on?” she asked Remy.
“No. I don’t know. Maybe…later.” He sank onto the bench, his face haggard.
Her heart hurt to see him so upset. “Remy—”
“It’s complicated.” He sighed. “I’ll tell you about it eventually, I promise. Just…things are fucked up between me and Dom right now. Besides, you’ve got your own problems.”
She forced levity into her voice. “What, you mean my recent kidnapping and imprisonment?”
His smile was weak, but it was there. “Can I get you anything? You have to be hungry.”
For a second she entertained the thought of making silly requests, like a sandwich with all the crusts cut off or a bowl of Lucky Charms with only marshmallows. But he looked so sad she couldn’t tease him. “Whatever is left over from dinner is fine.”
“I’ll have someone bring up a plate.”
“All right.” She crossed to the bench. Even sitting, his height put them at eye level. She dropped a kiss on his blond curls. “Love you, cuz.”
“Me too.” He rested his head against the wall, a ghost of his usual grin on his face. His look took in her blanket. “By the way, Max had all your stuff brought up. Your clothes are in his closet.”
Excitement jolted through her. “Where? I searched the whole suite.”
“The bathroom.”
“I looked in there.”
“In his spy closet.”
“The weird keypad thing? He keeps clothes in there?”
“Among other things, I assume.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Like what?”
“I dunno. He won’t tell me.” Remy lowered his voice and put on a thicker Québécois accent. ‘If I told you what I keep in there, Remy, the whole pack would know within an hour.’
Lizette laughed and patted his head. “Come on, you’re more trustworthy than that.”
He brightened. “I do have the code, though. I guess he trusts me enough not to snoop. Eighty-two ten.”
“That seems really easy to guess.”
“He changes it every few days.”
“I should probably hurry, then.” She rushed to the double doors. Just before she stepped inside, she swung around. “You sure you’re okay?”
“I’ll survive.” Remy waved her on. “Go on, do your sleuthing.”
She blew him a kiss and stepped through the doors.
He called after her, “Let me know if you find anything good.”
She closed the door, crossed the room, and sat on the bed. Max had dropped so many bombshells tonight, she hadn’t gotten a chance to process them.
She wrapped her arms around her middle. Wild thoughts galloped through her brain. Was he telling the truth about this Bloodsinger thing? About her parents? If she was supposedly so rare, would other Alphas truly hunt her down and try to claim her?
The species’ shrinking population never seemed real to her. Growing up as a human, she’d always heard there were too many people in the world. Switching her mindset was difficult.
If she could Turn latents, her kind would expect her to do it—whether she wanted to or not. That wasn’t a Gift. It was slavery. Goose bumps tingled across her skin as panic grabbed her by the throat.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Stop it. Max said he’d done his best to keep her Gift a secret.
There might be a sword hanging over her head, but it wasn’t going to drop tonight.
She pushed off the bed and went into the bathroom. The glowing green keypad beckoned her, but she ignored it. Shower first. She locked the main door, then crossed to the shower while stripping off her bra and panties.
It took a few minutes of fiddling with the various knobs and shower heads—and one shocking blast of ice cold water in her face—before she managed to produce a comfortable rain shower. She rested her forehead against the warm tile while nearly-hot water pounded her back. It beat a rhythm against her nape, on the spot where Max left his mark five years ago.
“I’ve known you were mine since the day I met you.” His gaze had burned into hers as he said it. Only he couldn’t be telling the truth. Until the night he marked her, she’d been nothing and no one to Max—just another distant planet orbiting the Alpha’s shining star.
Of course, now that she knew about her Gift, his behavior made a lot more sense.
Water swirled clockwise around her toes, which had lost their red polish during her Turn. The phenomenon had fascinated her when she first lived at the Lodge. She’d experimented with it, painting her nails or applying heavy makeup before a transformation. No matter what she did, it was always gone when she regained her human form.
She’d even written out hypotheses in a little journal, imagining herself as a budding scientist. She’d never been brave enough to dye her hair, but she’d assumed it would revert back to its natural shade with every Turn.
There were never many women at the Lodge, so she never had anyone she felt comfortable asking. Eventually, Haley filled her in. For reasons no one really understood, temporary changes like paint and makeup vanished during the Turn. More permanent things like braces and even hair dye stuck around. However, there was no such thing as
reconstructive surgery for werewolves. If a bone or body part was too damaged for a Healer to mend, amputation was usually the only recourse. Orthopedic implants couldn’t handle the transformation from human to wolf.
These were the types of things that both terrified and captivated her when she first learned she was a werewolf. In those early days at the Lodge, she spent most of her time trailing after Remy and Dom. Pried from the human world, she sought the familiar, and they were close enough to her age to seem ordinary. Like most teenage boys, they found their way into plenty of scrapes and ill-conceived adventures—with Lizette as a willing accomplice. After one too many near misses with the human police, Max’s Hunters had hauled all three of them to his study, where he interrogated them one by one.
By the time it was her turn, she was certain her legs wouldn’t support her weight. Her stomach clenched as the stern-eyed Hunter beckoned her from the study’s doorway.
She approached the big desk on numb feet. “Eyes down,” the Hunter hissed behind her.
The Alpha’s stare had a weight to it—like a drill boring into the center of her forehead. Her knees loosened, her subconscious urging her body to sink to the floor to escape the pressure.
“Do you know why you’re here?” the Alpha asked. His voice was exactly as she remembered it from the limo—a deep rumbling that vibrated her bones, with a light accent that made her belly do funny things.
“I…yes.”
The Hunter nudged her shoulder. “Yes, Alpha.”
“Yes, Alpha.”
“You can go.” The Alpha’s voice struck like a whip, and Lizette jerked her head up. It took her a second to realize he’d spoken to the Hunter. She turned just in time to see him blanch and retreat to the door.
“What are you holding there?”
Lizette whipped around. The Alpha stared at the small bag in her hand. “It’s a bag.”
His eyes smiled, even though his mouth stayed the same. “I can see that.”
She couldn’t tear her gaze away from his smiling eyes. Suddenly, the room was an island, and she and the Alpha were the only people left in the world.