“Not everyone,” Clare whispers, nodding toward a table near ours, but I don’t recognize any of the people seated at it. Our way of life doesn’t allow me to overlook them; I memorize who is seated near whom, taking in every face.
“Oh, look,” Mother announces suddenly as a thrall waiter approaches. “Dessert.”Tara shoots me an expression that promises we’ll talk later.And we do. After dinner becomes drinks and dancing, my sisters and I leave for the restroom and “get lost” along the way, stepping into a windowed alcove to talk, unencumbered by their mates.“Look, Mother doesn’t want to talk about it and Father will never admit it, but Greater London is occupying the Toronto pack. King Victor made a huge mistake by taking his children out of the line of succession before securing a new heir.”“But why did the pack depose him? Because they didn’t like who he married?” Such a thing is unheard of in modern times.“Because he knew she had illegal dealings with the Manhattan pack,” Tara explains. Of the two of my sisters, she looks the most like me, with the same ash blonde hair and easily readable face, which condemns our former pack leader. “And he covered them up.”“He lied to the council when confronted,” Clare adds. “He lied to the pack.”“Wow. I guess I missed a lot while I was gone.” My stomach is hollow. I’ve returned to the middle of a war. “Who were those people at the table you pointed out?”Clare knows exactly what I’m referring to. “The Rogers family. Their daughter, Amber, was the queen who created this problem in the first place.”“Her family still thinks she has a claim. There’s a rumor that King Nathaniel is in love with her and plans to bring her back to the pack,” Tara whispers, an uncharacteristic volume choice but a smart one, when one is talking about one’s supreme ruler. “You can imagine how nervous that makes the members of the council who don’t want to see Frost removed from the throne.”It should make everyone in the castle tonight nervous. A deposed queen whose family hasn’t been exiled is a danger; more so when she’s the object of an invading conqueror’s interest. It would only take a simple mating ceremony to neatly hand the Toronto pack over to Greater London, with the support of one of the most powerful packs in North America.We could lose everything.And the commander of the opposing forces is walking down the strip of red carpet in the hall outside the ballroom. He’s talking to someone, laughing as they move briskly in our direction.My palms sweat. “Why don’t we go back to the ballroom? I need a drink to handle all this.”“I don’t blame you,” Clare says, and to my relief she doesn’t seem to have noticed the King headed our way.I don’t want him to walk past. I don’t want to curtsey to him only to find he doesn’t even notice our presence there. But I also don’t want him to notice me. He already noticed me, and I nearly had an asthma attack. Now that I know he’s a hostile in our pack, I don’t want him to notice me, ever again.I lead the way, my sisters trying to keep up behind me, and strike out on a direct course to the nearest catering bar. A tall, slender man turns as I approach, and he smiles as if he recognizes me.It takes me a moment to recognize him.“I think we’ll go back to the table,” Clare says, and before Tara can protest, she manhandles her off.When I invoked the right five years ago, I did so not just to see what the human world had to offer. It was a potential escape from the mating claim my father had signed, sealing me to Ashton Daniels. Now, Ashton stands in front of me, nothing at all like the scrawny, awkward teenager I left behind. His smile grows—his teeth are perfect—and his blue eyes crinkle at the corners with genuine happiness to see me. His ginger complexion isn’t as shockingly pale, his hair looks more like a rusty brown than the flame orange we all teased him about during our school days.He puts his arms out—despite the black tie dress code, he’s somehow gotten away with wearing navy blue, blowing the sartorial competition out of the water. I only realize that I’m gaping at him in what probably appears to be horror when his smile suddenly falters and fades. “You don’t remember me.”His voice has changed, too. It’s deeper, but he’s still soft-spoken, and the effect is like warm honey. I stammer a little as I answer. “I—of course, I remember you.” I burst into laughter and a smile I have to fake out of the sheer shock of the moment. Just to give myself a second to recover, I put out my arms, too.He hugs me so tightly, I almost can’t breathe; his arms are rock hard at my back. Leaning down close, he says softly, “I was so afraid you wouldn’t come back.”Alarm bells go off in my mind. I step back from him and tilt my head, pretending to check my immovable hairdo to avoid looking him in the eye.“You’ve been gone for five years,” he says, suddenly pragmatic. “You might not feel the same way toward me that you did before you left.”How do you know what I felt for you? I almost snap.My memory drifts back to the day he knocked on my bedroom door, startling me with his presence in my house, startling me more with the announcement that my father signed a mating pact. Ashton and I barely knew each other; though we were both educated at the private academy all children of the Toronto pack attend, we weren’t friends. We barely spoke to each other before he approached my father.To this day, I’m still not sure what Ashton truly sought from our engagement. Maybe it was a rash decision ma
Nathaniel Frost, King of the Toronto pack, guides me smoothly from my fiancé’s side. It’s that easy for him to simply overwhelm me and render me helpless. It’s dizzying, almost exhilarating, definitely terrifying.“I haven’t tangoed often,” I manage to warn him as he pulls me far too close.“It isn’t my strong suit, either,” he quips, though his feet prove he’s lying as they somehow manage to avoid my clumsy ones. “Don’t expect any dips or fancy footwork.”I snort; I can’t help myself. “With all due respect, Your Majesty, that’s about ninety percent of the tango.”“You’re wrong,” he informs me. “And while we’re dancing, call me Nathan.”My mouth drops open. I quickly compose myself and try to shock my brain into remembering what, exactly, my body should be doing. Step, step, step, close. Step, step, step, close. Maybe all those dance lessons Mother forced us to take really were a practical choice. If Vivianne Dixon ever imagined that her daughter would be tangoing with the Pack Leader
“Please,” I whisper as his lips tease my jaw.“Grovel before your king,” he commands, and I fall to the floor with a cry as pain shocks through my knees. He offers me no comfort. “I said ‘grovel’.”He plants his shoe firmly on my shoulder and exerts steady pressure, until my burning skin meets the freezing marble. Then he strolls in a circle around me, every second of silence building my anticipation. What will he tell me to do next? What will he make me do next?And when, oh please, when will he make me do it? I can’t bear the wait, can’t stand the way the stone warms as it leeches the heat from my body.He kneels behind me and grips my hips, pulling them back, sliding my upper body along the floor with painful resistance. He grinds against me, still fully clothed, and I know my juices are smearing across the front of his trousers. He’s so hard and so big, and I’m totally at his mercy. Only a zipper and his self-control stand between us.He jerks a fistful of my hair and I let out a
Ryan, however, has changed. When I left, he was a chubby, baby-faced Black kid with a penchant for blue lipstick and metal band t-shirts with illegible fonts on them. He grew up into a broad-shouldered dad-type who, yes, is wearing a band t-shirt, but who is also comfortable cooking dinner at a stove with twelve burners.If they saw how people live outside the pack…“So, it’s a marriage of convenience, then? Just to dodge the Dave?” That’s a little depressing. “You know, I always thought you were gay, Ryan. I just thought you were afraid to come out.”“Oh, I am,” he answers without hesitation. “It’s not just a marriage of convenience for Hannah. She’s helping me out, too.”“And the fertility clinic helped us out, as well.” Hannah picks up her half-empty beer bottle and tips the neck toward me.“The gay dude and the asexual woman somehow had trouble conceiving,” Ryan says with mock regret.“Wow, I feel like an asshole for not knowing any of this,” I admit.“You’re the one who invoked t
“They are! I don’t even know what’s going on in the pack. I haven’t talked to anyone for five years. I come back and there’s all of this political scandal happening, and now my best friends are accusing me of being a spy or something.” This is too much. I rise from my stool. “You know what, I’m gonna pass on dinner. Thanks, though. You have a lovely home.”“Don’t be like that,” Hannah huffs.Ryan holds up a plate. “But it just got done.”I stop at the kitchen door. “Why do you even want me in your house if I’m so suspicious?”“Because you’re our friend, dummy.” Ryan puts the plate on the island. “But you’ve been gone for five years. You’re out of practice.”“Out of practice?”“The pack is a different now. If we don’t know who to trust, you don’t, either. And one stray word…” Hannah’s expression falls. “I’m not afraid you’re going to run out and betray us. I’m afraid that until you’ve been here longer than a week, you might get yourself—or someone else—in trouble without even knowing y
“…And that’s what they were talking about at the—Bailey!” Clare snaps, waving her hand in front of my face.“Sorry. Too many mimosas.” That’s a lie. I’m not even tipsy after two of them. I try to focus on what she was telling me. Something about renovations on her master bathroom. “You were saying something about how they couldn’t take a wall down?”“Are you okay?” Tara asks me with genuine concern.Do I admit to them that my head is all over the place after the ball? That I’m not sure where I belong in the pack? Because if my best friends don’t trust me after that, there’s no guarantee that my sisters will. Plus, their husbands don’t seem like big fans of the new king.And it’s impossible to feel like my sisters’ mates aren’t an invisible presence at the table with us.“I’m fine. I just…” I laugh and shrug. “I don’t really get the renovations thing. Or the domestic stuff. It’s not that I don’t care. I just can’t relate.”“Yet,” Clare reminds me. “Have you gotten an event planner? Lup
“It’s been great getting together,” I say, summoning up my best impression of our mother’s passive-aggression. “But I have to go.”I push my chair back and stand, and a crackle of energy pulls my attention to the restaurant’s doors.I feel him before I see him. It’s unnerving. But I look toward the door knowing that Nathan Frost will be there. And when our eyes meet as he enters, it’s clear that he feels my presence, too.Five years ago, I would ask my sisters if that magnetism were real or if I’m just imagining it. But I can’t do that now. I can’t trust that they won’t tell their mates on me.The maître d’ is leading Nathan in our direction. At least, the maître d’ is trying to lead; Nathan is actually a step ahead. It’s too late to avoid him. Our paths will cross.I don’t want to see my sisters’ reactions, so it doesn’t matter that I can’t tear my gaze away from Nathan’s. He doesn’t try, and I know I’m not imagining this anymore. I can’t walk away from the table because if I walk to
“Why wouldn’t they—”“Because they’re afraid that what you did will spread!” Mother snaps, loud enough to be overheard, so she immediately lowers her voice again. “You were the first werewolf in a hundred years to reject the transformation and invoke the Right of Accord. Everyone was terrified that you’d opened the floodgates. People wouldn’t speak to us because they were afraid of losing their young, too!”It never occurred to me that by invoking the Right, I might inspire other teenagers to take a break and consider their futures with the pack. I don’t see how it’s a bad thing, but I do see how my parents would interpret it that way.She isn’t done lecturing me. “You put your sisters’ futures at stake, as well.”“They did all right for themselves,” I say under my breath. I’m the youngest. They had already undergone the transformation and their mating pacts had been arranged. “And it’s not my job to live their lives for them.”“It’s your job to behave in the interests of the pack. No