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Her eyes go saucer wide. “Of course not. He’d lose his mind if he knew. Like, for real, he would probably murder me and then get a necromancer to bring me back from the dead so he could murder me again.” Her lips curve in a shy smile. “But that’s why I told you, so you’ll know you can trust me. You have a secret on me now. Leverage.”
“I promise, I won’t say a word.” I motion locking my lips and throwing away the key. I know that should be the end of it, but I can’t help saying, “Though as a new friend who cares about your welfare, I feel it’s my duty to warn you not to make a habit of being so trusting with people you’ve just met. I know I look harmless, but I could be a psycho killer or a spy or one of those people who don’t wash their hands after they pee in a public restroom.”
She laughs. “Not a chance. You’re a good egg. I can tell.” She swipes a piece of my melon, chomping off the tip as she adds, “That’s my pack gift. I can read auras. If you were a creep, I would have known the second I walked in the door.” She winks. “But you’re delightful. Your aura is a quite fetching pink and super shiny. But then…all the best people’s are.”
I grin. “Yours, too, I assume?”
“Correct,” she says, taking another bite. “So, what’s your pack gift?” She brings her hand to hover in front of her mouth as she chews and talks at the same time, “I mean, if you have one. I know not everyone in your pack does.”
“Yeah, I’m one of those,” I say with a shrug. “Or at least I think I am. My family never spent much time with our pack. We were outcasts. So, it could be I just haven’t spent enough time around other wolves for my gift to manifest.”
She crosses her fingers. “Oh, I hope so. That would be cool, to find out you’ve got a little supernatural ace up your sleeve. And a good excuse to get you out of these stupid rooms. Once Maxim learns you need the company of other wolves to help you find your gift, I’m sure he’ll let you out to play.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” The low, angry growl from the door leading into the sitting room makes the hairs at the back of my neck stand on end.
But Diana just smiles. “Nope. I’m making our guest feel welcome. Someone has to show her a little hospitality to make up for you being such a big mean bully.”
“Get out, Diana,” Maxim snaps, prowling into the room. “Now. And don’t come back. If I see you in here again, every one of your privileges will be revoked.”
She rolls her eyes as she tosses what’s left of the melon back on the plate. “Oh no, I won’t be able to go to school or violin lessons or on dumb errands for you and Hermione. Whatever will I do with myself?”
“Out!” he roars, making her flinch. “Now.”
She vaults from her chair. “Fine! I’m going, but you’re being a jerk and I’m going to tell Dad. There’s no reason to hold Willow prisoner. Her aura is amazing. Way better than yours, in fact, in case you’re interested.”
Maxim sucks in a breath, but Diana is already racing from the room, shouting, “I’m leaving, I’m leaving! God, you’re so impossible!”
The door to the suite slams behind her and Maxim turns to me with flames shooting out of his ears. “If she’s stupid enough to disobey me and come in here again, you don’t say a word to her. Do you understand me?”
I lift my hands at my sides. “Fine. But she seems very sweet, and as someone who was a teen girl not that long ago, I can tell you the best way to—”
“Not a fucking word!” he shouts.
“Okay!” I say, my eyes going wide. “Anything else you’d like to yell about this morning, oh Alpha, my Alpha?”
His hands ball into fists and his dark eyes shoot daggers into mine across the room. I hold his gaze, not looking away, even when he lets out a long, skin-prickling growl that my wolf instincts assure me indicate I’m about to be skinned alive.
Or fucked really hard and really well…
Because there it is again…the sexual tension from last night, sizzling in the air between us, making me want to squirm in my seat.
But I don’t.
I refuse to let this man know that just feeling his eyes raking up and down my body is enough to make my nipples tighten and my inner wolf want to roll over and offer him my underbelly and anything else he would like.
Sometimes I really hate that inner wolf, the part of me that’s so desperate for physical love, sex, and affection.
But maybe I wouldn’t hate it, if all the Alphas I’d met weren’t such jerks.
In my fantasies, submitting to my bossy, dominant partner is hot and sexy. Fun even. I imagine it would be like shifting, but instead of slipping into my fur to play in the woods for a night, I’d be escaping into a role for a frolic in the sheets.
I bet it would feel like that…like play.
Steamy, intense, addictive, multi-orgasmic play…
Maxim wrenches his gaze from mine with a curse and turns back toward the sitting room.
He’s halfway to the door to the suite when he turns around and charges back, stopping long enough to point a finger at my chest and command, “There are clothes for you in the closet. Get dressed and be ready to leave in twenty minutes. Hermione will take you to the witness room to get your statement.”
