I let him.My arms around his neck, my face against his throat, breathing in his scent.No resistance.No pretending I did not want this.
He laid me on the bed and stretched out beside me, his body curving around mine.Protector.Predator.Partner.
“The bite,” I murmured, already half-asleep.“We do not have to talk about it again.I just wanted you to know I would say yes.When you are ready.”
His arms tightened around me.His lips brushed my temple, soft as a promise.
“When I am ready,” he repeated, and his voice held cautious hope.The first real hope I had heard from him.
I fell asleep with his heartbeat steady against my back and the question hanging between us.Unanswered but not forgotten.
A door that stayed open.
20
RAPHAEL
She moved through the crowd like she had been born to it.
I watched from my position near the marble columns at the edge of the ballroom, a glass of champagne I had no intention of drinking warming in my hand.The Midsummer Gala filled the Hughes Palace Hotel with glittering guests, celebrities, politicians, and some of the richest businessmen in the world.The room buzzed with the murmur of expensive conversations and the clink of crystal against crystal.Somewhere a string quartet played, the notes weaving between laughter and the soft shuffle of evening gowns against polished floors.But my attention stayed fixed on one person.
Lena.
She wore emerald green tonight, a gown that left her shoulders bare and pooled like water around her feet when she walked.The color brought out the warmth in her skin, the gold in her hair.I had not chosen it for her.She had picked it herself, standing in front of my closet that morning with that stubborn tilt to her chin that said she would not be dressed like a doll.I preferred it that way.Preferred the woman who made her own choices over the one I had tried to control.
Ours, my wolf rumbled, satisfied and possessive.Look at her.Look at what is ours.
I was looking.Everyone was looking.But she was looking at me.
A quick glance across the room, a flash of connection that lasted less than a second before she turned back to the conversation at hand.A state senator and his wife, old money from Denver, the kind of guests who could fill suites for a decade if properly cultivated.Lena touched the senator’s arm, laughed at something his wife said, and I watched both of them lean in closer, charmed without knowing why.She had a gift for making powerful people feel seen.
“She handles herself well,” Viktor said from beside me.
I had not heard him approach, had not sensed the familiar scent of my oldest packmate until he was already at my shoulder.I had been too distracted watching my mate.
“She does,” I agreed.
Viktor’s mouth twitched.Not quite a smile.His silver-threaded dark hair caught the candlelight as he turned his head, scanning the room with the ease of long practice.“The Pakhan has noticed.”
The words landed like a blade between my ribs.
I kept my expression neutral, my posture relaxed.Just two men making conversation at a party.But my wolf went still, hackles rising at the implied threat.
“Noticed what?”
“That his Beta chose a human who could have been a liability.”Viktor’s dark eyes cataloged exits and threats, never settling on any one point for long.“And turned her into an asset instead.”
I did not like the word asset.Did not like the implication that Lena’s value was measured in what she could provide to the pack rather than what she was.But I understood what Viktor was telling me.Max Ivankov was watching.Evaluating.Deciding whether the woman I had chosen was worth the complications she created.
The thought of the Pakhan’s attention on my mate made my wolf snarl beneath my skin.
I forced myself to scan the room, cataloging threats and assets with the discipline of long practice.Dmitri was stationed near the service entrance, his barely-contained aggression a useful deterrent against anyone who might cause trouble.Even in a tailored silk suit, Dmitri looked like a weapon waiting to be pointed at a target.His eyes never stopped moving, tracking every server, every guest, every shadow that might hide danger.Petrov’s security team had positioned themselves at strategic points throughout the ballroom, wolves in human skin blending with the crowd of politicians, socialites, and old-money aristocrats.I counted them automatically.Six inside, four more at the perimeter.Everything was secure, everything under control.
Except for the scent from the crime scene.It was here, somewhere in this room, mixed with perfume and cologne and champagne until it became impossible to isolate.The killer was close, had been close all along, and I still could not find them.
The frustration clawed at me.Two months since Stephanie’s murder, and every lead had dissolved into nothing.The scent saturated the hotel itself, as if the killer lived here, breathed here, had become part of the building’s very essence.My wolf paced restlessly, hackles raised at a threat he could smell but not see.
A ripple of movement near the main entrance pulled my attention away from the crowd.