Page 16 of The Alpha’s Heir

“Roman, would you mind taking Megaera here home?” Helen made it sound like a question. “She’ll be staying at our main estate in the east wing. Take my car. I’ll be here for another few hours making calls.”

I snapped to attention and gave a brisk nod.

Embassy duty and private security details came more often than not with my new promotion. I was used to playing babysitter, and the councilwoman benefited from having me on call. Not that I blamed her.

“If that’s all right with you, Megaera.” Helen gave the woman a politician’s smile.

“Of course.” Megaera raised her chin, staring right at me. “Best to jump straight in.”

I turned away, needing to get in control of my face. This woman was affecting me strangely.

“Right this way, Miss Cerberus.” I guided her toward the vehicle.

“Please call me Meg.” She stopped just as I opened the door to the back seat of the sedan. “And your name is Roman. We didn’t get properly introduced, but I guess all of this is moving very fast.”

Meg held out her hand for me to shake.

I stared at it for far longer than would be considered polite before I caught myself.

What the hell is wrong with me?

“Apologies, Miss Meg. Welcome to Ethica.” The minute my fingers touched hers, I realized my mistake. Her touch was warm and intoxicating. Too close. Too connected. The strength of her hand in mine was firm and grounding and alive in a way I hadn’t felt in… forever. A strange desire rushed through me. The urge for more.

As quickly as I shook her hand, I released it, ignoring that little gasp she made as if she’d felt something too. That line of thinking was dangerous. Above my station.

“Watch your feet,” I instructed as I maneuvered her so she had no choice but to sit in the back seat. Realization came over her face before she frowned again, sitting and pulling her feet inside the vehicle.

I closed the door and hurried to the driver’s side, scanning the area to make sure I wasn’t missing anything, and pulled the radio up. “Status on the wolf shifters.”

“They’re almost to the forcefield,” Staff Sgt. Marcus relayed.

“Roger that. Test it after it’s back up and ensure there aren’t any glitches.” I looked at the woman in the backseat, feeling the unease grow in my gut. “I’ve got an errand to run.”

Those pretty brown eyes of hers watched me in the rearview mirror as I slid behind the wheel. It was unnerving, this feeling. To ignore it, I checked all the mirrors and then overrode the autodrive function to manually take control of the vehicle.

It wasn’t her fault I was acting like this. I’d gotten all worked up when the goddess had arrived, thinking back to the stories my dad used to tell me about their trickster ways and absolute chaos they rained down on humanity.

I needed to get a hold of myself. They were just stories. Who’s to say that woman was even a goddess? It might’ve been some kind of holographic trick on the glass ceilings. The skies above now looked bright blue again. What about disarming my men?

I wasn’t like most humans I’d grown up with, thinking that science could explain every single thing about our world. Even if I hadn’t joined the military and been privy to information beyond what the normal citizen got, I’d been raised with a different mindset than the other kids.

Sometimes, you had to pray to something beyond fact if you wanted to be able to sleep at night.

But it still seemed strange that all of the intelligent and highly respected members of the council had treated a goddess in their presence like they did.

I’d misread the situation was all. There must’ve been some explanation for why they were going through with this insane plan.

Those curious eyes were still watching me in the mirror. “You don’t talk much, do you?” Meg asked.

I shook my head once as I eased the vehicle out onto the city streets.

“That’s all right,” she said. “We’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other.”

I wasn’t sure if she was just talking to fill the silence, but I liked the sound of her voice. It was pleasant. Not too jarring, or inflected with that strange pitch most women had these days.

The city high-rises loomed ahead in the business district as traffic picked up speed.

“Wow,” she whispered from the backseat.