Page 8 of Thrown into the Mob

“For both families. Your Alpha is rational. Once the mating is established, he'll recognize the value of the arrangement.”

I thought about Flint and almost laughed. He wouldn’t be impressed about this. He would come through that perimeter fence without a thought of being burned to a crisp, and his brothers would be at his heels.

“I’d like time to think about it.” The only considering I’d be doing was how the heck did I get out of this.

The patriarch’s mouth turned up into an almost smile. But ewww, that was more intimidating than his previous expression.

“You have forty-eight hours.”

He nodded at the guards and I stood, and as I did, I made the mistake of looking at the other brother who was already staring at me. There was a tightening around his eyes, and I was convinced he was grinding his teeth. But he lowered his gaze, and I picked up a tremor. A tiny puff of smoke drifted from his nostrils, and his father hissed at him to put it out.

But the two guards grabbed my arm and yanked me toward the door. I went because my legs were on autopilot and my brain had stopped functioning.

That tiny curl of smoke. That was what was in my head. Not the mating proposal, the patriarch’s methods, or Evander’s eyes sliding away from mine. It was the smoke, and my wolf had lurched toward it.

On the return journey to my room, I put one foot in front of the other because my mind was reeling. The smoke had done what two days of the other brother’s scent had not. Or maybe it had and I was too busy arguing with myself to pay attention.

I’ll share my strength with you. My wolf pressed against my insides helping me to stay upright.

Back in my room with the door locked, my knees wanted the floor, but I gave them the wall. Putting my back against the stone, I slid down and tipped my head back.

The scent from the younger brother by four minutes had dismantled me. He was my fated mate, a dragon, and part of my pack’s enemy.

He knows, my wolf said. You saw his face.

I suspected he was furious, and I didn’t need to be in the same room to reach that conclusion. And I wasn’t any less angry.

The universe had a terrible sense of humor.

FIVE

CONRAD

I made it to my room before my dragon surfaced.

It wasn’t a full shift because that would have destroyed not only the room but the house, and even my fierce beast feared Father’s wrath.

But I hadn't lost control that badly since I was fifteen. Scales covered my hands and my nails extended into claws. Heat poured from my skin in waves that fogged the mirror above my desk. I braced both hands on the wood and let my dragon rage because there was nowhere else for his fury to go.

You stood there and said nothing.

What did you want me to say? You know my father as well as I do.

He is ours, not your brother’s.

I drove him back so hard my vision became fuzzy. When it cleared, the claws were gone, but there were gouges in the desk. There were five deep grooves in century-old oak that my grandfather had imported from overseas. I'd have to explain those, move the desk, or never let anyone into this room again. The latter was the best option considering how my life was panning out.

I sat and the chair was cold against my back. My rooms were always cold because I kept the heating low to keep my dragon sluggish. It was a trick I'd learned at fourteen when the alternative was setting fire to things every time my father made me angry. Those events happened so often that the household staff had started keeping extinguishers on every floor.

He'd been in this house for three days, and I had spoken a few words to him, including, “You're the wolf.”

I’d delivered that sentence with no emotion, though my dragon was yelling at me. I'd left his room and slammed the door and stood in the corridor while waiting for my hands to stop shaking, which took longer than I'd expected.

That was on the second day. My dragon had been pulling me toward the third floor since the wolf arrived, and I'd held out for a full twenty-six hours before my discipline cracked. I told myself it was reconnaissance. I was performing an evaluation of the asset. It was the kind of operational check I performed all the time.

I'd walked in, and he'd looked at me and my dragon had lunged with enough force to buckle my knees. I'd locked every joint in my body, spoken briefly and left.

On the first day, I hadn't gone near him at all. I'd been reviewing shipping routes from the southern ports when my dragon alerted me to a scent. He’d been so abrupt, I’d knocked my coffee across the desk. The cup shattered on the stone floor, and I jumped up, watching brown liquid drip off the edge of my grandfather’s desk while I wondered what would become of me.