Page 39 of Sold to Three Alpha Kings

“We’re leaving.”

“Excuse me?”

“This is exactly the kind of scenario I warned against.” My grip tightens, not painfully, but enough to make the meaning clear. “You’re going back to your quarters.”

I drag her with me, and she rushes behind, her heels catching against the stone as she tries to match my pace. We leave the hall, the music and merriment fading into the distance the further away we go.

Once in her room, I let go of her and shut the door with the back of my leg.

“What is wrong with you?” she snaps, rolling her wrist in a massaging motion. “I didn’t ask for that man to touch me.”

“I didn’t say you did.” Though something in my tone suggests otherwise, and I know it the moment the words leave me.

“You have no right to drag me around like I’m some disobedient dog.”

“I have every right. I am your King.”

“Yeah, a King who ordered the execution of a harmless, defenseless woman!”

The words land exactly where she means them to. My jaw tightens, defensiveness rising in me before I can stop it.

“I did what was logical.”

“Is that what you tell yourself to feel better about what you did?” Her eyes flash with defiance, like none I’d ever seen.

She’s no longer the scared, fragile woman she was when she first arrived at the palace. She’s bolder.

“Careful now,” I caution her, my tone low and menacing.

“Or what?” She steps closer instead of retreating, chin lifted, eyes bright with the same fire I glimpsed the night she first spoke out of turn. “You’ll reject me again? Consider it done already.”

“You know nothing about what I decided that day.”

“I know exactly what you decided. I was there. I heard every word.” Her voice cracks slightly, betraying something underneath the anger. “A King’s mate could never be shiftless. Never weak. You made your feelings very clear, and I’ve spent every day since trying not to think about how much that cost me to hear.”

Something in me falters, and I fight it, but the space between us has narrowed without my permission. I can smell that thread of scent that’s haunted me since the hall, closer now than it’s ever been.

“You don’t understand what it means to be what I am,” I say, quieter now. “Nobody does.”

“Then explain it instead of running from it.” Her voice is calmer, like she’s genuinely interested in hearing me out.

“I’m not running from anything.”

“You’re standing three feet away from me, refusing to look me in the eye. That’s exactly what running looks like.”

I look at her then, fully, and it’s a mistake the instant I make it. Her eyes hold mine, unflinching despite everything, and the pull between us surges hard enough that whatever resolve I had left cracks clean through.

I lean in without thinking, my lips claiming hers. The kiss isn’t gentle, isn’t careful the way I’m careful about everything else in my life. It’s fury and want tangled together.

Her hands fist in my shirt, mine finding her waist and pulling her flush against me. Some part of me has obviously been waiting for this since I first caught her scent.

She kisses back with the same desperate heat, as if she’s been fighting this just as hard as I have and finally run out of strength for it.

For one long, unguarded stretch of time, I stop thinking entirely.

Heads tilt. Tongues twirling in each other’s mouths.

We’re breathless, and things are starting to spiral out of control. The kiss deepens, a testament to our needs and insatiable desires. The softness of her breasts against my body is driving me insane.