Page 138 of The Rust in Her Hair

And just like that, my heart soars, but my father’s jaw tightens.

"I'll be clear, since you seem confused about your position," Father growls. "You’re thirty days outside any rights to demand any kind of dowry." He smiles like he’s won some invisible game. "You won't see a single cent of the Van Houten estate."

"I don't want a goddamn thing from you," Adrian bites back.

He shifts, squaring up to my father, but his voice stays level.

"Now, let me be clear about why we're here, Aldric. Lyra wanted to say goodbye. That's the whole of it. She asked to see her family one last time, and I brought her because she asked, and because I'll give my mate just about anything she wants."

Warmth pushes up through the center of my chest, and my mouth wants to curve. I press my lips together to keep the smile down, trying like hell not to melt.

"This was a courtesy." Adrian jabs a finger at the floor, his intense eyes holding my father's without so much as a flicker. "Not a negotiation. There's nothing here for you to buy, or threaten, or win. She’s leaving with me."

I’m halfway into rubbing myself against the sexiest alpha on earth, when the office door bangs open.

I startle and spin toward the sound just as my mother sweeps in. Her gown is a column of pale ice-blue silk, cut sharp and simple.

Her platinum hair is immaculate, pale green eyes already hunting, and my whole body goes small on instinct. She crosses straight to me, and before I can pull back her cold fingers close on my jaw and wrench my head to the side, baring my throat.

"Let go of her." Adrian's arm comes around me and pulls me back against him. A growl rolls out of his chest, and my mother's hand tears away.

Her eyes go wide, but she isn't looking at Adrian. She's looking at Nico's teeth printed into my neck, and her face has gone white with fury.

"I can't believe you let this person mark you." Her lip curls around the word like it's beneath her to say it.

Then I hear the distinct clack of dress shoes on marble, out in the hall. Slow. Measured. A sound I know in my teeth, in the soles of my feet, in the phantom ache that hasn't fully left me since I looked at that couch.

My whole body goes rigid.

The hair on my arms lift. A cold prickle races up the back of my neck and down both wrists, and I could swear the air has gone thick with clove and dark musk, that heavy scent crawling into the back of my throat.

But I don't know if it's real.

I don't know if he's actually here or if my body has conjured him out of pure terror, dragging the smell of him up from that awful night to torment me.

The footsteps stop at the door.

Then Crispin walks in.

And every drop of blood in my body turns to ice.

The alpha fills the doorway, thick through the neck and shoulders, that dark clove and musk reaching across the room and closing around my throat. His gray eyes find the mark on my neck, and he goes still.

I feel the sharp pinch between my legs flare again, my body remembering his weight, remembering his mouth on me, remembering all of it at once.

I can't breathe.

My skin goes cold and clammy, my hands go numb. My knees try to buckle under me, but I can’t move. Somewhere far off my own pulse is slamming so hard it hurts. Every part of me is screaming to run, but not a single muscle will move.

Adrian must scent my fear, because he shifts, sweeping me behind him, putting his whole body between me and Crispin. I fist both hands in the back of his shirt and hold on like it's the only solid thing left in the world.

Then the whole room comes apart.

"So you’re the animal who snatched my daughter off the street?" My mother rounds on Adrian, her voice climbing. "You will pay for what you’ve done to my daughter."

"I am calling the police." Father has a phone in his hand. "You have thirty seconds to explain why I shouldn't have you arrested for kidnapping."

"Go ahead." Adrian doesn't give them an inch. "Call them. You can explain to the police how your mated, adult daughter left home and chose to stay with her mate. There's no case here, and you both know it." His jaw is tight, his voice climbing to match theirs now.