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Chapter Twenty-Six
We arrived at Columbia a half hour later after Holden had traded his casual duds for a designer suit. He had my gun tucked into the back of his pants, but he’d insisted on checking the safety forty or fifty times before he’d acquiesced to hiding it there.
Guess he was worried about accidentally taking a silver bullet in the ass.
The newly constructed Rain School of Business had replaced an old dormitory that had burned down the previous summer. Nestled between another dorm hall and an aging Chemistry building, the new building looked far too shiny and ostentatious.
“Someone’s overcompensating,” Holden scoffed.
“You’re a regular comedian, Chancery. Get it out of your system now.”
He shrugged, but I could still see the glimmer of mirth in his eyes. This night was destined to be nothing but trouble. What had I been thinking, bringing Holden to a party where I was supposed to be showing the Southern packs what a good little mate I was to Lucas?
“I’m serious,” I warned. “There are people here tonight who could spell a lot of trouble for Lucas’s pack.” When those words didn’t seem to get through to him, I stopped walking and jabbed a finger into his chest. “Trouble for Lucas is trouble for me.”
Holden raised both palms in a gesture of surrender. “I get it. Play nice with the dogs.”
“And whatever you do, don’t say that. There are visiting emissaries from my uncle’s pack here, and I don’t think they’ll laugh off your slurs quite the same way. Lucas can’t have a vampire belittling him on his own turf. It would—”
“Secret. I get it. You don’t need to explain to me the finer points of pack politics. I’m a vampire. I know how ridiculous supernatural society can be. I’ll behave.”
“Sorry.” I blushed faintly. “And thank you.”
Ahead of
us a small group of people entered the brightly lit building. They were dressed in tuxedos and evening dresses, and a few of the women were sporting fur coats. I’d forgotten I was supposed to dress for the cold and had worn only my velvet blazer. Holden, similarly, wore only his suit jacket. We earned a few sideways glances when we merged with the crowd going in.
“So glad we found a parking spot so close,” I commented, laughing.
Holden shook his head like it wouldn’t have occurred to him to make an effort to explain our lack of outerwear. “Yes. How lucky.”
Inside the door there was a coat check set up, and we split away from the rest of the group as they debated the safety of leaving their expensive furs with a twenty-something coat-check girl who was snapping her chewing gum.
At the top of the stairs was a huge atrium that served as the hub of the school. From where we stood, all the different annexes, stairwells and main lecture theaters were within easy access. In the center of the atrium was a bronze bust depicting Jeremiah Rain, and the plaque underneath read, A man’s worth is not measured in money, but in the ability to earn what is his.—J. Rain.
Then, further proving the creepy qualities of our new mate bond, I felt Lucas’s presence from across the room. It was still strange to me to be without the cinnamon flavor in my mouth, but being able to sense another person without seeing them was entirely new. It was as though he was a light bulb and I was a moth. The lingering warmth of him pulled me through the growing crowd until I was on the opposite side of the atrium. Holden had waited at the stairs.
Lucas turned as the people closest to him moved aside, and we both stood stock-still about fifteen feet away from each other. He drank in my appearance, and I held my breath. I hadn’t known until right then how much I cared about what he thought of my outfit. When his cheeks flushed and his lips parted in a soundless sigh, the message was clear.
He said it anyway. “You look fucking amazing.”
An old lady nearby heard his curse and shot him a withering glare. He didn’t notice her. Instead he looped me in his arms and pulled me close. I’d expected a peck on the cheek, but instead he greeted me with an open-mouthed, hungry kiss that turned my spine to a limp noodle and forced me to hold his forearms for balance when my ankles wobbled. He came up for air and noticed for the first time we’d attracted a bit of an audience.
He kissed my cheek for good measure before letting me go, then switched effortlessly into his public persona. A young man and a middle-aged woman stood closest to us, and Lucas angled me in their direction. The man was twenty if he was a day. He looked more likely to still be in his late teens. It was obvious his hair tended towards the curly side, but it had been cropped close to his head, giving him a messy bedhead look that defied control. The suit he wore was expensive, but he seemed uncomfortable in it.
The woman, on the other hand, appeared as if she’d been born with a broomstick surgically inserted up her rectum. Her posture was so perfect and her expression so sour, I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or apologize.
“Amelia, it’s my absolute pleasure to introduce you to my mate, Miss Secret McQueen.”
So these were Callum’s people. It was brave of Lucas to use a phrase like mate within earshot of a hundred humans, no matter how low his tone could get.
Amelia offered me her version of a smile, which was a less-frigid version of her frown. “Amelia Laurent,” she said, shaking my hand. “And this is Ben McQueen.”
The young man nodded brusquely, then shook my hand a little too hard. “Hi,” he barked.
So Callum had sent family up for this meeting? I couldn’t tell if that was a good sign or not. Ben must have been Callum’s son, or my aunt Savannah’s. I was taken aback, wondering how many relations I had down south who I didn’t even know existed. Ben looked equally mystified by me. Although he’d stopped staring at me once our handshake ended, I saw the less-than-subtle glances he kept sneaking in my direction.
“A pleasure to meet you both,” I said. “Lucas and I do so appreciate you making the long trip up here so we could…chat.”
