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I breathed in the musky smell of his chest and sighed. “She’s right,” I admitted begrudgingly. “I haven’t been as careful as I should have been after the car thing.”
“This isn’t your fault.”
“It’s mine,” Desmond said. “I’ve given her too much freedom. I should have guarded her better.”
From a chair beside the door, Dominick laughed. “Don’t kid yourself, Des. You’d have more luck guarding a rattlesnake in a moon bounce. If she didn’t want you to guard her, you wouldn’t have much say in the matter.”
I smiled at him, in spite of being compared to a pissed-off reptile. Dominick certainly had a way of phrasing an insult to make it sound almost complimentary.
“He’s right,” Lucas added, ruffling my hair. “I think we can all admit Secret is a bit stubborn when it comes to her personal protection.”
Desmond looked relieved when he realized no one blamed him for not guarding my body as voraciously as he could have. I was stubborn. Probably too stubborn. But between pack restrictions and the laws of the Tribunal, I liked to hold on to the illusion of my freedom whenever I could.
Tonight, that illusion had almost cost some innocent people their lives.
Not to mention costing Lucas over a hundred grand in dress damages.
“Not anymore,” I said. “I know I’m a pain in the ass about these things, but I’m also not an idiot. Someone wants me dead, and they obviously mean business about it. Until we can find them, I’m not putting anyone else at risk because of me.”
“You won’t have to,” Lucas said.
“What do you mean?”
“I rece
ived a call a few hours ago. From Callum.”
Callum McQueen, Werewolf King of the South and my uncle. “What did he want?”
“To send his congratulations.” Lucas was leaving something out, I could tell from the hesitation in his voice.
“And?”
Desmond and Lucas exchanged uneasy glances, as if I wouldn’t notice when I was standing between them. “Sit down for a second,” Lucas suggested. In honor of the agreement I’d made to be less resistant, I sat, but I was still waiting for my men to give me a better explanation.
“It’s been a long time since there was a royal marriage,” Desmond began.
“Decades,” Lucas agreed, nodding with what Desmond was saying.
“Whoop-dee-do,” I said. “Is he hoping for an invite?”
The wolves looked nervous, and Lucas said, “In a manner of speaking.”
“Guys…not to be impatient or anything, but I am sitting here in a twelve-thousand-dollar dress that is itchier than being wrapped in sandpaper, someone just tried to kill me, and I don’t have a lot of steam left to follow the bouncing ball of this ridiculous buildup. Pull off the Band-Aid. Please.”
Lucas sat in front of me on the big leather ottoman and took my hand in his. “Callum is claiming you, as a princess of the Southern pack line, are his wolf. He is insisting if I, as King, want to marry you, I need to go to Louisiana and make an official request of your hand from him in person. I must make an appeal for you in front of him and the lead members of his pack.”
“You what? Like hell you do.”
“He’s using a very old pack law. It is usually overlooked, but he’s making a point of requiring it, and according to the laws of our people, I must respect his wishes and comply with the request.”
“This is bullshit.”
“It’s…inconvenient, sure. But we have no choice in the matter. Protocol dictates—”
“Lucas, open your eyes.”
He frowned and released my hands then stood abruptly. “We have no choice. Either we go to Louisiana, or I start a war. And I will not start a war.”
