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Chapter 12
Meira
“Are you ready?” Lucien asks from the doorway to Dušan’s bedroom. Leaning a shoulder against the doorframe, his hands folded over his chest, he studies me with a strange expression. Hooded eyes, curved lips, and a mysterious glint in his stunning, gray irises. “It’s a gorgeous morning, and Dušan asked me to take you to breakfast. He’s got a few things to get done today.”
For those few moments, I let myself drown in this perfect image of this specimen of a shifter. His biceps flex as he drops his arms by his side, then runs a hand through his short, brown hair. He is a wall of muscle. Captivating. Dangerous…because he puts dirty thoughts in my mind. My cheeks heat at the very possibility that somehow my wolf wants more than one man.
He’s wearing dark jeans hanging low on his hips, a wrinkled blue t-shirt, and brown cowboy boots. Which intrigues me.
“What’s with the boots?” I clear my throat and walk around the bed to collect the new lace-up sandals Dušan brought me last night. I’m wearing a sky-blue dress that falls to mid-thigh. The fabric is the softest material I’ve ever touched. He even arranged for black lace underwear and a bra. He then kept his word and let me sleep alone in his bed, which I appreciated.
“They’re comfortable to wear,” he answers, but I can tell he’s lying.
I straighten and run my hands down the fabric. I can’t get the previous night out of my mind, and instinctively, I reach up to the back of my neck where he bit me. Where he left his mark. The skin is rough from his teeth marks, and just remembering the moment sends a shiver of excitement down my spine. I never expected the Alpha to be so gentle, to bring me to arousal with such tenderness. The night was a whirlwind of being swept into a perfect memory of fear and seduction.
Turning around, I find Lucien studying me, like he can read my thoughts. I try to swallow the lump in my throat, but it feels impossible. I’m torn between hating these shifters and desiring them. I loathe myself for it, but I can’t seem to back away, either.
“Have you heard of the saying, ‘wrong place, wrong time,’ gorgeous?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“I know you feel like a string of bad luck and bad decisions brought you to our doorstep, but do you ever think fate has a funny way of forcing things that are meant to be?”
“So you place your trust in fate?” I walk around the bed and note his gaze trailing down my body, all the way down to my gold sandals.
I know I shouldn’t feel the things I do, but near Lucien, my breath catches in my throat and heat flares over my skin. He looks at me like he’ll rip the dress off me and pin me to the wall as he fucks me. Fire curls up and over my neck at the image now smothering my thoughts.
“There are some things that are too strange, too powerful to be pure coincidences, don’t you think?” he asks.
I lick my dry lips and nod as we both leave my bedroom and walk past the guard at my door. Maybe being so close to Lucien isn’t such a great idea. Farther down the hall, we turn left toward a set of circular stairs heading upstairs. “Is that what you were brought up believing?” I reply. “My childhood was mostly about running and finding a new safe home. I didn’t even know what fate was for the longest time.”
He looks over at me with a soft look, brimming with sympathy.
“Don’t do that,” I say, my cheeks heating with shame. “I don’t want your pity.”
“That’s not pity, Meira. It’s understanding. We all have different stories, and I’m not saying one is better than the other. But some of us have had a shittier start in this infected world than others.”
I open my mouth to speak, but I forget my words when we step out onto a small balcony jutting out from the base of the pointed tower roof. A gust of cool air hits me and swirls around me. My mouth drops open at the small table and chairs set up with plates of food, but my attention devours the sight from up here. I move toward the metal railing encircling the open area and stare out over the most spectacular view of the wild Carpathian Mountains surrounding us.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Lucien stands behind me. I feel his presence so close to me. My skin ripples with goose bumps in anticipation—with the need to have him touch me and press himself against me. I shudder.
“It’s spectacular.” I glance down below to the woods just outside the metal walls of the settlement. Small movements down there catch my attention, and I squint for a better look since we’re so high.
“Do you see that?” I point down.
Lucien steps beside me to look down, our arms grazing. His skin is fiery hot, and I resist the urge to lean in closer to him. He distracts me so easily.
You need to stop, I scold myself, knowing that I am in enough trouble after last night, and I need to rein in my desires.
The wind blows through my hair as we both stare into the woods, where half a dozen undead lurch closer to the fence. Two of them drop to their knees, hunched forward as if feeding. The others soon join them.
“Do you think it’s a dead animal?” I ask, remembering that I saw undead emerging from the nearby woods when I first arrived. They’ve definitely fed here before, so they’ll never leave if they keep finding food so close to the settlement.
Lucien doesn’t respond for a moment but nods. “Yeah, maybe.” There’s a tightness in his voice.
I turn to face him, my back to the railing, and he straightens, standing so tall and so close to me that I can’t think. My chest tightens at the dirty thoughts that play with my mind.
I dip my gaze to his full lips and my body trembles, then to the scar along his collarbone. This is a barbaric world when fighting is the only way to survive.
