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Just as my grip loosens on him, he pushes forward, capturing my lips in his. This time I have no urge to defy him, to taunt him and push his limits. I cling to him, opening my mouth when he licks my lips, and sigh as he deepens the kiss. His arms lock around me, and I wiggle, shifting until I’m kneeling beside him, hands braced on his shoulders. The entire time Ambrose never let our kiss break.
One of his hands begins to rub my back, the other dropping low enough that his forearm is pressed into my butt as he grips my opposite hip. The touch doesn’t sizzle like before. This touch feels adoring, like I’m something fragile and precious in his arms. It’s a touch that promises safety and security if I just submit.
I want to. I want to so bad.
But I can’t give him my heart, not until I fill my end of the bargain. Deidre is safe because of Ambrose, as he promised. So I will be his for three months, gladly. I’ll enjoy what time we spend together, and share my body if he will share his. My heart, though? I’ll keep it safe, tucked away where his seductive darkness can’t reach.
I start to pull away and Ambrose slows the kiss the moment I do and when we finally part, I’m panting. I don’t let go of his shoulders, unwilling to put that much space between us.
“I need to show you something,” I say, sounding like I’ve just ran up five flights of stairs. “Deidre has a lot of research on Rapture that she thinks you’ll be able to understand better.”
He doesn’t tell me that he heard what Deidre had requested. Ambrose nods once, his eyes dipping down to my lips before he slides out of bed and away from me. Bereft of his solid presence, I scramble to follow, taking his offered hand so I don’t fall to the floor when my legs tangle in the duvet.
“Then let us start the day, ma belle lionne,” Ambrose says with the poise and gravitas of a king assured of victory, even barefoot and only wearing sleep pants. “We have work to do.”
Chapter Thirteen
Ambrose
“How thefuckdid a human, junior investigative reporter find this much intel and we didn’t?”
I want to throw my chair through the window, but the last time I did that, Joséphine dressed me down for it like she’d been the one to raise me and not the other way around. I have my inner circle gathered in my office except for Kasar. Malachi stands at ease towards the center of the room, unfazed by my fury. Ashe simply crosses his leg over his knee, his finger beating out a steady tattoo as he stares at the wall behind me, deep in thought.
A harsh huff of amusement has me curling my lip in irritation as I direct my gaze to Lan, where he leans a shoulder against the window, ankles crossed and hands in his pockets like he can’t be fucked.
“Care to give me the answer, Lan?” I don’t even try to contain my irritation.
He gives a half shrug. “It’s obvious,sire,” he drawls. I curl my fingers at the disrespect in my title; Lan has never liked authority. I’ll have to remind him to heel soon. He continues before I can act on the impulse to throw him through the window instead of the chair. “She’s an attractive warmblood, and she’s a woman. All she would have to do is bat those pretty eyes, show a bit of tit, and act oh-so fascinated, and most males would feed her information without realizing it. And if she never took Rapture before, like your pretty little blood donor insists, that’s another angle she could play up.”
A snarl tears out of my chest at Lan’s mention of Eloise, and I straighten to my full height of six foot four inches. Rage and the instinct to protect Eloise, even from petty slander, lines my very bones. Malachi and Ashe focus in on me as the tension thickens the air to sticky molasses. Lan pushes off the window, his hands sliding from his pockets as he shifts into a deceptively casual pose, the embers of blood rage flaring in his eyes.
“Landon Polastri, you watch your tongue, child,” Joséphine says with a sharp look as she carries in a tray with tea, coffee, and water. Ashe rises smoothly to his feet and reaches for the tray, which she gives him with a sweet smile before turning her glare back to the blond at the window. “You are not too old for me to bend you over my knee and paddle your bottom until it’s red. Disrespecting your grandfather like a wildling.” She shakes her head, her hands on her waist.
“Yes, Matka,” Lan says, his defiance melting from his shoulders at the reprimand and the blood rage disappearing into the depths of him once again.
“Ms. Eloise is a wonderful guest,” she continues to chide him like an erstwhile child. Seeing as he was, in fact her child both in the human sense as well as vampire, Joséphine is the only one Lan won’t gnash his teeth back at. I could do without the reminder that Lan is my vampiric grandson, however.
“She and her friend Deidre have been a boon to the Nightshades, and you will mind your tongue about her, do you understand? If Ambrose doesn’t get to you first, I will have your hide if it happens again. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Matka,” Lan says with a nod, his hands back in his pants pockets. He strides the short distance to her, and she offers her cheek, which he presses a gentle kiss to. “It won’t happen again.”
She clasps his shoulders, all irritation gone from her face and replaced by the adoration that only a mother can give. “Good, now apologize to Ambrose.”
Lan turns to face me, a look of indifference on his face. “I apologize for referring to Ms. Morse as a blood donor.”Even if that’s what she is,goes unspoken except in his eyes.
I give a sharp nod, sitting down in my chair. The sheer need to justhitsomething practically vibrates my bones as I stare at the files Ashe transferred from Deidre’s computer to our private network.
“Malachi.” My soldier straightens to attention. “Go to the Blackfang Barons. Tell those wolf shifters that remnants of the Latian pack are in Newgate and ensure we have permission to take them out. I don’t fucking need any more political shit fucking this up. Draven will agree, but I refuse to take chances.”
The Nightshade vampires and Blackfang Barons are tenuous allies after having a common enemy for so long. Wolf shifters and vampires do not get along, perhaps because of our similar primal natures. It’s been a beneficial relationship for both of our territories, but it’s still a new alliance. If Draven, Kade, or Bishop take issue with me ordering the extermination of the Latians within my kingdom, our ties will be severed.
Considering they now have an exclusive deal with Rapture in their city, I doubt they want to risk it either.
Wolves can be unpredictable though, and their mate, Jemma, has personal history with the Latian pack.
“Ashe.” I lean forward and move the mouse until I can drag the folder into the network drive that only Ashe has access to other than myself and Kasar. “I want you to go over this with a fine-tooth comb. I want every piece of information we can get out of this. I want to know how the Latians got to Newgate and how Michael Garner is connected. It seems he has a greater part to play than even he realizes.”
“Sire,” Ashe agrees with a tilt of his head. He rises and, together, he and Malachi leave the office. Now it’s only me, Lan, and Joséphine. The latter who has taken a seat across from the chair Eloise has claimed as her own.
