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“I am engaged!” I cough out.
“And we’ve established that you don’t want to be, so that’s one challenge overcome.”
And once again, I’m being steamrolled by a man who thinks he can just have me.
Meanwhile, my body is still shouting, he can have you any time he wants! But the chemistry between Nathan and I isn’t enough for me to walk from one cage into another.
“Changes need to be made here if this pack is going to survive,” Nathan tells me. “You and I are the only werewolves in the allied packs to invoke the right in a hundred years. Imagine what we could do together.”
I have imagined what we could do together. Just not in the way he’s proposing.
“That way, too.”
Is he reading my mind?
He must see my panic, because he explains, “Your scent. Let’s drop the pretense. I know you want me. And I want you.”
What’s it called when everything swells up and you can’t breathe? Anaphylaxis?
That, but for my pussy.
“Think about what I’ve said.” He switches smoothly back into what sounds like a business conversation. “And the advantages I’m offering you.”
“How romantic. Truly, the proposal every girl dreams of.” I roll my eyes, and I don’t know why, but I say, “I’ll think about it.”
“You’ll agree,” he says with a pleasant smile.
And that’s it. That’s the last we speak of it through a polite, if deeply weird, dinner. He asks me about my time in London, and tells me about his five years in Berlin, where he was exiled during his time away from the Greater London pack. We talk about the meal—the venison is delicious—and when it’s over, he calls me a car and assures me that mine will be returned to my house before morning. He even shakes my hand at the door.
As we stand on the front steps of the mansion, he puts an arm around my waist and leans in to whisper in my ear. “Please don’t take this chaste goodbye as an indication that I’m not interested; I am. But we have many nights ahead of us. I’m willing to wait.”
He doesn’t even try for a kiss. He’s that’s infuriatingly confident.
And I am so confused.
CHAPTER 13
The Dixon family motto could easily be, “if it’s uncomfortable, ignore it.”
My dinner with Nathan last week is currently causing my family maximum discomfort, and their unwillingness to speak to me about it is such a blessing, I practically beam on the ride to brunch and my fitting for my ceremonial dress.
Still, my heart and head are divided. While I desperately want to believe Nathan can get me out of this mating pact, it’s not as simple as, “I’m king, I can do what I want.” He’ll face the wrath of the pack and a red tape nightmare. There’s no way Ashton and his family will let someone walk all over them so blatantly.
And I don’t know Nathan at all. There’s no guarantee he means what he says. Maybe he’s that magnetic and disarming with every woman he meets. There could be any number of potential mates in the pack that he’s considering; there’s no reason for me to believe otherwise, especially when rumors are swirling that he’s in love with the former queen.
Still, if he’s serious, dissolution of the mating pact could be tied up in council for months, even years. Ashton could just get tired of waiting and walk away. At the very least, it will postpone my sentence for a while.
For centuries, one particular family of thralls has been responsible for creating our ceremonial garb. They don’t have a storefront; werewolves and humans alike need to be of a certain social station to know how to find R. F. Frobisher Tailoring and Dressmaking in their unmarked studio on Bloor Street West. Our driver lets us out in front of the building, and we make our way up to the eleventh floor. The elevator doors open on a crisp white lobby, where a receptionist greets us and directs us to a seating area currently occupied by my hopefully not-future-mother-in-law.
“Mrs. Daniels,” I say politely, sitting beside my mother on the opposing white sofa.
Mrs. Daniels has a flute of champagne on the chic glass coffee table between us, but it appears untouched. She clutches her Launer bag by the handles so tightly that were she not wearing black leather gloves, her knuckles would no doubt be white. The corners of her harsh mouth are turned down and her flat, aristocratic face is pinched with fury at the sight of us.
“Vivianne,” she says, nodding to my mother.
There’s no greeting for me.
“The traffic was simply abysmal,” Mother says, as if small talk will somehow break the ice around us. But this isn’t ordinary social ice. This is the thick, unbreakable kind that shuts down nautical passage.
Mrs. Daniels blinks. “I wouldn’t know. Our driver brought me.”
