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It was like stepping through a door in time, back into his childhood when he would play on the floor in this room and play knights and wolves with his toys.
In his father’s day, the study had been a reflection of his personality. A masculine space, all dark wood furniture and leather sofas. Tall bookcases had lined the walls, stuffed with row upon row of books, ancient, dusty tomes and frayed dog-eared paperbacks. There had been tables strewn with maps, display cases exhibiting every kind of weapon known to man or beast, a wealth of strange and colourful artefacts Danny could have never begun to comprehend. At the back of the room had been the desk, a great ancient piece of dark oak with decorative etchings of running wolves carved all around the top. His father’s chair had sat behind it, an imposing leather-padded highchair with the back carved into the bust of a great snarling wolf’s head and positioned just beneath the tall windows that looked across the village. His father’s huge desktop computer was gone though and, in its place, sat a little compact laptop.
“And I do,” Erza said, crossing the space to the drink’s cabinet in the far corner. “But that’s not what I asked. That’s why you’re here now. I want to know why you have come back, after all these years, to my pack. And spare me the bullshit story about getting homesick. We both know better.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he lied, just managing to slam his mouth shut on those very words. She was right of course. It would have been a lame line at best, at worst pathetically transparent. Once an exile, the wolf knew better than to return to its old pack if it valued its life. However, reluctant to meekly give away the one ace up his sleeve, he deflected the question. “Shane said you knew I was coming. Didn’t your crystal ball tell you why?”
“Perhaps…” she purred, selecting a ruby decanter and pouring out two fingers into two glasses. Then, with a glass in each hand, she met him in the middle of the study.
With a smile that was every bit as feral as the she-wolf she was, she offered him the drink in her left hand. Her eyes were bright and dangerous with a look that made Danny feel like she was looking straight through him, daring him to refuse. “Or perhaps I just want to hear you say it.”
He hesitated. Was it all a bluff? Or did she know? Know why he’d come home. Know how desperate he’d grown.
No, he couldn’t take the chance. If she was telling the truth and she caught him in a lie, things could go south real quick. It wasn’t worth the risk.
So he took the drink. It was a foolish thing to do. Other Alphas might have poisoned it. After all, maybe he had never arrived. Maybe he had died in the struggle or had a heart attack on the walk up the hill or got struck by a bolt of lightning. Who was to know? Only Shane knew he was here after all, and he would be easy to silence if it came to that. No one would challenge Erza over the fate of a rogue. But he had his doubts. If she wanted to kill him, poison wouldn’t be quite her style.
Erza was the first female Alpha in recorded history.
The other packs looked down on her for that.
If she was going to kill him, she wouldn’t do it in the dark.
Poisoned chalices and knives in the night wouldn’t secure her rule.
She’d want every werewolf in England to hear of it and know she did it.
That she could do it.
She would do it.
She would need a show.
So he bit the proverbial silver bullet and drank it all in a single gulp. It was hot and smoky and burned like fire all the way down. “I need your help.”
Her eyes flashed with something, a wild raw emotion that was both victory and fury all at once.
“Obviously, but what are-” The words caught in her throat as she took a step closer, then stopped dead in her tracks as she caught his scent, and the musky flavour beneath. That scent! Her nostrils flared, tasting the air and her heart suddenly raced as each breath sent waves of sensation coursing through her, igniting her core, making her breasts heavy and nipples peak beneath the soft weave of her dress. “How long?”
He stiffened. He’d never been this close to her before, and the sheer awareness of their proximity had him unsure of where to look. His cheeks started to burn under her inscrutable glare. As beautiful as she was treacherous, holding her stare for too long could be more dangerous than staring at her tits.
Of course, that didn’t make the latter any less dangerous.
“Sorry? How long…What?”
“How long?” Erza repeated, breathless, suddenly feeling very hot as the fire started to smoulder in her core, growing stronger with every breath she took. Part of her wanted to run, jump away and get some much-needed distance between her and him. But that voice was weakening, growing distant and quiet beneath a fog, and instead another voice, as sweet and seductive as caramel whispered it was already too late.
She knew she needed to fight it, to resist, but at the same time, she couldn’t help appreciating the sight of the young wolf before her. The way the torn and tattered remnants of his clothes hinted at a tight strong body. Not bulky, but corded and well defined with natural muscle, just the way she liked them. His face was still a little boyish, but the lines of the man he was were clear to see against his thick black hair that was just that bit too long, and his storm blue-grey eyes were as sharp as glass.
When she’d taken over the pack, she’d never given Danny much thought. He’d been just a snot-nosed boy of little consequence. His big brother had been her only concern then, the only thing standing in her way.
However, Dereck Royce was long gone now though, and this brat had grown into a hot young man, still wet with the blood and sweat of battle. A stud who’d started his first cycle without his pack to guide him, and an ally she desperately needed in the war to come.
The solution was obvious.
“Fine, sit!”
The order hit Danny like a crash of icy water to the face. “Pardon?”
