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The shifter—who I only vaguely recognized from various events thrown by the Council each year to force creature relations—grew infuriated, his beast close to the fore as his yellow eyes lit up in the darkness.
Crossing my arms across my chest, I made a show of summoning my magick. “A simple truth spell should end this unfortunate blight on my evening. Who wants to go first? It won’t hurt.Much.”
Both creatures were visibly shaken.
“We don’t the need the witches prying into our business! The mystical guide assigned to the pack hasn’t even graduated high school yet, but she’s allowed onto our compound, messing with our wards.” He snapped his fangs, body shaking with frustration before he growled petulantly, “I won the game, fair and square.”
My brow drew together tightly. “Well, now I’m here to settle the matter, fair and square, by order of the Council. Unless you would like to bring the matter to Hunt and my grandmother. I would love to further this conversation about how you’re defying the orders of a mystical guide at the next Council meeting. Though I must warn you, you won’t like the results.”
A shudder went through the shifter and, after a moment of charged silence, he regained control of his beast. “Fine,” he bit out through clenched teeth. Ignoring me, he turned to Alexei. “If I take the loss, am I free to go,Your Majesty?”
“By my leave.” Alexei offered an arrogant smile.
The shifter loped away into the club, and Alexei turned on Françoise. “Did he truly lose the game?”
Françoise shrugged, crinkling the fine starchiness of his pale shirt. “It was easy enough to bait him into betting his entire hand. Bastard was so drunk he didn’t even realize he lost everything. He charged me, claiming I cheated, but one well-aimed punch seemed to knock him out until Silas secured him.”
Alexei massaged his temples. “Fucking wolves. Silas, get on cleanup. Offer the other players at the table a free round to keep this quiet.”
“Already on it, my prince.”
With a relieved nod, Alexei returned his attention to Françoise, who seemed to wither under the weight of his stare. “Return to the Court, Françoise. And not a word to anyone. Am I understood?”
The male looked at me with curiosity, and Alexei shifted closer almost imperceptibly, his fangs flashing in warning.
“Yes, my prince, I understand,” Françoise murmured with only a slight twist to his lips before he, too, fled Alexei’s company.
“What about me?” I asked as Alexei grabbed Silas’s shoulder to guide him further into the darkened corner, their whispers fraying at the edges of my hearing. “Can I leave as well?”
His dark eyes danced over my exposed collarbones. “Why don’t you go play, Jade? Clearly, the skirmish wasn’t as dire as expected.”
Irritation spooled through me. “I have no interest in your depraved club.”
“Methinks you doth protest too much, darling." He chuckled knowingly. “Now, why don’t you show your beautiful face to your Coven mates so you have more witnesses to your mystical guide duties? The last thing we need is your grandmother getting suspicious—”
“I know,” I snapped, looking away from his gloating expression.
Once more, he leaned in close enough for me to smell the addicting scent of his skin, making me shiver. “When are you going to finally tell me why you fled your insufferably dull Coven position to hide in my vaults all night? What are you hiding from me?”
“None of your business. Don’t think you can tower over me like a villain and frighten me into telling you my secrets. I’m not afraid of you,vamp.” My thoughts returned the amulet in my bag, and I threw him a snarl.
His lips twitched with the unspoken threat, his eyes flickering crimson as the coffee specks all but disappeared. But beneath his anger, I sensed the hunger that festered between us, and I sucked in a heady breath before releasing it slowly.
There was nothing Alexei was unwilling to do to achieve his aims. The thought shouldn’t send a hot clench of desire through me, but Goddess, his single-minded determination set me alight. By the new glint in his eyes, he knew it too.
“Please, not tonight. You two will drive me mad, I'm sure of it.” Silas’s long-suffering sigh broke through the tension between us, and I took a hasty step away from Alexei’s warm, spicy scent that seemed to drug me.
“Jade, is that you? Hold up!”
A groan of misery escaped me as I recognized Ember’s voice from the staircase below.
“Looks like your night's only begun, darling.” Alexei winked mischievously.
With nowhere else to hide, I hurried towards the ugly confrontation coming faster than a silver bullet.
2
As I watched Jade descend the staircase towards the witches with a gallows look in her eyes, my amusement faded, leaving behind the aching longing that had plagued me since I’d first met the earth witch over a year ago.
