"That must have been traumatic." He comes over and hands me a glass, but he doesn't sit beside me. Instead, he takes an armchair, leaning back comfortably with a highball glass of something amber-colored.
I'm not sure if I should downplay what the experience was like. It was definitely traumatic. After sitting in a bare office room, shivering in my ceremonial robe while Mother and Father screamed at me, I was whisked away home to collect as much as I could stuff into my luggage in thirty minutes. A change of clothes and I was on a private plane to an uncertain future.
Not even my sisters knew what happened to me. Not even my best friends.
Yet, I can blurt it all out to this stranger. "When I arrived in London, I didn't even have a place to stay. I went to a hotel and used the credit card Father gave me. A few days later, he wired me money and a promise that I would be taken care of, but at seventeen, with nothing but my passport and someone else's money, it was difficult to get an apartment and get established. If the company that hired me hadn't taken a chance on me, I would have—"
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My throat closes up with anxiety I never let myself feel in the moment. Did my father make good on his promise of regular wire transfers? He had. Did I find an apartment? Yes, after weeks of staying in that hotel, fearing they might kick me out at a moment's notice if my parents changed their minds and canceled the credit card.
It's so much more terrifying in retrospect. Maybe I just didn't have time then to really think about how precarious the position had been.
Nathan puts his drink on the coffee table and moves to sit beside me. "You're shaking."
"I'm sorry, I've never told anyone…" No. I cannot cry in front of our pack leader. Especially not over something I did to myself. I force a laugh and roll my eyes. "I faced the consequences of my actions. And I'm glad to be back."
"I'm pleased to hear it." He stands again, but this time he moves to the unlit fireplace. "I'm sure your fiancé is, as well?"
"I don't want to talk about Ashton." I can't believe the vehemence with which I reacted. I apologize immediately. "I'm so sorry, I don't know what that was about."
Nathan smiles, and it's definitely not the type of "friendly" he described this visit as being. "Will you allow me to make a guess?"
I nod, my mouth going dry as he sits beside me once more. He puts a hand on my knee and leans in close to my ear. My entire body shudders and flushes unbearably hot.
His breath stirs the wisps of hair that wouldn't stay in my hasty, loose bun. "You either feel that by being here with me, you're betraying him, or…"
The hand on my knee moves, only a little, just enough that the tips of his fingers are a centimeter from actually being between my thighs.
"You don't want to be with him."
I lean back so I can look Nathan in the eye. This close, it would take nothing at all for our lips to touch, for us to utterly devour each other. I wet my lips without meaning to and say, "Can't it be both?"
With a smirk, Nathan sits back. The sudden break in contact makes every millimeter of my skin cry out with want. But he can't hide that his reaction is similar. I can see his pulse ticking frantically below his jaw and note the way his lips part just slightly to take a breath.
Kiss me, I implore silently. We both want you to.
"And why do you feel like you're betraying him?" Nathan is enjoying this. Reveling in the unspoken need between us. "You're just here to have a cordial dinner at the pack leader's request."
You know why, I want to say, preferably while throwing myself on him.
Just then, a knock sounds at the door. Nathan rises and calls, "come in."
A thrall enters and bows. "Your Majesty, dinner is served."
"We'll be right there," Nathan says, dismissing the young man.
It's only taken a moment of separation, a slight distraction of Nathan's attention, and I feel like I can breathe again, think again. I stand and quickly throw back my drink, drawing on the smooth warmth blossoming in my chest for courage.
"Are you meeting with all your subjects this way?" I ask, pleased to see the mild shock that crosses his face at the question.
He recovers quickly. "Only those that intrigue me."
Not the answer I want, deep down in my heart. Despite the way it complicates things in my life, the tangible, yet unacknowledged attraction between us is one of the few truly exciting events happening in my life lately.
If he's got this same kind of thing going on with other werewolves, that sucks.
"I intrigue you? Because I invoked the right?"
He scoffs and gestures toward the door the thrall just exited. "Of course not. Why would that intrigue me?"
I move in his direction but falter when he adds, "After all, I invoked the right, as well."