He follows that bombshell with, "I hope you like venison."
I stumble into the dining room, where a large table is set for two at one end.
"It's very fresh," he goes on. "I hunted it myself during the full moon."
I can't get past his earlier statement. "You did it?"
"Well, you know. The only things to do during the full moon are fuck, fight, or hunt." He pulls a chair out for me and I sit obediently, out of habit.
"I'm not talking about the deer!" I lean toward him as he sits and for some reason, I lower my voice like we're in danger of being overheard. "You invoked the Right of Accord? Your pack has a Right of Accord?"
He nods and lifts his hand to signal the staff for the first course. As the thralls place bowls of pale cream soup in front of us, Nathan elaborates. "All packs operate under the same law, given to us by Lycaon the Younger. Didn't they teach that in school?"
I shake my head. "I assumed pack law was just the law of our individual pack."
"Hmm." He considers for a moment. "Greater London teaches our children differently than Toronto does."
Our children. That's an interesting phrase. "Do you have children?"
"No. I've never had a mate." He unfolds his napkin and smooths it over his lap.
I do the same. "And does that have anything to do with invoking the right?"
He considers. "No. I don't think it did. And there were times I was glad to be free of those obligations."
The unfairness astounds me. As a male in the pack, he doesn't have to worry that life might pass him by. There will always be females lining up for a successful mate. And he will always have the choice to refuse a pact, whereas I'm pretty much stuck.
The soup is delicious. Cream, mushrooms, wild rice, and I detect a hint of leek. It's great soup and I'm probably going to throw it up from crying too hard at the unfairness of my life.
"It must be nice," I say, my hand trembling with rage as I lift another spoonful.
"What must?"
I swallow. "Being free from the obligations of family. I'm sure there are members of our pack who would rather concentrate on themselves and their own interests, rather than simply create fresh werewolves."
He laughs at that. "I'm sorry. It was your phrasing, not your concern. I'm beginning to sense that you aren't looking forward to Lupercalia?"
I might as well be honest. "I'm not. In fact, I'm not sure if I'm going to…"
I can't say it.
But then he says, "Go on," in his deep, commanding voice and I want to say it. I want to tell him my most personal secret.
"I'm not sure if I'm going to transform."
There.
He frowns and sets his spoon down. Reaching for his water glass, he says, "You would leave the pack forever?"
When I think about it, it makes me sick. All alone again, but this time with no wire transfers or credit cards. Just fear and work and loneliness, unable to make meaningful connections with humans because I'm not one of them.
"I don't want to," I admit. "When I think about never seeing my sisters again, or my friends, my heart aches. But the thought of being with Ashton, having his children, living as his quiet, obedient—"
Nathan laughs again, and immediately apologizes. "I'm sorry. It's not funny. But I can't see you being quiet and obedient to any man."
"I'm glad you're so amused by my predicament." This is my life. Why can't anyone understand how trapped I feel?
"I'm not amused." He takes a sip of wine. "I'm interested to see how you're going to get out of this."
I just stare at him.
He shrugs and goes on. "You're not marrying Ashton Daniels."
"My parents, Ashton, and Aston's parents all disagree with you." I have to remind myself that I'm speaking to a king. There has to be a limit to what kind of sass I can throw around.
Maddeningly, all he says is, "Do you disagree with me?"
"There's a neat little piece of paper, a contract notarized by the royal office, that disagrees with you." I take my own sip of wine, hoping he'll chalk my furiously hot face up to the alcohol we've imbibed.
"Not my royal office," he says off-hand. "And Victor was corrupt. Who knows how deep that corruption went? For all we know that mating pact might be nothing more than a piece of paper."
"I—" What is he suggesting? Is it something I should even hope for? "Do you mean it might not be valid?"
"I mean, nothing is set in stone. Until Lupercalia, of course." He nods toward my bowl. "You don't care for the soup?"
"It's delicious." I'm dizzied by the turn in conversation. "I'm just not used to eating so close to detonating bombshells."
His laugh is loud and tooth-grindingly arrogant, and I hate that it makes him hotter to me than he was before. If I want to be with a man who infantilizes me and finds me "intriguing," I might still be able to marry Ashton.
"Why am I here?" Before he can answer, I add, "It's not just because I intrigue you—"
"On the contrary, I find you quite—"
I keep on going. "—or to apologize for dancing with me. You're not stupid. You know that me being here is just making the scandal worse."
"And yet, here you are." He lifts his glass as if in a toast.
I nod slowly. "Here I am."
"Then you must not be worried about causing a scandal." He has me there and he knows it. "Or you know that defying your parents and your fiancé might work to your advantage."
"Okay. Fair." I narrow my eyes. "This isn't going how I expected."
"What did you expect?" Before I can answer, his voice takes on a darker tone that promises I'm not totally safe from the big, bad wolf in him. "Tell me the truth."
The truth is, I thought by now we'd have given in to whatever it is that sizzles the air around us. But I can't describe it that way. "Based on the way you look at me, I assumed I was here to leave with my virtue in tatters."
Worse. So much worse. Why did I choose those archaic words? It would have been better if I just said, "I thought we'd fuck."
He raises one eyebrow. "You have my word that you will leave tonight with your virtue intact."
Why is that so disappointing to me? And why doesn't it seem more disappointing to him?
Then he adds, "There will be other nights."
It's my turn to laugh. "Oh, will there be?"
He just nods and goes back to his soup.
Though I want to assert that he can't be so sure about that, he can. He has all the power here. He can command my presence every night, if he wants to. And he seems to know that as long as he does, I'll come running. Anything to make my fiancé potentially break the pact.
We eat in silence for while. The lack of talking should be uncomfortable, but my mind is reeling. There are paintings on the walls, portraits of past kings and queens of the pack, their legacies carrying on even into the new king's personal space.
It casts my predicament in a much different light. I'm worried about shaming my family, but at least I don't have to worry about ruining an entire pack.
"Why did you invoke the Right of Accord?" I ask him. "Your specific reasons. 'Because I could' isn't an answer."
"It's an answer. It's just not one you want." He isn't wrong, but he doesn't play coy. "A lifetime commitment to anything should be considered thoroughly, especially if one is indoctrinated to believe that commitment is desirable rather than having the consequences and responsibilities explained to them."
"Like joining a hetero-normative society that demands breeding at all costs?" I think about Hannah and Ryan and all they have to hide.
"That, and the reality that once you accept the transformation, your life is no longer your own. Most of us aren't prepared to live in a world outside of the pack. It's easy to tell our young that without us, they can't survive." He lifts his glass toward me again. "But you survived."
"Barely." But that isn't true. I certainly didn't have designer clothes or a mansion to go home to. There were no lavish dinners or garden parties. My father paid for everything, but I did have to learn to survive in a world where no one laundered my clothes or did my grocery shopping or drove me around. And while the humans I met in their world were perfectly capable of doing those things, no one bothered to teach them to us. We were promised a life where none of that would ever come up.
All sense of playfulness flees the room. Nathan stares intently into my eyes as he speaks. "You survived. And you saw how different things can be. For better or worse. The two of us…we know things none of these other werewolves know. Imagine how different life could be for our children."
"There's that 'our' again." I chuckle nervously. "Maybe the rest of the pack isn't interested in co-parenting with their pack leader."
"I wasn't talking about their children. I was talking about our children."
I choke on my soup and frantically cover my mouth with my napkin.
He doesn't wait for me to finish being shocked. "I've decided to pursue you, Bailey. You would make an excellent queen and mate for me."