Identical.
How did Ambrose remember?
Without looking at him, I grab at another note and then another.
Juliet is the sun…
O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo…
A pair of star-crossed lovers…
Thus with this kiss I die…
Every note that Ambrose sent to me is written on these decorations.
“You didn’t forget,” I whisper.
You didn’t forget me, I wish that I could add but I’m frightened to.
Ambrose’s warm arms encircle me, and he pulls me onto his lap. I can feel the strength of his hard legs beneath me and his hot breath against my neck.
“I haven’t forgotten anything about you.” When Ambrose soothes me with his pheromones, I relax against him. Hell, how have I lived without my Alpha’s pheromones? Every instinct inside is screaming at me to bare my neck and accept his bite. “A day didn’t pass that I wasn’t thinking about you.”
“But you weren’t here.”
“I couldn’t be.” Ambrose twists me in his lap to face him.
He’s unexpectedly serious. He’s as unyielding as a warrior emperor before battle.
Unmovable.
I steel myself.
“Where have you been?” I demand.
“England.”
“I know that. I mean, why?”
“Mom sent me there.”
“Why did you obey her?”
“She’s my Head Alpha. A Traditional. I was eighteen. If I didn’t obey, I’d have been imprisoned in the Alpha Center.”
“But you stayed there all this—"
“I didn’t have a choice.”
I huff out a breath.
I’m wrong.
Ambrose isn’t only an emperor: he’s a marble sculpture of one.
Am I being paranoid, or is he being vague on purpose?
He’s the intense, talks in short sentences or barked orders style Alpha but even so, this is ridiculous.