Page 66 of Violet

And her scent is stronger now, more so than it’s ever been, stroking over me like fingers on naked skin.

I don’t know what’s between us, but Violet must be sensing something, too, because she stares at our joined hands, mouth half opened, and breathing picking up.

“Stephan…” she whispers. “Let me go.”

I can’t. Just the idea of Dominic Stockton or any other Alpha touching her, kissing her, has a possessiveness whipping through me and my hackles rising.

She’s fuckingmine.

“Did…did you growl?”

Her words startle me and make me drop her wrist.

Shit.

Then it hits me.

I know what’s happening.

The princess is going to go into heat. Any day now.

Her scent, the overwhelming urge to claim her…

“You need to stop touching me.” But she’s looking up at me like she wished I hadn’t let go.

It’s probably dangerous for me to be around her with her heat so close and my instincts in overdrive. But even as I tell myself to leave—take the out she’s given me—I’m stepping closer, cupping the side of her face with one hand and pulling her body against mine with the other.

She leans into it. “Stephan…” It’s a plea. One I feel and understand.

Dipping my head, I touch her lips with mine. Barely there.

She whimpers.

There’s a slam of a car door in the distance, shouts, and when I lift my eyes to look past Violet, I spot Heath stalking over to us. At his side is the battle-ax’s Omega, and no one looks happy.

If this truly is the last time I’m tasting Violet’s lips, I’m going to make it worth it.

So I close my eyes and I kiss her.

Hard.

CHAPTER

NINETEEN

Violet

The first time I was at the Monarch’s estate, when I first met the Monarch before becoming her Luxe, feels like years ago. It seemed massive to me then, but now the hall feels too small, too harsh, and the air’s way too thin. It’s like I can’t get enough into my aching lungs.

I sit on a settee while my brother paces. His fury flows off him in waves, his fire-and-smoke scent swirling all around him.

“I should fucking call Mom, Violet,” he hisses.

The Monarch’s Omega and two of her security detail had taken Stephan and dragged him into a separate limousine, while Heath ushered me into another, and we were whisked from the park in a squeal of tires. I saw him once, when he was marched into the Monarch’s estate, butthen he was dragged into her interview room and we were left to wait in the hall outside of it.

“Heath—”

“You’re young, sheltered, but you’re smart, and I thought…fuck me, I thought you’d know better than to fall for lines from an oversexed Alpha.”

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