Page 4 of Deadly Ties

“By all means.” Ferrier is already crossing the room and unlocking the external door. I follow, the cool night air greeting us and clearing some of the fog from my brain. Ferrier starts down the stairs, clearly unconcerned about having me at his back, and I grip the railing as I follow. My wolf is close under my skin, her need forcing my gaze up to the cloud-streaked sky. The full moon is about a week away, and she twitches along my spine. I can’t help thinking of the last words Arben Marku said to me:“No matter what happens, we are mated, princeshë. We will have the ceremony on the next full moon, but you claimed me years ago. The bites and bonds will just tell the world what is already a fact.”

I cross my arms tightly across my chest as we reach the bottom and start across the garden. Facts, I’m finding, are as slippery as the dew-coated path under my bare feet. Right now, my mind is a stew of memory gaps and outright lies. They all manipulated me. They either used me, or kept me in the dark. I can’t trust anything I’ve been told for the last week. Not to mention the last twenty years, where I’ve lived as Bisha’s baby, daughter of the most ruthless Head Alpha in living history.

Ferrier opens an iron gate in the garden’s ivy-covered wall, and when I step through, I find a long black car idling at the curb. It’s a stretch limousine, the windows blacked out and the back door ajar. Ferrier gestures for me to climb in and I pause for a moment, casting a glance down the quiet street. There’s no one around to watch me disappear into this car, and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing. But it’s only when I’ve hitched up the tight sheath of my dress and I’m sliding across the cool leather seat I realize this is a set-up.

And I’m not alone.

The door closes behind me with a nearly inaudible click. Ferrier isn’t getting in. But I don’t turn around to curse him for tricking me like this. Because my attention is consumed by the alpha sitting opposite me, his face mostly in shadow.

“Arben….” His name leaves my lips as a whine I can’t hold back. “What are you doing here?”

The silence between us is thick and sticky, hot and heavy.

My head spins, and my heart aches.

Is he going to betray me, too?

“Come sit beside me, princeshë.”

I hiss, my grip on the seat slipping until my claws punch the leather. I stare down at my hand, as surprised by the way it’s trembling as by the partial shift I didn’t mean to pull. I fight another wave of dizziness, and I can feel sweat sliding down my overheated spine. If I wasn’t skewering the seat with my claws, I’m sure I’d melt into a puddle on the floor. “I don’t understand. What’s going on?”

“Come to me.” His hands are on his spread thighs in what I think of as his kingly pose. But even though he fills the space around him with his presence, there’s no alpha command in his voice. “Crawl, if you need to, princeshë.”

I don’t stop to argue that princesses don’t crawl. This is Arben, and what he says goes. And it’s not that far. He’s sitting in the middle of the car, and if I swapped sides, it would be easy to slide down the seat to reach him. I could do this the careful way, claws out in case this is another trap. But my wolf and I are in perfect agreement as I drop to my knees on the floor.

The passage is narrow and the carpet is rough, rubbing the tight lace sheath against the sensitive skin of my legs. But I keep my head up, our eyes locked. Midnight eyes, shrouded in shadow. I should be terrified, but I’m panting by the time I reach him.

Arben is the biggest man I’ve ever met, but he’s perfectly proportioned, his legs as long and muscled as the rest of him. Still, he has no difficulty parting them, and I scoot into the space he’s made for me, breathing in the scent of leather and musk.

If I was dizzy before, I’m reeling now.

“It’s not my heat,” I tell him, even though I can’t help rubbing my face against the smooth fabric stretched over his thigh.

“No,” he says quietly, reaching down to cup my face. I only realize I’m crying when he rubs his big thumbs across my cheeks and they come away wet. “It’s grief.”

I shake my head, even as I know he’s right. It might be the adrenaline of the night making me so shaky, but the hollow feeling in my chest has been with me since long before I arrived at the auction house.

Unwanted. Tricked. Traded.

I suck in a painful breath, tipping my head back so he can see the misery painted across my face. “I don’t want to be sad anymore, Arben.”

“Then let me take it away, Elvana.”

My name falls from his lips like a promise, and then he’s drawing me up off the floor and tucking me tight to his lap. The sheath dress strains across my thighs, but he fixes that with the slice of a single claw from hip to knee. I barely notice, because all I can feel is the heat of his body and the throbbing erection he’s making no effort to hide. He wants me, and he’s honest enough to show it.

“Arben,” I whisper, melting into his warmth.

His breath feathers across my face, and I turn to him, a needy flower to the sun. “Let me give you something better than sorrow, princeshë.”

“Wait.” My heart pounds as my vision shudders and I see Rory hovering over me. I’d think it was some kind of masochistic dream, only I’m wide awake and staring into Arben’s hooded eyes. I can see his need mingled with his concern for me. And I know that look. I’ve heard those words, or some just like them.

“Sorrow is raw. It’s messy. Leaves you torn open and scooped out.”

“Empty.” I whisper.

“I can fill you up with something better. Want me to show you, pretty omega?”

And like a switch flicking inside my head, I remembereverything…

---