Page 38 of The Forbidden Wolf

Chapter Fifteen

“Gods have mercy, they’re wearing their shiftskins in broad daylight.” Max stalked away from the floor-length window overlooking 59th Street. “Have they lost their minds? The only reason I even agreed to this merger in the first place was because Phelan and I agreed we must maintain our secrecy!”

Sebastian and I continued watching through the window as shifter after shifter strode across the crosswalk and turned toward the Plaza’s main entrance. I swallowed the tang of bacon that kept working its way back into my mouth. Max had insisted I eat before facing my former pack in case it came to blows, but clearly the blows were coming. Kiana knew damn well that an alpha male like Sebastian would never give in to a female’s demands. It would make him look hopelessly weak in front of both packs—as his rejection had done to her. Nothing short of winning a war could ever heal my sister’s wounded ego.

Stone-faced, Sebastian turned from the window and began unbuttoning his shirt. I tried not to look, but the view through the window was giving me the creeps, and my eyes kept trying to find somewhere else to land, and there was a lot of him to land on. He shucked off the shirt, revealing a sleeveless black shiftskin that clung to every line of his torso and showed off the priceless works of art that were his bare arms. When he reached for his fly, I forced my whole traitorous body to turn the other way.

“If you wish to stay, then you should undress,” Sebastian said gruffly. “But I wish you would return to your room. This is obviously going to get ugly. And should anything happen to you, it will all have been for nothing.”

“I won’t hide from my sister.” I licked my dry lips. “You could always just surprise her and say yes. Then she would have no choice but to honor the original agreement.”

“I will take no mate but you.” Sebastian said fiercely. “And if I lose you today, I will spend the rest of my life alone.”

“Join the club honey.” I whirled around, glaring. “Because if you lose, you’ve successfully taken me from my only home and made it impossible to go back. If you won’t keep your promise to my sister, then your pack’s only hope for keeping the peace is my ability to appeal to my father.”

That worked so well last night.

I know. We’re totally fluffed. Hush.

Sebastian narrowed his eyes. “And what sort of appeal do you intend to make? I will not relinquish my claim, Elyse. You will be my mate.”

I looked away, furious with him and myself. Because there was some small part of me, some small and mindless, dangerously primal part of me that stirred at his words even as my mind rejected them. He was winning over my wolf with his caveman crap. I realized with a start that she’d fought me on Blaze because she knew he didn’t really want to mate with me either. That horny bitch.

I stared out the window to avoid staring at the contours of his folded arms, which would fold around me in a heartbeat if I so much as nodded in his direction. I hated myself for wondering what that would feel like outside of a dream. What all of it would feel like. Would it feel the way it looked like it felt in the movies? Would he make that helpless, shell-shocked, squinty face that Jack Dawson made in the back seat of that car? Would I have to hold him on my chest while he trembled like he’d seen the face of Leto?

Because if so, that would, um, that would feel kind of… powerful.

Heat crept up my neck, and I tugged on my shirt collar. Sebastian’s raw animal energy crackled at the opposite end of the window like a fast-approaching storm. We were not fated mates, but barring death, our union was inevitable. Sebastian had, for whatever reason, set his sights on me. And though I chafed at the idea of being loved without being known, I did not feel quite the same resistance to simply being wanted. More than my sister.

But Kiana’s stricken face flashed behind my eyes, and I shoved all of those treacherous thoughts to the back of my mind. Sebastian was a stranger. Kiana was my twin. Our relationship was complicated, but I would never willingly betray her. Pressing my forehead to the window, I could see there were no more shifters on the crosswalk, only normal humans dressed in normal human clothes. My pack would be here any minute.

Pulling away from the window, I gestured at the dozen or so Manhattan soldiers gathered in the large oak-paneled meeting room. “You will really let them risk their lives for your right to own me?”

“I will let them do their duty and defend our future.” Sebastian took a careful step toward me and lowered his voice even further. “What you said this morning… you were right. In claiming you, I have laid a great responsibility at your feet, one I do not take lightly. I will never disrespect you as I did in my moment of surprise again. You are my family. When I look at you, I see my past and my future all at once, woven together like a rope with no beginning and no end. Everything leads to you. Everything comes from you. This is the Eternal Ring that no fang shall sever. This is how I know you’re my fated.”

The heat that had been creeping up my neck abruptly headed in another direction flooding my body more than my mind with memories from my dreams. That was… not a store-bought greeting card kind of line. At all. Wow. And for a moment, I felt myself falling into his golden-brown eyes… into his lies. But I swiftly stepped away and held up my hands before he could try to kiss me, which the parting of his lips told me he now felt entitled to.

I shook my head. “It is enough that you have claimed me. I have no escape. There is no need for this charade. If you care about me in any true capacity, you will stop trying to gaslight me into doubting my own experience.”

Sebastian groaned and shoved both hands into his mane. “I could the say the same to you. I feel as if I’m going crazy because I have never felt anything more true! And you just said it yourself—I have no need to lie to you. Why would I say something that is only serving to push you farther and farther away if it were not true?”

“Well, maybe just stop saying it!” I shouted, earning curious glances from everyone in the room, including Maximo and Mateo. I raked my hand over my big mouth and muttered, “I mean, maybe just slow your roll, dude?”

Sebastian didn’t get the chance to answer. Three powerful knocks rattled the Edwardian Room’s wide double doors, and then they burst open without waiting for an invitation. Kiana and Damian entered first, flanked by Father and Blaze. My sister’s eyes burned like gas flames as she marched right toward us, ignoring everyone else in the room. Caught off guard, Max and Mateo rushed to head them off, arms outstretched in a placating fashion.

“Alpha Phelan,” Max addressed my father. “What is the meaning of this? Shiftskins in the streets at high noon? Have you gone mad?”

Kiana shoved her way between the two surprised males and stopped in the center of the room and looked around the open space. “Where is the Elder Wolf?”

“Yes.” Father’s eyes roamed the room. “Where is she?”

Max looked back and forth between my father’s oddly placid face and the back of my sister’s head. Kiana squared her shoulders and folded her muscular arms over her chest. Whatever insecurities she might have had about her figure while wrapped up in a dress did not apply to shiftskins. She owned every powerful inch of her body when unhindered by human clothes, and if Sebastian had a lick of sense he would fall down on his knees and beg for her forgiveness. For so many reasons.

“We do not bring our elders to battles.” Sebastian moved in front of me and squared himself. “And we do not take kindly to threats.”

“And we do not take kindly to broken promises,” Kiana hissed. “Nor conspiracies.”

“Conspiracies?” Sebastian scoffed. “I assure you what happened last night took everyone in this pack by complete surprise. Including me.” He softened his voice a fraction. “I am sorry for the offense I caused you as a fellow Alpha Heir. Truly, I am. But the ceremony could not and cannot continue. Elyse is my fated mate.”

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