Chapter 70
seventy
brIAR
Briar’s Beasts
I thought we were going low key tonight…?
Dane
Yeah…
Rhys
Totally, baby.
Briar
Then why is there a ballgown on my bed?
Cillian
Merely a suggestion, Mrs. Blackwood.
I really ought to know better by now.
When my husband claimed we were having a “quiet night in” to finish up our week-long heat recovery, I’m amazed I believed him.
But leave it to Cillian to plan his scheme precisely. Telling me about our “lowkey evening” through the bond, when he knew I was distracted by my latest book and Rhys’s head in my lap.
I bet he chuckled to himself all day, remembering how I hummed some version of “yeah, yeah, sounds great, honey,” and went back to my smut without even the slightest suspicion.
Devious devil.
For you, Mrs. Blackwood? he says now, smirking through our tether. I can always do worse.
I flash him an exasperated mental image of myself in my bedroom mirror…
Wearing a full-on ballgown.
Aaaaaand maybeeee flipping him the bird.
Rhys must be listening, because he snorts internally before adding his own anticipation to the mix. You ready yet, baby?
For what? I harrumph, sliding my feet into the slippers Cillian left and turning for the door. Tea with the queen?
That’s on the seventeenth, Dane thinks, his tone utterly serious and hilariously grumpy at the same time. Cillian says I have to wear another suit.
We all do, the pack leader replies, casual as ever. Then to me, as if it’s so normal: We’re investing in their international pediatric healthcare initiative, so we’ll dine with them while they’re in the city next month. I already put it on your calendar, rosebud.
I cast him all kinds of internal side-eye. Oh gee thanks.
Cillian’s amusement licks into arousal, his underlying impatience flaring. Hurry down, wife. I’m sure you look lovely.
He isn’t wrong, damn it. The golden gown is a classic silhouette—a sweetheart bodice with a corset up the front and two loose swags for low-slung “sleeves.”
But my husband knows me well, so the piece also features a couple of artful, modern twists: gilded splashes of metallic paint and pointed gossamer tendrils that feather over my slight cleavage.
Not to mention, it fits me perfectly. And matches my lock necklace like the two couture pieces were made to go together.
Dane chuckles into the bond, his tone as exasperated as mine. … because they were made to go together. Cillian clearly has too much time on his hands these days.
My big man isn’t wrong—since Forsyth “retired,” our pack has been splitting his work with Gideon’s.
Turns out, when you’re not plotting ways to kill or control everyone around you, it actually isn’t a hard job.
Especially given the cousins’ plans to phase out their current business model and find new products to manufacture.
I ponder their proposed ideas all the way to the second-floor landing. Lurching to a halt, I blink twice at the dark foyer below… lit with hundreds of candles.
They’re everywhere. Pooled on the floor, covering the sideboards, lining the short, rounded hallway to the glowing ballroom.
Just like the night Cillian asked me to dance for him.
How did he know I loved that? Did I ever tell him?
“You dreamed about it,” Dane says, silent as ever as he steps up to the bottom of the stairs, reaching for me. “So we thought we would recreate it for you.”
My big man looks adorably shy, standing in one of his too-tight suits, holding out his hand. Instead of taking it, I hop up and wind my arms around his neck. He laughs as he spins me, rubbing his unmasked jaw over my temple in a scent-mark.
Dane makes it look easy, sweeping me into his arms, effortlessly carrying me the rest of the way to the ballroom. I’m not at all surprised when he takes me straight to Cillian.
My husband waits in the center of the room, surrounded by the flickers of a hundred flames. The walls shine, shadows stuttering behind the handsome, dark-haired devil waiting for me.
Dane places me on my feet, allowing my husband to dip into a bow, bringing my fingers to his mouth for a slow, lingering kiss.
Flickering light catches on his gold wedding band and the silvery half-moon scars I left around it.
Cillian feels my arousal and pride sparkle through the bond, his lips quirking upward.
Rhys appears behind him, utterly devastating in his charcoal suit. He tosses me his illegal grin as he holds up a small remote. When he clicks it, music starts—something slow and soft.
Cillian steps closer, bending to skim his lips over his bond mark and whisper into my ear. “I thought we might have a dance. While I tell you a story.”
The significance of the moment isn’t lost on me. The last time we were in here, Cillian told me about the day he first saw me. But he couldn’t touch me, so he didn’t dance with me.
I reach up to touch the hair at his temple, nodding. “Okay,” I say, truly smiling before I set my features into a smirk. “But if you start with once upon a time, I swear… eep!”
Cillian twirls me into a dip so fast, my thoughts scatter across the marble floor. He snaps us upright just as gracefully, moving into a simple waltz.
Once upon a time, he thinks, his amusement as potent as the rush of adoration that accompanies it. There was a pair of mates.
I expect a mental picture of us, but instead he shows me someone who looks like him, only this man feels… older. Bigger.
The memory is from a child’s perspective, I realize, noting the slab of wall obstructing half of the image. Cillian is hiding around a corner. Watching as a man who looks like the alpha holding me offers his hand to a woman with long brown waves… who has on my wedding dress.
Oh.
Cillian senses my tangled reaction—amazement, sadness, understanding, adoration.
I had mixed feelings about the dress itself, too. I wanted to hate it so badly… but, even under the circumstances of that fateful day, I found it beautiful.
Now, knowing it was his mother’s… and that he had happy memories of watching her wear it with his father…
Cillian feels the lump swelling in my throat and nuzzles my forehead with his. Without a word, he projects a clearer picture between us, showing me how he used to sneak closer to watch them twirl around.
Through his memory, I feel his excitement and amazement as his father and mother turn the boring, stuffy ballroom into a stage. As a dancer, I can’t help but notice the way they move together, with the sort of fluidity that only comes from true intimacy.
They loved each other, my husband recalls, sadness and certainty stretching through our tether. But the man was weak. And instead of protecting all he held dear, he compromised it.
This time, the memory belongs to Rhys. He’s a child, too. Punier and more afraid than Cillian was. He ducks behind his mother’s skirt as they walk into Blackwood Manor, peeking out. My head automatically snaps in his direction, finding his wistful, sea-glass gaze.
The man married a woman he did not love, Rhys thinks. Someone very different from his mate; all in an attempt to appease his father. And keep the evil man from harming the ones he truly loved.
I feel Dane watching the story unfold as much as I am, a deep well of protective anger burrowing a pit in his center.
The big alpha suddenly adds his own recollection to the mix—still a kid’s perspective, but a much taller, steadier sort.
He stands at the top of the stairs, witnessing the first meeting between Rhys and Cillian.
Knowing it isn’t his place to be involved.
My heart aches for him, feeling the way he worries about his best friend; sensing his pity for the small blond boy.
It’s even sadder once I realize—back then? No one worried about Dane at all. Ever.
I feel Cillian’s regret over that and his packmate’s answering acceptance. The ease with which he releases the past, adding, Nobody won, in the war between the evil man and his sons. And in the end, everyone lost what they cared for the most.
Rhys shows me a teary image from his vantage point. Standing at the window of the music room, watching a car drive away.
His mother, leaving him.
Cillian sees it too, displaying his view from the threshold of that room. Witnessing the worst moment in Rhys’s life and thinking about his own as he turns to his father’s onyx urn on the mantle. Something deep inside of him snaps… and turns cold.
My husband goes on, pulling me closer as water gathers in my eyes.
His internal voice sounds gruffer. The young alpha saw what true love had done to his family.
So he vowed to harden himself against it.
He decided he would never take an omega for a mate.
And did everything he could to build barriers around himself and his pack.
Dane displays a new picture. One of Cillian the day he left for college and the day he returned from business school. He looks like two different people—parting from his former brother and best friend with short hugs… but returning with handshakes.
My big alpha hesitates, then sighs internally, wordlessly admitting how disappointed he was. How he missed his friend. Cillian’s footsteps falter for a moment as he realizes how he hurt his packmate, but I know the steps. I guide us through a few turns, until he regains his focus.
So, the alpha grew into a man without a heart, he admits, the deepest slash of pained regret accompanying the words. He shut himself off from his packmates and his emotions, hell-bent on shaping an empire just beyond his reach.
And the other alphas let him, Dane adds, once again projecting forgiveness. The grace that it wasn’t all Cillian’s fault. Because they themselves had grown hateful and bitter.
The images that come with that statement are gruesome and gray. An endless slog of evil men, bloodshed, pent-up rage, and plots for revenge. Until it all goes up in flames as they collectively recall the night of the fire.
But the embers settle and the smoke clears… and Cillian projects the first moment he laid eyes on a certain black-haired ballerina. Rolling her eyes behind her director’s back as she stretched past her pointed toes, a lopsided bun falling to her left shoulder.
I feel Cillian’s sad smile more than I see it. Until one day, he goes on, full of bittersweet joy, a very special woman came into their lives…
Rhys flashes a grin. … and tried to kill them.
When he shows the memory of me holding a knife to his throat, we all laugh despite the tears clogging my throat. “Maybe they deserved it.” I shrug, sniffing.
Cillian suddenly twirls me fast enough to whip me into Rhys’s arms. My blond alpha launches into his own version of the waltz—much more fluid and flamboyant. “Oh, they definitely deserved it,” he agrees. “But either way, that shit was hot.”
I’m still giggling when he spins me to Dane. The big man catches me easily, but clearly doesn’t have the first clue how to dance. Instead, he settles into a prom pose—his hands on my hips and mine on his shoulders. Bending to scent-mark my cheek, he continues.
One by one, she fought through their walls. He remembers the way I practically shimmied up his enormous body the night I gave him my virginity. Chuckling on the outside, but inside? He’s more of a puddle than I am. My cute, cuddly monster. Climbing… he thinks.
Cutting, Rhys puts in, recalling the way I sliced without a drop of hesitation. How sexy and strong he found that. The admiration that started to smolder in the deepest, most secret part of him… until it grew into adoration.
For his part, Cillian recalls our many arguments over dinner. How I defied him at every turn. How I surprised and delighted him with my negotiations and refusal to cower. … and cunning her way to the truth.
Dane rests his forehead on mine, then turns me around. Locking his arm at my waist while his packmates close in, each of them taking one of my sides.
I look up at Cillian, blinking back more tears when I feel the utter devotion pouring from each of my mates.
But always my husband most of all.
He found me. He followed me. He fought for me.
And won.
I gaze into his blue, blue eyes, murmuring, “What was the truth?”
“That having you as our mate could never be our weakness,” he murmurs. “Because you are our greatest strength.”