Chapter 23 #2
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her I’d bring her to see them, but I held back. I hoped I would part with the Alpha pack on mostly good terms, but there would still be tension between us. Ryker would hate me. And gods knew how Warrick would take the news.
He might be glad I was finally gone or he might see it as confirmation that I was a traitor.
In either case, it wasn’t likely they would let Selene visit me for a long time.
“Where’d you go?”
I blinked and found her looking at me with a mix of curiosity and concern. In the bright afternoon sun, her cat-like slit pupils were barely visible, and it made the blue of her eyes stand out even more.
“Sorry.” I dismissed my axes, causing her gaze to drop to the one she’d been holding. “Just a lot on my mind. I should get back to my research.”
I started to walk down the path that led to the back entrance of the castle. Selene trailed after me. “Can I ask what you’re researching?”
“Umm . . . nothing all that important,” I lied. “Just trying to fix a Fae mirror. It’s missing a piece that is apparently the heirloom of a Fae family. I think I’ve seen it somewhere, but I have yet to track down a crest that has carvings of a night sky framed by wings.”
“Is it silver?”
I stopped so suddenly that Selene crashed into my back. I whirled around, hands landing on her shoulders to steady her as I searched her face. “Have you seen it?”
Her hands rested gently on my arms as she chewed her bottom lip. “Yes,” she finally said. “But you’re not going to like where.”
Cold rain battered against me, soaking my thin attire and seeping into my skin. My fingers dug into the stone ledge, and I tried to force my body to stop trembling. Which was getting harder by the second, and not because of the bone-chilling rain.
Despite my tendency to climb, I didn’t actually enjoy heights.
Like most lycans, I preferred my feet firmly on the ground.
But pragmatism always won over fear for me, which was why I was currently scaling a forty-foot wall.
I’d hatched this plan during dinner because Ryker had been acting extra pushy tonight but I needed to speak with Bastian.
His room was at the top of a tower above the west wing, not far from mine . . . just a little higher.
It’d seemed so easy in my mind to just climb from my balcony to his.
I mean, he did it often enough, and there was no way I was going to let Bastian best me at something.
Plus, it meant I could completely avoid Ryker, who I suspected would not be happy at all if I told him I needed to speak with Bastian alone.
I hadn’t, however, taken the weather into account.
Dark clouds had rolled in over the course of dinner, and by the time I’d made it back to my room, it’d begun sprinkling.
Less than two minutes into my journey, the light rain had turned into a downpour.
I should have turned back immediately, but instead, I’d powered on, and now I was closer to Bastian’s balcony than mine.
Fuck. It’d been so much easier sneaking out of my bedroom at Drudonia when Cali could just pick me up and fly us down.
Wind snapped at me, causing my hair to whip across my face. I squinted and could just make out the balcony railing. Ten feet. I could make it another ten feet.
I slid my toes along the ledge I was balanced on.
That had been the other brilliant part of my plan—going barefoot.
The ledges along the walls of the castle were purely decorative and not all that deep.
I’d thought my boots would be too slippery with the rain.
Now, I missed the rigidness of them. My toes were getting tired from bearing most of my weight.
Little bit farther.
Lightning cracked overhead and I flinched but managed not to slip. Slowly, I closed the distance until I was almost within reach of the railing. I took a deep breath and dug in with my left hand before reaching out with my right.
“Do you have a death wish, Princess?” My head snapped up to see Bastian standing several feet back on the balcony, shrouded in darkness, only his green eyes glowing faintly as they caught the moonlight.
“You could help!” I snapped.
“Could I?”
“You are such an assh—” I shrieked as my grip slipped. My fingers brushed the balcony railing, but I was too far to grab it. Just as suddenly as I started to free-fall, something wrapped around my forearm, claws digging into my skin, jerking me to a sudden and painful stop.
“Sure you don’t need help?” Bastian drawled from where he leaned over the balcony, his blond hair plastered to his face as the rain pelted us.
“I think you dislocated my shoulder,” I rasped.
“Rescuing damsels in distress isn’t really my thing.” He flexed his claws, and they cut a little deeper into my skin, giving me a fresh wave of pain as I dangled in his grasp. “Say, ‘Bastian you’re absolutely perfect. Thank you for rescuing me from my own idiocy,’ and I’ll pull you up.”
I looked down. Nothing but darkness and mist greeted me. I glanced back at Bastian, and he grinned at me. He wouldn’t drop me. I was mostly certain of that.
With the balcony railing bracing him, he wasn’t under that much strain. He absolutely would hold me like this for a while.
Fuck that.
Gritting my teeth against the pain, I swung my other arm up and grabbed his forearm. Then I jackknifed my legs up, my body swinging at the movement.
“Rynn,” Bastian warned, his claws sinking in deeper.
I flung my legs up again, building on my momentum, and yanked his body with mine, twisting until I landed on the other side of the railing.
Bastian rolled his eyes before releasing his claws from my flesh. He planted one hand just next to my dislocated shoulder and gripped my wrist with the other, steadily pulling my arm straight out. After a few seconds of excruciating pain, it popped back into place.
“You’re welcome.” He let me go and strode back through his open balcony doors. “Don’t get blood and water all over my room.”
I stood on the balcony, shivering from both adrenaline and the cold. It took my mind a second to catch up to the fact that I was back on solid ground. And then it very quickly processed that a stupidly gorgeous Velesian was stripping in front of me.
“What are you doing?” My hands flew up to cover my eyes, but not before I got a very good view of Bastian’s ass.
His extremely tight and totally biteable ass.
“Really, Princess?” Bastian’s deep laugh filled the air. “You’ve seen me naked plenty of times.”
“But we’re in your room!” I countered.
“No. You’re on the balcony. I’m in my room.
” Fingers gently gripped mine and tugged them away.
I let him but kept my gaze firmly fixed on his green eyes.
Bastian released me and stepped back, the corners of his mouth quirked up.
“I’m dressed now, you weirdo. Get in so you’re out of the rain, but stand there.
” He pointed to a spot just inside the doors.
“Barely,” I muttered, noting that all he was wearing was a low-hanging pair of pants. But I did as he said because my only other option was to continue standing in the freezing cold rain, and even I wasn’t that stubborn.
Bastian disappeared into another room and came back out with a towel. “Strip.”
“What? No.” I crossed my arms beneath my chest, only to realize I’d grabbed a white shirt when I’d changed before dinner, and it left very little to the imagination now.
Bastian’s grin widened.
“Oh shut up!” I snapped.
“I didn’t say anything.” He laughed and tossed me the towel.
I grabbed it before turning my back to him and tugging my shirt off. Then I wrapped the towel around myself and wiggled out of my pants. And now I was basically naked in Bastian’s bedroom.
Awesome.
I dropped my soaking wet clothes onto the floor because I knew it would annoy him. The smirk on my lips died when I turned around to find Bastian lounging sideways in a chair, his legs kicked over the side. Why couldn’t he sit like a normal person?
And more importantly, why did he have to lie in a way that drew so much attention to his chest and those abs that I really wanted to run my fingers across?
“You’re drooling.” Bastian grinned. “Although I appreciate the confirmation that you do in fact enjoy my abs.”
“Hate you,” I muttered before glancing around and spying his closet against one wall. Bastian tracked me as I stalked across his room and flung the closet doors open. I grabbed one of the neatly stacked shirts and carefully pulled it on, letting it fall to mid-thigh before letting the towel drop.
“By all means,” he said lightly, “help yourself.”
The shirt barely covered more than the towel, but it made me feel less naked. I raised my chin as I walked back across the room and settled into a chair opposite him. “We need to talk.”
“Really? Here I thought you scaled a wall during a storm and almost died out of a desperate need to get laid by someone who knows what they’re doing.” Bastian changed his position so he could face me without having to twist his neck.
“Ryker knows what he’s doing,” I said stiffly. “As you’re well aware of.”
“I suppose I am.” He chuckled. “Which is impressive, given his history, or lack thereof.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing.” He waved a hand dismissively. “What’s on your mind, beautiful?”
My fingers curled inward, and in my head, I summoned one of my axes and threw it at his stupidly perfect face.
In real life, I let out a deep breath, trying to release the frustration of dealing with Bastian.
I didn’t know what he’d meant about Ryker.
Maybe that he hadn’t had many sexual partners before me?
Given that he rarely left the Alpha stronghold, it wasn’t that surprising.
It didn’t matter. I’d been good about maintaining a distance between me and Ryker. Now, thanks to Selene, I was significantly closer to breaking my ties with the Alpha pack for good.
“I need to visit Fervis territory, specifically Alexis’ clan,” I said evenly.