28. Max #2
I wouldn’t be the kind of company he was used to. The cadets in my barracks said Caspian had slept with half the population in the fortress.
No way would I let him into my pants for a few drinks. And my relaxation wasn’t just the booze or Caspian’s charm. Bryn was having the time of her life. The shifters had accepted me without question. For the first time since arriving at the fortress, I wasn’t surrounded by hostility.
“You have the most beautiful smile, Max,” Caspian said. Light from the Stormglass lanterns danced in his eyes.
“You’re exaggerating.” I grinned. “Just so you know, flattery doesn’t work on me. No one gets into my pants.”
Shit. What had I just said? But it didn’t seem to matter, because I was now gazing at him through my thick lashes and batting my eyes.
“Max, Max.” He let out a low, sensual laugh that made my toes curl and need clench between my thighs. “I wasn’t buttering you up. Surely you can sense my sincerity.”
“Do you always flirt this much, princeling?” I purred.
“What can I say?” he purred right back, leaning in. “I like you too much, Max. Tell me to stop, and I will.”
I giggled. Learned that from my six-and-a-half-year-old sister. Yet inwardly, I groaned and winced.
Somebody please stop me! I’d welcome a slap across the cheek. Or even a kick to the kidney.
“Don’t stop, please, Prince.”
How had that sultry beg come out of my big fucking mouth ?
“I flirt this much only with you.” His smile deepened.
Shit, he was a full ten. I agreed with the score the cadets had given him. Overheard it during lunch in the mess hall.
“You have to know that, Max. You aren’t like anyone else.”
“Yeah?” I heard myself say, as if I wanted more. Fuck. I needed to leave before I sank to a new low.
“Of course.” His eyes laughed. “Do you know your laughter is better than drugs?”
His free hand slid into my lush hair. His fingers carded through the strands, massaging my scalp. The caress sent a shiver cascading down my spine.
“I like your hair long like this,” he said. “Shit, it’s so soft. Softer than the finest silk.”
I regarded the glowing white strand wrapped around his fingers. “Maybe I should cut it.”
“No, no, no,” he protested. “Promise me you won’t cut your hair.”
I didn’t understand how the topic had shifted to my hair. But the shifters around us had gone quiet. My friend included. Everyone watched us.
Caspian lifted our linked hands to his lips and kissed my knuckles. The sensation shot through me like a bolt, straight to my core. And with it came an uninvited image: Nikolai between my thighs, flooding my head.
Would Caspian do the same for me? How would it feel if his mouth replaced the vampire’s? Was his tongue as skilled? As wicked? The earth-shattering climax Nikolai had given me replayed behind my eyes in rich, vivid detail .
Shit. Need to cease and desist.
But it was already too late. I could smell my own arousal curling through the liquor and smoke. And if I could smell it, every shifter in a twenty-foot radius had it mapped and catalogued.
Caspian’s eyes glowed. Heat burned through the green. He inhaled my scent slow and deep, as if he couldn’t get enough. The pure male satisfaction on his face was so indecent that my blood heated more.
I needed to get the fuck out of here while I still could. But at that moment, I had no will to peel my ass off this soft seat, away from this warm, powerful, delicious man who smelled like pine, sugar, and danger. Another round of shots, and I might lick him.
“That’s enough!”
The dragon prince’s voice cut through the fog in my head like a scythe through weeds.
I lifted my haze-blurred gaze. When had Drakken crossed the balcony?
He stood beside our table. His blonde companion at his booth was forgotten.
The dragon prince towered over the shifters, his large frame blocking the lantern light powered by Stormglass behind him.
A black T-shirt stretched taut over the hard slabs of his chest and the ridges of his stomach.
Faded jeans hung low on his hips, worn soft at the knees.
He looked less like a general tonight and more like the man who’d pin you against a wall and make you forget your own name.
Everything about him was built to intimidate. And every inch of it worked.
Fuck. He was a ten too. T-E-N. The female cadets would riot if they knew I was sitting between two princes who both scored perfect marks.
I flashed him a coy smirk. He didn’t return it.
My body ran hotter at his proximity. Two alpha males saturating the air with competing power, and I sat at the center of the collision, my pulse drumming so hard I could feel it in my teeth.
The Stormglass lanterns overhead flickered, as if even they couldn’t handle the voltage.
T-E-N! Coldiron declared.
“She’s drunk, Caspian!” Drakken grated.
“I think I can go for a few more rounds,” I said. “Mind your own business.”
A round of gasps rose from all the tables.
Drakken glared at me. “You will not drink one more shot.”
Was that a threat?
I glared back at him while pondering if I should shoot to my feet.
Go eye-to-eye or toe-to-toe. I was only an inch shorter, close enough to make the stare feel like a fair fight.
But then, what if I swayed? I was getting lightheaded.
He’d interpret it as me swaggering, then make me run twenty laps.
I didn’t think I had it in me to even finish one lap tonight.
“What the hell?” Caspian shot to his feet, squaring off against Drakken. Very good. That was the way to do it.
Their chests nearly touched. Two walls of muscle and rage, inches apart. The air between them crackled.
“Everyone in this joint is drunk. That’s the fucking point of celebrating.
” Caspian’s green eyes glowed, violence brimming in them.
“So why don’t you go bark at the ones face-down in their own vomit before you come singling out Max again?
You’re spoiling her evening and my fun.” I nodded eagerly.
Well said. “Back the fuck off, Drakken.”
“Have you forgotten that Cadet Private Max doesn’t belong in your shifter army?” Drakken snorted. “She’s under my command.”
“As soon as she graduates, she’ll be in my elite shifter ranks,” Caspian said.
“Until then, she follows my every order.” Drakken’s sharp smugness returned. He turned to me, his gaze harsh and dominant. But he couldn’t entirely hide what simmered beneath—heat, veiled but present. “Cadet Private Max. Attention!”
Was I required to snap to attention off duty? I’d cooled a little. Countering him might earn me something worse than barefoot laps on the death track.
I rose from my seat. Swaggered a little, intentionally this time, then stood at attention. My gaze met his alpha stare and held. I refused to salute this asshole. He hadn’t ordered one anyway.
“Go back to your barracks now before you get any more wasted,” Drakken growled. “Unless you’re asking for a reprimand.”
Caspian snarled.
The two princes locked into rounds of heated argument. The VIP section cleared around them as officers and shifters alike edged back from the blast radius.
“The heirs have never fought in public,” Bryn whispered in my ear. “What do we do, Max? ”
“We sneak the fuck out of here,” I whispered back. No need to be collateral damage in a clash of Titans.
I caught Bryn’s wrist and pulled her toward the stairs while Drakken’s bass and Caspian’s snarl tangled behind us.
We slipped down the staircase, weaving through the packed ground floor.
The officers and soldiers at the bar didn’t notice us.
Their eyes were aimed upward at the balcony, where the duel between a dragon prince and a wolf prince was becoming the evening’s main event.
We made it outside. The cold air hit like a slap. But the heat in my veins wasn’t done with me yet.