Chapter 22 An Alpha’s True Power #2
Lucien’s chuckle snapped me out of my temporary daze, and I slowly turned to look at him. He watched me, his lips curved into a warm smile that made my heart flutter. “Like what you see?”
I couldn’t help but smile back. “Yes,” I said softly, “a lot.”
Our gazes caught and held as he said, “This is the pack’s Heart, the middle of the territory, where all the official offices that run the pack are placed.” His smile disappeared. “Since the pack has lost one of its Betas, I now have to address the members. It’s my job as an Alpha.”
The loaded tone of his voice made me want to reach out to him, but his face, which turned darkly grim, seemed to be telling me any sort of consolation or encouragement right now would be ill-timed.
So instead, I looked at the plaza, the Heart, and asked, “Is it okay for me to be here?” before I returned my gaze to him.
He stared at me with an inscrutable glimmer in his eyes before he suddenly confessed, “I find it hard to leave you out of my sight.”
I blinked rapidly, trying to process his words and failing. “You had no problem planning to send me back home with bodyguards,” I said slowly, scowling at the memory. “What the hell has changed?”
Lucien clenched his jaw and looked away. “With Mack’s betrayal, and the break-in and attack in your apartment,” he said quietly, “I can no longer trust anyone, not even my pack members, not to hurt you.”
A chill went down my spine. “You think there are others here who work with the Syndicate like Mack did?”
“I don’t know,” he said, and the frustration coloring his voice was apparent. “So I’d rather not take any chances.”
His words scared me a little. That he couldn’t trust his own pack members saddened me too. And also reminded me of something. “It was mentioned this morning that you’ve been the Alpha here for a short while,” I remarked.
Arctic-blue eyes found mine, filling with emotions I couldn’t decipher.
“I used to be the Alpha of a werewolf pack in Paris,” he told me, and there was a hollow undertone to his voice.
“This pack’s former Alpha died unexpectedly seven months ago, and since this pack lacked an Alpha, and I lacked a pack, the ASS—the American Supernatural Society—offered me the opportunity to become the Alpha here. ”
There was gravity to his words, and also a tone of finality, as if he didn’t want to talk about it any longer—though his story made no sense to me. He said he led a pack in Paris, so how come he lacked a pack?
But seeing that his face was set in hard lines, I let it drop, and, to alleviate the heaviness, I mentioned something I’d been thinking for some time now. “Are they aware their name spells ass?”
To my utter relief, Lucien’s lips twitched in response, the distraught emotion receding from his eyes. “Well, in all fairness, everyone refers to them as A-S-S rather than the word itself.”
“It still begs the question, who came up with this name, and if they did it on purpose,” I noted with a wry grin and then stared when he let out a chuckle that seemed to surprise both him and me.
“Yes,” Lucien murmured, grinning now as he looked at me with dancing eyes. “You know, every country inhabited by Otherborne—which, you may be surprised, is not all countries—has an official organization like the ASS. For instance, France has the Fédération Francaise du Surnaturel.”
His French popped up as he mentioned the organization name, and I was fascinated by that for a few moments before it occurred to me why he’d mentioned it, and I snorted. “So the initialism for that would be FFS.”
Lucien’s cheeky grin made me chuckle. “Perhaps the same person who coined ASS is at fault here too,” he said, gaze softening.
That reminded me of one other. “I think that person is at fault for more than just these two,” I said, giggling. “You mentioned the Syndicate’s Covert Umbral Neutralization Taskforce, otherwise known as CUNT.”
He laughed out loud now, and I watched, mesmerized, as I imprinted the sound and the visual of him laughing so hard into my brain. My heartbeat was loud and quick as pride filled me because I was the one who made him laugh.
Stepping closer to me now, Lucien leaned forward, making me gasp quietly and freeze as he found my ear. “Remember the Council’s full title?” he murmured in a sexy, amused voice that made me shudder. “The Council for Regulation of Arcane Phenomena?”
I giggled again. “CRAP? Seriously?”
Lucien leaned back a little so his face was close to mine. Too close. That made me giggle once more, even before he murmured in that sexy voice of his, “There is also the organization Enoch and I belong to. The one that shares our objective of exposing . . . you know.”
I definitely knew. “Okay, this organization name can’t be worse.”
He grinned wickedly. “The Imperative for Transparency and Symbiosis would beg to differ.”
“TITS.” I snorted and burst out laughing. He joined me, too, laughing at the silliness of the pseudodeliberate unfortunately initialized names.
After a few moments, our laughter subsided and we stared at one another, grinning.
And suddenly, his close proximity, his beautiful eyes, the soft wind blowing his auburn curls, and his ethereal beauty hit me like a truck.
My grin disappeared, and I watched his follow suit as I stared at him, searching his gaze.
“I like seeing you laugh,” I blurted in a whisper, throat clogged with emotion.
Before I could drown in those beautiful eyes of his that bored into mine as though he were looking straight into my soul, he murmured, “I like seeing you laugh too.”
My lips parted, my eyes widening at his mirroring confession. “Oh.”
His gaze hooded as it dipped to my lips, causing me to shudder uncontrollably.
“Drew,” he murmured in a raspy voice, a hand suddenly cupping my cheek while the other arm curled around my waist. His palm pressed against the small of my back and pulled me toward him until my front was pasted against his.
His fingers stretched over the small of my back, while his thumb traced my lower lip.
His touch felt like an electric shock to my nerves, and I shivered again as my hands instinctually grabbed the front of his shirt to keep me steady on my utterly weak knees.
When my knuckles brushed against his exposed collarbone, his expression suddenly shifted, gaze flashing with something akin to hunger.
And in the daze I was in, all I could think was Kiss me. Please.
“Alpha?”
Both of us jumped, releasing one another as if we were on fire, and stepped back, putting much-needed distance between us. We snapped our heads toward the intruder and saw Callista, one of the Betas, standing there, glancing between us with a little furrow between her brows.
Lucien cleared his throat and straightened, squaring his shoulders. “Head in,” he said, now in an authoritative, flat voice, without a hint of the former moment of carefree humor. “We’ll be right there.”
With a slow nod, Callista threw me another look before she walked toward one of the cabins in the plaza and entered.
Silently, Lucien began walking toward the same cabin. It was the largest one in the Heart, with tall walls, a grand double door, and windows shaped like those in churches. A sign hung on the wall near the door, reading Montrévère Pack Hall.
We stopped before the door, and Lucien turned to me.
He gave me a serious look, empty of whatever the hell had almost happened between us, and instructed in a soft, barely audible voice, “Stand behind the door when I walk in, then count to twenty and enter as quietly as possible. Stay in the back, near the door, as out of sight as you can.”
Swallowing hard at the clash of emotions boiling inside me, I forced myself to ignore the many questions I had for him and instead whispered back, “All right.”
With a heavy nod, Lucien straightened, turned to face the door, and took a deep breath.
Right before my eyes, I saw him transform.
Not into a wolf, but into the chilly, threatening, deadly version of him I’d seen once before, in San Diego.
Gone were the smiles or seriousness from his face. Gone was the spark in his eyes that had filled with amusement just a few minutes ago. Instead, his face was drawn into a flat yet somehow murderous expression, and his eyes were cold.
I felt a chill run down my spine at the sight and had to jump back when he suddenly threw the door open and walked inside menacingly.
As I hid behind the door and counted to twenty, I heard murmurs from inside, which slowly grew silent while Lucien’s footsteps echoed deeper into the building.
Once I reached twenty, I slipped into the cabin and stood near the door, as Lucien asked.
Then I had to wrap my head around what the hell I was seeing.
Because the inside of the cabin wasn’t, well, what an inside of a cabin would look like, no matter how large. In fact, it didn’t look like the inside of any building I’d ever visited before.
From the entrance door, a wide staircase led down to the biggest auditorium I’d ever seen—it looked closer to a semicircular stadium than anything else.
A few hundred people were perched in the stands, not an empty place in sight, while at the front was a stage with six seats, split into three and three, and right in the middle, a large, throne-like chair.
Five of the six seats were occupied by Lucien’s Betas.
Lucien himself sat on the would-be throne.
And the silence that reigned was so thick, it could be cut with a knife.
Adjusting my glasses, I watched Lucien as he was silently given some papers by Callista, who was sitting next to him, and started to read through them with that same menacing expression.
As he did, my eyes latched on to Callista, who didn’t move away; instead, she leaned over the pseudothrone’s armrest with her deep neckline, pointing things out on the papers Lucien was reading in a voice not audible from where I was standing.