Chapter 20
CHAPTER
TWENTY
Iris
E very part of me shimmers and flickers with a light, similar to the sea of lanterns inside and out.
I knew it. Knew he was here, even before his message lit up my mini.
I hug it to me, a thrill rocking me.
His gaze on me was like a live thing, warming, exciting, something I yearn for. My kiss I gave him, the one he returned rolls over me from within my memory.
It’s more than that.
It’s him.
All that height, muscle, the sculpted cheekbones and mouth. The piercing dark eyes that glow with the blue similar to Emmie’s. Those tattoos. A man of such strength and his touch is nothing more than gentle. To his child. To me.
But what would it be like if he used it on me, his strength, to pin me down and take whatever he wanted.
Beneath the cake-like skirt I press my thighs together, hard, to stop the moisture there, but all it does is send desire shooting up my center, my clit.
He’s silent, yes, but in that silence are so many words, so much life, and his messages on my mini?
I try to breathe, to calm myself as I move away through the people, away from my brother who’s got hold of Quinn, to where I see Mari.
She takes one look at my face and holds out my drink as music floats in the air, threaded with chatter and laughter.
Those messages might come across as perhaps flirty and innocent to most, but I can feel the heat from the screen, the delicious filth from all the best books and movies I’ve been forbidden to indulge in, things I’ve done anyway.
He wants me.
And he’s a man.
Forbidden. An Alpha but the wrong stock, the wrong rung. I push out the air I just fought for as I stomp off, Mari trailing me through the barges. I stick to all the shadows.
I want to try a man.
No, I want to try two.
Xavier and Killian.
Just taste, sample.
It could be easy, seeing as they’re group pack guys. I’m not entirely sure how it all works, but I’m willing to find out.
Before I’m forced to mate with some boring and upstanding Alpha.
I could?—
“Iris!” Mari grabs my arm as we cross the bridge to the third barge. There are velvet lounges and chairs where people talk and laugh and some of the Season’s girls are surrounded by Alphas.
“Iris?” Jerome says, pulling away from where the vile Alicia holds court. “Do you wish to dance now?—”
“Not at this moment.” I flash a smile and Mari steps between us.
“I’m her chaperone. She’ll dance with you later. You know how it is,” Mari says.
“Thank you,” I whisper to her.
She whispers back, “You owe me.”
We reach the end of the barge, where the final bridge takes you to the beautiful grounds. Mom’s with Pen, and I’m glad, because Pen doesn’t care if she offends anyone, she doesn’t have to the way Mom does and she waves off people like Mrs. Hyde, Quinn’s Mom.
Rue’s out there with other girls her age, flirting outrageously with Eban Coles, a very rich Alpha who’s just come back from college on the mainland. He’s with some friends but he keeps looking at Rue.
She’s fifteen, way too young. I’m not worried. All her talk about a mate is ‘in the future.’
Dahlia’s on the stage, playing, away from the refined zoo out there and on the barges.
“Do you sometimes wish you were Dahlia?” Mari asks.
“No.”
“Sometimes I do. She’s the one with a future that doesn’t involve babies and mating to please Mom and Heath. She could be anything. A mathematician, a musical star.”
“She’ll go to college, and then she’ll be mated off.”
“Maybe, but to a professor or a pioneer in something. Maybe she’ll be an astrophysicist who gives concerts in her spare time. She could become a star pianist. She’s good enough.” Mari sighs.
I think about it. I want… I want a world where I can make my own decisions. If I want to be Pen, I could be, or if I wanted a harem of men, I could have that, too. Or maybe I could just explore the world. The point is, no map, no plan, just life.
“I don’t want that,” I say.
“But you don’t want this, either.”
I look at my sister. I used to think Violet would understand, but now she’s in love maybe she wouldn’t. I miss her. Terribly. But I have Mari, and Mari’s got secrets, too. Like her friendship with Reece.
“I don’t want either or,” I say. “And don’t you think Dahlia hides behind her music a little?”
“She loves it.”
“I know…” I frown, trying to find the right words, but they elude me. “Dahlia also has her niche. Music, study, numbers. Things like that. You have art. Violet’s got the baby and Stephan, and Rue’s got…her impossible Rueness. I don’t know what I have. Yet.”
“You can write.”
Can I? I haven’t done much, not in a long time, not since school. Maybe that’s what I’d like to be, an intrepid female reporter. “The things I’d write wouldn’t be allowed here. I’d be critical?—”
“Hush, Iris. Not here.” She looks past me. “Quinn’s dancing with a guy, I don’t know who and Heath’s storming our way. I’ll ward him off.”
She takes off to intercept Heath and I weave my way back through the barges, going to the upper decks and dodging conversations, all the while looking for Xavier.
How can he disappear? He’s so tall, so broad, so…dynamic. Both he and Killian draw the eye, so where is he?
A horrible thought comes to me. What if he came to whisk me to the meeting? But it’s too early. I can get a cab and be in the Lower Side in ten minutes. I’ve got another half hour where I can squeeze in the dance and a stupid walk.
I head out of the first barge. There are sweet spots of darkness with lights littering the boardwalk now everyone’s here.
No maze this time, but plenty of places for daring lovers to dally.
Movement catches my eye to the left, where a thick copse of trees grow, but I don’t go over, as it’s darker. Someone’s turned off the lanterns so instead of pretty and dreamy it’s dark, foreboding.
I need to think. “You idiot, Iris,” I say, and I pull out my mini, doing something I should have done ages ago.
Send Mr. Scarsby a message. My fingers hover over the screen. I want to get his attention, right?
If you don’t eat the cake, it goes stale.
My screen doesn’t light up for seconds and my heart throbs in my chest.
Xavier
Fresh and moist is better. Where are you?
Outside.
Xavier
So am I.
My heart ticks up. It’s got to be him to the left, it makes sense why the little group of trees are in the darkness and I grab my skirts and hightail it over there, and I’m just about to step in when a hand grabs me and shoves me against a tree.
“Hi, Iris, you missed our dance.” My heart sinks at the vodka-stained breath of Jerome.
I try to push him off me. “Let me go, Jerome. I said later.”
“She missed my walk, too,” Donegal says, stepping in and sliding a leg between mine. “Lucky you’re pretty.”
“She’d be prettier without that tongue,” Jerome says, running a hand over my breasts as I try and slap him away.
He grabs an arm and Donegal grabs the other and he licks my throat, grazing his teeth against it.
My stomach churns. “I’m meeting Quinn. So let me go.”
“She’s dancing with one of our friends. You’re ours.
We like to test drive the girl first. Fuck, is this a chastity belt?
” Jerome asks, pulling at my skirt. “I want to feel your pussy. I bet you spread those legs easy. The pretty so-called virtuous ones do. If I mate you, I’ll remove your tongue. Quiet is best.”
“No, you need that, man. They can do things to your cock with their tongues,” Donegal says and laughs.
Ugh, they’re drunk, and I try to keep myself on the side of outrage and not panic as I try to get free.
“You know you two are class A idiots. When this gets out you’ll be the bottom of the food chai?—”
A hand lands over my throat as another worms its way beneath my skirts and now the panic blooms hot and tight and white.
My blood roars in my ears and I struggle as hard as I can, desperate to get rid of them, desperate to be free when they stop touching me.
A light shines on the three of us from above.
“Holy shit.” Donegal steps back, almost falling.
Jerome stumbles back. “It’s the mute from the Briar. Hey man, we didn’t know you like her. We were just having fun. That’s all we?—”
He stops talking as he crumples to the ground, bleeding and knocked out cold.
The light moves to Donegal and this time I see the might of Xavier’s fist as it flies out and connects with his face. His nose spurts blood and then, calmly, Xavier turns to me. He pulls out his mini. The light goes out and it’s him and me in the darkness of the trees with the unconscious guys.
On the ground my mini lights up, and I scoop it up.
Xavier
Next time I kill them. And I will still kill them if they hurt you.
In the dim light of his mini, Xavier looks at me.
“The only thing they hurt was my dignity,” I whisper. Then I gasp. “Xavier, you have to go, if they find you, and these two out cold and bleeding, you’ll be in trouble.”
His lips lift and he types again.
Xavier
They won’t. They wouldn’t dare. But if you still want to go to the meeting, I’ll take you. Now.
“Give me a minute. I’ll get Quinn.”
He shakes his head, points at me and his meaning’s clear.
Just me.
Fantasy’s one thing but reality, going off with a man like this, is another.
He holds out his hand with his mini, and I can read it.
Xavier
Now or never.
I take his mini and put my hand in his.