No
Lyra
I stare at the two names, sitting side by side on the page.
Crispin Augustine Maleth
Followed by…
Artemis Lyra Van Houten
My signature is slightly uneven, the letters trembling where I fought the hardest.
I have never hated my own handwriting before today.
The second Crispin caps the pen, the pressure in the room shifts, and my mother takes a step back.
I pull in a quick breath, trying to be quiet. I don’t want anyone to notice how desperately I needed it.
My father reaches across me and grabs Crispin's hand, pumping it twice, his face split into a ridiculously wide smile. His cheeks are so red.
"Welcome to the family, son," my father says, and he actually sounds happy.
"Wonderful,” my mother says and the word comes out warm. Like actually warm. I have to stop myself from turning to look at her just to confirm it came from her mouth.
The office door opens. "Excuse me, sir." Thomas, our butler, appears in the frame, his expression perfectly neutral like always. "Dinner is served."
"Excellent." My father claps his hands together once, already moving toward the door, his energy lifted and bright. "I'm absolutely famished."
My mother turns to follow him, but she pauses at my shoulder, just briefly, her pale green eyes cutting to my face.
"It's nice," she says quietly, "to finally have something to be proud of you for."
Then she's gone, her heels clicking down the hall after my father.
The moment my mother leaves the room, my spine unlocks one vertebra at a time, air filling my lungs like I'm breathing for the first time in an hour. I curl my fingers into a fist at my side, testing them, half amazed when they actually listen.
My hands are mine again.
I angle my body toward the door, but Crispin's hand closes around my arm, holding me in place.
"Leaving so soon, my love?" His voice is low and intimate. The scent of cloves and whiskey washes over me again, thick and suffocating.
My heart hammers against my ribs, each beat a frantic drum against my breastbone.
But, thankfully, I'm able to take a step back.
Crispin doesn't let go of my arm. His grip gentles instead, his thumb smoothing over the mark his fingers left last night, almost like he's soothing something he broke. I force myself to breathe evenly, though my lungs feel too tight inside my ribcage.
"Come sit with me." He nods toward the couch by the cold fireplace, pulling me gently forward. "Just for a minute. I know today's been a lot."
I shake my head, locking my knees, determined to stay put, but Crispin doesn’t care.
He slides his arm around my waist, and he hauls me forward, away from my father's desk, and past the wall of leather-bound books nobody in this house has ever read.
I dig my heels into the rug, but it does nothing against the strength banked in his arm, and my feet drag two useless lines through the fibers before giving up entirely.
His pace stays slow, almost tender, like he's escorting me somewhere I actually want to go.
By the time we reach the couch, my legs have remembered how to hold me, but it's too late to matter. He lowers us both down together, close enough that his knee presses into mine. The velvet of the couch feels weirdly rough against my bare legs, a stark contrast to the smooth fabric of my dress.
"Lyra." He tips my chin up with two fingers, forcing me to look at him. His gray eyes go soft at the edges. It’s a weird expression from him. "Talk to me, omega."
Talk to me?
What the fuck?
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I close it again, my jaw working around a sentence that refuses to form. Every word I own feels locked somewhere out of reach, useless against a man who just smiled as I signed my name over to him.
"It’s okay, Lyra." Crispin’s mouth curves into an amused smile as he wraps an arm around my waist, pulling me impossibly close. His side is touching mine, his fingers digging into my waist. I can feel the warmth of his body through my clothes, his presence overwhelming in the small space.
Alarm bells are screaming in my head, but I can’t seem to do anything other than sit here like a fucking idiot.
My hands tremble slightly in my lap, and I clasp them together to hide the shaking.
"I completely understand why you’d be so overwhelmed." He places his other hand on my bare knee, and my stomach tightens. "It’s actually very sweet,” he says the way you'd praise a dog for sitting.
My eyes cut to the door just past him.
Ten feet, maybe twelve.
But Crispin is so close. He’d only need half a second to catch me, and both of us know it.
"I promise I won’t take you too far from your parents," the alpha continues.
"My place on the coast is only a few hours away," he says, like we're two people picking up a conversation instead of two strangers who just got legally bound to each other.
"The whole thing is surrounded in glass.
Massive windows with views of the beach.
You can see the water from every room." He reaches for my hand, and I let him.
How the hell do I get out of this?
"I thought we could hold the ceremony there," he says. "Somewhere with a little more privacy than the city."
Oh my god.
He's planning our wedding.
The thought arrives distant and strange, like it belongs to somebody else's life.
Not sure what to say or do, I fix my eyes on the ornate brass doorknob past his shoulder and let him keep talking. The office is dimly lit, the desk lamp casting long shadows across the room, making the space feel intimate and suffocating.
"You're so quiet." His thumb strokes over my knuckles.
"I like that about you. My mother never stopped talking.
Drove my father up a wall." He laughs, low and pleased with himself, then he reaches up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear.
His knuckles graze my cheek on the way down.
"You know, I'm very good to the people who belong to me.
" There’s a slight tightening around his eyes as he says it, a flicker of something possessive that makes my stomach clench.
Belong to me.
No!
Crispin leans in slowly, his eyes dropping to my mouth.
"I know you’re a virgin," he whispers, his voice all gravelly, and a whole new kind of shock slams into me.
"I’ll try to wait for your heat," he growls, "but I have to warn you. I’m not a very patient man.
I will be gentle." He smiles like we’re sharing some kind of sweet moment.
Fear and anger rise in my throat, but before I can say a word, Crispin’s mouth presses to mine.
It’s soft at first, testing, like he's savoring something he's waited a long time for. The taste of whiskey and clove floods my mouth, and his hand slides into my hair, cupping the back of my skull to hold me still.
His mouth is firm and dry against mine, his tongue dragging along the seam of my lips, waiting for me to open. I keep my jaw locked and my lips pressed flat, letting him kiss a mouth that doesn't kiss him back.
"So perfect," he rasps as his grip tightens in my hair, turning the kiss more forceful. His mouth grinds against mine hard enough to bruise.
A moan rumbles low in his throat, needy and satisfied, like this is the best kiss of his entire life.
My stomach churns violently, bile rising to burn the back of my throat.
Then his tongue pushes past my clenched lips, forcing its way into my mouth. His hand tightens around my hair, pulling so hard it hurts.
Desperate, I shove both palms against his chest, wrenching my mouth free and scrambling back against the couch cushion.
Crispin laughs, low and delighted, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
"It's okay, Lyra." His gray eyes track over my face, gleaming with satisfaction.
"I know this is all so new to your body.
" He reaches for my chin again, and I jerk back before his fingers land, and his smile only widens.
"I get it. Your omega instincts still think I'm a stranger,” he says like he finds that adorable.
"Every part of you is still wired to run from an alpha who hasn't claimed you.
But that urge won't last." He reaches for my knee, slower this time.
"I'm going to enjoy teaching your body who I am. "
Disgust crawls up the back of my throat, thick enough to choke on.
"You're shaking." His head tilts, patient, almost fond, and his voice drops lower.
"I like that too, if I'm honest." His hand slides over my bare thigh, fingers spreading wide against my skin.
"You'll get used to me being inside you.
All of me." His thumb strokes higher, whiskey rolling off his breath in a slow wave.
"I hear virgins take the knot hardest the first few times.
Something about the stretch, the way it—"
My hand swings connecting with his cheek.
Crispin's head jerks to the side, the sound of the slap cutting through the quiet room.
I instantly freeze, shocked at what I just did.
For one long second he doesn't move, his jaw angled away from me. My palm stings from the force I used, but the alpha’s skin looks the same. Not even a faint red mark.
I brace myself as Crispin blinks a few times, then he slowly turns back.
I swallow hard, waiting for him to react. To scream or yell or maybe even attack me.
But instead of violence, a laugh punches out of the alpha. It sounds delighted, almost giddy.
"You are so surprising sometimes." He licks his bottom lip, chasing the last taste of me. "God, I love the spark in you." He reaches for my knee again. "You are like no other woman, I’ve ever—"
"I'm not taking anything from you." My voice comes out low and rough, nothing like my own. "Not your hands. Or your mouth. Not your knot. Nothing."
Crispin's smile drops off his face like it was never there. His jaw goes tight, his gray eyes narrowing to slits, and the hand on my knee stills completely.
The shift is so sudden it's almost jarring.
"What?" His voice is rough, his eyes dark as they narrow at my face.
I swallow hard, trying to gather my thoughts, but nothing else comes out.