The Storm #2
Nico's not playing games, though. He buttons his suit jacket as those dark eyes sweep the room. I know he’s looking for every exit and checking every face like a man reading a job site for hazards. Then he dips his head toward Lyra.
"You okay?" he whispers.
"Yes." But she's not looking at him. Her eyes have narrowed, moving across the crowd with purpose now, hunting. And she knows exactly where to look. A second later she finds it near the bar, her mouth pulling into a tight line. "I see my father."
I look over, but I have no idea which old white guy he is.
"What does he look like?" I whisper to Owen.
"He’s the one in the black suit."
"They’re all in black suits," I say flatly.
Owen winks, then he turns back to Lyra.
Brat.
Lyra takes a long breath. I watch her gather herself up out of nowhere, spine straightening. All that Van Houten steel she keeps buried comes up to the surface as she locks in.
"Okay," she says firmly. "Let's do this."
And God help me, seeing my omega stand there, squaring up to face down her own father, has me hard as a fucking fence post inside my good jeans.
But there's not one blessed thing I can do about it, so I tug my hat down, adjust myself as discreetly as I can manage, and follow her into the lion's den.
The five of us move into the crowd like something we rehearsed.
Lyra and Adrian take the lead, her hand tucked into the crook of his arm, the two of them reading like any young mated pair come to pay their respects. Nico and Owen fall in close behind. And I bring up the rear, taking my sweet time about it.
I tip my hat at every pretty lady I pass. A wink here, a slow nod there. Most of them go stiff and scandalized, clutching their pearls like I might rob them, but a couple go pink in the cheeks and glance back at me over a bare shoulder.
If I weren’t a mated man…
A waiter drifts by with a tray of champagne, and I lift a flute off it without breaking my stride.
Another one passes with little dots of something on toast, and I snag one of those too.
I don't know what's on it and I don't much care.
I pop it in my mouth, then wash it down with a swallow of champagne, and keep walking.
If I've got to spend my evening in a room full of people who'd sooner see me dead, I'm at least gonna eat their food and drink their liquor while I do it.
Up ahead, Lyra slows.
She stops in front of a little cluster of alphas near the bar. They’re all silver-haired men in expensive tuxedos, and every one of them turns to look at her.
I find her father immediately.
He's got the same honey-brown eyes as Lyra, except where hers go warm, his are as cold as a well in January.
Aldric Van Houten looks at his daughter, and for half a second something crosses his face that almost looks like shock, like he genuinely didn't believe he’d see her again.
Then his gaze catches on her dress. That tight black number that makes her tits look amazing.
His face goes beat-red, the color climbing up out of his collar while he holds his polite expression nailed in place. Then he clears his throat, hard.
"Excuse us a moment," he says to the men around him, then his hand closes around Lyra's upper arm and he steers her off toward the edge of the room, away from the crowd.
I want to snarl at the fucker for touching our mate, but I keep it together, letting Adrian lead.
Adrian's on their heels before Aldric's taken two steps, close enough to remind the old man exactly whose mate he's got his hands on. The rest of us follow as I toss back the last of my champagne, then set the empty flute on a passing tray.
Showtime, for real this time.
Aldric stops at the edge of the room, near a tall window where the party thins out, and only then does Adrian step in.
"Sir." Adrian’s voice is easy, polite as Sunday. "I'd appreciate it if you'd let go of my mate."
Aldric doesn't move. His hand stays clamped on Lyra's arm, and I watch the argument climb up his throat. The fucker’s face gets even redder, the words loading behind his teeth, then his eyes cut out across the crowded room.
All those tuxedos and champagne flutes. All those people who came here tonight to shake Aldric Van Houten's hand and call him a moral man.
The fucker’s jaw works. And he lets Lyra go.
Adrian quickly wraps an arm around her shoulders, and Lyra steps into the alpha, rubbing her upper arm.
Nico catches my eye, and Lord, he's furious.
It takes everything in me not to smile. Fuck, I hope he hits someone.
I look back at Lyra, trying to keep my head in the game.
The omega is holding it together. Standing there in front of the man who sold her off like a parcel of land, spine straight, chin level, not a crack showing. I don't know how she does it. If it were my daddy, assuming I'd had one worth a damn, I'd have already put a fist through his teeth.
"I’d like a private word with you," Aldric says to her, low. "Let’s talk in my office."
"No." Lyra doesn't so much as blink. "We'll talk right here."
Aldric's face tightens, and his hand twitches like he's fixing to grab her again.
Adrian sets two fingers against the old man's forearm. Gentle. Almost friendly. "Let's not do that again," Adrian says.
Aldric glares up at him, because Adrian's got a good four inches on the man, and slowly draws his arm back. Then Aldric squares his shoulders and steps in close, tipping his chin up, doing that thing small men do when they're trying to make a bigger man feel like nothing.
"So." Aldric looks Adrian over like something scraped off a boot. "You're the alpha who stole my daughter."
Adrian laughs.
It's an easy, unbothered sound, and I'll be damned if I'm not impressed. The alpha who locked up tight the second we walked into this ballroom is nowhere to be found.
I’m gonna need to fuck the life out of him the second we get home.
"Stole?" Adrian shakes his head. "Nobody stole anything, sir. Lyra came to me on her own. She's free to walk out that door any time she wants." He holds Aldric's eyes. "But she doesn't want to."
Aldric's eyes narrow to slits.
Then he looks past Adrian, taking in the rest of us for the first time, his lip curling like we've tracked mud across his marble.
"And who the hell are all of you?"
His gaze snags on Owen and holds. Something clicks behind those cold eyes. "I know you." He points one long finger at my beta. "You work at the Vullium Museum."
Owen doesn't correct the asshole. He doesn't tell him it's the university library three miles from here that has his damn name on it. "Yes, sir."
"They're Adrian's family," Lyra says smoothly, stepping in. "This is Owen, and his husband, Nico. And his cousin, Mack."
I tip my hat.
Aldric doesn't even look at me. His eyes are already back on his daughter, then on Adrian, and he's plainly decided the rest of us aren't worth the breath it'd take to acknowledge.
"I'd like to speak with my daughter alone," he says. "I have a right—"
"That's not going to happen." Adrian says it before the old man's finished, flat and final. "Lyra is my mate. My property, by the law you love so much." His voice never rises, but there's steel running all the way through it now. "You'll have to kill me before you get one second alone with her."
For a long moment, Aldric stares at him.
Then something shifts, and he gives a thin, tight smile. "Fine," he says. "The two of you, then. My office."
He turns and walks, expecting them to follow, and Lyra pulls in a breath and goes, Adrian's hand settling at the small of her back as they move after him into the crowd.
Beside me, Nico's whole big body jerks forward, half a step, before he catches himself.
Every muscle in him is straining to follow.
But he can't. He's supposed to be a relative through marriage.
He's got no reason on God's earth to trail after Aldric Van Houten's daughter, and showing his hand now would blow the whole thing wide open.
Owen's hand finds Nico's and holds on. The beta's eyes have gone tight and distant, and I know he's feeling something come down that bond, some spike off Nico that the rest of us can't touch.
"I'm following them," Nico whispers, not looking at either of us.
"I don't care how it looks. I'm not letting her out of my sight in this house.
Stay here," Nico commands me and Owen, then he moves, peeling off through the crowd after his mate, keeping enough distance to look like a man wandering the party.
Every part of me wants to go after him. My feet are already itching to move, to fall in behind Nico and get my own eyes on our girl. But Nico said stay. And I don't question my pack alpha.
"Wait." Owen moves to follow Nico, but then someone yells his name.
"Dr. Cruz, is that you?"
The beta stops cold as an older she-alpha is bearing down on him from the side, silver-haired and beaming with a martini in hand.
Owen's eyes cut back to the crowd, to where Nico vanished into all those black tuxedos, and for a second I watch him get torn clean down the middle.
Then he pulls his manners on and turns to meet her. "Mrs. Tordelle."
"It is you." The woman lets out a breathy laugh. "I saw your exhibit at the fundraiser last month, the collection on alpha literary achievements. It was marvelous." She touches Owen’s forearm. "Now, I do have questions about the provenance on some of those detailed vases."
"Of course." Owen's smile is easy, but his eyes flicker to me over her shoulder, quick and helpless.
I give him the smallest shrug, then pull out my phone and pull up Nico’s number.
Text me if you need anything. I’ll be out here causing chaos.
Then I roll my shoulders and take one more look around the ballroom, at all that crystal and gold and old money.
"Well," I say to nobody. "Guess I'll go see what's worth eating. Or stealin’."
Then I set off to case the fanciest house I've ever stood in, because if I've got to be here, I might as well see what kind of trouble I can kick up.