Behind Locked Doors #3
She's got Mack backed up against the wall, or she's trying to, jabbing one manicured finger up at his chest while he looms over her, all six-foot-three of easy, unbothered muscle.
Her white hair has come loose on one side.
There's a wild, furious color in her cheeks, and she's moving the champagne flute around while she talks like she forgot it's in her hand.
"You did this." She's nearly shrieking. "I know you did this. You started that fire."
"Ma'am." Mack’s mouth falls open with exaggerated shock. "Is this the thanks I get for trying to put it out?"
"You made it worse!"
"I was trying to help."
A young man in a server's vest speaks up near the door, careful, apologetic. "Sir, you, um. You threw vodka on it."
Mack turns to him slowly, brow furrowed, the picture of a man working through a hard problem. "Vodka don't put out a fire?"
The server shakes his head.
"Huh." Mack looks back at Lavinia, and the corner of his mouth curls. "How 'bout that. My bad."
Lavinia makes a vicious sound, and Lyra curls into Adrian’s side. I step in close, trying to push my scent out and around her.
"You will pay for this." Lavinia jabs the finger again, champagne sloshing over the rim of her glass and onto the marble.
"Do you understand me? I will sue you into the ground.
When I am finished you will be banned from every event, every venue, every respectable house in the entire tri-state area. "
"Well now." Mack claps a hand over his heart, wounded all over again. "And here I thought we were getting along."
The she-alpha starts screaming again, and I scan the small crowd in the hallway for Owen but don't find him. My stomach tightens.
Then I see my mate. He’s at the very end of the hall, near the ballroom, and he’s moving fast. His eyes find mine across the entryway, and even at this distance I can see the tension on his face.
He's not happy.
Our bond confirms it, tight and hot and stretched thin. And I get why.
While I had Lyra and Adrian spread out on that desk, Owen was stuck out here, shaking hands with a bunch of rich assholes who want our kind gone.
I'll make it up to him tonight. Every bit of it.
Owen slips through the growing crowd, then crosses the entryway toward us, fast and tight-lipped, and the second he reaches my side, Lavinia's head turns.
Her eyes sweep me, Adrian, and Owen, before finally landing on Lyra.
"And you." Lavinia’s voice drops to something quiet and vicious.
"Look what you've become. Rutted and mated by a nobody.
I spent a fortune making you into an omega worth something, and you've thrown it all away to be a hole for an alpha with no worth.
" Her lip curls. "Your grandfather would be sick to see it. "
"Fuck off!" Adrian roars, glaring down at the horrid woman.
Lavinia rears back like he's slapped her.
Every instinct in me is roaring to grab her by the throat and show the she-alpha what real terror is, but I fear I won't be able to stop once I get my hands on her.
"Time to go," I whisper as I place my hand on Lyra's shoulder and start steering all of us toward the door, done with this fucking house.
Owen falls in step by Lyra's side, Adrian on the other, and we're three steps from the door when footsteps run quickly toward us, thudding loudly on the marble floor.
A hand shoots out of the crowd and clamps around Lyra's arm, jerking her backward hard enough to break her grip on Adrian.
"Lyra." That fucker from the office appears out of nowhere.
"Crispin?" Lyra frowns, trying to pull her arm free. I curl my hands tight, ready to really start a scene.
"No," Crispin snarls. "You are not walking out of here with this—"
Mack's fist comes across so fast I barely see it.
It catches Crispin square in the jaw with a crack that echoes off the walls, and the big alpha drops, folding to the floor in a heap of expensive tailoring. Lyra stumbles free, and Adrian catches her against his chest.
The whole entryway goes dead silent.
Mack stands over the fucker, shaking out his hand. "Keep your hands off my brother's mate," he says, easy as anything.
Beside me, Lyra giggles. It bubbles up out of her, giddy.
Through our bond, I feel pure, uncut bliss, no fear anywhere in it, pure joy at watching that asshole hit the floor. My command's still holding, and god, I'm glad. She deserves to walk out these doors with a smile on her face.
Lavinia’s eyes go wide as she looks from Crispin to Mack, who’s still looming over the unconscious alpha, then to the small crowd standing in the hallway. Mack follows her gaze, realizing that he has a proper audience.
"Well." Mack pops his neck, then reaches over and plucks the champagne flute right out of Lavinia's hand. He lifts it to the horrified crowd. "Evenin', folks." He tips it at them. "Y'all have a good one."
Then he throws the whole thing back in one swallow, drops the empty flute on the marble where it shatters into a thousand pieces, and turns for the door.
We follow him out into the night, every one of us, and we don't look back once.