7. Chapter 7 #2
I thought of the absurd catalog of my own sins against her in the last day alone.
Entering her room and standing in the doorway as though I possessed any right to judge what lay on her floor.
Reaching for her book—her book, as if the phrase itself were not accusation enough—and having her slap my hand away with more justice than I deserved.
Telling myself I had wished to prove some point when the truth was uglier and smaller: I had wanted contact with a sacred thing of hers before I had earned any place near it.
Then the club floor. My cruel words. My voice sharpened to cut because I had seen desire flare in both of us and lacked the courage to suffer it honestly.
Then, as if all that were insufficient, the feeding alcove and her face when she turned the corner and saw me arranged with another woman like a lie made flesh.
I had done all this. And now I stood above her like a condemned man staring down at the consequence of his own workmanship.
Sage said something. I could not hear it. Maddie’s smile changed, grew softer, then more amused. One of the others at the table joined in. The alpha’s mouth curved again.
Maddie turned her head then, only slightly, glancing away from the table toward the open lounge and the guarded stair beyond.
Not toward me. She could not see me through the one-way glass and distance besides.
But for one useless second I reacted as if she might.
My body tightened. Hope, ridiculous and involuntary, struck and vanished in the same instant.
She only looked, then turned back to the wolves.
That should not have wounded. It did.
Sage followed the direction of her glance. His expression altered by almost nothing. Then he looked at her again.
Something in me finally reached its threshold.
I pushed off the frame so abruptly that the movement echoed once in the room behind me, a muted thud of hand leaving metal and wood.
My palms stung. I had left half-moons where my nails had pressed into skin.
Across the dark glass my reflection stared back at me for a fraction of a second—broad-shouldered, rigid, eyes gone too bright in a face otherwise held under ruthless control. I despised the man in it.
Good. Despising him at least had the virtue of accuracy.
Then I turned from the glass and moved.
Amara stood behind the membership desk beneath the great obsidian chandelier, all dark silk elegance and iron-backed composure.
She was six feet of immaculate posture and precise judgment, her skin deep and luminous under the club’s softened light, her sleek black hair falling like polished ink over one shoulder.
Her mouth wore its usual glossy red, her expression its usual efficient reserve.
She checked memberships, ran backgrounds, and barred fools from the door with a civility more frightening than force.
I had seen elder vampires bristle under her scrutiny and decide, after one look, that compliance better suited their evening.
She looked up as I approached.
Something in my face must have told on me, because one of her brows lifted by the smallest degree before smoothing again.
I planted both hands on the edge of her desk.
The lacquered black surface reflected my cuffs, my fingers spread too widely, the hard line of my shoulders leaning in. I became abruptly aware that I looked less like a prince seeking information than a man bracing himself against an impact already in progress.
“Amara,” I said.
“Your Highness.”
Her clipped tone held no alarm, yet it had sharpened. She had seen enough of this family to recognize when one of us arrived with a purpose not suited to ordinary pleasantries.
“I need everything you have on Sage Lynch.”
She did not repeat the name. That alone told me she knew it well.
Instead, she said, “He was vetted through standard membership protocols before approval. His file—”
“I am not asking whether he was vetted.”
Her gaze held mine. “Then perhaps you should tell me what precisely, you wish to know.”
“Everything,” I said.
“Everything,” she repeated.
“Most importantly, if he arrived by invitation. Why exactly is he in a Kozlov club tonight?”
Her gaze flicked once to my hands, still spread against the desk as though I might otherwise put them through the wood, then returned to my face. “His stated purpose for attending was social recreation with approved companions. As to the rest, I can have a summary prepared—”
“No.”
The word came clean enough to slice.
I straightened only slightly, enough to make the next sentence colder.
“I am not asking as one of Obsidian’s interested stakeholders,” I said. “I am asking as your prince. I want the full dossier, not a summary, and I want it before the hour is out.”
For one beat, silence stood between us.
Amara was not a woman easily impressed by title.
That was one reason Father valued her. She respected hierarchy, yes, but she did not simper toward it.
She met it head-on, evaluated its legitimacy, and answered accordingly.
I had watched her make lesser men feel ridiculous with nothing but a pause and an impeccably polite refusal.
Now she regarded me with that same level of assessment, and I knew she was cataloging the deviation as surely as she would a forged pass or scent mismatch at the door.
“Very well, Your Highness.”
She moved at once. One manicured hand slid to the hidden drawer built beneath the desk’s false front. The lock released with a soft click. She withdrew a slim tablet first, then a leather folio, both handled with the same brisk care she brought to everything under her charge.
“As approved,” she said while her fingers moved over the tablet screen, “Sage Alexander Lynch attended under primary membership granted three months ago, following a full background review. Alpha of Ironwood Pack. Pack population one hundred and thirty-five registered wolves, headquartered outside Philadelphia on privately held compound territory. Public-facing enterprise: Lynch Dynamics.”
I knew much of that already, but hearing it now, item by item, only sharpened the outline.
“Wealthy,” I said.
“Extremely.”
“Old line.”
Her eyes flicked up. “One of the oldest surviving North American bloodlines claiming uninterrupted continuity. Their separatist reputation required additional observation, but no actionable violations were found. Council sanction remained in good standing.”
Of course it had. Men like Sage built themselves carefully. Not clean, perhaps, but clean enough for institutions.
“And tonight?”
“Entered with four pack members,” she said. “All cleared in advance. No prior incident reports within Obsidian. No misconduct flags. His visit was not brokered by any standing arrangement with this house beyond membership access.”
Not brokered by us. Not invited by Bohdan. Not formally.
That troubled me more than if it had been planned.
“Who signed off on the group?” I asked.
“I did.”
There was no apology in it. Nor should there have been.
“Did he request the upper lounge?”
“No. He accepted elevation when it was offered.”
Meaning he had been sufficiently notable, wealthy, or useful to be brought upstairs on his own merits. Again, unsurprising. Again, not unwelcome.
I heard my own next question before I fully decided to ask it.
“Has he inquired about any specific member of staff?”
Amara’s fingers stilled for a fraction of a second over the folio.
She was too discreet to give the pause drama. It was still answer enough.
“Yes,” she said.
My jaw locked.
“Whom?”
“Madelyn Baucaum.”
Even prepared for it, I felt the name like a low blow.
The desk’s edge pressed into my palms. I had not realized I had leaned in again until then.
“What form did that inquiry take?”
“General conversation at intake first,” she said, businesslike and exact, which was perhaps the only thing that kept me from overturning something expensive.
“He noted that a wolf from Texas had joined staff recently and asked whether she worked tonight. The question did not breach policy. I answered only that our staffing assignments are internal matters.”
“I want the rest of the file delivered to my office,” I said.
She said, “I will prioritize it.”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
“You are welcome, Your Highness.”
I did not go back to the floor. Not immediately. If I looked up and caught another sight line toward the lounge, I was uncertain what I might do with the information. Instead, I took the private stairwell up.
By the time I reached the third floor, fury had braided itself so tightly with shame that I could no longer distinguish one strand from the other. Only the direction remained clear.
My father’s office.
I raised my hand to knock and did not reach the wood.
“Enter,” my father said from within, his voice carrying through walnut and iron as if doors were merely decorative gestures in a house built around his awareness.
For one foolish instant, I considered turning away anyway. Then pride, desperation, or some uglier alloy of the two drove my hand to the latch, and I stepped into the old-world hush of his office, feeling less like a prince than a man arriving late to the scene of his own undoing.
Father sat behind his desk, though not alone.
Devon had been perched across his lap, one pale hand still braced on his shoulder as she began to rise the instant I entered.
Her white-blonde hair spilled in untidy waves around her shoulders and down her back, catching the lamp glow like moonlight drawn through water.
She wore some soft gray thing that should have looked ordinary and did not, because nothing on her ever quite submitted to ordinary.
Her turquoise eyes landed on my face and changed at once.
Concern moved through them so openly it made me feel abruptly more dangerous than angry.
She saw too much. That was the trouble with Devon. As an angel, she lacked the civilized instinct to pretend otherwise.