Chapter Nine
THE L’Alliance residential wing doesn’t feel like any hotel I’ve ever stayed in. I don’t know how to explain it, but the hallways seem designed not just for walking, but for flying, too?
“Good morning, Ms. Hondros.”
“G-Good morning.”
Everyone’s been greeting me by name, but I know it’s only because I’m a registered guest under Calys Adelardi, alpha and queen of the Panthera, daughter of the Queen of the Souris, wife to Lyccan Prince Alejandro Moretti, and most importantly of all—her adopted human sister happens to be Anastasia, my roommate.
Connections mean everything to preters, and I’m starting to appreciate the truth in this.
“Good morning, Ms. Hondros.”
I manage another smile and mumble out a greeting as I make my way to the breakfast hall, which looks even more enchanting than any other dining hall you’d find in theme parks.
Not because of how it’s designed—just your typical Old World charm, if I have to describe it—but because of who’s around me.
Blood-drinking Caros.
Shifters of every species.
Faes.
While I think I’m the only one who’s hu—
“Sam, over here!”
Oh, phew!
Make that two humans instead, and I can’t remember being so, so glad to see Anastasia waving at me from one of the windowside tables.
I can only smile and shake my head when I see that she’s already ordered everything I love to eat for breakfast. This is so like her, and honestly, whoever Anastasia ends up marrying someday is one lucky dude.
Anastasia bursts into speech as soon as I settle on one of the chairs. “How are you? Did you sleep well? Are you hungry? Please tell me—”
“Slow down,” I urge her laughingly. “I’m fine, I promise.”
The other girl shakes her head. “I don’t have to be a shifter to smell your sadness.”
Oh, Tas.
Whatever would I do without her?
Anastasia looks at me soberly. “Can you tell me what happened?”
The words spill out in a stilted voice, each one cutting deeper than the last. I tell her everything, from the moment I accidentally saw the messages on his phone to Alphonse taking me here, and me calling Anastasia because I knew a human like me can only secure a room if I’m vouched by a member of exceptionally good standing.
“I’m so sorry, Sam.”
“I’m sure I’ll feel better in time.” I hope. “And I can’t thank you enough for helping me with...this.” All I can do is wave my hand as I gesture to my surroundings.
“Maybe, once a few days have passed, you guys can talk—”
“I don’t think there’s anything left to talk about. It’s not like he ever said we’re a love match or anything. For all I know, God only meant to use me as a way to bring them back to—”
Huh?
Why is Anastasia suddenly looking like she’s seen a ghost behind me—
Wait a minute.
Since this is L’Alliance, what if she has seen a ghost?
Like...a ghost from her past?
“Is it him?”
Anastasia gulps, and I’m even more convinced this time.
I lower my voice, asking, “Is it your first love—”
Ouch!
Did she just kick me under the table?
And hard enough to make me wonder if she’s the stuntwoman between us, too!
“I was just worried,” I protest. “I know you’ve been avoiding Stef—”
Anastasia kicks me again, but this time, it’s her turn to whisper—
“It’s your first love, not mine!”
What does she mean—
No.
Oh no.
Please don’t let it be—
“Is that what I am, Samira?”
Ah, crap, I’m doomed.
I turn around, and of course it is him.
Hexius.
Who’s not supposed to be here, so how in the world—
“Am I your first love?”
Oh, who cares about how a non-member like him managed to enter the preters’ version of United Nations?
I jerk to my feet when he takes another step toward me. “No, you’re not.”
“Your roommate seems to think otherwise.”
“My roommate’s a hopeless romantic!”
Anastasia chokes.
Sorry, Tas.
Hexius, however, doesn’t even smile. “I told you to stay and wait for me.”
Oh, the gall of this man!
“Sorry to disappoint,” I manage to say steadily even though I’m just dying to give him a swift, hard kick a la Anastasia. “I didn’t feel like playing the third wheel.”
“You were never—”
“Ha!”
Some of the people around us actually gasp at the way I’ve cut him off, and I feel horribly mean the moment I hear them. I know I’m being rude, but—
Grr.
The way his golden eyes are gleaming at me right now just makes me want to kick him even more.
I take it back. I don’t care if I was rude earlier. If anything, I wish I was even...um...ruder!
“How remarkably mature of you.”
Unlike Brandy, right?
“Since I keep disappointing you, why are you even wasting time with me? Why not just go to Brandy and live happily ever after?”
I want to take the words back as soon as I say them.
Argh!
Because I’ve just realized I don’t have the courage to hear what his answer is.
But since the past can’t be undone—
“I’m sorry, but I have to go,” I whisper to Anastasia.
The other girl quickly nods even as her fascinated gaze darts between me and that...that man whose name I don’t even want to think of.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
I don’t answer, just wanting to get away as fast as I can.
“Is that what you really want me to do? Live happily ever after with another woman?”
No, of course not!
I wish I could simply yell the words out, but I can’t...because I know that’s only going to make me look even more pathetic.
Let’s say he wasn’t lying earlier, and I wasn’t really a third wheel, and Brandy’s visit to his place was nothing romantic (ha!).
Even if that were so—
I realize now it doesn’t change things.
All I have to do is look around, and...ugh.
Surrounded as we are by the most powerful and wealthiest members of L’Alliance gather for all sorts of reasons—
H’s still making waves like always, with how he’s got so many women ogling his powerful form like they want a piece of him...and that’s why I know I was an idiot to even think being with him is worth considering.
Hexius is Hexius while I’m just me. Even if he says I’m supposed to be his most compatible mate, it still doesn’t mean—
“Is this how you tend to solve your problems? By running away?”
Nope, nope, nope.
I’m so not letting him distract me into slowing down. L’Alliance rules may force him to match my human pace in public areas, but all it takes is one mistake, and I know he’ll catch up to me.
“All you have to say is yes or no.”
Focus, Sam! Keep your head in the game.
The corridor stretches ahead, and the attendants who greeted me earlier are bowing their heads as we pass them by, the curiosity in their gaze unmistakable.
“Or perhaps you’re just playing hard to get?”
Grrr.
I know what he’s doing and I’m not letting him win.
All I need to do is just get back to my room, and L’Alliance rules forbid him to enter without my express permission.
That’s the one thing that kept me from crying last night. I kept myself busy memorizing all the rules of this place, knowing that I can’t afford to lower my guard against the great Hexius Mercier.
So just keep moving, Sam.
Just a few steps more.
Just one last—
Noooo!
Because the next thing I know, he’s opened the door to the room before mine, and we’re suddenly inside it, the door’s closed, and aaaah!
It’s the worst case of déjà vü ever, to find myself once again trapped between the wall and his big, hard body, my wrists locked over my head, and all my senses taken captive by the throbbing heat of his presence.
Crap, crap, crap.
And when I reluctantly lift my gaze to his—
I’m doomed, like for real.
Because I know just by looking at him that I’m not the only one who’s made it their business to familiarize themselves with all the rules of L’Alliance.
“I didn’t cheat on you, Samira.”
“You don’t have to. I already know—”
“You know nothing.”
“I know enough!”
“You don’t—”
“I know you love her still!”
“How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t love her?”
“You can say it again and again—”
His gorgeous face hardens, but I’m too lost in my pain to figure out why this matters.
“But nothing you say will matter because it’s over,” I cry out. “I will never—”
“Enough.”
His lips slam down on mine, and no, oh no.
Because it is exactly what he says.
His kiss is enough to destroy my struggles.
Nooooooo.
The moment his tongue slips inside my mouth, I’m lost in the heat of his possession, my heart breaking even as he sweeps me up in his arms, a sob spilling past my lips as he lowers me to the bed.
In this room he’s free to be the alpha that he is, and I watch through a haze of want and terror as our clothes simply.
..disappear. Preter speed. The clinical part of my brain catalogs this even as the rest of me short-circuits at the sight of him, all sleek and golden, all muscles and smooth skin, a predator in human form.
..while I’m no longer his future wife but his prey.
“Non.”
He whips the word out in a command when I try to cover myself, and my arms fall back to my side like a doll being controlled by strings of desire.
“Tu es magnifique, Samira.”
I don’t need to speak French to understand what he’s saying, and oh, the way he says it, too...
I’m finding it all the harder to breathe, much less think.
“I can’t,” I choke out. “I don’t know how—”
“Je vais te montrer.” His voice is rough silk, accent thickening as control slips. “I will show you everything.”
And he does.
His mouth begins at my throat, pressing kisses that make me shiver. Then lower, to the hollow between my collarbones where my pulse hammers wildly. His lips are warm silk, his tongue a brand that marks me as his.
“Si belle,” he murmurs against my skin, and another sob rocks my body at the way Hexius also lavishes me with his words.
When he reaches my breasts, I think I might shatter. He takes his time, exploring with a reverence that steals my breath. His mouth closes over one peak while his hand claims the other, and the dual sensation has me arching off the bed with a cry I don’t recognize as my own voice.
“Regarde-moi.” Look at me.
And so I do.
Even when it’s so, so hard to keep looking at him without dying of embarrassment, to just meet his burning gaze even as he continues to worship me with his hands—
Oh, Hexius, please...
He maps every curve, every hollow, every place that makes me gasp and tremble. His hands span my waist, thumbs tracing patterns on my ribs that feel like poetry written in touches. When his mouth trails lower, pressing kisses to my stomach, my hands fist in the sheets.
“I c-can’t. It’s t-too much—”
“Non.”
My stomach clenches at the roughness of his tone.
“This is not nearly enough.”
He spreads my thighs with careful hands, and I think I might die...
Aaah.
When his mouth finds me there, I come apart completely, pleasure tearing through me like lightning, and all I can do is cry his name out, my back bowing as wave after wave of release pounds through every inch of my sensitive flesh.
“H-Hexius...”
I want to beg him to stop. To just let me catch my breath. But instead he drives me higher, driving me past thought and reason, and all I can do is just sob again and again.
Hexius rises over me, golden eyes burning with hunger that’s as ravenous as it’s possessive—
“Tu es à moi.”
You are mine.
He doesn’t wait for me to answer but instead demands it by right, an alpha taking his mate as he drives inside of me in one powerful thrust—
“H-Hexius!”
I can only squeeze my eyes shut at that indescribable moment of pain, pleasure, and something else. Something that feels like the world I once knew is gone...and nothing will ever be the same again.
W-What just happened?
I wish I could ask him, but I can’t.
Because he’s already started moving, and oh, each and ever time he plunges inside of me—
I can’t remember feeling this tight. This full. This...oh, no words are enough to describe this feeling of being possessed by the alpha who was born to claim you.
And Hexius...
He’s not even speaking in English now. As his thrusts become faster, harder, and deeper, French pours from his lips in a constant stream—sometimes in a low and savage growl, other times in low whispers that almost makes me feel like I’m...cherished.
When the first climax hits, I can only cry out, the sound made incoherent by the intensity of the pleasure his possession gives me. Everything’s just too, too much, and it destroys me from the inside out, and I’m left gasping and shaking beneath him.
I think I could’ve died happy at that moment...but then it turns out we’ve only just begun.
“H-Hexius!”
He’s pounding into me again, his thrusts wilder and fiercer, and so this time it only takes mere moments before I’m once again crying his name out—
“Samira.”
Oh, to hear him grit my name out as I feel him explode inside of me...
This time, this time for sure...
This time, I can really die of happiness, and as my soul slowly floats back into my body, and my lids start feeling too heavy—
That’s when I remember about that feeling I had earlier.
A feeling I couldn’t put into words—
No.
My eyes fly open as the truth hits me.
“Are w-we—”
“Oui.”
Oh God.
“We are now mated for life.”
The words turn my entire universe upside down.
Hexius touches my cheek. “You’re crying.”
I guess I was.
“Why, Samira?”
My tears fall faster upon hearing him say my name like I matter.
“Tell me why you’re crying.”
Because you don’t love me.