Chapter 10 - Chris
I can’t believe that idiot tricked me into attending a party. I should’ve known better, but I fell for his lies. Maybe it’s because I figured something bad might’ve happened to her. Charlize.
Why did I come running the second I thought she was in danger? Why am I so drawn to her?
Even now, I can’t help stealing hidden glances at her. She keeps pulling me in like a moth to a flame. But then isn’t she supposed to? She’s our fated mate—the Omega destined to draw us together.
I see the way she smiles at Wayne and Sinth. But she doesn’t even look in my direction, and I can sense her hostility.
I guess after being so cold and harsh toward her, her resentment is understandable.
As guests—soldiers, a handful of noble men’s sons, women and musicians—begin to flood the hall and the party is starting to gain momentum, I stand in a corner, observing. Wayne is getting wasted somewhere across the space, surrounded by a few of his Pack members.
Sinth is with our mate, and they’re both observing the people dancing across the floor. She has a smile on her face, and her eyes light up in a way I haven’t seen before. It’s beautiful. She’s tapping her feet and clapping to the musician’s song while turning to Sinth every now and then.
She never looks at me like that. Never smiles at me with that much mirth in her eyes.
I head over to Wayne and pull him away from his folks—against his protests.
“What is wrong with you? Why did you call an emergency meeting when you knew you were going to throw a party?”
He belches, yanking his hand out of my hold. “What exactly is your problem? The party or the trick I used to get your ass down here?”
“You shouldn’t be throwing a party at a time like this.”
“You say that like it’s a crime.”
“It’s reckless and highly unnecessary.” I keep my voice low, controlled, though the effort costs me more than it should. “We have an unstable Omega whose wolf could destabilize under the wrong strain, and you’ve filled a hall with wine and strangers and music loud enough to wake the dead.”
“Relax,” he says casually. “She’s not going to shatter because someone plays a fiddle near her, Chris.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Neither do you.” He shrugs, infuriatingly unbothered. “The healer didn’t say no parties. He said rest and care. This is rest. This is care. You’re just mad you didn’t think of it first.”
“Sometimes talking to you is like talking to a child,” I say, face twisted into a frown.
“Hey, one year older than you,” he says, a mock grin tugging at his lips. “Don’t forget that.”
I lean in, mirroring his face. “Then act like it.”
I walk away from him and plan to leave the party entirely. Sinth and Charlize have already mingled with the others on the dance floor. He has one hand on her hips, guiding the movement of her waist as they dance together.
It’s not a slow dance, but it’s not fast enough for me to worry she’s exerting herself.
She looks happy. And doesn’t take her eyes off him.
The accordion, the harps, and the sound of other string instruments blend together with the musician’s voice in a harmonious melody. One I almost let myself enjoy. Almost.
But there’s nothing for me here. Sinth and Charlize are busy on the dance floor. Wayne is having a good time with his folks from the Trident Pack.
I should leave. But I find myself looking in her direction again.
She looks well tonight. Better than well, really—whatever gown the servants dressed her in catches the firelight every time she moves, and I find myself tracking that movement with an attention I resent giving.
After deciding to stay a little longer just to keep an eye on how things are going, I stand at a distance, observing.
I watch her closely and silently, cataloging details with no practical use to me. The way she tucks a loose curl behind her ear when she’s thinking. The way her laugh comes easier the longer Sinth stays beside her, patient and steady, the exact kind of company that puts people at ease.
Wayne finds his way over to her twice, and both times something in me sharpens without my permission. I find myself tracking the space between them, displeased by how she leans toward him instead of away.
Vigilance, I tell myself, though it doesn’t much feel like vigilance. It feels closer to a wound reopening every time either of them makes her smile when all I’ve ever managed is to make her flinch.
A steward asks if I require anything at one point, and I dismiss him without looking away from her long enough to give a proper answer. I notice myself doing it and don’t bother correcting it.
Sinth leaves her side to fetch water, and inside that single absence, a man approaches her.
I don’t recognize him—one of the noble sons Wayne invited without thinking. He leans in too close, his hand daring to find her arm like he has any right to touch her at all.
I’m already moving before I decide to.
Wayne gets there first, crossing the distance faster than I’ve ever seen him cross anything. By the time I’m close enough to hear, his voice has dropped into something low and lethal, nothing like the careless tone he wears for the rest of the world.
“Take your hand off her.” He doesn’t raise his voice, but his tone is dripping with venom and his pheromones flare. “Now. Before I decide you don’t need it anymore.”
The music stops, and all eyes are on them.
The man pales, stammers something that might be an apology, and vanishes into the crowd fast enough that I don’t bother tracking where he goes.
“There’s nothing to see here, people!” he says loudly, scanning the crowd. He faces the direction of the musicians and snaps his fingers. “Music!”
They pick up from where they stopped.
Charlize stands there afterward, arms wrapped around herself, embarrassment and anger flickering across her face in turns.
I don’t think it through. I close the distance and take her by the arm.
“What’re you doing?” she protests.
“We’re leaving.”
“Excuse me?”
“This is exactly the kind of scenario I warned against.” My grip tightens, not painfully, but enough to make the meaning clear. “You’re going back to your quarters.”
I drag her with me, and she rushes behind, her heels catching against the stone as she tries to match my pace. We leave the hall, the music and merriment fading into the distance the further away we go.
Once in her room, I let go of her and shut the door with the back of my leg.
“What is wrong with you?” she snaps, rolling her wrist in a massaging motion. “I didn’t ask for that man to touch me.”
“I didn’t say you did.” Though something in my tone suggests otherwise, and I know it the moment the words leave me.
“You have no right to drag me around like I’m some disobedient dog.”
“I have every right. I am your King.”
“Yeah, a King who ordered the execution of a harmless, defenseless woman!”
The words land exactly where she means them to. My jaw tightens, defensiveness rising in me before I can stop it.
“I did what was logical.”
“Is that what you tell yourself to feel better about what you did?” Her eyes flash with defiance, like none I’d ever seen.
She’s no longer the scared, fragile woman she was when she first arrived at the palace. She’s bolder.
“Careful now,” I caution her, my tone low and menacing.
“Or what?” She steps closer instead of retreating, chin lifted, eyes bright with the same fire I glimpsed the night she first spoke out of turn. “You’ll reject me again? Consider it done already.”
“You know nothing about what I decided that day.”
“I know exactly what you decided. I was there. I heard every word.” Her voice cracks slightly, betraying something underneath the anger.
“A King’s mate could never be shiftless.
Never weak. You made your feelings very clear, and I’ve spent every day since trying not to think about how much that cost me to hear. ”
Something in me falters, and I fight it, but the space between us has narrowed without my permission. I can smell that thread of scent that’s haunted me since the hall, closer now than it’s ever been.
“You don’t understand what it means to be what I am,” I say, quieter now. “Nobody does.”
“Then explain it instead of running from it.” Her voice is calmer, like she’s genuinely interested in hearing me out.
“I’m not running from anything.”
“You’re standing three feet away from me, refusing to look me in the eye. That’s exactly what running looks like.”
I look at her then, fully, and it’s a mistake the instant I make it. Her eyes hold mine, unflinching despite everything, and the pull between us surges hard enough that whatever resolve I had left cracks clean through.
I lean in without thinking, my lips claiming hers. The kiss isn’t gentle, isn’t careful the way I’m careful about everything else in my life. It’s fury and want tangled together.
Her hands fist in my shirt, mine finding her waist and pulling her flush against me. Some part of me has obviously been waiting for this since I first caught her scent.
She kisses back with the same desperate heat, as if she’s been fighting this just as hard as I have and finally run out of strength for it.
For one long, unguarded stretch of time, I stop thinking entirely.
Heads tilt. Tongues twirling in each other’s mouths.
We’re breathless, and things are starting to spiral out of control. The kiss deepens, a testament to our needs and insatiable desires. The softness of her breasts against my body is driving me insane.
My heart is racing, my cock is hard, and her hands are underneath my shirt, traversing my torso.
Before things can escalate further, my senses return, cold and unwelcome, and I pull back.
She stares at me in silence, her chest heaving with labored breaths.
I lock my jaw. “This was a mistake.”
Her face falls, the heat draining out of it fast, replaced by something worse—hurt, plain and undisguised, the kind she clearly didn’t mean to let show.
“Of course it was.” Her voice goes flat. “Just go.”
I don’t hesitate. I turn instead, already regretting the kiss and unable to regret it fully at the same time, a contradiction I have no patience for tonight.
Sinth is already walking in as I head out. He doesn’t ask what happened. He just crosses the room and speaks to her low and gentle, guiding her toward the nest with a hand at her back that asks permission with every motion instead of demanding it.
“Come here,” he murmurs. “You’re alright.”
She goes with him without hesitation, curling into the space he makes for her, and something in her posture eases the second his arms settle around her.
I watch from the doorway, unmoving, though there’s nothing left here for me and no real purpose in staying to see Sinth do effortlessly what I’ve apparently made impossible for myself.
I stand there anyway and watch him soothe her the way I couldn’t—gentle where I was hard, patient where I broke. Something twists in my chest that feels an awful lot like guilt.
Eventually I turn and walk away, before either of them notices I’m still there.