“What happens once they all finish bowin’ and scrapin’?”
“We retire to the Ivory Tower and the welcoming ball begins.”
A slight hint of unease in his eyes.
“Yes, Will. Dancing,” she said, relishing the moment. “Now we see if you’ve retained any of my lessons.”
Light glittered. The official state ballroom walls bore mirror after mirror, the edges scrolled with gilt and interspersed with elegant paintings. Will paused at the top of the red carpeted stairs as his name and Lena’s were announced.
Hundreds of faces turned his way. Blue bloods, verwulfen, and human alike. A brief scan of the crowd revealed the Norwegians gathered in the corner, expressions wary and considering. The Fenrir locked gazes with him, his black eye patch distinctly out of odds here in this gleaming paradise. Fur bristled on his shoulders and his iron-gray beard spoke of the weight of years. Will felt as if he’d been weighed and measured by that single eye.
Not a man he’d like to cross.
“Come,” Lena whispered, tugging at his sleeve.
Why the devil had he agreed to this? Feeling hunted, he stalked down the stairs beside her.
The next hour was a whirl of teeth-grinding social niceties and false smiles as Lena introduced him to members of the Echelon. Hard looks slapped his back and he saw more than a few blue bloods exchange glances. The looks were easy enough to interpret. What the hell was he doing here? What game was the Council up to?
Lights. Music. Laughter. So bright and glittering, dozens of gaslit chandeliers casting heat across the room. Nostrils flaring, he intercepted a glass of champagne from a drone’s tray and handed it to Lena. She served as his only anchor in this world he didn’t understand and didn’t want to.
It suited her. She laughed and tapped her friends on the shoulders with her folded fan, constantly keeping him involved in the conversation when he’d prefer to have just stood at her shoulder and scowled. This entire evening was effortless for her. Even the blue bloods danced to her tune, kept in place with a coquettish smile and a drawled witticism.
He wanted to smash them in the face for each smile they earned.
“I need air,” he growled in her ear.
“Not yet.” She took one look at his face and nodded thoughtfully. “Come. Dance with me.”
Only for her would he endure such torture.
Taking her by the hand, he led her onto the dance floor and dragged her into his arms. Lena’s eyes widened as his hand slid over the small of her back, his thighs brushing against her skirts. But she didn’t dare chastise him out loud for holding her too closely.
The music swept them up and Will twirled her in his arms, concentrating hard on counting the steps. It should have looked ridiculous—he was enormous against her delicate stature—but Lena had a grace about her that made it somehow work. It was like holding a spinning top in his hands. She floated, each movement lithe and elegant, with a slight hint of the coquette. If he faltered, she encouraged him with a lowered-lash smile that made all of the steps rush out of his mind.
All of his thoughts, in fact.
“Stop counting,” she murmured, a small smile playing about her lips.
He glared at her, twirling her in a pirouette. From this angle, he could see straight down her dress at the soft swell of creamy flesh she displayed with far too much complacency. Pearls dripped into the deep vee of her gown, drawing his gaze lower. “I thought it were fashion for women searchin’ for a protector to leave their throats and neck bare?”
Lena glanced up, over her shoulder, as he guided her through a pirouette. “But I’m not.”
“Not what?”
There was a slight hesitation. “Searching for a protector.”
His fingers tightened in hers. It shouldn’t matter. She could never be his anyway. But the thought still flooded him with a fierce sense of satisfaction. Of possession.
His body curved around hers, drawing her back against his chest as he held her hands up. The movement thrust her chest forward and arched her neck. Each step of the assah had been designed to tempt, to show a blue blood a woman’s best features. Will had no desire for her blood, but the smooth slope of her neck and shoulder drew his gaze. He wanted to run his lips over her skin, to feel her tremble, to taste her as her skin pebbled and she gasped softly.
His cock roused. Dangerous thoughts. Especially here, in the middle of a ballroom. The swish of her bustle against his groin was a devastating itch, inciting him to harder lengths.
“You’re holding me too close,” she whispered.
The smile on her face was careless, as if she were not aware of the fact. A charade for anyone watching.
Her breath, however, told another story.
What was he doing? Will dragged in a thick breath and looked away. He spun her in a light circle and she came back into his arms, facing him this time. The look in her eyes devastated him.
Perhaps it had been the other afternoon? Daring her to accept him in public. Challenging her at her own games.
There was no point to this. She wasn’t his and never could be. But…it was so tempting to hold her, to torture himself with her nearness when he knew he could never have her.
Just this once.
“Will,” she whispered. “Stop it.”
He couldn’t let her go. Couldn’t put the proper distance between them. The music swept through him, a string-and-flute quartet with a slight Middle Eastern hum as exotic counterpoint. Each step came easily now. He wasn’t thinking so much. Just following her body through the steps of the sinuous dance. Predator to prey. But this time the prey held all the power, luring him in, drawing him closer.
He didn’t speak. And neither did she. Everything that needed to be said was spoken by the entwining of their bodies. Lena surrendered to the inevitable, her cheeks flushed with a becoming pink as she wilted into his touch.
And he claimed her as his; his fingers shackling her wrists as she turned, then sliding down her corseted hips, one hand firm across the small of her back as he drew her back into his embrace. He’d forgotten the steps by now. Created his own. Predator to prey, each movement a prophetic one.
The music trailed to a smoky halt. Clapping erupted and Will stilled, his arms tight around her hips. Lena looked up, her dazed expression fading away as she realized where they were. The pink of her cheeks deepened, her eyes darting past his shoulder.
Far too many interested eyes looked their way. Lena tugged at his grip. He held it for a moment, forcing her gaze to his, then let her go.
With a polite smile, she curtsied. “Thank you,” she murmured, knowing every word she now spoke would be heard. “For a wonderful dance.”
He bowed his head, a sign of respect he’d give to no other woman here. “I enjoyed it.”
A surprise in itself. But her presence had made an excruciating moment a delightful one. He found he wanted to keep going.
Any excuse to keep her in his arms…
Will looked away. He couldn’t afford to have thoughts like that. His gaze drifted over the Norwegians in the corner. The reason he was here. Something he shouldn’t forget.
“Every woman here wants to dance with you now,” Lena murmured.
“I only dance once.”
A slight smile. “I think if I asked you, you’d change your mind.”
“Are you askin’ me?”
Lena looked up from beneath her lashes. “I don’t think we should. If I dance with you again, we’re going to attract attention.”
“We already have.”
Lena considered the room. “I need to dance with someone else,” she replied. The light strains of music were starting up again, this time a more traditional dance. A waltz, he suspected.
He grabbed her wrist. “Not the assah.”
“No?”
“No.”
That dance was his.
Her smile bloomed, causing the breath to catch in his chest. “Not the assah then. Go. Find your Norwegians. I’ll stall the gossip you’re no doubt causing.” She gave a rueful twist of her lips. “You’re going to drive me to bedlam, you know that?”
It was no more than she was doing to him. Thank God he wasn’t the only one afflicted by this madness between them.
With one last smoky look over her shoulder, she sauntered into the crowd, crooking a finger at some young lordling in a yellow coat. He swallowed hard and darted to her side, offering a polite hand as he led her into the waltz.
Will turned and strode through the crowd, muttering his apologies as he pushed past. Too many people. The air was too stuffy. And a part of him didn’t want to watch her on someone else’s arm.
Finding a room with refreshments laid out, he tugged at the collar of his coat. Cool air stirred across his face, and the few people picking at the refreshment table realized who he was and darted back to the main ballroom. Which suited him perfectly.
Taking a plate, he piled it with sweetmeats and pastries and those little cakes Lena seemed to like. Soft footsteps shuffled the carpet behind him and he stilled, catching a hint of a pale shadow reflected in the cut crystal bowl in front of him.
Hadn’t taken them long.
Wondering who they’d sent, he turned, eyeing the stranger without surprise.
With a nervous smile for him, the Lady Astrid crossed the room to the refreshment table. Her white gown was cut to move with each step, creating a graceful, sinuous effect that no human woman could ever hope to emulate.
“You are William Carver,” she murmured, trailing her fingers over the tablecloth as she stalked toward him. A swift smile. Not so nervous now. If she ever had been. There’d been no hint of it in her scent. “We didn’t expect to find one of our own here.”
“Didn’t expect to be here meself,” he replied. There was no point in trying to play word games. He was who he was. No amount of polish could change his nature or make him comfortable with the games the blue bloods enjoyed.
Astrid gave him a sidelong look. “Why not?”
“This ain’t my world.”
She examined him as if he’d done something unexpected. “You’re Scottish, yes?”
“Originally. Were born on a crofter’s farm outside o’ Edinburgh.”
Easing closer, she let her arm brush against his. “How old were you when you received the gift?”
He glanced over her shoulder toward the ball. Through the arch he could just see the glittering skirts of Lena’s pink ball gown. Talking to some young pup who hung on her every word. Safe for the moment.
He turned his attention back to the woman in front of him. “I were five. And it weren’t no gift.”
He could barely recall the stranger who’d ridden in on the back of a cart one day, feverish and sweating, his arms raked with bloody scratches. They’d called for the physician, but the man had gone berserk, throwing men aside as if they weighed nothing. Will had been the only one left standing, staring at the stranger in virulent fear. He couldn’t remember what happened next. But they said it took five men to pull the stranger away from his throat.
Nobody expected him to live. The man had torn him apart like a nice, fat rabbit. But somehow his body reknit itself. By the time they realized why, it was too late. He was well into the first transition of the loupe.
“I see.” Her eyes softened in sympathy, but her scent was still hard. A lesson in that for him. Trust his nose and not his eyes. “How did you learn to control yourself? Were there others?”
“Me mam sold me to a travelin’ showman.” An old wound, healed and crusted over, but still scarred. “I were locked in a cage for ten years. If I tried to escape they whipped me until I went down.” He took a mouthful of champagne, the bitterness of it bubbling on his tongue. “I learned the hard way not to lose me temper.”
Astrid’s fingers went to the amulet around her neck and she toyed with it, a troubled look on her face. “How can you stand to be here? Around them? Knowing that their laws locked you away for years?”
“I’m simply doin’ a job.”
“An attempt to soften our favor? They do not know us well, do they?” Another brush against his sleeve. Her hand slid over his, gloves rustling. “So how much does this little task of yours cost them?” She took a deep breath, her breasts swelling. “What does it involve?”
He let her stroke his hand. She was beautiful, but she was no Lena. “I get you to sign the treaty.”
“And what do you get?”
“I get freedom.”
“Worth more than your weight in gold,” she murmured.
“For all the verwulfen in the Isles,” he added. “No more cages, no more pit-fightin’ or prices on our heads. Free men. And women.”
Unease prickled her scent. Despite the smile on her face, he’d pricked her conscience.