As soon as the tram landed on the platform in the private St. George airport, Viktor hauled himself out, his phone already flickering to life in his hand.
Truly, he didn’t expect any new updates. Camille hadn’t left her apartment since her mother’s private funeral the month prior. It was unlikely that today of all days would be different.
Still, he gritted his teeth as he climbed the fold-out steps of the waiting m-jet. He ducked his head, stooping to avoid being clipped by the low ceiling, and fell into yet another luxurious seat as his phone began to buzz.
Notifications piled in, as usual. Packmates sent him updates, asked questions, and added themselves to his calendar. Pictures of frolicking cubs came through, as well as a report from his financial advisers on several new, risky investments they wanted him to consider.
Finally, amongst the cascade, a message from the demon he’d paid to watch Camille’s building made it through. Viktor sucked in a ragged breath, his heart seizing.
Livia Hunt 11:02 AM: Left the apartment at eleven. Took a Solbourne town car.
Livia Hunt 1:15 PM: Came back at one. No guests.
Attached to the message were two photos. The first was of Camille, dressed in a black coat and dark turtleneck and small leather skirt that showed off her long legs, stepping out of her building’s glittering entrance toward a waiting car. Her heartbreakingly beautiful face was set in a determined, almost mulish expression as her gloved hand held the door open.
The second photo was much like the first, except it was from the back. The light was different, and he could just make out her expression as she climbed out of her car. What struck him was not how much the sight of her made everything in him ache, but the way she seemed to have lost something in the time between the photographs.
Gone was the resolute expression. Even her color seemed to have dimmed slightly. Her eyes — gorgeous, violet eyes he saw everywhere, in everything — were glassy, as if she’d been crying.
Viktor swore.
Her distress was like a punch to the gut, a direct hit to the coyote that knew how to soothe only in the most primal ways. His helplessness was even worse. He didn’t know what was wrong with his mate. And even if he did know, he couldn’t fix it because she wouldn’t even answer his calls or his messages. He didn’t even know if she was even accepting the gifts he’d left her.
Gods, he just wanted to know she was well. Even if she never let him into the same room as her again, he could at least sleep at night if he knew she was happy and cared for.
He stared at the pictures, bile churning in an acid wave, as the coyote howled a furious, mournful song.
This was not happy. This was not cared for. It absolutely gutted him.
His mind raced, a whirlwind of worry and rage and unfulfilled longing making rational thought difficult, when his phone pinged again. The last of his missed messages came in, and Viktor’s world tilted sideways.
Teddy 11:52 AM: Cammie’s looking to contract a union. Now’s the time to put up or shut up, Vik.
Viktor didn’t sprint off of the m-jet, but he walked damn fast. Benny hustled after him, all traces of teasing gone. While he didn’t know what caused the shift in his alpha’s mood, he reacted to his stress, the aggression that pulled his muscles taut. He was Viktor’s shadow as they crossed the tarmac and climbed into their car.
As soon as Benny was behind the wheel, he asked, “What do you need?”
“Drop me off at The Palace,” he answered, his voice barely audible beneath the coyote’s growl.
It was well out of the way, considering their territory was only ten minutes from the airport and The Palace hotel was in the heart of the Financial District — completely across town — but Benny didn’t complain. He didn’t ask any questions, either. Putting the car in drive and syncing with the m-grid, he did exactly as Viktor told him to.
It wasn’t blind loyalty. It was trust.
At that moment, trust was the only thing holding Viktor’s frayed composure together. Trust that his second wouldn’t ask questions he couldn’t answer. Trust that Teddy had his back. Trust that Camille, at least for another moment, still belonged to him.
Gods. What the fuck am I going to do?
His animal pushed against the forefront of his mind, pacing in tight, furious circles. Viktor felt the confinement of the car, of his damn suit, like the bars of a cage pressing closer around him.
Sweat broke out across his skin as he tore off his suit jacket. Wadding it up, he chucked it into the back. The smart thing would have been to stop the car, strip, and shift. If he ran around Lake Merced enough times, eventually the rage would fall under the weight of exhaustion. Eventually he would feel like he could breathe again.
But what then? When the emotion died away, reality would still be there. He could wake up tomorrow morning and discover Camille had signed her life away to a mate who would never love her like he did. Nine months from now he could open up his phone to see the news that she’d given birth to some other lucky bastard’s cub. Two hundred years from now he could lay on his deathbed, mateless, wishing he’d done it all differently.
Viktor couldn’t survive that. He couldn’t suffer seconds turning into hours and hours turning into minutes knowing his mate belonged to someone else. Not after he had a taste of her.
He wouldn’t do it. He couldn’t do it; not until he’d done everything in his power to win her.
Viktor didn’t say a word to Benny before he jumped out of the car in front of the gleaming arches of The Palace Hotel. After a moment’s hesitation, Benny drove off, back the way they’d come. His second knew he would call if he needed him. One word and the entire pack would be by his side, ready to do whatever he asked of them.
But in this, they couldn’t help him. Courtship was a private dance. And while Viktor knew he had to think about his pack, about how they would react to Camille if he was lucky enough to win her, he also knew that there was no stopping him this time.
He’d fought the fever once, and it cost him a chunk of his soul. He wouldn’t survive a second attempt. This time, he would court his elf. He would coax her and pet her and earn back her trust.
He had to. He couldn’t survive letting her go twice.
Chapter Seven
Camille wasn’t staying in The Palace hotel. She was staying in the old, elaborately styled apartment building just across the street, but Benny didn’t need to know exactly where his alpha was headed, so Viktor didn’t tell him.
Built by the Solbournes before the disaster of 1906, it stood out amongst the skyscrapers clustered around it. Viktor was familiar with it in ways that Camille probably didn’t even realize.
Being an angry, inquisitive kid got him into a lot of trouble, but never moreso than the day he decided to break into that very building.
All of ten years old, totally unsupervised and eager to get away from a home that reeked of unhappiness, he’d taken a shine to hating the Solbournes. It was easier to blame them for the misery at home than it was to acknowledge it was his father, his alpha’s doing. Perhaps it was his father’s rants about the elves that pointed him in their direction, or perhaps it was simply the directionless anger of a neglected child that did it.
He picked a day to break into their special apartment building. He did his recon, knew that they mostly spent their time on the top two floors. With a lot of fury, a coyote’s cunning, and very little good sense, he slipped in through an old, defunct service shaft once connected to the bank next door and made his way up the emergency stairs to the penthouse floor.