Palace guards. The king probably didn’t let his four heirs party with the other clans without protection.
“Blue?” Kaja poked me.
Both she and the male wolf Clone #7 stared at me as if I were unhinged, but I was 70.3% sure there was no one else in the house dressed like me, so that was good.
“Mage wine is funny,” I told the dude with a wink. My gaze shifted to the clone, and I raised my eyebrows. “You look like”—I waved my hand in the air, indicating the other occupants—“everyone else. ”
The guy grinned, “All the males took a pact to magic ourselves with the same look.”
Great. Just freaking genius. They all had the same onyx colored hair of the Midnight princes. But the dude I’d kissed wasn’t one of them, because he’d referred to the secret garden as a place his friend told him about. Which meant my magical kisser was friends with the Midnight princes or worked for them.
Awkward.
Half of me wanted to go through the entire room and kiss every single guy just so I could find him and then kick him in the balls for leaving me like that. Why did that kiss have to be so amazing? I couldn’t deal—I needed more wine and chocolate before I could enact operation Kiss Every Dude Here.
“Let’s go, Ash.” I tugged on Kaja’s arm. “Nice to meet you!” I yelled to yellow eyes and walked away briskly with my new bestie.
Three mage wine drinks and a dozen dipped strawberries later, and still, all I could think about was a certain sexy-schmexy wolf dude. I needed to start kissing other guys pronto; someone was bound to make my toes curl … or make magical butterflies descend from the sky? Now, where was my wingwoman? I swayed on my feet, bumping into a tux-clad body as I spun away from the chocolate fountain. “Shh-orry.”
Note to self: three drinks were a lot … way too much … for me to think … right. Although shifter metabolism was a thing of beauty, I had not burned off the effects of those drinks. The good news, no tears. I was doing better than I had a few years ago when my dad gave me that glass.
“You all right, princess?” the dude in the tux asked, his voice like liquid honey.
Grinning, I nodded. “Very much yes—I think.”
Staring at his eyes, I noticed his were green—like spring grass. “Do people change their eye color tonight?”
Reaching out to touch his eyelids, I reconsidered and let my hand fall onto his chest. Hard as a rock. I patted it, wondering if chests could be magicked too.
Was this my kisser?
“Some do.” He seemed amused by me, allowing me to pat his chest as he looked down at me with a halfcocked grin.
“Are yours really that color?” Because if they were, there was a fair chance this dude could be one of the asshole Midnight brothers, Rage or Justice. Too bad I didn’t know if my magical garden asshat’s eyes were really green or just magicked-green.
“No.” His lips pulled up in the corner. “Why do you ask?”
No way was I going to tell, but there was something I wanted to say to this dude. Leaning forward, I dropped my voice and narrowed my eyes. “Are you trustworthy?”
He grinned, a feral, wild grin that made my heart leap. “Not at all.”
“That’s…” I held my fist up, index finger extended to make a point. “Huh … that’s very honest of you.” Which required me to pat his chest again with approval. Dayum. “I like your chest.”
Please don’t be Nolan.
He chuckled. “Really? How interesting. I find yours quite to my liking as well.”
Laughter burst from me as my belly warmed at his words. Mage wine and chocolate were life. Where was Kaja? My bestie was missing out on all the fun.
“That’s good.” And totally factored into my kissing plan. Tilting my chin so I stared above his square jaw, I demanded, “Tell me what you think of my lips.”
Leaning over me, he traced his finger across my collarbone, up the side of my neck, and then rubbed his thumb over my lips. His voice dropped, going husky with desire. “They’re ripe for kissi—”
Dude disappeared. A blur, almost too fast for me to see, whizzed past, and when I looked up, he was gone.
Huh? How drunk was I?
I blinked, and there was a new man towering over me, definitely not the same guy who’d been there seconds ago.
“Hey, what the—?” In fact … those emerald eyes, those lips.
“You asshole!” I screamed at my garden kisser. How did I even recognize him? Who knew? Maybe it was the eyes or the way my body gravitated toward him like he was the frickin’ sun.
Looking to the right, I saw the guy I’d been speaking with now lay among the forest bramble a dozen feet away. He’d literally flown out the open, white food tent and into the trees. He climbed to his feet, leaf-litter and twigs stuck to his coat and hair.
Shaking my head, I looked back at Asshat Extraordinaire. Un-freaking-believable. How dare he act possessive now? I splayed my palms out on his chest and tried to push past him—which was like trying to shove a tank, impossible—even for a werewolf.
Glaring up at him, I growled, “Move.”
His jaw clenched. “You shouldn’t be with that guy.”
He grasped my hand softly and started to walk me out of the silk tent and back into the patio garden, leading me up to the house. I was too tipsy to put up much protest, and I needed to find Kaja anyway. We walked inside the packed living room, to the sound of bustling music, before he slipped me into a little alcove holding a potted plant. My pulse quickened as he leaned closer and sniffed the air in front of my face, and his lip curled. “You’re drunk.”
Hah! “That’s rich! You don’t get to do that. You scurried off like a rat, remember? So don’t act like—”
“You’re mine,” he said, gripping my hips, eyes flaring emerald, and his possessive words melted into my body like warm butter. He pulled me closer, slamming my body to his; my pelvis pressed into his hips. The raw need in his voice made my knees tremble.
“Only mine,” he added, and his chest heaved.
Whoa.
I swallowed hard. In the back of my mind, the little bit of rational-Nai screamed about healthy boundaries and psycho-controlling males. But the rest of me … I grabbed the lapels of his tuxedo jacket and gave him a half-lidded gaze as the world fell away. Nothing else existed in this moment—just me and him.
“Prove it.”
He growled, low and possessive, and then traced the tip of his nose up the side of my neck, scenting where my pulse pounded.
Scent. I’d forgotten to smell him before, but it was our greatest tracking device. In our human form, the aroma of an individual was best detected at the pulse points. In this crowded area of the house, even in our little alcove, the best place to scent him would be the neck, like he’d just done to me. If I got a good whiff now, I could figure out exactly who he was later…
My breath quickened. I gripped his arms. Desire blossomed low in my belly, and I inched closer.
“You smell like sunshine and home, Miss Blue,” he whispered.
The warmth of his breath made my skin prickle, and I might’ve moaned—a little. “Like home?”
I inhaled, but my mind was fuzzy with mage wine. Cedarwood? Sandalwood? Sage? What was it? He traced the outside of my ear with his tongue before capturing the soft flesh between his teeth. Slowly, he worked his way across my jaw to my lips with his tongue, drawing out the tension until my desire for him was agony.