“Right on first count.” I chuckle, the sound harsh. “I have never tried to hide what I am. I am not the idealized version of the leader you think I am.
“You are not a monster, Zeus.” He leans forward on his feet, his gaze measured, his chin rock-hard.
“I didn’t take you for an ass-licker either.” I grin.
“You are too smart,” he continues as if I hadn’t spoken, “too intelligent to waste your position, the title you carry, your bloodline…you wouldn’t use it without reason. You have a plan all right. It’s just not the one you are sharing with me and the Council. And unlike them—”
“You’re not gullible.” A smile tugs my lips, the first genuine one of the day since I fondled the omega and touched her face and reluctantly left her sleeping in the bed stained from the evidence of our rutting.
I shouldn’t let thoughts of her interrupt this important session. This is the reason I’ve fought so far, the reason I’d overthrown the old order, brought in people of my own, cultivated the city. And yet when the goal is so close, when I can all but taste the revenge, the fruit of my years of struggling, all I can think about is her.
“You are losing your focus.” He grimaces. “She is making you lose your concentration.” And the smile on his face is one of satisfaction. As if he’s been waiting so long to see me fall. He’ll relish every last second of seeing me drown in the feelings that are engulfing me.
“I hear every word you say, friend.” I emphasize the last word, making it a mockery of what it is meant to be. “Do not for a second think I have lost sight of what I want.”
“Except what you wanted forty-eight hours ago…is it the same as what you want now?”
“Of course it is. I—” The words cease. Something very much like an epiphany sweeps over me. He’s right. It’s not sufficient to kill Kayden. Not adequate to raze this city to the ground. Not enough to organize for those who are loyal to me to be part of the new world I hope to build. No, there is something more. Her. I need her with me. Want her close by so I can bury myself in her sweet cunt when the need takes me. So I can feel her soft skin, twine the silky hair around my fingers, see her grow fat with my child, and kiss her and love her and mate her and… Sweat beads my brow. My vest sticks to my back. The heat in the room is suddenly too much to bear.
I stalk to the window and fling it open, leaning outside. I’d never done this before, looking for fresh air in a city where there is none. Where the smoke from the charcoal fires that people burn at night to keep warm settles over the space, coating everyone in fine grime.
Where a deep breath in the open will clog the pores on your skin. Yet I find myself leaning out and gasping lungfuls of the pollution. Laced below the pea-soup fog I smell the moisture from the Thames. The sluggish brown sludge of the river flows in the distance. Over the years the water has reduced to a trickle of what it was. The ruins of the bridge that had been destroyed by the bombs mock me from a distance.
There’s a touch on my shoulder, and I know it’s Ethan.
“A mating bond goes both ways, or didn’t you realize that.”
He’s right, and yet a part of me doesn’t want to accept it. The mating bond was not spontaneous. It was something I had decided on the moment I’d set eyes on her. I’d known that I was going to claim her. And yet I shake his hand off.
“You gloating now?” I turn on him.
“You know I don’t do that.” He puts up his palms.
“Yeah, you leave the finer points of being an asshole to me.”
“Like I said, you are a better man than you give yourself credit for.” He grips my shoulder, his gaze serious.
I almost tell him what I have in mind for the city then. Almost. “You’re wrong.” I step back. “You don’t have to worry that this will derail our plan to fight the Scots.”
“I never doubted that anything would take your mind off the goal at the end.” His voice is sincere. He sounds exactly like the Ethan I know.
“Power. Ultimate power, that’s all I crave.” I say it aloud and I know it’s to remind myself of what I have at stake.
A way to help focus my mind which insists on reaching out through the mating bond to her.
As if sensing my interest, the mating bond twangs. Grief and loneliness sweep through. It twists my heart. A band of ice tightens around my chest. A feeling of such utter dejectedness crawls into my gut, and I know without a doubt it is her. That the omega is awake and needs comforting and tending. Likely she is coming down after the high of the heat cycle. As the reality of what has been done sinks into her, she will rebel and try to escape. And I cannot, will not let that happen. “I need to go to her.”
My gaze snaps on Ethan. My voice sounds hollow and desperate, and I don’t try to mask it.
“It’s normal for the first months of a newly paired bond for each to be so attuned to the other that you have difficulty telling your emotions apart from hers.”
His voice is solicitous, and it should soothe me that he is trying to calm me. Instead, a burst of anger twists my insides. “And how would you know that?” I snap.
His gaze widens, but there is no other change in expression. “So I have heard. Consider it advice from one friend to another. The crux of my experience should help an alpha who is about to enter a very tumultuous stage of a relationship, one that will affect your mind and hence the plans that the entire Council has worked on so meticulously over months.”
I look at his features, trying to detect any trace of the fact that he was making fun of me, or that he was speaking in jest, but all I see is seriousness, a trace of concern perhaps. I drop my hands and step back. “Advice accepted.”
I swerve around him and head for the door.
“I let go of the omega who could have been my mate and I will forever regret it.”
I pause at the exit, then turn to him. “She’s—”
“Alive. I met her on my last trip to Russia, was attracted to her instantly, wanted to claim her…” His voice trails off.
“But you didn’t.” I angle my head, watching him closely.
His lips firm. A pulse ticks above his jaw. “I waited too long. I didn’t act on my instinct. When I went back in search of her she was gone. The Vikings invaded Russia and all hell broke loose. They caught me and almost killed me. Only let me go when they realized I was your second.” His lips twist. “Even those barbarians did not want to cause a diplomatic incident with you.”
“My reputation precedes me.” I should feel a fierce surge of pride that news of how I had taken power in London had traveled that far. I should feel gratified that the fiercest warriors in the land hesitate to challenge me. Instead, all I can think of is the softness of her curves under my fingers. Smell the scent of her arousal as I bury my nose in her core, the taste of her essence as I lick her moist folds. And all of it insists that there is more to life than absolute power.
How can I think that? I roll my shoulders and try to school my thoughts into some semblance of familiarity. Soon I’ll be taking pity on my own people, pardoning their faults, rebuilding the infrastructure for them, and what the fuck? Obviously, the proximity to the omega is softening me up.