BRIAR
Two weeks had passed since my father’s poisoning, since I found out I was going to be mated to Nik. I hadn’t seen a glimpse of Lucas Blackthorne since his visit to my balcony. But I’d done everything I could to avoid him and his family. I didn’t run in the woods at night, choosing instead to let my wolf out to play in the safety of the sunlight. I wouldn’t risk seeing him again and being caught in his web of dark desire. But I hadn’t been able to escape him in my dreams. Lucas infiltrated my deepest fantasies, and I didn’t want to stop him there.
Tonight, however, things were different. The city lights of Seattle awaited, and so did two of my human friends who were none the wiser about my true identity. The freeing sensation of my heels clicking on the city sidewalk, the damp pavement shining under the light of the moon, all came together to send me into an excited buzz. I didn’t have to be anyone but myself. I wasn’t the daughter of the pack alpha, the fiancée of a shifter warrior. I was a normal girl on the town who also happened to be able to turn into a wolf at will.
“Briar, over here!” My friend Stella’s voice rang out from across the street. She stood with Gwen, her classmate at the local university. Gwen was from England, but she had moved with her family after her father took a position teaching here. We had met a few times, but never really sparked a connection. She always seemed cautious, closed off, quiet. But there was a hum of power about her that made me think she might be…other.
I smiled and waved as I darted toward them. Glancing at the building behind her, I frowned. “Why are we standing in front of a bank?”
Stella winked. “You’ll see.” She led us both into the alley and knocked twice on the door that read Employees Only. When the door opened, she whispered, “My friend Eugene sent me.”
The door opened wide, and the three of us ducked inside, through a bland hallway and into an open bank vault. But it wasn’t a vault at all. Instead of a chamber, I found a staircase leading us into a lively speakeasy filled with laughing patrons, a band playing jazz, and liquor of all kinds. My smile was wide, and excitement bubbled up in the form of laughter.
“I thought you might enjoy this over seeing a film.”
We locked gazes, and I nodded. “You thought right.”
Stella glanced at Gwen. “All right?”
Her friend nodded, but her brow furrowed. The light in the stairwell made her strange bronze eyes stand out. “It will be.” She reached out and touched my hand, voice oddly detached and toneless. “You won’t escape your destiny. Everything will change before it is revealed.”
Stella laughed loud enough to make me jump. “Gwen, don’t scare her.” Then she turned to me. “She has these visions of the future every once in a while.”
Gwen frowned and brought her fingertips to her forehead. “Oh, no. Not again.”
Stella took her friend’s hand. “Is it your head? Do you need a doctor?”
Gwen had turned white as a sheet. “I need to lie down. Oh, I’m so sorry to ruin your night.”
“Where should we take her?” I asked.
“No, you stay here. I’ll get her home. She only lives a few blocks away. I’ll meet you back here.” Stella helped Gwen toward the exit while I watched, uneasy, but not ready to end my evening so soon either.
Descending the last of the stairs, I walked into the beautiful chaos of the secret club and let the sounds engulf me. I found a seat at the polished wood bar and watched the band play while people danced.
“What can I get you?” The bartender’s voice pulled me around in my seat, and I smiled at the handsome man flirtatiously. He looked about my age, with twinkling blue eyes and a pencil-thin mustache.
“I’ll just have something with champagne if you’ve got it.”
He winked. “We’ve got it.”
When he returned, he handed me a champagne flute garnished with a lemon curl. The bubbles tickled my nose, and the mixture of champagne, lemon juice, and gin left my nerves eased—if only slightly.
“Well, this is quite a surprise, Briar.” My skin heated at the sound of Lucas Blackthorne’s voice from behind me. His finger trailed across the nape of my neck, sending shivers running down my spine in a delicious way.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I could ask you the same thing. This is my club. I belong here. You, however, shouldn’t even know about it.”
I shrugged. “My friend brought me. I guess you need to be more careful with your secrets.”
Lucas flagged down the bartender and said, “Miss Dumond’s drink is on my account, Rex. Have a bottle of champagne sent to the Starlight Room, will you?”
Rex didn’t respond, but I was sure he would do anything Lucas asked, with or without mind control in the picture.
Lucas fitted his palm at the small of my back and added the barest hint of pressure. “Shall we?” His lips brushed my ear, and I had to fight a shiver of longing.
“Don’t eat me.”
A dark chuckle rumbled through him. “Are you sure?”
My cheeks heated, the back of my neck tingling from his nearness, from the tickle of his breath against my skin, his palm on my back. He slid his hand around my waist and pulled me closer into his side, then the two of us walked around the bar and to yet another secret door. “Come along, my wild thing. You deserve the best seat in the house.”
LUCAS
I had her right where I wanted her. Briar stood in the Starlight Room, her features glowing with the light of the shimmering chandeliers above us. No one else was in the space, just her and me and a bottle of already chilled champagne. Tonight, I’d make her fall in love with me. Then, if I was truly my father’s son, I’d bring down her family. But I’d cross that bridge when I got to it. For now, this captivating wild creature would be mine until we had to return to reality.
“I haven’t seen you out in the woods,” I murmured, watching her walk around the richly decorated room. Her fingers trailed over the heavy velvet curtains that covered each wall in a shade of midnight blue so dark it looked like the night sky. Crystals were sewn by hand into the fabric, catching the light as she moved and sending sparkles glittering across the curtains.
“I had a lot to think about these last few weeks.”
“Such as?”
“My future. My fate.”
I strode to the champagne and poured her a glass. “You mean, your mate?”
Her face paled as she took the offered drink, but she looked away and stepped close to the waist-high barrier that kept this box away from everything else. The band was on a break, but soon they’d start again, and the sound would be perfection. “All of it.” She tipped the glass back and downed half of the contents in one long swallow. “I have to choose. Marry him or be alone. Lose my pack.”
“And what do you want?”
Voice trembling, she said, “I don’t know. I love my family. My pack is a part of me. Can I really just abandon it all for the possibility I’ll find love elsewhere? What if I’m wrong, and he really is my fated mate?”
Desperate, possessive need careened through me, making my heart ache and my blood burn. “How can you doubt your instincts? We all know shifter bonds are just as powerful as vampire ones. If you find your mate, you’ll know. You’ll be drawn to him, need to see him, to touch, to feel. Your hearts will beat in tandem. Your souls will bond when you finally let him claim you completely.” My body raged with arousal as I spoke, taking careful steps to begin closing the distance between us.
Her eyes went wild, glowing with feral energy. “That’s how I feel.”
All the wind left my sails. I stopped my slow stalking toward her. Him. She wanted him. “Then you have your answer.”
In three strides, she was against me, her hand on my chest. “About you.”
My gaze locked on hers, and all I saw in those violet irises was my own soul reflected back. She was mine. Briar was more than a pawn in my father’s game. She was the destiny I’d never expected to find. We were mates. There was no way I could deny the truth. “Briar,” I whispered, dropping my forehead to hers. “What are we doing?”
“We’re not doing it. Fate is. God, Lucas, I need you to kiss me. I feel like I can’t breathe without knowing what it feels like again.”
I cupped the back of her head, her silky hair tangling in my fingers, and my hungry mouth claimed hers.
It was right. It was everything I had been missing. I picked her up without breaking the kiss and walked us toward the red velvet couch in the back of the room, away from any prying eyes that might attempt to catch a glance of what was happening in the exclusive room.
The band started to play. The slow rise of sensual jazz filled the warm air around us, and as I rested her gently on the couch, I wondered if this was how it was meant to be all along. Loosening my tie, I removed my jacket, needing more skin and less clothing between us. Her silk dress hid her curves, but the position she was in offered a peekaboo view of the tops of her stockings. It made up for the shapeless gown and had me sporting a nearly painful cockstand. I needed relief after weeks of not allowing myself to give in to the arousal thoughts of her caused.
She held out her arms, beckoning me closer, and I went. I fitted my hips between her parted thighs and hissed at the friction against my length. “Are you all right?” she asked, the question coming with such innocence.
“You feel good against me.” I rolled my hips and rocked my hard cock into the cleft between her legs. “Don’t I feel good against you?”
A soft moan fell from her lips, and I had to fight to keep myself under control. “Yes. You feel so good.”
“Briar, I need you.”
“I’m right here.” She threaded her fingers in my hair before pulling my face down to hers. Then she kissed me again, deeper this time, with more urgency. Thighs wrapped around my waist, and she lifted her hips, searching for more, asking for me without words.
I slid my palm up her leg, under the dress that was nothing but a barrier between us I didn’t want, then with practiced fingers, I unfastened the garter clips holding the silk stockings in place and moved farther up. Where I expected a corset or some other such nonsense, all I found was a loose silk and lace teddy. And under the opening at her thigh, nothing but smooth flesh and silken hair where I wanted to touch her most.
“No corset?”
Her answering mewl of pleasure almost did me in. “Gets in the way if I need to shift.”
“Lucky me.”
She laughed, but the sound turned to a moan when I parted her and dipped a finger inside. She was tight and hot. Slick and wanting. “Lucas,” she breathed, panic in her tone.
“I’ve got you. I promise. Trust me.”
My thumb found the rise of her clitoris as I sank a finger deep inside her. Within minutes she was trembling against me, her eyes closed, head thrown back as sensations rolled through her. I could have entered her mind and felt right along with her, but I resisted. This wasn’t for me. It was her moment for the taking. A cry left her, wild abandon in the sound she made, and she opened her eyes. The purple shade was vibrant and seemed lit with power. She writhed under my hold, hands gripping the arm of the sofa behind her. I swear I heard the wood crack. And she flooded my fingers with her pleasure as she came against my palm.
“What…what was that?” Her voice was filled with wonderment and awe. “I’ve never felt anything like that before.”
My eyes widened. “You’ve never touched yourself?”
“Not like that. It never got that far.”
Pride swelled in me. Irrational as it was. I was the first to make her feel this way. “Thank you for letting me show you.”
She grabbed my face between her hands and kissed me again. Breaking the contact, she looked down between our bodies. The bulge in my trousers was prominent, to say the least. “Aren’t you…wanting?”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “I’ve been wanting since the moment we met.”
“Then let me offer you some satisfaction. Some kind of relief.”
What I wanted was to bury my cock in her tight, wet heat and make her mine right here and now. But we had time, and I had to make this good for her. She deserved that.
“Your touch does more than you could know.” I took her hand and placed it on the evidence of my desire. God help me, she gripped the steel length and began stroking. I groaned and moved my hips along with her.
On our knees now, we brought our mouths back together, and my hands explored her body while she gave my cock the much-needed attention I’d wished for. A soft growl built from her throat, stopping me, until she pushed me onto my back and straddled my hips. She rolled her cunt across my hard bulge, eyes trained on mine. I needed more. Just a little less fabric between us. Something to make me feel like I could have her. I opened my pants and pulled out my aching cock before reaching under her dress and sliding the seam of her lingerie aside so I could feel her.
“Not inside,” she said, breath harsh.
I shook my head. “No. Not inside. Not yet.”
She rocked against me over and over, her palms pressed to my chest, holding me down as she used me to make herself come again. But this time, I followed. The pleasure hit me hard in an unexpected rush, and I spilled my release across my exposed abdomen while groaning her name.
Pounding on the door pulled both of us from the afterglow of what we’d just shared, and I gently moved her off me before rushing to clean myself.
My skin prickled with unease at the sound of the club manager’s voice. “Mr. Blackthorne, we have a serious problem.”