Maggie snorted, and we turned and walked toward the dessert table without giving Jeremy a chance to interject. My fingers still tingled from touching her.
“What was that?” I asked quietly.
She crinkled her nose in a way I refused to find cute right now. “What?”
I stopped walking and looked at her. Really looked at her.
“Be careful, Mags,” I said, voice low. Seeing her with Jeremy, knowing Lucien had eyes and ears everywhere, was too much for me, and I felt my control slipping a little. I didn’t know what to do with everything swirling in my chest. “You know how much scrutiny we’re under.”
She gave me a curious look, like she was trying to figure out what had gotten me so twisted up. My body ached with the heat, the tension, the instinct to claim. I could still feel the phantom warmth of her back under my hand.
I wanted her. Right here, right now, against the damn waffle tower if it came to that.
But I couldn’t.
She was healing. She was human. She wasn’t mine. And if I touched her now, I wouldn’t be able to stop.
I saw red. Not rage, exactly. Not violence. It was something deeper. Older. That bone-deep wolf-thrum that made my body tense and my instincts go ballistic. I was pissed and turned on at the same time. How dare someone else flirt with Maggie in front of the whole pack? How was I supposed to pull this off?
Maggie turned and walked away, that damn floral dress swishing like it knew exactly what it was doing to me. Her hair caught the sun and haloed around her like she was some kind of summer goddess with no concept of consequences.
Wait. Was she leaving?
She was. She was leaving without me. And I hated how much that stung.
I muttered some excuse to a council member’s wife who was too busy gushing over a hand-stitched table runner to notice my retreat. I slipped out the side door, every nerve in my body tuned to her.
The garden stretched out in wild elegance-stone paths and manicured hedges, roses curling around wrought-iron arches like they belonged to a different century. It was too curated. Too perfect. And still, all I could think about was how her perfume lingered on my shirt and how close she’d leaned into that guy’s space like it meant nothing.
I found her by the koi pond.
She stood near the edge, arms loose at her sides, staring into the water like it had answers she didn’t. Her reflection rippled and shimmered, so did mine as I approached, quiet but not subtle. I didn’t want to be subtle. Not right now.
I stepped in close. Closer than I should have.
Maggie turned slowly, chin tilted up, like she was ready for whatever this was.
“If you’re gonna flirt with other wolves…” I said, my voice dropping low, deliberate, even though I knew I wasn’t giving her enough credit as the words left my mouth. “At least wait until I’m not in the same damn room.”
She folded her arms across her chest, lips flattening into a challenge. “That’s not fair. You wanted fake. This is fake.”
That shouldn’t have hurt, but it landed like a punch to the ribs. I didn’t even know what part of that dug in the hardest-her saying it, or me knowing it was partly true. The worst part? I’d started to forget what was fake and what wasn’t.
We stared at each other, and something snapped tight between us. Tension wasn’t even the word. It was like the air before a storm or that beat of silence before a fight or a kiss. My pulse pounded in my ears. My eyes dropped to her lips.
God, her mouth.
I reached up before I could talk myself out of it and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She didn’t move. Didn’t stop me. Her skin was warm. Her breath hitched, barely, but I felt it.
We were close enough to count freckles. Close enough that one wrong move would mean no more pretending.
I wanted her. Right then. Right there. No brunch. No pack. No rules.
Then we heard the scream. A high-pitched, theatrical wail followed by a splash loud enough to scare the koi into next week.
We both whipped around to see Seraphina in the koi pond, arms flailing, hair soaked. Her dress clung to her like she’d planned this exact moment from her Pinterest board labeled
Damsel Chic.
“Oh no
!” she cried, already flipping her hair for maximum wet-drama. “I slipped!”
What a tragically timed accident.
I groaned.
There wasn’t another soul in sight except for Maggie, and if Seraphina drowned in Lucien’s koi pond, I’d be the one stuck filling out paperwork and fielding questions about aquatic death rituals.
So I sighed, pulled my shirt over my head, and crouched near the edge.
“Grab my hand,” I muttered.
She clung to my hand like I was a hero from a romance novel. Her fingers lingered. Her chest heaved in exaggerated gasps even though she’d barely gone under.
“Could you… could you hand me your shirt?” she asked. “I need to dry off.”
I handed it over, already regretting every decision that had led me to this precise moment. She dabbed at her face, which, might I add, was suspiciously dry.
And then I looked up. Maggie was a few steps back, hands over her mouth, body shaking with laughter she was desperately trying to smother. Her eyes sparkled. Her whole face was lit up with delight.
I gave her a look that said don’t you dare.
Too late.
She burst out laughing. Snort-laughing. Doubling over like she couldn’t breathe as I stood there, shirtless and covered in koi water and humiliated chivalry.
“This brunch is cursed,” I muttered.
Maggie just laughed harder.
And God help me, I wanted her even more.
The guest bathroom on this floor had eight gray floor tiles across and twelve down. I knew that because I’d been counting them for ten minutes. Over and over. Maybe if I memorized the layout of the grout lines, I could convince my nervous system to shut up.
I paced back and forth, headphones in, volume on loud. I kept the filtered wind and rain sounds saved on my playlist for emergencies. This counted.
I was officially absolutely overstimulated.
Too many people. Too much movement. Every brush of fabric or handshake had layered static into my skin until I wanted to claw it all off. The collar on the shirt I’d borrowed from Lucien after the fiasco with Seraphina was too tight and felt like a straitjacket. My jaw ached from clenching, the throb radiating through my molars.
I’d done everything right-made eye contact, smiled at the right moments, shook hands, told the jokes, hit the lines. Played the part down to the last detail. Hell, I even saved Seraphina from the koi pond, for fuck’s sake.
Years of practice had made me damn near surgical in my ability to mask and maneuver through social interaction. I never let my discomfort bleed out far enough to make anyone else uneasy. I’d learned to swallow it, to store the fallout for when I could deal with it alone.
But sometimes, the mask slipped. It didn’t happen often, but enough to remind me I was still human under all the polish.
Tonight, I was just glad I’d gotten out before the cracks showed. Before I made a scene.
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