“How is Kellen?” Willow asked, like she and Kel had been old besties. “Enjoying her life in Whateveristan?”

“Kyrgyzstan,” I corrected, having practiced the name of the country about a billion times before we went public with the story.

“She’s very happy.” Lucas’s expression was stony. He was never going to forgive me for the part I’d played in letting Kellen go back, especially after everything I’d done to retrieve her.

He could go screw himself because I didn’t care what he thought.

“Very, very happy,” I agreed.

“How wonderful. Although I’m sure the gossip columns will miss her.” Willow shared her practiced laugh with us again, but this time no one else laughed with her. “And of course you’ll miss her too.”

“Excuse me.” Lucas pushed his chair back and rose from the table.

He’d barely left the room before I scraped my own seat backwards and followed him with a, “Be right back.”

Lucas was waiting in the hallway near the washrooms like he’d been expecting me to follow him.

“Why are you doing this?” he demanded.

“Your girlfriend was the one who invited us. I’m just being polite.”

He glowered at me, his expression clearly saying, Let’s not fucking kid ourselves here. “So you thought what, exactly? The four of us would sit around while you hold hands with your walking corpse, and we’d have a lovely discussion about Kellen? You thought that would be a great goddamn idea?”

“Your girlfriend invited us,” I reminded him.

“She’s not my fucking girlfriend,” he snapped. “I have a wife, and my wife is standing right in front of me.” When he grabbed my shoulders roughly, I struggled to pull back, but his grip was firm. Without resorting to violence I couldn’t wrest myself free, and I didn’t want to make a scene.

Not yet anyway.

“We’ve had this discussion before, and I’m not sure I feel like having it again. I am not your wife.” Points for me for not reminding him whose fault that was.

“You are, and it’s about time for you to stop ignoring your duty and come back to the pack.”

I wriggled, making it clear I had no desire to be in his arms, but still he held me. “Lucas. Let me go.”

“Not until you’re willing to listen to reason.”

“Reason? You’ve got to be kidding me. You’re the one who isn’t getting this. You and I aren’t mates anymore. My wolf wants nothing to do with you. If you’d take two seconds to actually feel for her, you’d realize that.”

“What are you talking about? Of course we’re still mated. We completed the ceremony.”

“But that was before. Before the fairy king made me human. When he gave me back my monsters, something changed. It’s like a blank slate. I don’t know how it works, or why, but my wolf doesn’t respond to yours anymore.”

He dropped his arms but loomed closer, sniffing at me the way an animal might. What he was trying to glean from scent alone I wasn’t sure, but maybe his wolf was more finely attuned to that sort of thing.

“What about Desmond?” he asked.

“I can taste him again. The lime. And she wakes up for him,” I told him, hoping to get rid of him. He looked so crushed by that tidbit I almost wanted to touch him, to hold him and comfort him. But I fought against the urge, stepping as far away from him as the narrow hallway would allow. “I’m sorry, Lucas.”

“You’re lying.”

“Lying? About being sorry?”

“No, about all of this. It’s bullshit. A soul-bond can’t be broken. It’s a lifetime commitment. It’s not logical or decisive. It can’t choose to stop working. It’s magic for God’s sake.”

“And magic can’t be understood as easily as science,” I reminded him. “Magic made me human, and then undid it. So who are we to say the bond can’t change? All I know is my wolf isn’t drawn to you anymore.”

“Kiss me,” he said.

“What?”

“Kiss me.”

“No.”

“Secret, I need this.” He stepped closer again, his big body taking up more space than I recalled. His normally blue eyes had gone yellow, taking on a feral quality. His blond hair was longer than it had been the last night I saw him. Right after I’d had him kill five werewolves for me.

He looked wilder now, like he was coming unstrung.

“I don’t care what you need.” I moved to leave the hall and return to our table, but his arm shot out, blocking my passage.

“Just kiss me so I know.”

“Move your arm.”

“Not until you say yes.”

“And what is it you think a kiss will tell you, huh? Do you think you’ll kiss me and it’ll be like I’m a princess in a Disney movie? Somehow one smooch is going to be all it takes for me to love you again? Get a clue, Lucas. I’m never going to love you again. Not ever. And no kiss, no matter how good, is going to make me—”

His lips crushed against my mouth as he held my jaw still, stealing the kiss I hadn’t wanted to give. He tasted like desperation and longing, and when his tongue caressed the seam of my lips, instinct commanded me to open for him. Sexual compatibility hadn’t been a problem for us. I’d wanted his body since the first night we met.

But being good in bed didn’t mean we should be together.

The problem was, as he kissed me my wolf responded. She stirred. At first the response was bristling and angry, like she wanted to claw through the lining of my stomach so she could attack him.

Rip out his throat, she commanded. He betrayed us.

He deepened the kiss, leaning the weight of his body into me, and I tasted it. The cinnamon. It was buried deep, so, so deep, and it came to me like a memory of a dream, dull at first but then roaring up to the surface.

And the moment it hit my tongue, my wolf went still with a quiet Oh. She had been leashed just like that. Because the man in front of me was her king, and instead of fighting his authority, she was now willing to bow before it.

My fangs grew longer from the combined panic over being trapped by a werewolf and the unfortunate desire kissing him had created. It had been a long time since I’d let myself be properly kissed, and he was a master with his tongue.

I bit his lip.

He swore and stumbled backwards, holding a hand to his now-bloody mouth. “What the fuck, Secret?”

“I said no, and when a lady says no, you better fucking respect that.” In case biting him hadn’t gotten my point to sink in, I slapped him hard across the face.

“You felt it. Tasted it. Don’t pretend you didn’t.”

I had. I’d tasted the cinnamon. And now looking at him, it still filled my mouth with its familiar spiciness. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter. I felt your wolf, and I made her obey me. You’re still my mate. Still my wife.”

“Don’t you ever say that word to me again, do you hear me? Not ever. You had your chance to make me your wife, and you threw it away. Don’t pretend you want to be my husband now. Fuck you.”

Without his arm to block me, I turned on my heel and walked back towards the restaurant, fighting back the tears threatening to fall. I wouldn’t cry, not because of Lucas Rain. He’d gotten the best of me too many times.

But my wolf didn’t care about my emotions. She only knew what she’d felt. And to her, he felt like her mate.

Dumb bitch.

Chapter Nineteen

I woke at nightfall wrapped in Holden’s arms.

After we’d left the restaurant with a rushed excuse, I’d gone back to the hotel room with him and dragged him into our bedroom. At first he’d assumed I was in the mood for some rough-and-tumble sex inspired by dinner with an ex-lover. But when I’d burst into tears, all notions of naughty business had vanished.

He’d held me until sunrise, when daylight forced me into a blessed and much-needed sleep.

With a new night upon us, I hoped to be able to put my encounter with Lucas out of my mind.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Holden whispered.

I couldn’t pretend to still be sleeping since he’d obviously sensed me rise.

“No.”

“Did he do something?”

I twined my fingers with Holden’s and snuggled deeper into his embrace, needing a false sense of security more now than I had in a long time. “Doesn’t he always?”

“Need me to beat him up for you?”

I tried to laugh but it came out as a half-sob, and I struggled against the urge to start crying again. I’d already ruined the hotel linens with my blood-tinted tears; it wasn’t like I was going to make it any worse.

But I hated the idea of crying about him two nights in a row, not when I’d managed to be unfeeling about him for so long.

“I need to work. I have to figure out what Sutherland was looking for. Really looking for.”

“Are you sure you don’t need some pick-me-up sex? I’d be more than happy to provide. I’m generous like that.” He kissed the back of my neck, his lips tickling the fine hairs growing there.

“As fun as that sounds, I need to focus on something other than sex. Or love. Or relationships. I need something gritty and unpleasant.”

“I don’t know what love is like for you, but it doesn’t get much more gritty and unpleasant.” He gave me a firm squeeze, and his sharp inhalation told me he was smelling my hair. It was a rare occasion for him to use his lungs, but I’d caught him taking in my scent a few times in the past. It was sort of sweet, in a weird way.

“We have to get up,” I told him.

“No we don’t.”

“Maxime,” I said, not quite shouting since it wasn’t necessary to raise my voice. “Tell Holden we have to get out of bed.”

The young man poked his head in the door, then seeing our twined limbs and rumpled sheets, he politely averted his gaze. “Holden, Tribunal Leader Secret would—”