Lucas hesitated, but kept coming forward at an even slower pace, murmuring to him. He was telling him over and over to be calm, but Kai felt perfectly calm for the first time all evening. He would do this and it would finally all be over. This terrible half-existence he’d lived his whole life. All the worry and fear would be wiped out in a split second, and he could find peace.

“Get back. Get away,” Kai said, and shook the gun at Lucas, snarling at him. Kai backed away a few steps until he came up against a wall. Lucas kept easing slowly toward him, his hands outstretched as if trying to calm a wild animal, while the others watched in tense silence.

“Drop the weapon, Kai. Surely you know this is futile. You can’t escape. I’m sorry if I scared you, but no one will hurt you here.” Lucas was speaking to him in a soft, conciliatory voice, but Kai didn’t believe it for a second. He only wanted to prevent Kai from shooting any of his family. The thing was, Kai had no intention of hurting anyone—except himself. He would save them the trouble of arranging an “accident” for him by choosing his own method and his own time.

“I have no interest in escape,” Kai said softly. Slowly, never taking his gaze away from Lucas’s, he brought the barrel of the gun to his own temple.

“No! Kai, please!” Lucas sounded almost anguished. Kai shook his head. He didn’t understand what they wanted from him. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and tensed his finger on the trigger.

Before he could exert the slightest pressure, something slammed into him from behind, knocking the gun toward the ceiling so that the discharge blasted from the weapon and careened upward before ricocheting wildly around the room. He’d been so focused on Lucas, that he never noticed Blayde circling around behind him. The force of the impact pushed him forward into Lucas and his big body leaped on him, smacking him down on the floor and covering him. Kai hit the floor hard, the breath whooshing out of him. He could hear the shouts of the other Lycans as they took cover, but all he could focus on was trying to drag air back into his lungs with Lucas’s weight on his chest, pinning him down like one of the insect specimens in the royal museum. His wrist tingled up his arm and all the way to his shoulder.

The crushing weight covering him lifted and Lucas picked him up by the front of his shirt and pulled his face up to his. He gazed down frantically into Kai’s eyes and even shook him so that his head snapped back. He could feel Lucas’s hot breath against his mouth. “Are you hit? Speak to me, damn it.”

“I-I…” He shook his head a little, making a sickening pain shoot through him, and he had to close his eyes.

“Kai? Stay awake. I took you down pretty hard. You might have a concussion. Don’t close your eyes, baby.”

Kai, whose eyelids had been fluttering, opened his eyes all the way. Baby? He wasn’t a baby. No one had ever called him that before. What could it mean? Was this even his alpha?

“Kai, damn you, don’t you fucking close your eyes!”

Okay, there he was. Kai opened his eyes and stared up into Lucas’s, blinking rapidly. Lucas let out a long breath, nodded and stood up, hauling Kai to his feet, but wrapping his arm around his waist to hold him up.

“Is everyone all right?” he asked the others. Kai decided that while he was taking inventory of the damage, he might just close his eyes for a moment and doze a bit.

“We’re all good, Lucas.” Someone answered, sounding far away. “Better watch your boy, though. He’s going out again.”

Lucas dragged Kai around in front of him and shook him again, but very gently this time. He yelled in his face again. “Kai! I said, stop trying to go to sleep, damn it.”

Kai pulled back his fist and punched Lucas on the chin. Lucas saw it coming and tried to duck, so it more or less bounced weakly off to the side, but it must have stung a little, because his mouth fell open in shock. Kai heard Lucas’s family laughing behind him.

“I think you’ve met your match for sure, Lucas,” one of them called out. “He’s a spitfire. You better sleep with one eye open tonight!”

“Spitfire, my ass! Let’s see how fiery he is in a cold shower. ” He strode off determinedly, dragging Kai behind him by his rapidly bruising wrist.

Kai tried to dig in his feet, but it was useless. Lucas just tightened his grip and jerked his arm. On the way out of the room, they passed the chair Lucas had been sitting in, and Kai grabbed at it, but Lucas patiently pried his fingers away from the arm and dodged another blow to the head as his hands came off. This time he threw Kai over his shoulder and stalked out of the room, his family’s raucous laughter following them down the corridor.

Kai tried to raise himself up off Lucas’s shoulder and got a stinging slap on the ass for his trouble. They went into a room that must have been Lucas’s bedroom and then into a small bathroom. Lucas plopped him down on the counter and pointed a finger at him. “Don’t you move!” He kicked the door shut and turned back to the tiled shower, turning on the cold water. Ignoring him, Kai had already slipped off the counter and was at the door, trying his best to make it out of the room before he turned around, but Lucas moved too fast for him. He put his hands around Kai’s waist and dragged him inexorably toward the tub.

“Noo,” Kai said, begging now. “Please.” He was already shivering at the idea of the frigid water splashing down on his flesh and Lucas stopped, staring down at him. Something flickered in his eyes. “Are you going to stay awake?”

“Yes,” Kai said miserably, his eyes shooting darts of fury at his captor.

Lucas regarded him silently for a moment. He drew him into his arms, and Kai looked up in his face in alarm. What now? His hands were moving over his back and his hips. He pulled him even closer to him, tucking Kai’s head under his chin. Taking a ragged breath, he spoke in a rough voice, the words seeming to be torn from him, as if he might have wanted to hold them back.

“Kai, damn it. It’s getting more and more difficult for me not to touch you. I-I want to very much.”

Kai opened his eyes wider in surprise. “You do?” Kai’s voice was muffled with his face pressed into the alpha’s chest, but he must have understood Kai, because he answered softly.

“I do.”

“But I thought you hated me. I thought you wanted me dead.”

Lucas seemed to recoil in horror, pulling him away from his chest and glaring into his face. “Dead? Whatever gave you that idea? I know I’ve been angry, but I would never harm you.”

Kai glanced at him resentfully. “You already did. You hurt my head on that wall, and you-you fought with me.”

Lucas closed his eyes as if he was in pain and ran a hand over his face. “I know. I was angry, and you gave as good as you got out there on that balcony. I have the bruises to prove it. ” Lucas pulled him back and looked down at him, regarding him with a look almost of pride. “Still, I never meant to hurt you. My wolf got carried away and tried to exert his dominance when you tried to run from me. Can you forgive me for hurting you?”

Kai shrugged, still wary, and Lucas cupped his cheek.

“I still don’t understand why you deceived me, but we’ll let that go for the moment. You’re my mate, Kai. I knew it from the moment I saw you. Like I said, I’m having a hard time not touching you right now.”

“You are touching me.” Kai raised his eyes to gaze directly into Lucas’s dark red ones. “I-I suppose I belong to you now.”

“You suppose?” Lucas hissed in a sharp breath, and his eyes flashed. “Make no mistake, Kai, you belong to me, all right.” He leaned toward him and inhaled again, shutting his eyes tightly and making a low, groaning sound in his throat.

“Kai…I won’t force you, no matter how I feel. But do you—do you like men? Is that why you dress as female? Am I reading you right?”

A wave of uneasiness coursed through Kai. He glanced away and then back up at Lucas. “Do men who dress as women on your planet always like other men, then?”

“There aren’t any that I’ve ever heard of. But on other planets, sometimes—I guess. ” He shook his head. “No, not always.” He raised his eyes upward. “Hells, I don’t know, Kai. Tell me why you dressed as a female.”

“I-I can’t,” Kai said, his voice low but firm. He pushed away from Lucas. “I won’t. If I disgust you, then perhaps you can be released from your vows. Your world probably doesn’t recognize my planet’s laws anyway. There’s nothing stopping you from walking away from me.”

Lucas’s lips tightened again. “I never said anything about walking away. Is that what you want? For me to release you from your vows?”

Kai raised his chin. “I am an honorable person, despite what you think of me. I am a royal of Scythia. We honor our vows.”

“Oh, really? Just not the ones where you tell potential suitors that you’re actually a male?”

Kai wrenched himself away from Lucas and stood glaring at him. “There are reasons you’d never understand.”

“Explain it to me then, Kai. I’ll try to keep up.”

Kai glared at him, narrowing his eyes. “No.”

Lucas reached for him again, taking hold of his wrist. Kai responded with a little gasp as Lucas’s big fingers pressed into the bruises there. Holding tightly to him, Lucas yanked back the shower curtain, adjusted the spray to add some warmer water, then picked Kai up in his arms and stepped into the shower with him.

Kai gasped and sputtered as the spray of warm water hit him squarely in the face. Not even removing his clothes, Lucas pushed Kai back against the back wall. He began to strip the ruined robe from him and in seconds he had him naked, the robes lying in the bottom of the tub, the bright blue color running in rivulets down the drain. Lucas pressed his body against Kai’s.

“I want you so much, damn you. Tell me you don’t want this. ” Lucas growled and lowered his lips to Kai’s. One hand clutched the back of his neck while the other slid between their bodies. Lucas’s hand closed around his most private part, the part he never touched except while bathing and never allowed anyone else to touch because it was so sensitive. He hissed in a sharp breath as Lucas’s hand started to move up and down the shaft of the flesh between his legs, stroking him rapidly. The feelings that washed over him made his legs go out from under him. Lucas’s arm went around him to hold him up, and Kai raised his face to his.