My face heats. “We’ll discuss this later.”
“Nothing to discuss,” Deacon says in a tone that’s only a little smug. It sours when he glances at Asher. “Turns out they’re really difficult to get rid of.”
Some expression—something like triumph—crosses Asher’s face. Vasile looks faintly amused, indulgent.
I let them move on and greet the rest of the wolves. Mostly, they’re friendly, or curious, though when Kieran, the wolves’ newest alpha, steps up before me, his grin is a little crooked.
“Crai,” he says, sticking out a hand.
“Alpha.” I shake it.
“I’ve not been in this room for a while.”
“Do you like the view more from this height?”
Kieran’s eyes flare wide. Behind him, his second, Sam, stifles a bark of a laugh.
“Njáll,” Lucien mutters, but he’s hiding his own smile. It wasn’t so long ago he was one of our chieftains, but the moment the clan brought Kieran in for staking unauthorised turns, a spark lit between the two of them that eventually led to Lucien leaving us and helping his mate to found their new pack. I know Elle misses him; the two are close friends.
Sometimes I miss him, too.
“Apologies.”
“Don’t apologise,” Sam says, elbowing Kieran in the side. He shakes my hand, too, even though none of the seconds have so far. “You’re gonna need some of that attitude to deal with him.”
“Fucking rude,” Kieran mutters, but he’s smiling, too.
“C’mon,” Sam says. He tugs on Kieran’s arm. “Elle’s over there.”
Kieran’s hand brushes Lucien’s before he moves away. Lucien glances around the room. Kieran being the newest alpha means that I’ve greeted all the wolves now, and the party is getting underway.
“How are you finding things?”
“I thought it might be like being a chieftain,” I say, and my throat tightens. “It isn’t.”
“It is not,” Lucien agrees. I look at him again. He is not in the same position as me, but he has moved into one of more responsibility in its own way, I think. “You will make it your own. In time.”
I fight the urge to shake my head. It’s not that I don’t believe him. It is simply difficult to imagine. We had no clan beforeVasile, Deacon, and Moreau brought us together. Vasile has been our only crai; even the wolves had another alpha before they moved onto Deacon, and the hunters held elections every couple of decades.
Change is… difficult for vampires. We are not creatures of it, not in the way we once were.
Lucien smiles faintly. “Did you ever imagine you would be here?”
I look out across the room. People are talking, mingling, and not remaining in their segregated groups as part of me has secretly worried about all week. “No,” I whisper.
When I look back at Lucien, he is not looking at me. His gaze is, as ever, drawn to his mate. Kieran smiles at something Sam says, attention split between him and Elle, though I have no doubt he knows exactly what Lucien is doing.
“Did you?” I ask Lucien.
He doesn’t ask me to clarify the question. “Of course not,” he says. “And we have gone through much to get here… But I am glad we made it. All of us.”
He reaches out and grasps my forearm, squeezing gently. We were not… not friends, before, and of an equal footing in the clan, but something tells me we may have an even better understanding of each other now.
I open my mouth to offer to get Lucien something to drink, but before I can speak, the doors swing open again.
The man who enters commands the attention of the room, though I am certain he does not mean to. In appearance, he is young, fresh-faced, with a mop of dark copper curls that bounce as he strides purposefully towards me.
His boots strike the marble beneath his feet with far more force than I would expect for someone of his stature—he is tall but willowy, skin paler than perhaps any other vampire I have seen before.
