“You swore, Teddy,” she pressed, staring into his worried face. Concern made him look older, wiser, so very different from the boy she once idolized. “You swore you wouldn’t tell him. Remember?”
He shook his head. “That was twenty years ago. You really want me to keep that promise, knowing that he’s unintentionally torturing younow?”
“Yes, I do. Teddy, I amdoingthis,” she insisted.
He shook his head again, slower this time. She couldn’t tell if it was sorrow, disappointment, or frustration that twisted his handsome face. Perhaps it was a mix of all three.
Bracing his hands on his hips, he sighed. “Fine. If it’s what you really want, I’ll look at the list you put together, and I won’t tell him, even though I think it’s a terrible fucking idea. We’ll help you find someone who will…” His lips pressed into a hard, brief scowl before he finished, “…who will treat you right.”
She mirrored his stance as well as his scowl. “I don’t need you to do that. I need you to give me your blessing. I can handle the rest.”
Theodore leveled her with a hard look that was allsovereign.“Not a chance. You want to do this? Then you do it with the family. That’s my condition.” He waved a dismissive hand, showing off long blue fingers tipped with razor sharp claws. Ever since his binding and shocking marriage, Theodore had eschewed the elvish practice of wearing gloves altogether. Unlike her, he no longer had anything to hide.
“I’m not sending you off with some stranger who will mistreat you,” he continued, utterly immovable. “You’ve lost your mind if you think any of us will let you join a family that won’t care for you, Cammie.”
Camille closed her eyes. Massaging her forehead, she replied, “Fine. Whatever. As long as it gets done, I don’t care.”
Hearing Theodore’s phone buzzing on the desk and content that she got what she came for, Camille took that as her cue to leave. Another tactical retreat.
She turned on her heel and strode back to the door, saying, “I have a virtual meeting with the Luz family tonight and one with Arabella Noor tomorrow. I’ll send you the details.”
“The list, Cammie. Send me thewholelist.”
She shot him an exasperated look over her shoulder. Theodore was back behind his strange, expanded desk already, his phone in his hand. He arched his brows expectantly.
“I’ll send you the damn list,” she muttered, pulling open the door.
“And Cammie…”
She was already stepping into the hall, but she sighed and turned back around to demand,“What,Teddy?”
“I expect you to have lunch with my wife tomorrow. Noon, at The Rotunda. Understood?”
Anxiety churned in her stomach, but she forced herself to nod. She would do whatever it took to see this done. “Fine,” she answered, turning back around, “it’s a date.”
ChapterFive
Viktor shiftedin his leather-padded chair and tried to ignore the ever-present discomfort that was his inner animal clawing at his insides. The damn thing wanted out, and it didn’t give a damn that he was in the middle of the most important negotiation of his life.
Tension bunched the muscles of his neck and shoulders. His mind felt raw, bruised from the constant beating of his coyote battering his will. Only sheer stubbornness kept him in his chair, in his human skin, and away from the woman who consumed his every waking thought.
He wouldn’t disrespect the Alliance by not paying attention, though. He was perfectly capable of listening to Alpha Andreas’s concerns and worrying about his mate at the same time.
“I just don’t see what you would bring to the alliance, Alpha Hamilton, that we could not get elsewhere and at a cheaper cost.”
Viktor dropped his hand from where it had been idly tracing the corner of his jaw. It was an unconscious gesture he found himself doing more often in the days since the Summit.
Cammie used to touch me there,his animal reminded him, imaginary claws curling with unbridled rage.Cammie liked to trace her fingers over my jaw when she felt bold, when she let me coax her. Why isn’t she here? Why can’t I touch her? What is she doing? Does she need me? Why does she not want to see me?
Viktor’s mind wasn’t the only thing that felt bruised. The heart of the animal was aching — from separation, from her rejection. It didn’t understand why she would continue to keep him out, just as it didn’t understand the man’s tactic of painfully slow courtship. Ithurt.
Forcefully pushing old, painful memories aside, he calmly replied, “And what cost would that be, Alpha Andreas? Certainly not the territory on offer, seeing as it is currently being criminally underutilized.”
He nodded toward the razor thin feed screen embedded in the center of the wide table. It showed a satellite image of the territory in question: a verdant landscape of lakes and greenery about an hour outside of Minneapolis. “Prairie hasn’t had a pack since before the war. The town is dying. My pack would immediately infuse money into the area, as well as make much-needed infrastructure improvements.”
The older alpha, a lean but powerful cougar shifter, looked down his long nose at Viktor. “I should think the issue is obvious.”
“Oh?”
