“Fuck!” Greyson roars. “You fucking—”
“Luci,” Scarlett coos. “Come here, love. Leave Grey alone.”
She gently plucks Lucifer off Greyson, who casts the cat a baleful glare. “Keep coming for me, and I’ll euthanize you.”
“Keep threatening him with that, and I’ll poison you again,” Scarlett says brightly. She turns towards the bedroom. “Have fun, boys.”
Greyson watches her go with a clenched jaw. When the bedroom door clicks shut behind her, he turns to me. “I fucking hate that cat.”
“But you love Scarlett enough to tolerate him.”
He only grunts in response, waving me in. “Are you here to take back your dog? I’m sick of Scarlett’s attention going to animals instead of me.”
He is one possessive fuck. “Yeah, I’ve got him. Can we talk in your office?”
“Sure.” He leads me there, shuts the door behind us, and motions me to the couch. We take seats on opposite ends of it. “What’s going on?” he prompts.
Everything comes tumbling from my mouth at once. Ember’s deal with Dagon, Toby’s designs on Alina, Cain’s threats to Ember… the words burst out of me. I’m used to Greyson being the one to come to me for advice, but in this instance, the roles have reversed. I have absolutely no idea how to move forward, and I need an unbiased opinion.
When I’m done speaking, Greyson clicks his tongue. “Alright. This is definitely a clusterfuck. I’ll talk to Cain and see if we can veto Toby, but he’ll probably say no. He wants the Claiming to become a part of regular life here, and denying men their Chosens isn’t a good way to go about that, especially when they have prior history—which gives them a better chance of success. So, you need to figure out a way to make Ember okay with the probability that Toby’s going to bring Alina here.”
“How?” I demand. “Her worst nightmare is Dagon hurting her. Having Toby kidnap and hurt her instead won’t be any better, and she’ll have toseeit—”
“I don’t think Toby’s going to hurt her. Not really, and not in any way that doesn’t involve a routine punishment for indiscretionsor disobedience. Scarlett settled here despite everything I did to her; Ember will settle here; Alina will probably settle here. Toby came to me about his Chosen a couple of months ago, and the way he spoke about her…” he trails off. “He’s not going to harm her. He’s just going to…”
“Claim her,” I say flatly. “I don’t think that’ll improve anything in Ember’s eyes.”
“She’ll have to learn to live with it.”
“She’ll kill all of us before doing that.”
Greyson arches an eyebrow. “If you can’t contain her, ifwecan’t contain her, then we deserve to die.”
Greg starts licking my hand, sensing my distress and offering moral support. I’ve missed my furry dude. I need to take him on a nice, long walk to make up for my abandonment.
“We’ve gotta try to get Cain to give us veto power—”
“We can try,” Greyson cuts in, “but you know how he responds to questions on his authority. Not very well.”
That’s the understatement of the century.
“Alright,” I hiss. “I’m not going to say anything to Ember yet. Please see what you can do about getting Cain to fuck off.”
“I’ll do my best,” Greyson agrees, but the look he gives me saysit won’t be good enough.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ember
Max walks into the bedroom as I’m getting dressed, irritation still buzzing beneath my skin. Irritation compelled me to see if I could give myself an orgasm, and the result of failure is infuriating. I tried for the better part of an hour, attempting to mimic the way his fingers glided over my clit, and the result was a buildup but no crest. I ended up denyingmyself.
“Ember,” Max says with a charming grin. “You took quite a long shower.”
“How would you know?”
“I have my ways.” He tips his chin up. “Anything in particular that kept you under the spray for nearly an hour?”
How the fuck does he know that?Wait… cameras. Does he have this place bugged? I’d be amazed if he didn’t, and I was dumb not to consider it beforehand.
