I missed a step. He caught me.
“You’re...” I stared up at him. “A lycan king?”
His storm gray eyes held mine. “Yes.”
My mouth opened and closed. The music swelled around us and the lights spun as a five-hundred-year-old supernatural monarch was leading me through a waltz in a small-town square. I processed the fact that the grumpiest man I’d ever met was actual royalty.
“Well.” I found my voice. “I guess that explains a lot. Why you’re so bossy.”
His brow furrowed. “I’m not bossy.”
“Sure you aren’t, Your Majesty.”
The frown deepened, but beneath it, the faintest crack of amusement surfaced. His hand tightened on my waist. The music shifted tempo, slower now, and the space between us shrank until I could feel the warmth of his chest through my dress.
“I’m glad you returned to us,” he said quietly. Stripped of the formality, the control, the walls.
Just Lucian.
My throat tightened. “I’m glad too.”
He held my gaze for one more measure. Then the song changed, bright and fast, and he spun me outward with a motion thatsent the skirt of my dress flying and deposited me directly into Percy’s waiting arms.
“Hello, beautiful.”
I laughed. “Hello, handsome.”
He pulled me into an easy rhythm, nothing as polished as Lucian’s court-trained technique but twice as fun. His grin was infectious, his hand warm against the small of my back.
“Having fun?”
“Yes, actually.” I nodded, then lowered my voice. “Although I do feel daggers in my back.”
I turned my head. Cateline stood across the dance floor, a drink in her hand and murder in her eyes. She watched Percy’s arm around my waist with an expression that could curdle milk.
Percy followed my gaze. “Ah.”
“She’s staring.”
“She does that.”
I leaned into him. Placed my head against his chest, feeling his heartbeat through his shirt. Then, very deliberately, I slid my hand up his arm, tracing the line of his bicep through the fabric, and let my palm rest there while I stared directly at Cateline.
Her face flushed crimson and her grip tightened on her glass until the plastic cracked, spilling punch over her fingers. She wiped her hand on her dress, shot me a look that could melt steel, and stomped away defeated for the nth time.
I grinned against Percy’s chest.
“You’re evil,” he murmured into my hair.
“I know.”
His laughter vibrated through his ribs and into mine. He spun me out again, one hand keeping hold, and when the momentum brought me back, it wasn’t toward him.
Solomon caught me.
His hand found my waist, steadying me, and the transition from Percy’s warmth to Solomon’s was instant and complete. Different temperature, same safety.
My heart fluttered.
