She laces our fingers together and lingers like unwanted company, her smile as sharp as her eyes. “Where’s my kiss goodnight?”
My father’s been putting ideas in her head about us; of that, I’m certain.
“Not here.” I wrench my hand free. “Try next door.”
She stops the door from closing with her foot then reaches to run her hand down my chest. “When you’re feeling more...generous,” she breathes, fluttering her lashes and pushing her tits out, “you know where to find me.” Blowing me a kiss, she turns on her heel and sashays away, throwing flirtatious smiles at every male shifter who happens to be in the hall. In fact, I’d put gold on them being here just for her—a few of them turn on their heels and follow like whipped dogs.
How fucking repulsive.
Neel covers up a laugh. “She sure does rile you up. Maybe that’s why your father chose her—to annoy the fuck out of you.”
“He hasn’t chosen anyone for my mate yet,” I grumble, knowing all too well that when he does, my father will undoubtedly choose a shifter like Veronica so that he can have at least one of us under his thumb. She likes to act tough, but Veronica Hale always bows to authority.
That’s likely why she’s so eager to sleep with me—her own alpha probably gave her that exact order before she came toHeartsflame. I wonder how he phrased it;sleep with the Dire heirleaves too much open for interpretation, butfuck the Dire heir’s brains outwouldn’t work, either. The truth lies somewhere in the boring middle, something likemate with the strongest shifter of your class, which Veronica has interpreted as annoying the fuck out of me until I shove my cock inside her pussy out of spite.
That would shut the bitch up.
“But he will.” Neel’s eyes stay glued to her ass until she slips into another room—hopefully her own. “And I bet it’ll be her. She’s already claiming you like a bitch in heat. Which, by the way, is right around the corner.”
I rub my tired eyes. “Don’t remind me.”
Heat season is difficult enough when you grow up as the most desirable bachelor in the pack, but here? At an academy that’s main purpose is finding a mate?
I’m fucking screwed—which, ironically, is the fucking point.
We leave the dorms and ascend the stairs to the Heartspire, where the headmaster is rumored to spend his days tending to the realm’s only surviving Dragonfire. Whether or not it’s his flame or another’s has yet to be revealed, but after centuries guarding the thing, I doubt he’s about to divulge its secrets.
“I heard that a witch tried to steal the Heartsflame once.” Neel stares at the crackling violet fire pit as we pass to one of the dozen balconies on this floor. “She turned to ash the instant she touched it.”
Lighting our smoke, I take a hit before passing it to Cornelius. “Then she got off easy. Anyone that greedy for power is bound to wind up cursed.”
“Like our good friend Veronica?”
I shake my head. “She’s just following orders.”
Neel leans back on the railing, his umber skin the only patch of warmth against the fading sun. Days are too short in thewinter; I’m ready for spring to breathe life back into the earth. “Do you really think her alpha would order her to mate with you?”
“I doubt the order was that specific.” I glance at the conference room door as voices muffle behind it. The academy’s latest council meeting should be ending soon. “She probably needs to mate with someone strong enough not to agitate her alpha’s order, which is why Veronica singled me out. But in theory, anyone with a powerful enough bloodline would meet her alpha’s requirements and get her to relax.”
On second thought, maybe Veronica needed the smoke break more than me.
“I’m glad Alpha Dire never asks anything of me,” Neel sighs, rolling his neck and looking every bit of the pompous asshole that I know him to be. He pinches the roll between his lips and lets the smoke curl in the air. “I’d be hard-pressed to ignore an order even if it kills me.”
Nothing is ever that simple when it comes to alpha orders, and Neel knows it. Still, I let the thought linger. When I was young, I had to obey every whim my father had, but these days, they’re more of a nuisance than anything with true bite. My mother on the other hand—gods bless her—is hard-wired to obey no matter what my father demands.
Maybethat’swhy Sienna is so against taking a mate.
She knows that doing so will strip her of her basest freedom: the ability to say no.
Thinking about Sienna makes me yearn for her presence in a way that’s becoming alarmingly difficult to suppress. I snatch the roll from Neel and inhale as much as possible, determined to dull the roar of my desire into something more manageable. I burn through the entire thing and have Neel lighting another within minutes.
“You really need to get laid,” he muses, the corners of his lips quirking into a smirk. “Doesn’t have to be Veronica, either, much as she’d be thrilled for it. Any number of wolves would be happy to receive such a worthy cock—men included.”
I scoff. “Are you offering to be my cocksleeve, Neel?”
He bites his lower lip. “Would you take me up on it?”
I consider what he’s offering. No-strings-attached sex sounds divine, but every woman I touch hasmatingon their mind. At no fault of their own, I’m sure; mating bonds are woven into our souls, the desire for one increasing with each passing year. Mating with another man, however, is less common among shifters on account of how tricky it is to get a mating bond to stick. Without the potential for offspring, bonds tend to reject.
