I head toward my room. The entry hall passes in a blur, but my head is up and my shoulders square. I reach the staircase. Up a flight. Down the corridor to my room. The easy, relaxed smile remains on my face until the door clicks closed behind me.
My hand stays on the knob for one second.
And then, the strength leaves my body. I collapse to the floor, my back against the door, gasping for breath. My skin feels dirty, the human scents clinging to me. My wolf is clawing at my insides, disgusted, confused, and hurt.
She doesn’t understand. But then, how can she? She’s a creature of instinct. She understands humiliation, though. She understands that our mate prefers another female over us. She understands that our mate finds us lacking.
Even as my human side vehemently disagrees, my beast blames herself. It’s our fault. We are lacking.
“It’s not me.” I strain under the pressure in my head as I crawl to the bathroom. “It’s not us. Stop it!”
I don’t bother taking my clothes off. I turn on the hot water and sit on the tiled shower floor, my knees pulled to my chest. The scalding water pours over me. It burns my skin, but I like the pain. I can feel the pain.
I rest my forehead on my folded arms. The tears want to come. They are nearly there, but I shove them back with a desperation that I have never experienced before.
No. Not for him. Not for anyone.
I sit under the water and let it run over me, trying to wash away what won’t wash away. The stranger’s cologne comes off my throat. The red lipstick comes off my mouth. The smoke comes out of my hair. The evidence of the night goes down the drain where it belongs.
But the pain stays. The pain is under my skin. The water cannot reach it.
No matter how long I sit there.
Chapter Thirteen
Lucas
Ever since Sienna came to Silvercrest, I have seen her wearing all sorts of clothes, and she has always been neat, put together. Her outfits are always professional. My attraction to her aside, the way she dresses has always been impeccable.
But when she walked toward the estate house last night…I’ve never seen her like that. Hair disheveled, that luscious dark mane no longer tied in a clean knot. And she never wears that shade of red or a skirt so tight that it looks like it’s painted on her skin.
She looked satiated, her eyes half lidded, that lazy smile on her lips. I’ve never heard her hum before.
Even now, as I sit in my office, my wolf snarls.
She let other men see her like that. She let other men touch her.
I could smell them on her. Their scents clung to her waist, to her neck, to her body. The only thing she didn’t smell of was sex. If she had—if she had smelled like that—I would have lost my mind. I very nearly did anyway.
She’s punishing me, I realize dimly. Last night was her way of punishing me. She is basically saying, “If you don’t want me, then I will show you who does.”
My throat vibrates with a roar, and I force it back.
I have opened the window. I have paced. I have left for an hour and come back. None of it has worked. The way she smelled last night is stuck in my mind. Stuck in my throat. Stuck behind my eyes. Her scent, layered with the cheap cologne of human males I have never met. Men I would very much like to remove from the face of this Earth in the next sixty seconds.
I pour a whiskey and hold it in my hand, unable to drink it.
I almost went to the human town last night. At one in the morning, I was at the door of my private suite with a coat half on, already forming the plan in my head. Every bar. Every hotel. I was going to turn that town inside out. I knew she would do something reckless. What if she decided to get even with me? What if I found her in another man’s bed? What if—
Lydia stepped out of the corridor shadows as if she had known I would be there. She put her palm against my chest.
“Lucas. No.”
“Move.”
“You made your choice.” Her voice was soft. Almost mournful. “Let her work through it.”
“Get out of my way, Lydia.”
