Page 25 of Crimson Heart

12

Byron tamped down his impatience. The day had dragged on as if he were a six-year-old waiting for Santa Claus or a kid in the back seat of a car, asking for the umpteenth time: Are we there yet?

Dinner had been torture. All of Jude’s men had been fussing over Charlotte, and it was evident that she was well-liked by them. Everybody had hugged her—far too tightly for his liking— and she’d joked with them as if she’d known them all her life. And maybe she had. Why else would she behave in such a familiar way with them, allowing them to touch her? By the looks of it, all of Jude’s men were interested in what she had to say. They listened to her funny stories, recalling embarrassing incidents she’d witnessed growing up among the members of the Werewolf Alliance in Montana. Why she wasn’t mated at her age when so many men were clearly interested in her was anybody’s guess.

Why the hell had she even slept with him when it was glaringly obvious that none of the men assembled tonight—except for Jude and Austin, and possibly her cousin Mason—would have said no to such an offer? That thought only emphasized his belief that she had an ulterior motive to sleep with him. The more he watched her interact with the men from the Werewolf Alliance, the more he was convinced that everything she’d told him the previous night was made up.

He could barely eat anything and just pushed the food around on his plate, while he downed more wine than he should. Luckily, as a werewolf, he had a high threshold not just for pain, but also for alcohol. He was still stone-cold sober by the time the dinner finally ended. As everybody got up to leave, he grabbed a few plates to look like he was helping with the cleanup so he could walk by Charlotte’s chair. While pretending to reach for her dirty plate, he managed to whisper into her ear without anybody noticing.

“Midnight, in the basement.”

“Oh, thanks,” she said cheerfully and handed him her plate, playing along.

He took a few more plates and headed toward the door.

Priscilla stopped him. “Byron, you don’t need to do that. Heath and I will clean up.”

“I don’t mind,” he said, and it was actually the truth, because if he kept busy, the time until midnight wouldn’t feel as long. “I can help.”

Without waiting for her reply, he carried the dishes into the kitchen, where he set them down, then took a large serving tray and headed back into the dining room. When Flora looked at him as if he’d lost his marbles, he held his head high and didn’t give her a chance to comment. It didn’t matter what Flora was thinking about his willingness to help with household chores.

He was glad when everyone moved to the living room for after-dinner drinks, leaving him, Priscilla, and her brother Heath to clean up. It gave him a convenient excuse not to have to make small talk with the rest of the family and the Werewolf Alliance members. It was safer this way, because he wasn’t sure how long he could hide the fact that he knew Charlotte intimately. What if he looked at her for too long and too intensely, drawing suspicion onto him? What if he couldn’t hide that, despite the fact that she was Jude’s sister and their meeting hadn’t been a coincidence, he was still drawn to her like a moth to the light? He couldn’t risk anybody in the house finding out about him and Charlotte.

Fifteen minutes before midnight, Byron descended to the basement dressed in jogging pants and a T-shirt. If anybody saw him, he could pretend that he was on his way to go running in his wolf form. The house was quiet now. He waited in the room with the cage with thick iron rods, where rogue werewolves could be chained up if they presented a danger to the pack.

He didn’t have to wait long. The sound of faint footfalls became louder, and when they reached the basement corridor, he smelled her. Her delicious scent invaded his nostrils and caused an erection that he didn’t need right now. He wasn’t here to have sex with Charlotte but to find out why she’d really slept with him the previous night.

When Charlotte entered the room, he didn’t say anything and simply looked at her. She wore a bathrobe that was several sizes too big for her. It probably belonged to Austin. She looked vulnerable in it, but he wouldn’t let that influence him. She had probably dressed like this for a reason. But this time, he was prepared. It didn’t matter that her dark hair framed her face, emphasizing her high cheekbones, her green eyes, and her red lips. Her graceful neck looked as if it were made of alabaster. In the silence between them, he could hear her heartbeat drumming against her chest, while every breath sent more of her intoxicating scent to wrap around him and ensnare him like a well-set trap. A honey trap.

Trying to ignore the effect Charlotte had on him, he made the first move.

“Last night, did you know who I was?”

“Did you?” she shot back.

“I’m not the one who gave a wrong name… Charlie.”

“What are you accusing me of?” she spat, narrowing her eyes.

“You know exactly what I’m saying.”

“Please, do explain yourself,” she said with a voice dripping with sarcasm.

“You seduced me because Jude asked you to.” So they could coerce him into doing God-knows-what.

“Jude? You really think that my brother would send me to sleep with you? If he knew that I had sex with you, he would have already sent me back home and put me under house arrest until my mating.” She huffed indignantly. “You have a much better motive to seduce me.”

“Oh, yeah? May I remind you that you were the one to proposition me after I helped you with those guys?”

“For all I know, you sent them to cause trouble so you could show up and play the knight in shining armor!”

Her accusation was infuriating.

“How would I even have known that you were in town? You said yourself that not even Jude knew about you coming for a visit.”

She grunted rather unladylike and pressed her lips together in clear annoyance.

“See? Your theory doesn’t pan out. Whereas mine is way more likely. So what was the Werewolf Alliance promising you for putting me in a compromising position?”