Page 509
“He would be willing to settle any feuds with you.”
He looked up with distrust.
“If you take Tania as your wife.”
He stopped twisting the ring.
“That’s out of the question.”
Any remaining composure left his body, which now stiffened.
“Brother,” the Alpha began with a sigh before lowering his voice. “If he finds out that she has anchored herself to you, there will be consequences for both of you that I don't even want to imagine. This way, you can save both of you from something worse.” He walked around the desk but stopped before lowering his voice further. His gaze was intense. “I know she's important to you.”
The director's jaw was now working overtime.
“You seem to be forgetting that I haven't anchored myself to her.”
“You will.”
No. Definitely not. If it hadn't worked back then, why should it work now? And anyway... It wasn't possible.
“Just try agai...”
“Nickolas.” He raised his hand. “Stop.”
The Alpha pressed his lips together.
“Do you realize how hard you're trying to please this false bastard?” The director stepped toward his brother. “You're selling me out, selling your own daughter...”
“That's enough!” the Alpha hissed, his eyes beginning to glow. “Watch your tone!”
“Oh, come on...” The director snorted morosely, laughed with an overwhelmed hint of madness in his chest, threw his arms in the air, turned away, then turned back to him. “There's no one here you need to act for.”
The Architect
Kerry Muzzey, Andrew Skeet,
The Chamber Orchestra Of London
“Alarik!” the Alpha exclaimed, this time more indignantly, veins of transformation appearing on his temples and dancing angrily across his neck. “Enough! You will marry Tania!”
The director felt his own transformation beginning as he stepped toward his brother and challenged him.
“I will not!”
He didn't even give him a chance to speak, turning and storming out of the office, down the long hallway, toward the front entrance, determined to retreat to the only place in this town where he could sort out his thoughts.
He couldn't marry the woman he had already turned down once in order to eliminate any distractions from his mission.
His steps quickened as he clenched his hands into fists.
With all his might, he tried to suppress the grueling truth that it was something else. Something he didn't want to be true, because it wasn't right. Even more reprehensible than everything he had already done. It would disrupt all the plans he had worked so meticulously toward for years.
For once, his reason wasn't Vanderwood. No...
It was her.
The flickering candlelight, in whose warming flame he had never planned to find refuge. The hidden home he had never known he would seek deep within his inner dark void. The mercy he knew he did not deserve.
