Escaping Death

Ace

“The audio will run automatically but if you want to tap into the video feed just click cam one and...yeah, there. Now you see what I see.” Tate over complicates how to watch a livestream to Hunter.

“Make sure you sit across from Sol,” Hunter requests.

“Why?”

“He wants to stare at her tits all night,” Eli shouts from the bathroom, and the roll of Hunter’s lips trying to bite back a smirk confirms that Eli is right.

“Say that a little louder, I don’t think the Betas in the palace heard you.” Dean chastises Eli. Rightfully so.

We’re used to answering to no one but we can’t act like that here. This is her home, her family is royalty, and the guys need to watch what they say especially when it involves Solana.

“Dinner jackets on, let’s go.” Solana saunters out of her walk-in closet in sky-high, fuck-me heels and stops in front of her mirror to put the diamond earrings I gifted her back in place.

I don’t need to look around the room to know that every eye is currently on Solana. She’s wearing a plum colored dress with long sleeves and a pencil skirt down to her knees so tight you’d think she painted herself into it.

There’s a gold zipper that runs up the entire length of the back but it’s only zipped up halfway, stopping just above her panty line leaving her whole back exposed.

That zipper. Sweet Goddess that zipper.

That thing deserves a Congressional Medal of Honor for the exemplary and unwavering dedication to keeping her delicious peach of an ass within the confines of that skirt.

I can feel Eli’s and Hunter’s wolves clawing for control, Dean and Tate fighting to keep their flames in check. Lucky me – I have to do both. And worse yet, I have to fight these feelings for my own mate.

“Need me to zip you up the rest of the way?” I ask her hoping that by some miracle I might be able to keep my shit together at dinner.

“It’s not meant to zip any higher,” she breathes, understanding of the effect her dress has on me, and the rest of us, finally registering in her expression.

I force myself to walk slowly towards her, because if I don’t I’ll end up flying over there and relieving that zipper from the strain of keeping her curves locked up. “Are you wearing this just to torture me?” I whisper against her neck.

She turns to look at me from over her shoulder and shrugs with all the nonchalance I’ve come to expect from her, “you’re the one who bought it for me. At the mall, remember?”

A gravely half-groan half-growl thunders through my chest and I have to really get myself in check when she breezes past me, giggling at my expense.

“None of that at dinner,” she wags a pointed finger at me. “It’ll be hard enough keeping my family out of my business without you giving them fodder for the fire.”

“I’ll behave if you do,” I tout before dropping my eyes down her body to mentally catalog this image of her so it can sustain me all night. “Does your family normally get dressed to the nines for family dinner?”

“Not for everyday dinner, no,” she hums and straightens out a wrinkle that doesn’t exist on her skirt. “More so on special occasions when everyone is home.”

“Wouldn’t that be everyday? You’re the only one who left.”Fuck. I didn’t mean for that to come out with so much bite.

She huffs out a short, empty laugh. ”Everyone. As in my grandparents, Xander and his wife and kids, my aunts and uncles, my cousins, Beta Runidar and his wife...” she trails off. Something in the way the corners of her mouth dip down suggests that she’s leaving something unsaid. Perhaps someone.

“Sol,” her name on Hunter’s tongue is as much a comfort as it is a command. He gives her a stern but reassuring look and she nods in response, smoothing her hands down the fabric over her stomach.

She blows out a shaky breath before she rolls her shoulder and straightens her back in a posture of confidence.

“Ground rules. Eli, no flirty looks, touches, or comments. My fathers will kill you. Under no circumstances should you accept any beverage my brother Rhys offers you — you’ll wake up naked in the gardens. What my sister lacks in similarity to our parents, Cole makes up for twofold. Best to ignore him — I usually do. Incandis and Xander will come off as normal and approachable but they’re perceptive bastards and good at fishing information out of people. And my mother —”

Hunter clears his throat loudly, “uh-uh. I’ve been looking forward to this,” Hunter grins boyishly. “Let them come to their own conclusions.”

“So basically don’t talk to anyone. Got it. Let’s go.” I instruct our group and allow for Dean, Tate, and Eli to head and after a quick wave from Sol and a nod from me, we leave Hunter behind and follow the others down to dinner.

Despite Solana preparing us for the number of people that would be at dinner I wasn’t prepared for it to be served in a full sized banquet hall.

“Ready?” Solana asks us with her palm pressed to the heavy, oak door separating us from the banquet hall. I don’t sense any nerves when she asks, more like anticipation — excitement. The kind of excitement that replaces your blood with adrenaline.

Solana’s impossible to keep up with. Her moods can change as quickly as the art on her body or the color of her hair — which is currently black with undertones of purple to match her dress.

Almost as soon as Solana pushes the door open she calmly tells us to “duck,” and then vanishes into the shadows. A very large blade is spinning very quickly through the air towards us, but rather than duck or sidestep it I teleport it so it’s spinning towards its owner before it can touch me.

The owner of the blade is an exceptionally beautiful woman with white hair and green fire in her eyes just like I’ve seen on Sol. Her aura is so strong she practically defines power. There’s no way she’s not Sol’s mother, the infamous Queen Magnolia.

Her eyebrows lift in surprise at my ability to teleport but her control and confidence don’t waiver, she simply plucks the spinning blade from the air and hooks it to the back of her chair.

She’s standing between two men who look identical from where I’m standing and who are chatting casually with the people around them not even batting an eye at the flying guillotine that just welcomed us.

“Goddamnit, Solana,” Rhys chokes out. He’s bent backwards, clawing at the tie on his neck like someone is behind him using it to choke him.

The other girl who looks like Sol, I’m assuming is her sister Calla, flits over to wall on the opposite side of the table so fast I would have missed it if I blinked. She lifts a decorative ax off the wall and swings it behind Rhys, liberating him from his tie and the chokehold Solana had on him.

Tate is grinning like a fool next to me. When he notices me looking at him he smiles wider, “what? I love watching her play.”Of course,because he’s the only one who can see her in the shadows.

A violent roar rips through the room as the last of her siblings joins the fray. “For fuck’s sake, Solana!” Cole growls out, his wolf coming to the surface instinctually to bring her to heel. “That just healed from the last time you graced us with your presence.” He growls again, snapping his elbow back into place and giving it a few test bends.

I’m about to order Tate to go reel Solana in so we can be properly introduced to her family when I see the queen nod subtly to Xander.

He looks between us and the carnage and commotion around the table, moving slowly but methodically until at last, in the most bizarre fashion, he lunges at thin air.

But he doesn’t come up empty handed. “Okay, Princess. I think you’ve had your fun.” He chuckles. Solana reappears out of the shadows with his arm ensnared around her waist.

“Put me down!” Solana shouts playfully at her captor.

Out of the corner of my eye I catch a glint of a knife. Her brother Cole unsheaths a dagger and throws it at Sol, aiming for her stomach. Which is smart, it’ll cause the least amount of damage — or it would if there wasn’t a chance she could be pregnant with my pup.

The other guys must have seen what I saw, and thought what I thought, because four knives go flying over the heads of all the guests, converging on the dagger Cole threw and knocking it out of the air and out of its path towards Solana.

Solana ends her struggle in Xander’s arms and her head snaps up, her eyes locking immediately with mine. She looks at me with an indiscernible expression, but for a fraction of a second it almost looks like surprise. She’s surprised someone came to her defense.

“Hello again, gentlemen.” Xander says warmly, Solana still locked in his arms. “Enjoying your stay so far?” He finally lowers Solana back to the ground and holds her loosely to make sure she’s steady on her feet. She smoothes out the wrinkles in her dress while we round the table to take our seats. I pull out Solana’s chair and tuck her in before taking my seat next to her. I can feel the heat from her blush and I have to fight to keep my smile neutral. Directly across from Solana and me, Eli, Dean, and Tate sit down between Cole and Rhys.

Xander runs through quick introductions ending with Sol’s parents; Magnolia and her mates, Varian and Rohanor. It’s not until he introduces people named Dex and Elena that she tenses up and flames begin to circumvolve her clasped hands beneath the table. They are the reason she doesn’t come home. That woman is a living reminder of what she lost four years ago.

Knowing this makes my chest tighten and my wolf eager to claw that woman’s face off. I settle for resting my hand on her knee, giving her a reassuring squeeze and a look that conveys I would gladly bury this woman if it meant Solana never had to feel the way she does right now ever again.

She gives me an appreciative smile, then looks across the table at Dean and Tate. Dean smiles warmly at her and winks at her, staining her cheeks with a blush, while Eli blows her a snowflake making her chuckle at his attempt to help her literally cool off.

After introductions the table settles into casual conversation. Xander is seated to the left of Solana and to my right is Sol’s sister, Calla. I expect that sandwiching Solana between himself and me might have been Xander’s doing. This way she has a buffer from pretty much everyone at the table.

It’s so obvious to me how many people are on Sol’s side, who love and care about her. Does she really not see it? Is she really that oblivious to how people feel about her?

Maybe she’s like Tate...she does see it, she just chooses to ignore it and carry-on on her own because that’s easier than exposing yourself to feeling. You can’t open your heart to just the good. Opening yourself up to the good risks opening yourself up to the bad, and for some people the risk of pain isn’t worth experiencing the good.

The rest of dinner is uneventful, conversations are easy and the guys are getting along with those around them. Cole has been glaring at Solana and me for the duration of dinner but doesn’t say anything to indicate why or air his grievances. At least, not during dinner. As we stand to leave Cole grabs Solana by her upper arm and demands that she follow him.

“Don’t be such a baby, your arm is fine.” Solana brushes him off.

“It’s not about my fucking arm. Come on, I can’t talk about it here.” Cole commands her, making my wolf snarl at how he thinks he can dish out orders to her. “And you don’t need your entourage.”

Cole turns a corner and Sol looks back at us with a roll of her eyes. “I need to go talk to him. Just go upstairs and I’ll be there in a minute.” None of us move an inch. He may be her brother but he also threw a dagger at her when she was restrained by Xander. He could have done serious harm to her and possibly our pup. I’m not letting her out of my sight with him — my wolf won’t allow it.

“Go head back,” I say to the guys and then turn back to Sol, “I’ll go with you.” We follow the direction her brother went and arrive in his office to him pacing back and forth. The glare he wore at dinner has followed him all the way here.

“Shut the door,” he growls at us and I’m about to lose the thin control I have right now. “I’m going to ask you this exactly once, Solana, and I expect the truth.”

I can feel her heart plummet out of her chest and settle in the bottom of her stomach. She looks up at me with wide eyes, reflecting the same fear as me that somehow her family has figured us out.

With a small nudge I try to convey that the decision is in her hands. She can tell him whatever she wants the truth to be and we’ll figure out the rest later.

“Where is he?” Cole asks slowly, accentuating and punctuating each word.

“Who?” Solana asks, thrown off by his line of questioning.

“Hunter. Where is he, Solana?”