Escaping Death

Ace

They may have told us to go enjoy the party, but I know when I’m being dismissed. I motion for the guys to back off, keeping my face neutral as I do. When really I’m reluctant to let her out of my sight, especially in a place this size with thousands of people in attendance. I can only just make her scent out above the rest.

Despite what her fathers may think about the security of their borders, our guys have been able to grease enough palms over the years to get in when we’ve needed to. Not to mention Hunter revealing their secret entrance. Who knows how many others exist here? Who knows how capable Nightshade is of breaching these borders? He easily broke into our home undetected, something I’m still punishing the crew for.

Someone fucked up.

Someone is lying to me.

“We’re going to need to spread out if we’re going to keep eyes on her in here, and we’re already a man short,” Dean says with a whistle, marveling at the sheer magnitude of the hall.

“No we’re not. H is lurking around here somewhere.”

The guys all look at me with different expressions. Eli is indifferent, Dean is concerned, and Tate looks surprisingly impressed.

“That’s playing with fire, even for you.” That’s as close to challenging me as Dean gets, but I won’t hold it against him because he’s right more often than not. Hunter’s refusal to stay in the rooms had my wolf pressing him for submission. However, in the end he would have come down with or without my approval so I agreed under strict conditions.

“He has his instructions. He’s not to be recognized. If he’s made by one of us, or anyone for that matter, his ass is back home immediately.”

A malicious smile bleeds across Tate’s mouth and the crazed glint in his eye gives away his game. He’s now made it his personal challenge to find Hunter.

“Behave,” is the only warning I can throw at him before he disappears. “That goes for both of you as well,” I wag a finger between Eli and Dean, then make my way to the bar positioning myself so I can watch the door for Solana.

Her sister is standing by the entrance socializing with friends and well-wishers. You’d think having the same natural hair and eye color as Sol would make them look more similar, but for sisters they couldn’t look more different.

Calla’s features are sharper than Sol’s, more angular. Her smile is as much a lie as the fake eyelashes she has on, and her posture tries to sell a confidence that I’m not buying. She plays the materialistic, doe-eyed beauty well. But if she’s even a quarter of her mother — or sister — then I know there must be more to her than meets the eye. It’s disappointing that she tries to hide beneath this superficial veneer.

My drink has just arrived when she appears in the entryway of the Great Hall looking every ounce a queen, easily outshining her older sister. Judging from the scowl Calla is scrambling to cover I’d bet that she knows it, too.

The girls’ conversation must immediately sour because Solana is doing more talking to Calla’s back than her face. At the bar, Calla alternates between arguing and drinking, rapidly approaching the tolerance threshold for most dragonesses.

Solana’s eyes scan the bar, likely in search of her own drink. An anxious heat climbs up the back of my neck like a rash drawing her attention to me. Ever since our pack meeting last week the possibility of her pregnancy has occupied prime real estate in my thoughts.

Any drinking in her condition has inherent risks but this is no ordinary human liquor. The drinks here are choice selections from the finest supernatural distilleries the world over. I’d rather suffer Solana’s wrath than let anything harm her pregnancy — however small the perceived risk may be. If she is pregnant then the next item on my nix list is that flavored water crap she calls tea.

I hold her focus on me and mouth a firm and unquestionable “No.” Fortunately for me she’s using all her energy arguing with her sister that she doesn’t have any to spare arguing with me.

I scan the room, monitoring those in her immediate proximity and ensuring that Hunter is staying hidden. The fact that it’s been fifteen minutes and Tate hasn’t found him yet is a good sign that he’s hidden himself well.

Solana and her sister seem to have made up, or at least ended their argument and Sol’s radiance dims with fatigue. Families aren’t easy. Families you’ve convinced yourself you don’t belong in are even less so. Her hand barely gets off the counter to flag down a bartender before I teleport behind her.

“No drinking, Sol.” I whisper in her ear, shivering in delight at the heady combination of her scent and the electrical current that buzzes through me on contact. I drop my voice even lower, “not until we know.” My hand rests naturally at her hip before subconsciously wrapping around her front, coming to a final rest over her belly.

Her breath hitches at the movement snapping me out of my instinctual drives and I manage to smoothly shift her over to my side.

“You must be Calla,” I address her sister. “Happy Birthday. Congratulations on your Centennial.” Calla’s jaw hits the floor while her eyes dart back and forth between Sol and me. I have to act quickly if I want to avoid the full scale inquiry that’s brewing in her thoughts.

“Would you mind if I stole Solana from you?” I throw in my most charming smile for good measure.

“Of course not,” she practically puddles and it’s a true test of my self control not to smile at her transparency. “We good, Sol?” She peels her eyes off of me in favor of her sister.

Solana affirms that things are settled between them and doesn’t fight me when I lead her away from the bar through the dance floor.

“If you’re trying to keep a low profile you’re doing a piss poor job of it,” Solana mutters when we clear the ring of couples dancing and settle into one of the several seating nooks scattered around the edges of the hall.

“My job is to protect you,” I tilt my head to the side questioningly. I want to add and protecting our unborn pup to my statement but I’m hoping it goes without saying.

“Which job? The one my fathers are paying you for or as my —“ she hesitates on the word “mate,” looking around us for any prying eyes and ears. “Because you’ve been relieved for the night of the former and the latter is moot.”

I use a finger to nudge her chin up so she’s forced to look at me with those fiery, green eyes of hers. I wish for a moment that she’d show this side of her more often — the natural, raw side of her.

“Don’t pick a fight with me where there is none. You want me to hide in the shadows all night? I will. But you’re going to have to say the words, Princess, not goad me into it so you can convince yourself that it wasn’t your choice.”

That struck a nerve. Sol recoils from me like I’ve slapped her and black color begins to drip down her hair like falling rain. I’m literally watching her put her shield back up.

“What is this really about, Solana?” I ask, more gently this time, in an effort to keep her from withdrawing.

She rubs her hand over her belly before crossing her arms protectively over her chest with a shrug. “There are just too many people connected to me doing things they don’t want to do, living lives they don’t want. And I don’t want that for you either. It’ll be easier for me when this is done and we go our separate ways knowing you made your choices for you, and not because of what you think is right and certainly not because of any perceived obligation.”

She curls in on herself a little more, her hair is back to its natural white and her eyes are blazing furiously. Whatever conversations she’s had with her siblings have obviously resonated with her.

I’m still chewing on parts of what she said, primarily the part about when we go our separate ways, that I don’t register the man that comes up to Sol with a familiarity I don’t appreciate.

When we go our separate ways. She can’t mean that she’d take off with our pup?

“Hey kiddo,” the man greets her but I can’t help but focus on the odd way my chest tightens when I think of how final when sounds and how resolutely she said it.

“Goddess, you’re as radiant as your mother. I’m shocked your fathers don’t keep you under armed guard to ward off any would-be-suitors.”

“Funny you should say that. Alec, meet one of my bodyguards.” Solana elbows me in the ribs, shaking me out of my thoughts.

Every molecule in my body boils with unchecked rage when I turn and realize who she’s talking to.

Alec’s smile immediately incinerates and turns to ash in his mouth. “What the fuck are you doing here, Ace?” He all but snarls.

“I could ask you the same thing…brother.”