My eyes start to close of their own accord in the room full of delegates watching a keynote presentation. He’s an alpha, head of a pack called…already my thoughts are starting to drift.
This is extremely unlike me; I am usually razor-sharp at work. But recently, since I met Layla, really, I’ve been…distracted.
I used to be able to tolerate almost any level of boring presentation for the sake of keeping up appearances. Some had even been borderline interesting.
This alpha isn’t even anywhere near the most boring I’ve seen. Alphas do have a tendency to be serious, and this one is no comedian, but he’s talking about the protection of the supernatural internet from human eyes.
It’s an important topic, and one that requires much careful liaising with the tech industry.
Keeping search engines from indexing supernatural news sites is a full-time job. That way, any humans who stumble across them think they’re an elaborate conspiracy.
My mind drifts back to Layla, feeling around for signs of where she is, what she’s doing, how she’s feeling. It’s extremely unsettling—now having someone else as a part of me, having been alone for so long.
Not a day goes by that I don’t check in on her obsessively. I let her out of my sight once, and it didn’t end well. My lycan isn’t going to let that happen again.
I am in conflict with my lycan these days, and I am losing. I can feel the grip of my control slipping—slipping all the more when I most need to control it.
Layla has not yet come into her own as a lycan. Soon, she will. My mate will be a powerful lycan and a force to be reckoned with.
But that’ll take time. For now, she’s still learning. And for this, I am thankful.
She hasn’t the subtlety yet to understand that I am hiding something from her. I can’t lie to her, of course, but I can conceal my thoughts to some degree.
We may be intertwined—in each other’s heads—but I retain some autonomy by virtue of being the more powerful of the two of us.
For the time being.
I am losing it, though. My lycan is still sore from the incident with Marcus and Helen. I should have known. How could I have failed to see what was happening?
What I thought was transactional was far less so than I had thought. Surprising, for someone as self-possessed as Helen—she may have actually cared about me.
I was blind to that, and it put my mate in danger.
Now, Helen’s family will likely be after me; news travels. She was certainly connected.
I’ve never fucked up this badly before, and my life has not exactly been short of opportunities to fuck up.
My mind is elsewhere as the alpha changes slides and continues to drone on. Why alphas love the format of human corporate business so much I will never understand.
They could be communing with the Moon Goddess, but no, they’re here to wield a keynote.
Serena’s been into it the whole time. She loves these kinds of things; she even takes notes.
I feel Serena’s gaze boring into me. She could nudge me, but she doesn’t need to. She can see I’m not paying attention.
She clears her throat almost imperceptibly as we applaud the presenter. He’s finally done.
“Gideon, what has gotten into you?”
“It’s nothing; I just didn’t sleep so well last night.”
“Last night and for the last month, it seems. Are you sure there isn’t something bothering you?”
I wish she would stop asking. At this moment, I feel like I could just tell her everything that’s on my mind, and it would be the greatest relief.
But that’s never going to happen.
It’s more trouble than I had anticipated, being mated. I can hardly go near another woman without Layla involuntarily snarling.
And she can’t talk to another man without my lycan bristling. It’s an effort just to navigate the world as a couple at the moment.
Serena and I walk out to the conference center foyer to get coffee before the next event.
“Serena, can I ask you something?”
“Gideon, you know you can ask me anything,” she says, seeming extremely relieved to hear me ask.
“When you met Lazarus, did the bond become less all-consuming with time?”
“That’s what it is, then! You had me worried,” she says, smirking. “Look, you’ve had a rocky start; your lycan is going to be on the defensive for a while.
“When I met Lazarus, I had a phase of almost getting into bar fights if another woman even looked at him. Now I feel the same, but I don’t get into fights about it.”
“Oh, thank heavens, I’m not the only one then.”
“No, you’re not, but whatever you can do to focus, do it. This summit may be dull, but it’s essential. The negotiations will perk you up, I’m sure.”
I was glad to hear Serena’s advice on the matter; she had been mated for something like sixty years now, although she looked like a twenty-five-year-old human.
I was glad to have pacified her with my question. I couldn’t have other royal advisers thinking I’d lost my edge.
In another, larger conference room, a graying vampire was preparing to present. I was not in the mood for another “back in my day” presentation about how vampires used to rule and how things are just not the same.
“Thank you, esteemed delegates of the various supernatural governance organizations, for joining me today.
“In this talk, I will present recent research on the figures for dangerous supernatural hybrids and their estimated presence in various geographical areas of note…”
What fun, ferreting out whatever nutcase vampires and werewolves were turning sirens.
My mind wanders again. Now that I have a mate, my sense of danger is heightened.
Mention of dangerous crosses translates immediately to thoughts of Layla in danger.
Except now, the greatest threat to Layla’s happiness is nothing external. It’s not some weird hybrid being lurking in the darkness.
Rather, it’s me.
Gideon recommended me to one of the news sites as a press photographer to cover the summit he’s working at.
Of course, no one dares refuse him. The job was mine before the request was even out of his mouth.
I don’t love the idea of being totally dependent on him, but I can’t deny there are some perks to having a very influential mate.
Wherever we go, things are easy. People accept me. They respect me.
Even my family has toned down their drama since we’ve been mated. Not that Mom is ever going to leave me alone for too long.
Her number flashes up on my screen as I’m about to photograph a werewolf and a triton shaking hands. I send the call to voicemail.
Both the werewolf and triton are wearing business suits and sunglasses—the werewolf because he wants to look cool and the triton so he doesn’t accidentally lure anyone to their death.
“It’s poor form to kill the delegates of important political meetings,” Gideon joked before he left this morning.
Although I was raised by wolves, I never saw much of the rest of the supernatural world. So this summit is an education for me.
Werewolf packs are very tightly bonded and protective of their own. I can’t imagine Alpha Blake being too happy to receive visiting vampires.
Being with Gideon is exciting in so many ways. It’s more than the mind-blowing sex and the attention he pays me.
I never thought I would ever be able to travel, have more money than I know what to do with, or have any status at all—being born without a wolf. So the intrigue of getting to see events like this happen takes getting used to.
“It’s like any political convention, but particularly important.
“There will be negotiations, more treaties established to protect supernatural creatures and humans so that we can all continue to live side by side in relative peace,” he explained.
Sometimes I feel pretty clueless next to him. I have to remind myself that I’m a lot younger than my mate—and only recently a lycan.
I’m still getting used to the transformation. I look very different, in a good way—stronger and curvier, with way more muscle. Powerful.
I feel powerful, although it’s hard to control my lycan sometimes. Going from being human to sharing my headspace with my lycan and Gideon is pretty intense.
The connection between us is so all-consuming sometimes, I wonder if there’s room for just me. But Gideon’s generous with his influence and keen to help me with whatever I might need.
I miss him while he’s in meetings, and I can feel that he’s bored and restless. Standing around all day photographing beautiful people in suits, I am a little too, although I’m lucky to have landed this job.
A team of werewolves and a few vampires are arranging themselves for a photo. I take a couple of shots and realize the vampires can barely be seen, as if they’re transparent.
I twirl my fingers in a circle to get the attention of the two assistants who have been assigned to help me.
They get off their phones and run over and point reflectors at them. It helps, but next time, I will need to be better prepared.
“Thanks, guys, that’s much better!” I tell them.
“You all look great!” I say to the vampires with a cheesy smile, examining the screen of my camera nervously. They look less invisible this time, although very washed-out.
“Is there any way to bring the vampires out a bit more?” I whisper to another photographer standing nearby.
“Fix it in post,” he shrugs.
Another photographer chimes in. “Some wear makeup to help with the transparency; that’s the easiest way to get a good result. Although you never know if the makeup teams will make it out alive,” she adds, helpfully.
I show her my camera screen.
“Good enough,” she affirms. “There’s no good way to photograph werewolves in suits, though. They always look like extras from a gangster movie.”
I burst out laughing. That’s exactly what my pack looks like dressed up. I think back to the mating ceremony where I was meant to be mated to Kofi.
Yep. Extras in a gangster film. That’s exactly what everyone looked like, all dressed up in their best clothes.
I turn away to call my mom back.
“Sweetheart, thanks for calling me back!” she trills. “Now, are you and your mate joining us for dinner tonight? Maya wants to see you before your next big adventure. She misses you when you’re away for too long.”
“I’m not sure, Mom. I’ll call you when Gideon gets out of his meetings, okay?”
“Okay, I’ll make enough so you can join us if you want. Your grandmother sends her love.”
“Bye, Mom. Talk to you later.”
I hang up, just as Gideon emerges. I hold his amber gaze as he walks toward me. He looks so fine in that suit. I love to see him dressed for work.
He’s clean-shaven, making his jaw look more prominent. I could smell him the moment he walked outside.
He lifts me off my feet as he kisses me.
“It’s good to see you!”
“Long day?” I ask.
“I’d say you can’t begin to imagine, but I’m sure you could feel exactly how my day went,” he says, smiling.
“Let’s get back to the hotel. Mom asked if we wanted to go for dinner, but I’d rather stay in.”
“Much as I would love to spend the evening with your relatives, I don’t think I have it in me tonight,” he says, rubbing his temples.
We walk into our lavish hotel room and he flings me on the bed instantly, his lycan demanding its release. I can feel it. He’s tense, on edge. And I can’t refuse him—why would I?
He presses into me, then backs off, peeling my clothes from my body to expose my newfound curves.
I’ve had to buy all new panties; I’ve grown so much.
It’s clear he likes these ones—skimpy red satin. I feel his touch through my whole body as he rips the panties off, leaving me naked on the bed while he’s still in his suit.
His strong arms grasp me to him, and he runs his hands, his lips, his tongue across my skin. I can feel every point where our skin meets a thousand times over—something I could never have imagined feeling as a human.
All my senses are amplified, like Gideon turned the sense dial way up when he turned me—when he marked me for the first time.
