By the ti Reana was done with pack matters, it was night ti.
"I’ll have dinner in my room in the next one hour," she told the ogas who’d prepared her bath water.
"Yes, Luna." They chorused. One of the girls stepped forward to help her with her dress, but Reana waved her hand. "Return, I’ll take care of myself."
The oga hesitated for a second longer, then she bowed and left with the others. Seeing the room was empty, she stood by the bronze mirror on her vanity. The mirror was covered by a fine layer of mist.
Reana reached out with a graceful hand and wiped it away, revealing her reflection. Her green eyes looked tired beneath the regal facade, her face too composed to betray the turmoil within.
"You look exhausted, My Luna," ca the annoying voice that she couldn’t deny soothed her nerves and caused her heart to flutter.
She turned her head to him. He was leaning lazily on the door to her inner chamber, legs crossed and arms folded on his bare chest. An irritating grin plastered on his gorgeous face.
Reana didn’t flinch. She simply arched a brow, lifting her chin with that effortless grace that made her seem untouchable.
"Do I?" she replied coolly, turning back to the mirror. "Then perhaps you should leave. Your presence is hardly known to be restful."
He chuckled, low and velvet smooth, the sound threading around her like a noose she didn’t know if she wanted to escape or tighten. "On the contrary, My Luna, I’ve been told with actions a number of tis that I’m very relaxing. I induce sleep in people... Even while they’re standing in the garden and watching beautiful flowers."
She didn’t dignify that with a response. Instead, she removed her earrings, one at a ti, her movents slow and practiced. But her pulse had quickened, and she knew he could hear it. Wolves like him always did.
"When are you shifting or morphing back to your acceptable appearance? I can’t stand you hiding in my room anymore," she said after a long silence.
"Are you certain you want gone, My Luna?" He pushed off the doorway and began walking toward her. Slow. Deliberate. Predatory.
He stopped just behind her, so close she could feel the heat radiating from his body, yet he didn’t touch her. His presence lood like a shadow, intoxicating and maddening.
Reana t her own gaze in the mirror, refusing to give him the satisfaction of turning to face him. "You forget your place," she said, voice cool but softer now, threaded with sothing uncertain. "Return to the room and go to sleep. Quietly."
"I never forget my place," he murmured, his breath brushing the curve of her neck. "It’s you who keeps inviting to the wrong places."
Her fingers froze on her necklace clasp. For the briefest mont, her eyes fluttered shut, but then she caught herself and exhaled quietly, regaining control. She finished unclasping the necklace and set it down on the table with a quiet clink.
"You mistake silence for invitation," she said, lifting her chin. "I allow you because..."
She froze when he leaned in closer, and the scent of lavender and sothing wilder wrapped around her. "You allow because...?" his voice dropped to a whisper, "You don’t want to say, My Luna?"
His fingers brushed her bare shoulder. It was light, teasing. Not enough to cross a line, but enough to make her feel like it already had been.
Reana finally turned to face him. Their eyes t, green and blue locked in quiet war.
"I crave peace," she said, voice sharp as a blade, though her breathing betrayed her. "And you are the very thing tearing it from ."
He smiled again, a slow, devastating curve of lips that spoke of victories already claid. "Then why haven’t you had killed? There are no lines I’ve not crossed with you. People get their heads severed for lesser cris, yet, here I am, standing before you..."
She stepped closer, defiant. Regal.
"Because I haven’t decided whether I want you dead..." she said, eyes narrowing, "or in my bed."
Silence.
And then, softly, he chuckled. "Well. Let know when you make up your mind. Either way... I’ll make sure the ending is unforgettable."
He leaned in again—but this ti, it was Reana who turned away first, sweeping toward her bathroom, the fabric of her robe brushing his chest like a taunt.
...
Reana shut the bathroom door behind her, leaning against it as though to hold herself together. Her breath left in shallow bursts, her chest rising and falling in a rhythm too fast for calm, too slow for panic. No, this wasn’t panic.
It was hunger.
Damn him.
She closed her eyes and pressed a hand to her stomach, trying to quiet the chaos within. That scent—lavender, it lingered in her lungs like poison. Like mories. Like the sin she’d barely managed to resist when he touched or breathed on her neck.
She wanted him.
She wanted to kiss him until her lips bruised, scratch his back until he bled, ride him until he forgot who held the power between them. She wanted to punish him with pleasure for the way he fought for her, against that thing – her mate.
But her jaw clenched in restraint.
Reminding herself that he was Alpha Snow. The sa Alpha Snow that had been on the tongue of everyone since. The sa person she and that stupid Ryder talked about just a few days ago, while they sat on her bed.
She wondered how he must have cackled like a hyena in his mind when she asked him who would win between him and Alpha Snow, and the bastard ancestor had said he’d win... Of course, he would. They were one and the sa, after all.
Reana hissed. She slid out of her dress and sank into the basin of mildly hot water, willing her mind to focus on other matters, but each ti, her mind would drift back to him.
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