Page 45 of Prisoner of the Lycan Prince

Einar chuckled. “Was it good, though?”

“Yes. Looking back, it didn’t matter what I ate. The time spent with her was more important. I think that’s the main thing I took away from her work.” I gestured to my plate. “Food isn’t just about satisfying nutritional needs. It brings people together. Most of life’s milestones revolve around it. We celebrate with it. My mom always said mealtimes were sacred for that reason.”

Einar’s gaze softened as he listened, his eyes holding a flicker of something deeper than mere politeness. “Your mother sounds like an amazing woman.”

“She was,” I said. My throat burned, and I quickly cast about for a change of subject before I embarrassed myself. My gaze landed on my plate, and I forced a laugh. “I think this is the first time in four years I’ve eaten off a surface that wasn’t made of paper.”

Einar gave me an assessing look. “You’ve struggled with money throughout your schooling.”

Damn. So much for not embarrassing myself. I toyed with the last of my linguine. “It’s been challenging, but I managed.”

“Didn’t your mother leave you a trust?”

I lowered my fork. “You know about that?”

His gaze was steady. “It’s my job to know. As cliche as it sounds, knowledge is power. It’s also protection. My world can’t collide with yours, Harper.”

In a blink, walls rose between us. The relaxed atmosphere faded, replaced with tension reminiscent of our earlier encounters. “You speak like we’re on opposing sides of a war.”

His expression turned thoughtful. “Throughout most of history, that hasn’t been too far off from the truth. Humans have always feared the unknown. They create monsters to explain things they can’t understand, and they use them as scapegoats for all sorts of human vices. When I was a young man, the world was a much crueler place than it is today. Disease was rampant. Death was everywhere. Vice was reviled in public and embraced in private. The poets and authors of the day incorporated that contradiction into their work, creating monsters that spread death while luring innocent humans into temptation.”

He’d been a young man in the late Victoria era, and one monster had dominated that period of history. “Dracula?” I guessed.

Einar lifted his brows, mischief dancing in his eyes. “You’ve heard of him?”

His gentle teasing made my body light up, my nerve endings coming alive. “Vaguely,” I said, my heart fluttering when he grinned, clearly enjoying our banter. “Is he real, or just a figment of Bram Stoker’s imagination?”

“Purely literary, although vampires predate Mr. Stoker by at least a millennium. Stoker didn’t break any new ground, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that he made vampires mainstream. For the first time, the average person in the street could read. Stoker’s ideas spread. Soon, people were seeing vampires and werewolves around every corner. Then cameras arrived, and life for supernaturals became more difficult. The internet made it truly dangerous.” Einar’s chest lifted in a sigh. “The reality is, humanity is just one viral video away from learning they share the planet with magical creatures. If the truth gets out, and humans discover how powerful we are, they’ll never stop trying to eradicate us.”

Visions of Goliath and the others from the maze sprang into my mind. Already, they hid from their families because they were too different to fit in. How would the world react to someone like Leander, who burst into flames on a regular basis? Or Rolfe, who looked like an MMA fighter but was too tenderhearted to participate in his family’s war? They hid in the maze because they couldn’t survive in the outside world.

What about Einar? Had he created the maze to protect others, or did he have secrets of his own? The urge to dig for information sparked inside me. But for once, I didn’t want to write a story. I didn’t want to know for the sake of reporting. I just wanted to know more about him.

“How powerful are you?” I asked. “I saw you turn into a lycan. What else can you do that would make humans fear you?”

For a moment, silence reigned. I waited for him to dismiss the question, or perhaps accuse me of angling for information. Just as regret took hold, Einar’s voice filled my head.

“I can speak without words.”

I froze, my heart thumping hard. “You talked in my mind.”

He nodded, and his voice flowed through my head like a river. “Some claim it’s what made my ancestors kings. Only those of my line possess the gift of telepathy. When I concentrate intensely, I can compel others to do my bidding in short bursts. But compulsion is very draining. It weakens me, so I don’t do it very often.”

A sudden, mortifying thought occurred to me. “Can you tell what other people are thinking?”

“No,” he said aloud, a spark of amusement entering his eyes. “Your thoughts are your own.”

Relief flooded me, along with memories of all the times we’d bickered. He’d shopped for me. He’d lined up ingredients, the labels turned outward. He gave me the best orgasm of my life. And yet he made no mention of letting me go.

“How long are you going to keep me prisoner?” I asked.

He tensed, the movement subtle but there all the same. “I don’t think of you as my prisoner, Harper. Not anymore.”

With a glance at the dining room doorway, I pitched my voice low. “Because I let you go down on me?”

“Because I care about you,” Einar said, anger springing into his eyes. His voice deepened. “Because I can’t stop thinking about you. I’ve tried. For your sake, I’ve tried. But it’s no good. Even now, I want nothing more than to strip that dress off and make you mine. On the floor. On the table. Against that wall over there. But what I really want is to see you in my bed. I don’t want to own you, Harper. I want to own your pleasure.”

I stared, my breath caught in my lungs.

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