Page 45 of The Night Prince

“No.” He drags his teeth over his bottom lip. “I’m your alpha. It looks bad, if you turn me down.”

“Good.” I don’t even bother arguing that he is not my alpha. I won’t give him the satisfaction.

“Don’t you want to know about the bond?”

Iknowhe’s trying to provoke me. I can feel that dark thread of his inside me, curling around my emotions, trying to get me to react.

Don’t bite. Don’t bite. Don’t—

“What about it?”

“You want to break it, don’t you?”

He smiles slowly, irritating dimples creasing his cheeks. He has me, and he knows it. He holds out his hand, his meaning clear:Dance with me and find out.

I narrow my eyes. He must feel my cold pulse of anger. I don’t even know if it’s aimed at him or myself, because I’m actually considering it. My fingers flex at my sides. I feel the moment he thinks he’s won—a triumphant burst of power in my chest. I can’t stand it. I ball my hand into a fist and walk toward the alpha table.

“I could make you dance with me, you know.” His voice slices through the sound of people talking, and I halt. “Ah, Callum told you about the Àithne, then.”

“That would only work if you were my alpha, and you’re not.” I force my body to soften, and face him. Around us, Wolves are lining up on either side of the dancefloor for the next dance. “You would not use it on me, anyway.”

“What makes you so sure?”

I shrug, though as I say it, I’m certain it’s true. “You’re perpetually bored, Blake. You toy with people to entertain yourself. You would gain no enjoyment from forcing someone to do something against their will.”

“Should we put your theory to the test?”

A challenge dances in his eyes, which glint in the candlelight. I raise my chin. “Go on then. Use your command on me. Order me to dance with you. It’s the only way I ever will.”

He angles his head slightly. Perhaps I’m playing with fire. I’m curious to see how it works. He may use this against Callum and me at some point, and I may as well prepare myself for it.

A slow, dangerous smile spreads across his face. He holds out his hand. “Dance with me.”

I wait to feel something, anything, at his command. I fight my eyeroll. I knew he would have no power over me, because he isnotmy alpha.

He chuckles. “So pleased with yourself, little rabbit. Look at me.” His pupils dilate and his irises become threaded with amber. My breath catches. Blake doesn’t let his wolf surface often, and as it peers out from his eyes, it transforms his face. It seems to sharpen his jaw and accentuate his cheekbones. I’m looking at something feral, and beautiful, and deadly. “Give me your hand.”

This time, I feel him everywhere. His essence floods me—his scent, his heat, a dark unyielding dominance that I had not noticed before. I’ve always known him to be dangerous, but this... thispower... The wolf is in his eyes, bright and beautiful, and I’m ensnared in his gaze. My pulse pounds as I fight the sensation, but all I can think of is my fever dream and the image of a rabbit in the maw of a great wolf.

I’d think he was doing something to me through the bond, but it feels slightly different. As if his command is slipping beneath my skin like a shadow, whispering, promising, coaxing. And when it strokes that feral thing inside me, that feral thing rubs against it.

It would be so easy to agree. So easy to do as he says. I want to please him. I’d do anything for him. He’s my alpha, and I want to—

I grab those shadowy fingers that coil around my soul and shove them away. The Great Hall comes back to me, the crackle of the fire in the stone hearth, and the scent of buttered salmon and red wine. The bagpipe music starts. That feeling dissipates on a breath, and my first instinct is to bare my teeth at him and snarl. My second is to gloat.

I make myself look dazed, and place my hand in his. I want him to think he has power over me, so later, I can use it against him.

Blake’s fingers curl around mine.

Where he touches me, my skin hums. The thread that links us seems to vibrate. I try to hide how my breath catches in my throat, and the way my pulse kicks up. His reaction is almost invisible, but his chest rises then falls, deeper than usual. His expression is too careful, too blank. He’s hiding, like me. He feels it too.

His eyes shift back to normal, though they glint like a cat who has found a mouse to play with. “Isn’tthatinteresting,” he says – and I’m not sure if he’s talking about his ability to use the Àithne on me, or whether he’s talking about how taut and uncomfortable our connection feels.

He holds up my hand, as if claiming his prize, then leads me to the line of Wolves on the dancefloor. We stand at the end, beside Ryan and Becky. Ryan’s grin falters when he sees who I’m about to dance with.

The dance is much like the last, but slower. It requires changes in partners as the females move down the line, but every time I’m to take the hand of another wolf, Blake takes their place. Until, close to the end of the line, he stops the pretense that we’re part of this charade, and pulls me toward him.

The laughter and the clinking of glasses dims as he places a hand on my lower back. I reflexively put my palm on his shoulder, and my fingertips brush hard muscle. He pulls our bodies flush, and my breath dies in my throat. One hand still laced with mine, he spins me around.

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