If I can’t stop thinking about Heather now, maybe I can do something else to get her out of my head.

This room is set up for fucking, so there are massage oils and lubes all over the place. I reach behind me to the table and grabwhatever’s there. It happens to be a massage oil. I take my pants off and let myself think of her.

I’ve noticed the curves under the t-shirts and leggings she wears, the way her ass has that perfect slope and hips that I’d love to grab while she rides me.

I put a drop of the massage oil on my hand and then put that hand around my dick. My breath hitches when I feel it, imagining it’s Heather’s hand instead.

I move up and down the shaft, slow at first, while I get really hard. I think about Heather’s hair, putting my hands in it while I kiss her, pulling it back gently so I can nip at her throat.

I think about her breasts under those tight t-shirts. They’re tight enough to reveal that she doesn’t wear a bra.

I move my hand faster while I imagine my lips on one of those nipples, sucking, flicking at it with my tongue, making her moan.

The thought of that moan spurs me on to move faster. Pumping myself, I think about my mouth moving lower down her torso. I want to taste her so badly.

I can feel it coming, the orgasm that begs to escape while I imagine my tongue thrusting into her, hearing her scream in pleasure as I suck on her clit.

I start to come when I think about that scream. I keep coming while I imagine her back arching and her coming with me into my mouth, tasting all of her.

After I finish, I clean up and hope that this experience gets her out of my system. I leave the club without finding Samuel, and I head home.

When I return and take Father’s journal from the drawer, ready to read again, her face is in my mind.

Fuck. It didn’t work. I settled in with the journal. I need to find that loophole. There’s no way I’ll be able to kill her now.

Unfortunately, it seems Violet is right. I do have feelings for her. And I have no fucking clue what I’m going to do about that.

Chapter 9

HEATHER

I’ve been here for six weeks, and I’m still alive. I’ve successfully made it back to my hometown as an exile, working on a wedding dress for the Alpha’s daughter, and I’m still alive.

I’m grateful but I also don’t understand it. When I first saw Trey, I sincerely believed he was about to kill me. But something else happened.

It’s taken me a while to grasp it, but I have a theory, sort of. The reason he didn’t kill me that night was that my wolf called out to his wolf. I can’t change on pack land, but somehow, that part of me knew to beg his wolf for mercy.

I felt a power there, and it made me wonder if something was going on with the Alpha I didn’t know about.

I can’t explain it completely. It was as if I was feeling an Alpha’s power in Trey. But that can’t be since his father is still Alpha—unless he’s not.

I think even I would have heard about that, though, especially since I’m in the city. I may not be communicating with anyone, but I can still watch the local news.

The Alpha isn’t in any news lately. As an important business mogul here, I remember him being out and about all the time. I haven’t seen a single story that talked about him since I got here six weeks ago.

That seems strange to me, given what I know about him. I don’t believe he’d change so much as to hate the spotlight within five years. He enjoyed the power too much.

Violet also looks to Trey for everything. She doesn’t ask him to consult their father at all. She only asks him, and the Alpha never comes up in their conversations.

Does she know something he’s not saying, too? Or is she concentrating so much on her wedding that she doesn’t care about the politics?

That’s the other part of this for me. Violet could kill me, too, and it would be completely justified. No one would fault her or tell her she was wrong.

In fact, she’d probably be celebrated. Is my dress design that important to her that she’d risk the people in her life finding out that she let me live or didn’t tell her father I’m here?

A couple of weeks ago, Trey gave me some of his dinner when I expressed how much I loved the place he’d ordered from. He wasn’t intentionally bringing me food, either.

It was obviously a split-second decision made for the sake of some kindness. I don’t believe his little “last meal” quip.