risk now. Don’t you find this most intriguing, Jensen?”
Judging from his expression, the spymaster didn’t share the same opinion. He only inclined his head in silence.
Ethan decided it was time to see his waiting bride. His cock stirred just thinking about her. Would she hiss and bare her claws? She might look meek but she had a fiery temper in her. He smoothened his trousers as he rose. “Let me know when you find anything else.”
The spymaster got up and bowed.
Graystone opened the door for Ethan and shadowed him through the corridor like a wraith in haunting on his tail. His beta was a large wolfman but his steps were as silent as a ghost. “Keep a clear head, Alpha,” he said. “You might as well avoid liquor tonight. I didn’t like the look of your cousin earlier.”
“Oh? You never liked Cain’s face before.”
“This time is different.”
“Something I need to worry about?”
“Just a hunch for now.”
Graystone possessed sharp instincts. His hunch was usually dead on. Ethan clasped his hand on Graystone’s shoulder. He heard his beta’s warning loud and clear. “I wasn’t planning on drinking anyway.”
Sookie woke up with a pounding headache and parched throat. Her mouth tasted as if she’d been munching on a sandpit. A dull, reverberating pain thumped behind her eyeballs. Jesus Fucking Christ. Where am I? For a second she didn’t recognize where she was. She was in a stranger’s bed. She pushed herself to sit up, grimacing. Her bones felt like molasses. She just wanted to crawl under the covers and never see daylight ever again. Gah. This is why I hate drinking. Stupid hangover.
“Ah, you woke up. Good.” The grand alpha’s voice loomed out of nowhere. “We have to go. Be ready in five minutes.”
Hazy memories came back to her. Right. They were supposed to be getting to know each other intimately, but instead, I chugged down some vodka so I didn’t have to deal with it. Sookie winced. “Go? Go where?”
“Are you okay?” Ethan pressed his hand on her forehead. “You were out cold when I returned. You’re really a light drinker.”
So, he didn’t know that I got drunk on purpose.
Ethan grabbed a bottled of water from the mini fridge and handed it to her. “You have four minutes to get ready.”
What? “Why?”
He looked irritated by her question. “Just do as I say.”
Sookie scowled. She didn’t feel good. “Can I just stay? I feel nauseous. I have to go…” She quickly ran to the bathroom and bent over the toilet. With one foot, she closed the door shut. She washed her face and gurgled with mouthwash she found in the medicine cabinet. Great job, she thought. I manage to make myself look like a drunken idiot. When she finished, he was waiting, looking twice as irritated.
“Minus six minutes,” he remarked. He dressed her with the her silk gown. He grabbed his coat and draped it around her shoulders. He then found her shoes and patiently slipped them on her feet.
Sookie blinked, confused. What he did wasn’t alpha-y at all. Weren’t they supposed to be macho and all? “Can you tell me what’s going on?”
Ethan grabbed an overnight duffel bag from the bed and herded her outside. His stone-faced beta waited for them in the hallway.
“Car ready?” Ethan asked.
“At the south gate.”
Ethan tugged her elbow, signaling her to move faster. She had no other choice but to comply. The pack beta opened the door that lead them into the basement of the mansion. They descended through two flights of stairs and entered the door that brought them to a long narrow tunnel.
Her heart pounded. Something must be going on. Something bad. But neither Ethan nor his beta offered any explanation. She struggled to match the men’s long strides with her stiletto pumps and now her feet started hurting. It was a miracle she didn’t fall over. Ethan’s grip on her was too tight.
The tunnel eventually ended at a small landing with more stairs. Oh, yay, Sookie grumbled in silence. They glided up over it with great haste. Graystone opened another door that led them to the garage with a waiting SUV. Two men dressed in black acknowledged the alpha. The beta took the driver’s seat while she and Ethan sat in the back. The duffel bag that Ethan carried thumped against the floor. Sookie was certain that Ethan didn’t carry a change of clothes in it. Curiosity got into her but she didn’t dare to ask.
Ethan sat next to her, his expression betraying nothing. As soon as he shut the vehicle door, the pack beta gunned the accelerator. The SUV lurched into the street at high speed.
Sookie was sure that Ethan didn’t wake her up in the middle of the night for a midnight stroll. They were under attack, that much she could see. But from whom? Cain and his goons? Already? She didn’t expect that she’d be with Ethan when Cain did his thing. She thought she would be somewhere else, safe and reunited with her brother. The tension inside the SUV was like a high tensile string ready to snap. Ethan and Graystone didn’t speak a word. Judging from the look on their faces, they seemed ready to tear into anybody who stood in their ways.
Scary.