My wolf picks up his scent, hold it in my lungs. Fire. He smells like a blazing night fire. Dark, smoky, and crackling with dangerous flames.
A low growl vibrates through my body as he becomes the center of our awareness. And my wolf once again feels like she’s rising to her feet. To run or fight. I’m not sure.
He doesn’t stand to greet us when we stop in front of his low table. In fact, he exudes an expectant air. North American Kings and Queens don’t require any kind of formality. Hell, my cousin, Nago, lets everyone in both the states where he’s the alpha call him Nags. But I suspect Damianos Drákon would be entirely comfortable if Akwasi and I decided to drop to our knees and bow.
God, he is enormous. I recall the last time I saw him in person. The way he’d towered over Fensa, me, and her son, Eos.
He regards me now, his light brown eyes running over my sparkling dress, and the crown perched on top of my long straightened hair at a jaunty angle. And I regard him right back with my chin high in the air… hating the way my hidden wolf is whimpering inside of me.
He’s the most handsome man I’ve ever seen. He radiates evil, but his face has more symmetries going on than a 100% geometry quiz.
And his body…well, let’s just say I think of the Colossus of Rhodes, the fallen seventh wonder they reconstructed a few years back when I look at him. This guy doesn’t just remind me of a Greek statue but the largest damn statue in the ancient world.
Ancient.
Yes, that’s the word to describe him. To other people in the club, he probably appears to be a businessman in his thirties, rocking a dark beard, and finely attired in a tailored suit. Here to have some fun just like all other rich guys in VIP.
But I know the real deal. He’s millenniums, not decades old. A trillionaire who’s neither human nor werewolf. And if he’s here in North Dakota, it’s not in search of fun. Or to check in on his investment.
I stare at him. He stares at me.
Somewhere in the distance, Akwasi is saying, “Hey, Mr. Drákon, this is my baby, Ola…”
And somewhere in the distance, the huge sun god statue answers, “Ola and I have met.”
My head pulses with a strange pushing pressure. Like something other than my wolf is trying to crawl inside of me.
“We should go,” I say to Akwasi. Even to my ears my voice also sounds far away.
“No, Ola, you should stay,” Damianos says. His voice sounds like black syrup poured over pancakes as he transfers his piercing gaze from me to Akwasi. “You two will dance. I will watch.”
“I don’t want to dance.” My answer is firm and final, but it only seems to amuse Damianos.
“Go ahead, Ola, have your fun,” he says as if I hadn’t protested at all. “I’ll wait.”
“C’mon, Ola, let’s dance,” Akwasi says. Then he’s pulling me toward the dance floor, like us getting down is the most urgent mission in the world right now.
“Stop, let me go!” I try to yank my arm away, but Akwasi has it in a vice-grip. I’m a big, bodacious woman. Not just tall, but also a couple of hundred pounds and some change. But Akwasi is an elite athlete and a male wolf. He’s stronger than me, and we’re on the dance floor before I can put up much of a struggle.
“We’ve got to go,” I tell him as he pulls me into an old-fashioned ballroom pose, even though a Trap Metal song is blasting overhead. “I can’t stay here. I’ve got to tell my uncles that Damianos Drákon is—”
I stop, realizing that my uncles are no longer the go-to royals for threats against our kingdom. No, that would be me. The freshly minted North Dakota queen. It was on me to deal with the dragon who’d nearly killed both my fathers and my aunt back in the Viking day. A dragon whose threat was so dire, my sister’s mate had insisted on going into hiding lest he finds them.
Shit, I realize, with a sinking heart. This situation is beyond what I can handle. I would have to reach out to Rafes.
“I need to make a comm,” I tell Akwasi, pulling my hands down so that I can ell Rafes.
For the first time ever, I’m more annoyed than proud that Rafes completely bioblocked me a few months ago, because I pissed him off so bad. Usually, that’s something to brag about at dinner parties, but in this case, him hating my guts means I can’t just send him a quick biomessage like I would anyone else. I’ve got to ell him and hope to my mother’s God, and my fathers’ Fenrir Wolf, that he accepts my comm request—