I shook my head but smiled. Yeah, they were the best, even if I gave them a hard time for being so damn overbearing and protective.
My father started speaking with another clan member, and I scanned the room. Crystal glasses with blood were filled for the vampires. Dark-colored whiskey or bourbon for the other guests. There was a massive banquet table with every kind of food imaginable.
I reached out and grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing waiter, smiled, and said thank you, then brought the glass to my mouth to take a sip of the sweet, bubbly liquid. Although it wasn’t as sweet as blood and didn’t give me the euphoric high the life-giving liquid did, it would still do the job well enough.
I finished nearly the whole glass—feeling the effects of the alcohol move through me pleasurably—when I felt this shift in the massive hall. The air seemed to get colder, and as if in unison, everyone turned and faced the wide entrance of the great hall.
They were looking at someone.
I was small, not just for a female, but also for a supernatural creature, so there was no way I could see over the towering males or the svelte, tall females.
I inhaled deeply, sifting through all the scents in the room and trying to focus on whatever was at that entrance. It took work; the scents were many and thick, perfumes and foods, and my supernatural “powers” were severely lacking, barely stronger than a human’s sense of smell. But then I locked on it.
I felt this jolt move through me at the aroma, felt my eyes widen, my heart start to race. Beads of sweat dotted my temples, my palms, and slid between my breasts. Was I breathing harder? Was the air thicker? Gods, I was dizzy.
And once that scent filled my nose and head, I could smell nothing else.
A Lycan male was who everyone was looking at, yet I still couldn’t see him. I shivered, not understanding why I suddenly felt so hot and cold. Why I felt so… aware. Awakened.
“Is that Luca Lupineov?” my mother whispered to my father, sidling closer to him. He wrapped one arm around my mother’s waist, and as if he wanted to keep the females close, he did the same to me, bringing me protectively to his side.
I noticed my brothers pushed their way toward us, their looks dark, dangerous. They scanned over my mother and me, protective of us just as our father was. Then again, this was how all supernatural males were when it concerned females they cared about.
I glanced around the room, taking note males did the same with their mates and daughters, brothers seeming to instinctively want to protect their sisters and mothers.
“Aye,” my father answered, and I felt his hand tighten on my shoulder. “A Lycan gone mad is one of the most dangerous creatures alive.”
And then bodies started to part as the male was clearly moving into the great hall. I still couldn’t see him and tried to rise on my toes to get a better look. I saw a flash of dark, short hair, a set of wide, powerful shoulders. The male straightened, and I gasped at how big and tall he was, towering over even my father, who by all accounts was one of the biggest males in this room.
Lord, that male had to be easily six-foot eight, maybe an inch or two taller than that. And the power in his body, the stacks of muscles, was staggering. But there was something else, something about him that had my skin tightening and this strange feeling moving within me. I felt my father stiffen further, and I glanced up at him. He was looking at me with his brows drawn.
“Lass, are ye okay?”
I cleared my throat and tried to calm my heart—which of course only made things worse. “I’m fine.” I hoped my smile was convincing. But my father still watched me for long seconds until movement up ahead drew his attention.
I exhaled and heard low murmurs.
It was his… the Lycan male’s. Luca’s voice.
I actually closed my eyes and would have swayed from the sound if not for the fact that my father held onto me.
Luca was congratulating his brother Ren on his mating, and his deep, husky, and accented voice did warm things to me. But it was slightly distorted, not human. Yet not fully his beast. It was a mixture, and I knew the rumors had to be true. Luca had gone mad, his inner animal taking control. Partially shifted so he was bigger, taller. More powerful.
I’d heard about Luca Lupineov. I was pretty sure every creature in the Otherworld had. How could they not? He was known as the Lycan shifter who’d slowly lost his mind because he hadn’t found his mate. Over four hundred years of turmoil, pain… longing.