“No,” I said, mostly honestly. The images that had haunted me since Julius had first spoken his challenge floated back into my head. All the ways I might find Marco after the battle, battered and bleeding. “I don’t want to see how badly he might hurt you while you’re winning. If I can save you from that...”
Marco sucked in a breath. “There was a time not long ago when I thought you might enjoy seeing me batted around some.”
My back stiffened. The idea that I’d wish that kind of pain on him wrenched at me so hard tears sprang into my eyes. “No,” I choked out. “I was angry at you, but I would never want—that’s the last thing I—”
Marco’s eyes had widened. He brushed his thumb over my lips, stopping my struggle for words. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It was only a joke—a bad one, clearly. I... didn’t realize my wellbeing meant so much to you.”
“Of course it does, you idiot,” I muttered. “You’re my mate. You’re obviously upset about the challenge. I just thought, this is the one thing I can do that might help...”
“Serenity.” Marco lowered himself on his side next to me and tugged me against him. He kissed my forehead, his voice a little shaky. “You have no idea how much you’ve helped already, with everything you’d done so far. And I’m not upset about the challenge because I’m afraid of Julius. Confrontations like that—they just stir up memories I’d rather avoid.”
I nestled my head against his shoulder. “Like what?”
He hesitated for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice was even quieter. “You’ve asked me before how I got this scar.” He touched the pale line that bisected his eyebrow. “I told you it was from a challenge. That particular challenge... came from a kin-member I’d considered a friend. One of my closest friends. We’d grown up together, played and trained together before I was even named next alpha-in-line. I’d have fought to the death for him.”
My throat had gone tight. Oh, God. “But instead you had to fight to the death against him.”
“Not to the death. Not in that moment. But I had to fight him, yes. I had to hear him tell me he didn’t believe I deserved to be alpha, that I didn’t deserve to even be kin, and then I had to beat him into submission.” Marco paused with a hissed inhale. “It was him or me, and in the end I chose me.”
“You did what you had to do.”
“Yes. But when there’s a challenge, the loser is banished. An alpha can’t have someone who tried to undermine our authority just hanging around. And Devon didn’t know what to do with himself once he was out on his own.”
“What happened?” I asked. I could already tell from the weight in Marco’s voice that it wasn’t good.
“He ended up tangling with a bunch of vampires. They were really not pleased about whatever he said or did to them.” Marco swallowed audibly. “When we found his body... it was obvious they’d tortured him for a while before they’d finished the job. So no, I didn’t kill him. But I did send him to his death. And the worst death I can imagine.”
I wrapped my arm around my mate, hugging him. “You didn’t have a choice. You couldn’t have known what would happen to him. It’s not as if you made him mess with those vampires.”
“I tell myself all that,” Marco said. “But I still feel like I’ve been punched in the gut every time I hear the words of a challenge.”
I drank in the smell of his skin, like spiced coffee. The stutter of his breath. The tension still wound through his muscles. He hadn’t wanted to tell me that story. He’d avoided it for weeks. But he had, finally, so that I’d understand.
“That’s why you were impatient to consummate,” I said. “Why it was so important to you to secure your position any way you could.”
“I shouldn’t have seen you that way,” Marco said quickly. “I didn’t want to think about you that way. But the thought was there. I let it get to me. You know how sorry I am for that.”
“But now—” I started, moving my body against his.
Marco groaned, but he gripped my thigh to hold me still. “Ren, tell me the truth. Would you be offering right now if Julius hadn’t challenged me?”
I wanted to say yes. The word caught in my throat. I couldn’t know exactly what I’d have done if the luncheon had played out differently... but I could make a reasonable guess.
“That’s what I thought,” Marco said at my hesitation.
“Marco...”
He cupped my face, gazing into my eyes. “Princess, it’s okay. The first time we go there, I want it to be only because you want it, not even slightly because circumstances are forcing your hand. I can beat Julius without breaking a sweat, and I can wait. It’s the least I can do.”
I choked up again, but for a completely different reason. The fact that he was saying no had dissolved the last of my doubts. I could have given myself over happily now, looming challenge or not.
But I’d already burned that bridge for the moment. I settled for kissing him, soft and sweet, as his hand stroked over the side of my face.
My body was still tingling with longing. Maybe Marco could feel that too. He drew back a couple of inches with a sly smile. “I would, however, be happy to enjoy you in another way.”
Before I had to ask what he meant, he was easing down my body. His fingers hooked the hem of my panties as he brushed his lips over my breasts and belly. I gasped when his mouth closed over the bundle of nerves at my core. Every part of my brain that had been cycling through worries short-circuited, and for a brief moment in time, I was made of nothing but bliss.
Chapter 15
West
I never felt really comfortable around feline shifters. Marco I could put up with, because at least he was dedicated to something. The rest of his kin—you never knew what was going on behind those shifty eyes.
At least, most of them read as shifty. The tiger shifter who’d challenged Marco a couple hours ago came across as a pretty straight-forward asshole. Or that’s what I’d determined while I’d been keeping an eye on him. Right now he was playing pool with a couple of his kin in the estate’s big entertainment room, bellowing victory whenever he hit a ball into a pocket. The sound made me wince inwardly even from across the room. I adjusted my position against the wall near the door.
I had my phone out, pretending I was mostly paying attention to that. I had actually checked in with a few of my lieutenants while Julius the Tiger had swaggered and blustered. Now I was playing a very half-hearted game of Candy Crush while keeping my ears perked to the conversations around me.
I’d just cleared a level when Ren strode past me into the room. A whiff of her scent reached my nose: the usual sweetness mingled with a musk that got me half-hard in two seconds flat. I straightened up, resisting the urge to lick my lips. And ignoring the twist of jealousy in my chest. She’d just been with at least one of the other alphas—I knew that much. And that alpha had gotten her off, well.
One hint of the smell of arousal on her, and I was right back to the other night in her bed. My mouth on her skin, her hand around my cock—