“Stupid. Stupid,” she breathed to herself as she took down a serving tray and began to gather up all the cutlery ready to lay the small table in the breakfast room. It was where Darius and Kane ate when it was just two of them for dinner. She wanted to get it done quickly so that she didn’t have to face him.
Then she would ask Misty to take over serving the dinner. Amara would cry off with a headache. Understandable since the moon was so full, so bright in the sky. Concentrate.
“Amara. Can you take this up to Mr. Reinier’s office?” the cook, Mrs. Bower, asked.
“Of course,” Amara said, going to pick the tray of drinks up. Darius liked a drink before dinner; he was old fashioned and formal about these things, so different to the younger Mr. Reinier, Kane. At the thought of him, her hands trembled and the glass clinked against the decanter.
“Don’t drop it,” Mrs. Bower said sharply. “If you do, you will most likely add another year onto your contract.”
“It’s not worth that much, is it?” Misty asked, coming in and looking critically at Amara. “Are you OK, honey? You look all done in.”
“I’m feeling a bit odd,” Amara said, knowing she couldn’t possibly face Kane and Darius tonight.
“I bet,” Misty said, coming over to her and looking at her more closely. “It will get easier. Why don’t you go and have a lie down?”
“What about Mrs. Bower? I supposed to take this up to Darius,” Amara said.
“She’ll understand; this is your first moon. Not being able to change makes you feel as if you are in a straitjacket. I know, I can still remember…”
Amara put her hand on Misty’s arm and said comfortingly, “You are so close to the end of your contract. One day soon you’ll be free.”
Misty smiled weakly. “What if I’ve forgotten how to shift? What if I’m stuck like this?”
“You won’t be,” Amara said, but knew how Misty felt. The thought had haunted her ever since her lioness had been tamed by the awful collar. After three years of denying her lioness, would she still be there, waiting for her?
“Go. I’ll take care of this. Go and have a hot bath, that always helps.” Misty took the tray, spoke briefly to Mrs Bower, and then went upstairs.
Amara paused for a moment, not sure what to do. The moon was calling her outside, but she knew to go and sit in the open air, with the light on her skin, would be torture. So she headed upstairs to her room, grabbed her bathrobe, and went to the bathroom she shared with Misty.
There she ran a hot bath, pouring in copious amounts of bath foam, letting the scent fill the air. Slipping into the water, she let her mind clear. Misty was right, this was the best place for her to be. The window was small, and the moon wasn’t in view. She could lie here and forget about the evening and just hope that, in a month’s time, the next full moon wouldn’t be so difficult.
However, as those thoughts faded, they were replaced by the face of Kane Reinier, his expression a mixture of fear and dread. She had brought something into his life he had been unprepared for. She knew he would be questioning why she had run, and why her touch had shocked him so much. And any intelligent person, and she knew for sure he wasn’t some dumb rich kid, would put the pieces together and come up with shifter.
Amara ducked under the water, wanting the water to wash away the sensations she had felt when she touched Kane. It couldn’t be true. She didn’t even know for sure he was a shifter. Yes, you do.
And even if he was, he had kept it carefully hidden, and why would he want to give up a life here for a new life in Shifters Prime? A new life with her. With his mate.
No. He wasn’t, it was something else—the electricity must have been just static. There was no way she was his mate. She had to put it out of her mind. With the collar on, the sensations were dimmed; if she didn’t touch him, didn’t go near him, this would go no further. He had no idea who she was, what she was to him. And that was how it would stay, she wouldn’t even tell Misty.
Getting out of the bath, she dried her body, ignoring the sense of arousal that infused her blood. She would conquer this, and work the two years of her contract, never going out to look at the moon again, never looking at Kane Reinier, and certainly never letting on he was her mate. That was the promise she made herself as she lifted her duvet and slid underneath.