She wore her hair madonna-loose, tumbling in gorgeous honeyed waves down over her bare shoulders, over
the milky white contours of her throat and chest and arms that stood in perfect contrast to the vivid hue of her gown.
A part of his mind—the part that could still think, that was not dazed by her magic—noted her sensual, knowing smile, the look of calm control in which she took all of them in, a roomful of silent and deadly accusers.
She shifted her weight. The high slit in her gown slithered open, revealing one long, bare expanse of perfectly toned and curved leg, which ended in a delicate high-heeled sandal of crimson red. He felt the beat of his heart as his gaze moved over that finely turned ankle, up that bare calf and knee and thigh so familiar in his memory, familiar from the erotic, aching dreams that wrung him dry night after night like a poison that ate through his blood.
Mine
, he thought, hungry. The word flooded him with something like despair.
Her eyes found his across the room. Her sensual smile now deepened to something distinctly provocative.
Christian exhaled through his teeth, a soft whoosh of astonishment, and it broke the spell.
Leander stepped forward, the blood pumping back into his heart. He crossed the silent ballroom, people falling back, agog, to let him pass. He came to a stop a few feet away from her, close enough to smell her subtle perfume of fresh air and winter roses, close enough to reach out and stroke her arm.
With concentrated effort, he restrained himself from touching her. He gave a little bow instead. “Jenna,” he said, smooth and light, “you’ve decided to join us. I’m happy to see you.”
Her lips quirked. A fleeting shadow crossed her face, then disappeared. She reclaimed her composure with a
toss of her head. “Well, I do hate to miss a party,” she said, equally light. She fixed him with a level gaze, her chin lifting. “And I was growing tired of the enforced solitude.”
Someone new approached, but Leander was unable to look away from her.
She was safe. She was here, standing so blithe and beautiful in front of him, having somehow gotten past her retinue of guards. She appeared unhurt—more than unhurt, she appeared luminous. Exquisitely so. And oddly confident. Recklessly confident, he would say, in light of the current circumstances.
He felt every eye in the room burning like firebrands into his back.
But she remained as if separated from them all by a layer of glass: serene, unperturbed, as if she thought herself nothing more than a curiosity in a museum case, a shrunken head brought back from the deepest bowels of the Amazon, on display for all to see.
He looked at her and raised an eyebrow.
“Careful, love,” he said, his voice stroking. “They’re all looking for any reason to lock you up and throw away the key. Don’t give them one.”
Jenna raised an eyebrow in return, cool and haughty as Cleopatra before the Romans. “They? Not
you
?”
He smiled, very slightly, in spite of himself. “My reasons are different from theirs, of that I can assure you,” he murmured. He held her gaze for what felt like an eternity, willing her to respond, to give him any clue she felt anything at all for him.
But naturally she gave him nothing but a chilly smile and her perfect profile as she turned her head to the person now upon them.
“Jenna.” Morgan glided to a stop next to his elbow. “You look lovely.” Leander saw the two of them exchange a secret, knowing smile.
“It’s my favorite, I think,” Jenna said, offhand. She smoothed her palm over the layers of ruched silk gathered just under the bodice, at the swell of her breast where it met the upper part of her ribcage. “I’ve never been partial to red, but this one...well, the fit is perfect.” She glanced sidelong at Leander, her smile warming almost imperceptibly. “For some strange reason, I just love it.”
“May I get you something to drink?” Morgan asked her, deferential.
“Champagne?” Jenna replied, still smiling. “That seems rather appropriate, don’t you think?” Morgan nodded, her lips mashed together, and drifted away toward a waiter.
“You two seem to be forging quite the friendship,” Leander said, watching her go. There was something amiss here, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. She and Morgan were close now, it seemed...and how the hell had she gotten past the guards?
Every minute fissure and crack in the room had been sealed off before her arrival. Even the door was protected with invisible sealant to block her from Shifting to vapor and escaping. No precaution had been spared, but somehow it hadn’t mattered.
The music started up again and people were beginning to talk, if only in hushed whispers. Every eye in the room was still trained on the two of them.
Jenna’s smile deepened, became mocking. “I’ve been told, by a very reliable source, that it’s good to have friends.” The green in her eyes turned a shade darker. “People whom you can trust in times of need.”
Morgan returned and handed Jenna a glass of champagne, its crystal bowl filled with madly roiling bubbles. She did it so politely Leander imagined an invisible curtsy with the gesture. Another look passed between them, and Morgan placed her fingers lightly on Jenna’s forearm before turning to move back into the crowd, toward a still-gaping Christian.
His gaze was fixed firmly on Jenna’s leg, still insouciantly jutting from the high slit in her dress. It then traveled slowly up her waist, her breasts, her face.
Christian realized Leander was staring at him at precisely the moment Morgan reached his side.
Leander met Christian’s eyes with a cool, steady look of his own, until his brother dropped his gaze and turned away. Morgan said a few words into his ear. Christian nodded stiffly, then stalked off into the crowd.
“Are you? In need, that is? Of anything?” Leander asked, turning back to Jenna.
“I am...well.” He thought he saw something in her eyes, something that might have been either pain or anger, swiftly erased.
“Yes, Morgan said as much. Though not much else,” he added, pointedly.
She only smiled, still mysterious.
“You weren’t badly hurt?” he prompted.
“My foot wasn’t badly hurt, no,” she equivocated, moving her gaze over the gathering in the ballroom. “It’s healed now. Thank you for your concern.”
“So quickly?” he pressed, unconvinced. “There seemed to be a great deal of blood—”
“Morgan is a very good nurse,” she replied vaguely, peering over his shoulder.
This polite, sterile conversation was beginning to make the palms of his hands itch.
What had she been doing for the last four days? Why had she not spoken with him? With anyone else but Morgan? When could he speak with her alone? Why the hell was she being so
remote
?
“Just out of curiosity, who is the tall, handsome man standing with all those women against the far wall?”
He didn’t have to turn his head to know who she was referring to. He answered her through clenched teeth. “Alejandro. Alpha of the Brazilian colony.”
Her eyes came back to his. “You don’t like him.” She seemed amused by this.
“No. I do not like him.”
She smiled. “Well, you might want to leave, then. He’s headed our way.”
Leander turned just as Alejandro, oblivious to everything else around him as he honed in on Jenna like a bloodhound on the hunt, shouldered through a cluster of whispering Assembly wives. They fell back as one, shocked, twittering.
Leander cupped Jenna’s elbow, lightly, and began to turn her away toward the door. “Perhaps we should go somewhere more private to talk,” he murmured, noting with no small surprise that she didn’t draw her arm from his light grasp.
“Oh, no,” she answered. “I’d love to hear what he has to say. After the last few days of enforced solitude, I’m in desperate need of some stimulating conversation.” Her gaze flashed to his, sharp, then darted away.
“Madame.”
Alejandro was suddenly there, pushing past Leander with a stiff shoulder, purposely ignoring him. He broke
Leander’s grip on Jenna’s elbow with a practiced bow: low, obsequious, and swift.
“You are...” He cleared his throat, let his gaze drift over Jenna’s figure, lingering on her décolletage. “
Muito bonita
. Even more stunning than I have heard.”
Leander had to work very hard not to smash Alejandro’s face in with his fist.
“How very suave,” Jenna said, smiling coyly.
She shocked Leander by lifting her hand toward Alejandro. He bent over it, his lips barely stroking over the surface of her satiny skin. “That seems to be a rather rare quality these days,” she added lightly, looking down at his helmet of shining dark hair. “Although one I
so
enjoy.”
Alejandro straightened, still holding Jenna’s hand, and shot a victorious look at Leander. His gaze slithered back to her face. His eyes were wide and unblinking and he wore a swooning, torporous expression, as if he’d gorged himself on a rich dessert and was finding it exceedingly difficult to digest.
“
Obrigado
, beautiful lady,” he purred. “I’m afraid not all of us are born with the ability to be pleasant to others. But as I always say,
um charme pouco vai um longo caminho.
A little charm goes a long way.”
“Well said. I completely agree,” Jenna replied smoothly, allowing her hand to rest in Alejandro’s palm as if she might never remove it. They gazed at each other for a moment, both of them smiling. Jenna wore an expression of slightly amused curiosity, and he hoped to God it was only because of Alejandro’s hair.
Fury erupted within him, white hot, a firestorm of deadly, devouring flame.
Jenna moved her gaze once again to a place beyond Leander’s shoulder. She frowned, then recovered her placid expression and tossed her hair back over her shoulder with a graceful shake of her head. “Wonderful. Here comes the cavalry,” she murmured, barely moving her lips.
Four men were behind him now, crowding in, then eight, then twenty. Leander felt them all, their concentrated energies focused with lasered precision on Jenna, who still smiled as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
The Assembly. The Alphas. The firestorm grew, a merciless howling inside his skull.
“Lady Jenna,” a voice said over his right shoulder.
LeBlanc, the Alpha from Quebec, damn him to hell. They wouldn’t even give him one moment alone with her, to talk to her, to
warn
her.
“Perhaps you would care to join us in the drawing room for a moment. I’m afraid we have much to discuss before we can continue with our party.”
“Gentlemen. Of course,” Jenna replied easily. She disentangled her hand from Alejandro’s pinched grip, took a delicate sip of her champagne, then lowered the glass and licked her ruby lips, deliberate and slow. She smiled at the group of men, looking at each in turn.
Leander watched two of them rock back on their heels, the rest too gone to even react with more than stunned stares.
“I would hate to interrupt your festivities by being unaccommodating. Please,” she said sweetly, her hand held out toward LeBlanc. Her smile was beautiful and dazzling and utterly without warmth. “Lead the way.”
She moved her gaze back to Leander’s face, her eyes glacially pale.
Something dark and reptilian moved inside his chest. He suddenly remembered a piece of advice his father had given him long ago, when he was still a boy, a lesson about the nature of woman.
Do not ever underestimate a woman, son, or make the foolish mistake of trying to bend her to your will. She may flatter you and smile and even seem to agree, but in the end she’ll cut out your heart, feed your body to the wolves, and then enjoy a good night’s sleep.
With another twist in his gut, he slid a step away from Jenna and allowed her to be led by the hand out of the ballroom and down the long corridor toward the drawing room. He watched a thicket of silent, jostling
Ikati
trail in her wake like a school of hungry parasites.
“We are going to require some
proof
of this,” LeBlanc insisted again, his fingers pressed against the polished surface of the mahogany tabletop, his eyes a sharp, frozen green. “And we are going to require it now.”
The drawing room was silent except for the faint echo of the orchestra drifting in from the other end of the manor and the irregular breathing of agitated men. It was much darker here than in the rest of the house, and cooler. There were no windows to let in the light during the day, no fireplace to blaze against the chill of the evening.
They were seated in chairs pulled hastily from every corner of the room, a rough circle of nineteen with three of the four Alphas at one long table like judges on the bench.
Jenna stood alone before them, her skin pale and luminescent against the carnelian gown and the blue and charcoal shadows surrounding her. Here in the dim, close confines of the drawing room, she glowed like a morning star.
But her eyes, Leander thought, watching her carefully. Her glittering eyes collected the dim light and sent it flying back at them all like the flash of knives in a cave.
For the past twenty minutes, Jenna had feinted and danced around their questions, seeming to enjoy the growing tension and frustration of the men seated before her. Aside from Leander, she was the only one standing.
She had refused LeBlanc’s direction to take a seat with a simple, succinct no.
She seemed to have absolutely no idea of the danger she was putting herself in. He had seen
Ikati
imprisoned and punished for far, far less than this brazen display of disrespect.
“Are you?” Jenna mused. She raised her eyebrows, a shadow of disdain curving her lips.
“Yes,” LeBlanc said, adamant, sitting forward. He pressed his palms on the table now and began to rise to his feet. “You simply
must
Shift in front of the Assembly. We cannot just take your word for it—”
“And what about the word of the Alpha of Sommerley, Lord McLoughlin?” Jenna interrupted. Her disdain for the man flattened her lips, thickening the air between them. She let her gaze drift to where Leander stood against the far wall of the drawing room. He leaned, arms crossed, tense and silent, in the shadows cast from a large breakfront, shadows that would hide his expression—and his eyes.