It had been weeks since I’d seen him, since we’d fought back a group of fairies intent on destroying Chicago by replacing our world with theirs . . . and he and I had shared a shockingly good kiss.
It was strange to have kissed someone—to have wanted to kiss someone—who’d driven me crazy as a kid. But he’d grown up, become a different kind of man.
He’d stayed in Chicago to help us fight despite Pack obligations that would have otherwise sent him across the country. But when our battle was done, duty called again. Not in Alaska, but in the Pack’s Midwestern territory, where he’d been sent to solve problems that arose as the Pack traveled cross-country.
We’d texted while he was gone. He told me about the drama he was dealing with, the internal and external politics of the Pack. I told him about my daily interactions with paperwork and Supernaturals. Having been raised a vampire—the most political of Supernaturals—I was smart enough to understand the subtext: The prince of wolves was making time for me.
It took only a moment for his predatory gaze to track through the partygoers and land on me. When surprise and pleasure flashed in his eyes, I was very, very glad that I’d skipped denim and leather for a body-skimming midcalf dress of deep vampire black. I’d left my sword and scabbard at the loft, but I’d tucked a dagger into a thigh garter, and my red heels were thin and high enough to serve as literal stilettos in an emergency. My hair, long and blond and wavy, was loosely tied at my shoulder with a thin ribbon of deep crimson velvet.
Connor began to cross the room, making his way toward me like a missile locked on its target. Anticipation was like an electric charge across my skin.
When Connor and I had been kids—and hadn’t liked each other very much—I’d seen him with plenty of girlfriends. All shades, all shapes, all sizes. Always gorgeous. I hadn’t been jealous of them, but I’d definitely been curious, wondering what it was like to be the object of his attention, to be the one he was walking toward.
It was a thrill. A song, low and sexy and seductive.
“Brat,” he said to me when he reached us. The nickname was a holdover from our icy childhood, but his tone was plenty warm. “Theo.”
“You never call,” Theo said. “You never write.”
Connor kept his gaze on me, and I could all but feel my blood heating from the power of it. “I wrote the ones that needed writing.”
The words were a thrill, the emotion still a shock. As was the fact that we’d grown from irritating enemies to . . . something very different.
“How was Colorado?” I asked.
“You do some skiing?” Theo wondered.
Connor shook his head. “Shifters in Colorado who don’t acknowledge the Pack’s existence had some objections to our riding through what they call their territory.”
Theo nodded. “I’m assuming the Pack disagrees?”
“The Pack does, but it’s handled. For now.”
I took a guess. “Because the Pack made it through Colorado, but you still have some thoughts?”
“Feelings linger,” he agreed, gaze on me. “I’m leaving again tomorrow.”
Disappointment covered desire like a heavy cloud. But before I could ask for details, another shifter slipped to Connor’s side.
He was male, with pale skin, dark blond hair, a trimmed beard, and angular brows. His eyes were hazel, his mouth a firm line. There was something familiar about his face, his magic. But I couldn’t place him.
The shifter whispered something to Connor, face turned away so we couldn’t read his lips.
After a moment, Connor nodded. “Ten minutes,” he said, and the man walked away without so much as a word to us.
“He’s friendly,” Theo said.
“Who was that?” I asked. “He looks familiar.”
“Alexei Breckenridge,” Connor said.
My grandparents were friends with the patriarch of the Breckenridge family, Michael Sr. But the family was less friendly with my parents. Alexei was our age, but I hadn’t seen him in years, and probably only a handful of times before that.
“I didn’t know Brecks mingled with the rest of the Pack these days,” I said.
“He’s one of the few,” Connor said dryly. “The Brecks prefer to live within the human world. But Alexei’s good Pack. If not entirely sociable.”
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“It will be. Business as usual. And I’d like to talk to you about that.” He looked at Theo. “Mind giving us a minute?”
“No problem,” he said. “I’m going to see a shifter about some meats.” He cut through the crowd, disappeared, leaving Connor and me alone.
Connor looked down at me, a corner of his mouth lifted in a smile that was partly cocky, partly unsure. He knew exactly who he was. But we were both still figuring out who we were. Our beginning had been sandwiched between years of teenage sniping and weeks of separation. Uncomfortable, given I generally preferred clear steps. Rule books. Plans and procedures.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey back. It’s good to see you,” I ventured, and his face lit, his smile widened.
“It’s good to see you, too, Lis.”
“The Pack’s good?” I asked quietly, not wanting to force him to spread internal struggles through the room, and betting he’d tell me more than he’d said in front of Theo.
“Drama,” he said. “Almost as bad as dealing with vampires.”
“Oh, that’s funny.”
“I thought so.”
We stood there for a moment, just looking at each other. Want and trepidation dancing in the air around us.
“I’m going to Minnesota,” he said. “I’d like you to go with me.”
I stared at him. “You want me to go to Minnesota with you.”
“Yes. Grand Bay, on the north shore of Lake Superior. Beautiful place. My cousin—a second cousin, actually—is being initiated into the Pack, and I’m going. Night to drive, night to attend the initiation, night to drive back.”
“Why would you want a vampire at a Pack initiation?” They were notoriously secretive events, just for family and close friends.
“Maybe I’m interested in your company. Does there always have to be an ulterior motive?”
“I’m a vampire. So yes.”
A corner of his mouth lifted. “Colorado wasn’t the last of the Pack’s troubles. The initiation is happening within a clan—a small community—that’s got issues.”