For Cameron, for Viktor, for herself, she could not let the pull win.
Ignoring her fallen stilettos, she padded slowly toward the door, her eyes locked on the man who looked a half step away from shifting right there in the Summit Hall.
“I don’t owe you any explanation,” she answered, haughty enough to cover up the tremor in her voice. “You were right earlier. We aren’t family. We aren’t even friends. What I do or don’t do is none of your business, Alpha Hamilton.”
“Bullshit.” Viktor’s eyes blazed with the coyote’s hunger, the wildness that spoke to something deep and dark in her. “You think I’m going to walk out of this room and forget this, Cam?”
Her gloved palm found the knob. “Yes.” She twisted and pulled. A cooler rush of fresh air swept up her sweaty spine, fluttering the skirt of her dress around her legs. A chill settled over the raw wound inside her, numbing her to the pain, the brutal craving that was even now beginning to set in.
Camille lifted her chin as she swept one bare foot out into the hall. “You had no trouble when we were sixteen, right? Shouldn’t be hard for you.”
A muscle in Viktor’s jaw jumped. His expression, normally relaxed and quick to smile, was stiff with tension. “Don’t do this, Cammie. Don’t walk away from me and think I won’t chase you.”
If she didn’t feel like she was going to throw up, Camille would have snorted. Chase her? Viktor hadn’t so much as glanced in her direction in twenty years. Just because he’d followed her this time didn’t mean he would make any effort again.
Certainly, when she needed him most, he hadn’t thought to follow her. Nothing had changed.
“You’re a busy man now, Alpha Hamilton,” she replied, easing backward into the hallway. “I’m sure you’ll find better things to do than think of me.” Another roar of noise went up, shattering what little remained of their intimate bubble. Eyes flicking down the hall, she added, “You should be at the Summit, watching my cousin make history. If you don’t hurry, you’ll miss it.”
Dismissing him with a cool look, she turned on her heel and, even though it felt impossible, walked away.
Chapter Three
July 2045 - San Francisco, The Elvish Protectorate
The water of Camille’s bath was cold enough to kill. It stung every inch of her skin and threaded cold fingers through her short black hair as she stared up at the ceiling of her apartment’s lavish bathroom.
Light poured in through a high window and struck a crystal light fixture, a relic from another time, to burst against the walls in a riot of colors. She could just make out each one through the distortion of the water and the lazily drifting ice cubes passing overhead.
She braced her hands against the sides of the tub, forcing her body to stay still, to submit to the bite of cold, and tried to think past the scream of age-old instinct.
…six one thousand, seven one thousand, eight one thousand, she counted, lungs beginning to burn. She needed to get to twenty before she would allow herself up for air. After a deep breath in, she would dunk herself again.
Sometimes it only took one or two rounds to beat back the craving. Sometimes, if the day was particularly bad, it took ten to twenty. It was a miserable ritual, and one of the many things about San Francisco she would be happy to leave behind.
She knew from experience that things would get easier with distance. It did, but of course, she was forced to come back to the city after only a few months back in Napa. Regaining that distance was vital.
The ache in her bones would lessen. The unbearable itch under her skin would disappear. The hollow keening in her soul would peter out into cold, wounded silence.
The symptoms were worse than when she was sixteen, but Camille was optimistic that she would conquer the craving tearing its way through her soul with fang and claw once again. Viktor Hamilton could not be allowed to win. He would not break her. Twice.
Lungs aching, Camille surged upward. The muffled roar of water in her ears gave way to the soft strains of classical music in the next room and, very distantly, the hum of the m-lev train gliding through the streets below the Solbourne-owned apartment building.
Water dripped from her lashes as she sucked in a huge lungful of warm air. Her fingers curled over the edges of the porcelain tub. Her claws were sharp and diligently maintained — ten pretty, almond-shaped blades that could rend a man’s head from his shoulders with a single swipe. Her skin, a shade of amethyst that reflected the light in pinks, lime green, and deep blues, stood out starkly against the bathtub.
Across the cavernous bathroom, her tablet buzzed on the cream colored marble countertop. Camille stiffened. She was damn tired of getting notifications. For someone who had been in what amounted to self-imposed isolation for the past month, she received a truly appalling amount of emails every day. That was just about the only aspect of her mother’s death she didn’t anticipate.
But these were important. Life-changing. If she was very, very lucky, they might even be life-saving.
Grimacing, she forced herself back under the water. The ice was melting fast, and she had no desire to fetch another bucket from her freezer. The notifications could wait a few minutes longer. Freeing herself of her involuntary bond to a shifter that didn’t want her would always come first.
Three dips later, she finally allowed herself to unplug the drain and stand. The shivers didn’t hit her until, with a raw, scouring pain, the lukewarm water of the shower sprayed down her back. Like always, she took it with gritted teeth and pure, spiteful will.
Her mother wouldn’t have approved of her staying in the city. She would never have allowed her contact with Viktor in the first place. But she was dead. Two long years of suffering were finally at an end. Marian never even knew that her daughter had come into contact with her wayward consort at the Summit. She wasn’t lucid enough to understand it even if Camille bothered to tell her.
She felt foolish for her misstep, but how could Camille have known her cousin would personally invite the shifter to the Summit? It was supposed to be safe. No one but elves attended the yearly gathering. Never in her wildest dreams did she imagine Theodore might break all the rules the moment he became Sovereign and actually invite him.
She tried to swallow down a familiar swell of bitterness at the thought of her cousin and his newfound happiness. A king in his own right, Theodore worked himself to the bone to be in a position where he could not be challenged — and where he could finally claim his consort.
Camille was happy for him, truly, and she might have liked Margot Goode well enough, if only their bliss didn’t put her in danger of losing her mind.
Now that elves were free to mingle with the general population, every step outside was a risk. No Solbourne function was safe. Viktor was Theodore’s childhood friend and newly minted political ally. If she agreed to show up for a family dinner, would she find him waiting at the table? If she stepped out for a trip downtown, would she stumble upon him at a table in her favorite cafe?
Gods help me, I need to get the fuck out of this town.
She couldn’t blame everything on Theodore, though. Yes, he’d made a mess of her life, but she made things so much worse by allowing Viktor to corner her, to touch her. Perhaps her symptoms would have already begun to fade if she hadn’t allowed him so much skin contact.