Page 100 of Nikolay
He bent his head until his nose brushed the shell of my ear. The movement sent a chill all the way down my spine that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with nerves recognizing danger in whatever form it wore.
“I know how much you crave being among wolves,” he said, voice low against my skin. “You needed that tonight.”
I swallowed. “I did.”
He inhaled slowly, as if he liked the scent of me after the run. “You have been too long among vampires.”
The sentence tightened something in me.
“I’ve been fine.”
“Have you?” His breath touched the side of my neck. “A wolf like you, penned up in a house of predators not your own. Eating at their table. Breathing their air. Making yourself comfortable in something fundamentally unnatural.”
The word landed badly.
Unnatural.
My fingers pressed more firmly into his chest.
“The Kozlovs have been kind to me,” I said. “Better than kind, actually. They’ve treated me like family.”
He lifted his head just enough to study my face.
“Family,” he repeated, and there was something careful in the way he said it. “Is that what you believe that is?”
I felt irritation start to edge through the fog of wine and fatigue.
“I know what they’ve been to me,” I said. “And before this goes any further, there’s something you need to know.”
He stilled.
I took one breath and decided honesty would hurt less now than later.
“I’ve felt a mate pull to Nikolay Kozlov.”
Everything in him went quiet.
Not still the way a relaxed man grew still. Still the way an animal did when something important had just changed in the landscape.
His jaw tightened once.
Then he pulled back enough to look at me fully.
“So it’s true,” he said.
A little cold dread moved through my stomach. “You’d heard that?”
“A rumor.” His gaze did not leave mine. “And I had also heard Nikolay Kozlov holds you in nothing but contempt.”
The words struck because they landed too near old wounds.
Sage saw it. Of course he did.
“Why,” he asked softly, “would you carry a candle for a beast who so clearly hates the idea of being with a lowly wolf when he is a prince?”
My jaw went tight.
He did not stop.
