The silence of the driveway was loud, broken only by the distant, muffled thrum of the bass from the ballroom and the shallow rhythm of my own breathing. Draven stood too close. The heat radiating from his body defied the biting night air, wrapping around me like a physical shroud.
"I am not walking away from you?" I echoed, letting out a sharp, humorless laugh that cut through the tension. "I already did, Draven. Back in the ballroom. And the world didn't end."
His golden eyes flared, the irises bleeding into a dangerous, dark amber. My inner wolf pressed against my ribs, desperate to submit to the Alpha aura rolling off him in suffocating waves, but I forced her down. I had spent a lifetime learning how to mask my scent, how to bury the royal bloodline of the Nightveil Pack beneath the
