Third person POV
The party should have felt like a distraction. It didn’t.
Lance stood at the railing of his yacht, the silver waters of the harbor stretching out beneath a twilight sky. Music drifted from the deck — soft jazz, laughter, the low hum of conversation — but it all sounded distant, muffled, like it belonged to someone else’s life.
It was the first clear night they’d had in weeks, so he’d taken advantage of it to have one more good party before it became too cold to do it again.
He was surrounded by friends, politicians, and half a dozen ambitious alphas-in-waiting, not to mention the beautiful women, but he couldn’t make himself care. The whiskey in his glass had long since gone warm.
For years, this had been his escape. Noise, people, motion. Anything to drown out the q
