The Blood Hound Pact

Chapter Fifteen

"You look like trouble," Cassian says, whistling as I descend the stairs.

"I am trouble," I say, grabbing my clutch. "Now, let’s go crash a courtship."

The Elynor Club is a fortress of old money and older secrets. The ballroom is filled with men in tuxedos and women in diamonds, but as soon as we walk in, the conversation hits a collective wall. I can feel the heat of a hundred predatory gazes on me.

And then I see Silas.

He is standing at a table near the dance floor, Seraphina clinging to his arm like a trophy. He is mid-conversation with an Elder, but the moment I step into the room, he stops. He turns his head slowly, his eyes locking onto mine.

The gray is gone. It is pure, molten gold.

The magnetism between us snaps across the room like a lightning bolt. Everyone can feel it. The Elders whisper, Seraphina’s grip on his arm tightens until her knuckles are white, and Silas... Silas looks like he’s about to break every law he’s ever sworn to uphold.

"Ivy," he breathes, the word carrying across the silent room.

"Silas," I say, walking toward him with all the confidence I don't actually feel. "I forgot to tell you. I’m not really a 'stay at home' kind of girl."

He doesn't move. He doesn't breathe. He just watches me come closer, the slow burn finally reaching the dynamite.

"You shouldn't be here," he growls as I reach the table.

"And yet, here I am," I say, leaning in close enough to smell the sandalwood and the simmering rage. "Do you want to dance, Alpha? Or are you too busy with your 'tradition'?"

Seraphina looks like she’s about to shift right there on the dance floor. "He is with me, human."

"He’s with everyone," I say, my eyes never leaving Silas’s. "But he’s looking at me."

Silas reaches out, his hand hovering near my waist before he pulls it back. The restraint is agonizing to watch.

"One dance," he says, his voice a low, vibrating rumble that makes my heart stop. "And then I am taking you home and locking you in that room myself."

"Is that a promise, Silas?" I whisper.

He doesn't answer. He just leads me toward the dance floor, and as his hand finally touches the small of my back, the world outside simply ceases to exist. There is no Council, no Seraphina, and no Pact. There is only the heat of his palm and the look in his eyes that says I am the only thing he will ever truly see.

But as the music starts, I see Julian Thorne standing at the edge of the room, looking at us with a look of pure confusion.

The triangle just became a very crowded dance floor.

The dance is less of a waltz and more of a hostage negotiation. Silas has his hand clamped onto the small of my back as if he is trying to fuse our spines together, and every time our thighs brush, I see his pupils swallow the gray of his irises. He is vibrating with a repressed energy that feels like a live wire under silk.

"You are pushing me, Ivy," he breathes into my ear, his stubble grazing my skin and sending a fleet of butterflies into a frantic riot in my stomach. "You are playing a game where the rules are written in blood, and you don't even have a deck."

"Then teach me the rules, Silas," I whisper back, leaning into his heat. "Or are you too afraid that if you get too close, you won't be able to stop?"

He doesn't answer with words. Instead, his grip tightens, his fingers digging into my waist just enough to let me know that the "noble billionaire" is currently losing the fight against the wolf who wants to claim everything in sight. I look past his shoulder and see Seraphina fuming by the punch bowl, while Julian is actively trying to push through the crowd toward us.

"I think your knight in shining scrubs is coming to save me," I tease, glancing at Julian.

Silas's entire body turns to stone. He stops dead in the middle of the dance floor, his amber eyes locked on Julian’s approach. "He can try. But he’ll find out very quickly that I don't share what belongs to me."