CHAPTER 7: MY DATE IS MY HUSBAND’S FATHER

BRIENNA’S POV “That’s my husband.” The words slip out in a whisper, and the second they’re out, the whole car changes. The air vanishes. My heart slams so hard against my bruised ribs that I’m half sure it’ll crack them a second time tonight. I twist on Caspian’s lap, planting both hands flat on that wall of a chest, shoving like I can push myself right through the door and out into the night. “We have to turn back.” My voice climbs in panic. “Tell the driver to turn around. Right now. I can’t, I can’t go in there, I can’t do this again, please—” I expect them to be angry. I expect questions. I expect three furious Alphas demanding to know why I’m flaking out last minute, why I’m being the exact thing they had warned against. Instead, something clicks between the three of them, a private understanding only the three catch on to, and the choking tension in the car turns into something else entirely. Something amused. Gideon is the first to break. He tips his head back against the leather and laughs, a low, delighted sound, delicious in its pitch. “Well,” he drawls, green eyes catching mine. “I’ll be damned.” “What?” I whip my head toward him. “What does that mean? Why are you looking at each other like that?” Nobody answers me. Kaiven cracks his knuckles one massive hand at a time, and when I turn to him, the hostility that’s been on his face since I stumbled through their gate is simply gone. In its place is something worse. Something relaxed. A slow, devious pleasure spreading through those black eyes like he’s just been told dinner’s ready. “Seems like tonight might be fun after all,” he says, unbothered, almost bored. “Been a while since I got to release some bloodlust.” “Bloodlust?” I choke. “What is happening? Somebody tell me what is happening—” “You don’t get to back out on us now, little wolf.” Caspian’s deep voice cuts through my panic. His large hands lock around my hips, pulling me hard against the heat of his groin as he leans into my ear, the hot graze of his lips lingering right there. “You made a promise. We made our rules. And if the bastard who put his hands on you is inside those doors,” the corner of his mouth lifts into a cold smirk, “then I’d say tonight’s a lucky night.” I stare up at him at all of them. Three grown, dangerous men crammed into this car, sharing a joke over my head like schoolboys, and I’m the only fool at the table who can’t see the big picture. “You don’t understand,” I whisper. Gideon leans in, and his ringed hand slides up to cradle the back of my neck, his thumb tracing my racing pulse until my breath stutters. “Remember the rules, sweetheart,” he purrs against my temple. “Just play along, and let us handle the rest.” The SUV rolls to a stop. The door opens onto a light rain and a valet who nearly drops his umbrella when he gets a look inside. I know this boy. Two hours ago, I snatched my keys from his shaking hands and drove blind into a storm with blood in my mouth. His eyes find my face, and all the colour drains out of him. Gideon unfolds out of the car after me. The driver rounds the hood and presses the keys into the valet’s hand, but the poor thing isn’t looking at the car anymore; he’s looking at me. Gideon clicks his tongue. “Eyes on the paint, pretty boy,” he says pleasantly. “The lady’s spoken for.” The valet finds something very interesting to look at on the ground. “You two take her in. I’m right behind.” Caspian passes my hand off, my whole hand disappearing into Kaiven’s hardened ones. He rolls his eyes. A leather arm hooks around my waist. Gideon grins down at me, all teeth and trouble, and tucks me into his side. “Relax, princess. Shake any harder, and these fine people are going to think we kidnapped you.” Then we’re climbing the marble steps of my own home, and my mind is spinning so fast I feel drunk. Because this is insane. Two hours ago, I was on the floor of this house, on my knees in front of everyone I’ve spent years serving, my cheek on fire from Adam’s fist, my dignity puddled somewhere by the grand staircase while my husband carried his pregnant mistress past my body like I was simply dirt on the floor. I decorated these steps. I chose the white roses climbing the bannisters, the gold at the windows, the whole desperate, expensive fantasy of it, weeks of my life poured into making tonight perfect so I could set a crown on that man’s head and smile like a love-struck fool. And here I come, walking back up in a scandalous red dress that ends at the top of my thighs, on the arms of the most dangerous men in this territory. I drag in a breath, force my spine straight, and lift my chin until it aches. Fake it till you make it, Brienna. Tonight, I am not Adam’s Luna. Tonight, I am not anybody’s punching bag. Tonight, I belong to the Black Vipers, and every soul in that ballroom is about to know it. The doors swing open. The heat and the noise and the perfume roll out to meet us, a hundred of the most powerful wolves in the territory, dripping in diamonds and designers, gleaming under the chandeliers I hung myself. And then the noise dies. It goes down the room like a wave, table by table, mouth by mouth, until the whole ballroom is holding its breath. A hundred heads turn. A hundred pairs of eyes crawl over the length of me, the dress, the men, the elegant makeup I never used to wear. The whispers start, low and vicious and everywhere at once. “Is that, is that the Luna?” “Goddess above, what is she wearing—” “Why is she with the Black Vipers?” For three years, these same people looked straight through me. Tonight, for the first time, they can’t find anywhere else to put their eyes. And across the room, in the middle of all that light, my husband turns to see what everyone is staring at. Adam. The bastard. He’s got Fiora tucked under one arm, showing her off to a cluster of elders, my replacement, three weeks pregnant and dressed in Luna attire, being introduced to the pack that used to be mine. His mouth is open on some charming little sentence when his silver eyes find me. And die. The colour goes out of his face. His smile collapses. I watch it happen in real time: the shock, the disbelief, and then the fury boiling up under, because tonight of all nights, on the one night he needs his pack to look whole and golden and legitimate, his runaway wife has walked in dressed like sin and flanked by monsters. He drops Fiora’s hand without a glance and comes at me across the floor, fists balled at his sides. “Where have you been?” he hisses, stopping close enough that I can smell the wine on him. His eyes rake down my body, and his lip curls. “What in the Goddess’s name is this? What are you wearing? You are humiliating me, Brienna, in front of the entire—” The laugh comes out of me before I can stop it. “I’m humiliating you.” I let my head fall back with it, and my shoulders shake. “You paraded your pregnant secretary through the ballroom I built, you gave her my jewellery, you have her wearing my dress, and I’m the one embarrassing you?” His jaw flexes. Behind his eyes, I can see him doing the math, feeling the room whisper around him, and he hates it. Adam has never in his life been the one the crowd was laughing at. “You will lower your voice,” he grinds out, “and you will come upstairs with me right now, before you make this worse.” “I’m here with guests, Adam.” I tilt my head sweetly. “Where are your manners?” He grabs my arm harshly. The same grip, the same place, and for one ugly second my whole body remembers the floor,the fist and the shame of it, and my stomach drops out— Kaiven’s hand violently closes around Adam’s wrist. It happens so fast I don’t see him move. My husband’s fingers are still gripping my arm when Kaiven’s giant fist wraps around his wrist. His sinfully tattooed knuckles clamp down, squeezing so brutally hard it threatens to completely crush the bone. Adam makes a high-pitched, painful sound, and his knees wobble. “Take a step back,” Gideon says, sliding smoothly between us, and every warm, joking thing has gone out of his voice. " You touch what belongs to us again, and I will sever your f*****g hands. You don’t get to look at her, let alone touch her. Not ever again.” “Get off me—” Adam wrenches at his own arm, panic making him loud. “Who the hell do you think you are? This is my pack! Do you know whose house this is? Get out of my house!” And that’s when a voice comes out of the shadows behind me. Deep, unfairly sexy, and cold. “Is that any way to speak to a lady?” Adam goes still. I watch it drain him, the fury, the colour, all of it, as Caspian steps out of the dark and into the light of the chandeliers, silver hair, silver eyes, one brow raised like he’s found a rat in his kitchen. “…Dad?” Adam breathes. The word drops into the dead-quiet room, and everything stops. Caspian’s mouth curves into a slow, wicked smirk, not one degree of warmth in it. “Hello, son.” My mind explodes.