“If you’re not careful, your niece Annika will be mated before you,” Mother said, sipping from her coupe.
“She’s nineteen!” I said.
“She’s almost of age,” Mother countered. “And she certainly has taken more interest in love than this one has.” She pointed to Zasha, whose jaw flexed she pressed her lips together so hard.
“Not everyone is on the mate hunt,” I argued.
“Well, of course, you aren’t, dear. You’ve managed to find a highly esteemed mate.” She beamed at Ransom. “An Onyx Assassin,” she said the title with reverence, and my insides wilted. Why couldn’t she be as impressed with my service to the crown? Why couldn’t she look at me with such respect and honor? I wasn’t an assassin, but being the princess’s royal bodyguard was almost as high and risky a profession.
She doesn’t know what you really do, some inner voice chided. How could she respect me if I never told her the truth? But the truth would break us, I knew that. Which is why it was suddenly hard to breathe.
“Please excuse me,” Ransom said, drawing me from my mind. He gently gripped my hand, urging me to rise from the table. His dark blue eyes raked over my body as I stood, catching on the lines of my gown before he glanced back down at my parents. “I’ve had just enough staring at my mate that I can stand.” My mother and father laughed, and Zasha flashed me a smirk. “If we’re no longer needed, I’m going to keep her all to myself for the rest of the night.”
“By all means,” my mother waved us away.
Ransom’s hand found the small of my back as he whisked us through the crowd on the dance floor, past a few tables still chatting among themselves, and through the wide doors. A few more minutes, and we were outside the grand theater. The second we cleared the stone steps, Ransom hauled me against his chest.
“What are you doing?” I whispered, melting into the touch just in case anyone was watching. I mean, I couldn’t very well pull away from my mate, could I?
He smiled down at me, sliding his arms around my waist, locking them behind me, caging me to him. “Rescuing you, of course,” he said.
And then we were falling through time and air, his scent swarming all of my senses. Filling my head with nothing but the feel of his strong body against mine, the thin fabric of my gown doing nothing to hide the expanse of his muscles, the ease in which he wended us.
My feet gently hit carpet but I couldn’t tear my gaze away from him. He’d wended us back to our rooms.
“You looked like you’d had just about enough as you could handle back there,” he said, arching a brow at me. “Did I read you right?”
I nodded quickly, stepping out of his embrace. Needing to breathe air that didn’t have his scent lingering on it. It was no use, though. His scent clung to this room, to the chair he’d sat in, even the damn bathing chamber smelled of him from his shower.
“Thank you,” I said, breathing deeply. “Sometimes, I have no idea how my mother and father haven’t evolved past the old ways.”
Ransom tugged at the tie around his neck, loosening it until he freed it and dropped it into one of the chairs by the wardrobe. He rid himself of his suit jacket next, and I found it suddenly hard to breathe. The black button-down he wore made his eyes pop, but it was the way he started unbuttoning it that made my heart race. Like he couldn’t wait to rid himself of the confines of formal attire. I knew the feeling, the instinct to slip out of this tight gown and slip into my silk pajama set already uncurling inside me.
“I didn’t realize the history here was steeped in such carnage,” he said, sliding out of his shirt as he opened the wardrobe. He tugged over a black cotton shirt, sighing with the contact. “I know it doesn’t excuse their way of thinking, Olivia, but it does explain it. The way they cling to those ideals, the way they value the progression of our race.”
“I know,” I said, sighing. “I know. I just wish choice came into the matter. Katya and Marisha were more than happy and thrilled to become mated mothers. But Zasha and myself…” My voice trailed off, my eyes widening as Ransom reached for the zipper on his dress slacks.
“Olivia?” he asked, and I jolted a bit.
“Right,” I said, blinking rapidly. I grabbed my pajamas from the opened wardrobe and was inside the bathing chamber with the door closed in less than a blink. I could’ve sworn I heard him laugh outside the door.
I waited a full ten minutes, much longer than necessary for either of us to get changed before returning to the room. My body sighing happily with the kiss of silk against my bare skin, the royal blue pants pooling around my ankles, the short-sleeved top like a caress compared to the constricting gown I’d worn moments ago.