51: Echoes of the Past

Quincy St. Martin

Caspian is stealing the air right out of my lungs. It’s hard to breathe. The pull between us is getting so strong that I have to grip the edge of my seat not to jump into his arms. He looks like he just came out of the shower, freshly shaven with his shiny golden hair perfectly combed back.

He’s wearing a cream-colored shirt with a black striped tie and a russet vest under a black double-breasted peacoat, along with a pair of black designer jeans and dark brown leather boots.

God, he’s breathtaking.

His eyes instantly lock onto me, and he stalks across the room right toward me without hesitation. He doesn’t even acknowledge anyone in the room like the privileged bratty prince that he is. He pulls a chair closer to me and folds himself onto it.

His long leg is pressing against mine. He pulls my hand into his, and every nerve in my body is charged. His eyes are the color of the fresh grass on a spring morning. I get lost in his vivid green orbs every time he’s looking at me like this.

Like he can’t take his eyes off me. Like nothing else is worth looking at except me and he doesn’t care what everybody else thinks about it.

Like I’m the center of his universe.

“Did you have a good night, Your Highness?” asks Penny with a smirk.

“Very good, thank you, Beany,” he replies without taking his eyes off me.

“Not too well since I lost a bet,” mutters Constantine, and I hear muffled laughter around us.

“Yeah? Sucks to be you. I’m sorry for your loss.” Caspian’s voice is dripping with sarcasm.

“What?” I whisper to him when he keeps staring.

“You are so beautiful,” he says, bringing my hand up to his lips.

“Pussywhipped!” somebody coughs, and I hear some snickers, but he doesn’t react. Instead, his eyes light up with mischief and his lips curve up into a smile against the skin at the back of my hand.

He flips my hand and slowly drops a lingering kiss on the inside of my wrist, and the heat shoots right to my toes. That strangely feels way too intimate. Then he leans in and whispers into my ear, “I have been waiting for someone to say that to me for a long time.” He nips on my earlobe playfully and my toes curl in my boots.

“Aren’t you going to have breakfast?” I ask him, trying to divert his attention to food.

“I ~am~ having breakfast, princess,” he murmurs as his lips trail kisses along the curve of my jawline. His fingers are brushing a few strands of my hair away from my neck.

My eyelids flutter closed, and I can feel myself being sucked into that Caspian-induced haze.

Before I get completely lost, I pull away. He tries to pull me back, but I put a firm hand on his chest. “Breakfast?” I remind him.

He sighs, looking at me with hopeful eyes, but I shake my head. “We’ve had some in the meeting room,” he answers, pouting.

I glance around. All the other lycans are not paying any attention to us now. Constantine and Genesis are too wrapped up in each other to notice everybody else. Penny, Darius, and Serena are discussing why us women weren’t invited to the meeting this morning.

I look back at my still dejected-looking prince. He looks like a sullen little boy being denied a treat. So cute. I can imagine how he looked when he was a little boy, a future king, never being denied anything. I slide my hand suggestively across his thigh.

Then I lean in and nuzzle my face into his neck like I wanted to before I press a kiss and give his smooth golden skin there a little bite. I can’t help but give it a lick as well. What? The man tastes yummy!

It’s a promise of more kisses and bites to come. His eyes widened in surprise. It’s satisfying to see that little red mark on his neck, even though I know it will not last. I sit back, looking around as if nothing happened.

I hear their approaching footsteps clicking on the marble tiles, and my nose catches their scent before Lazarus, Lord Archer, Jonah, Jorden, and another werewolf enter the breakfast area.

“Jonah!” I race up to him and throw my arms around him. “You’re okay!”

“Hey, kid,” he says, awkwardly curving his arms around me. Well, at least he’s trying to hug me back. That means he’s happy to see me too, right?

Jorden playfully tugs my hair like he used to when we were little. Ahhh, cousins. That makes me feel warm and gooey inside. Then I pull back to pinch Jonah’s rock-hard stomach.

“Hey! What’s that for?” He jumps back, clearly not expecting that.

“Where were you?” I ask, seething. “Do you know how worried I was about you? Do you? Huh? Do you? Do you?”

I poke the spot where I pinched him with my index finger for a good measure. “I imagined the worst scenarios. God! Why do I even care? Why?”

“I told you not to worry,” he mutters quietly, almost meekly, rubbing his stomach where I just pinched and poked him.

That makes me pause for a second. I thought he was going to yell back at me. Hmm, I think my tough cousin can’t handle angry women.

This is the first time he seems to be compliant to me. It’s a good feeling. I’ll try not to get too drunk with the sense of power. I hear Jorden laugh, but his laughter swiftly turns into a coughing fit when Jonah glares at him. The others look like they’re trying not to laugh but wisely keep their traps shut.

“Now, don’t you ever do that to me again!” I tell him.

He doesn’t answer me, but he doesn’t seem upset with me either. Somehow I suspect that he’s secretly pleased that somebody is concerned about him.

I wonder about the last time anybody ever worried about him.

“~Moya printsessa~, he’s fine. He’s here now, isn’t he?” Caspian wraps his arm around my shoulder.

He’s smirking at Jonah, who’s watching Caspian’s arm around me with narrowed eyes.

The werewolf who’s with them introduces himself as Agent Samuel Smith. Hmm. Agent Smith. God, I love ~The Matrix~, but only the first one.

I think I saw Agent Smith, ~this~ Agent Smith, not the one in the movie, in the cell with Lord Archer yesterday.

“It’s almost nine. It’s time we should get going,” Lord Archer announces, flipping his pocket watch open.

It’s a beautiful gadget made of gold with the letters GA intricately engraved on the lid.

He catches me watching, and a slow smile pulls at his lips before he snaps the watch closed and focuses his attention back to the others.

I find Lord Archer intriguing. I mean, who wears a pocket watch anymore? It looks good on him, though. He looks like a young man but behaves like an aristocrat from a long time ago. He’s exceedingly elegant and classy, yet playful and flirtatious.

He’s charismatic, wise, urbane, and handsome, yet I sense wickedness in him. Like my prince, he’s lethal, wild, and ruthless cloaked under the air of glamorous sophistication with a stylish and cultured appearance.

We make our way back to Loup Noir Pack’s territory in three SUVs. The drive should have taken us half an hour, but it only takes us fifteen minutes, mainly because lycans drive like maniacs. Caspian holds my hand, twining our fingers together, the whole way. Jorden, who’s riding with us, doesn’t say much, but he looks apprehensive.

I don’t have anybody else that I care about in the pack, but I wonder if Jorden is worried about his family.

The whole place is eerily quiet when we arrive. It’s strange to see the guard post lonely and abandoned. There are no kids running around or grownups going about their business on the pack house front yard. There seems to be no activity at all going on in the pack house.

There are more cars and black SUVs parked out front.

They stand out to me because pack members park their cars in their own parking lot on the other side of the house. Six men come out of the pack house to meet us once we are parked. All of them are werewolves.

They are all very respectful, and most look as if they’re in awe of the lycans, especially the crown prince and Lord Archer.

The first man to step up and introduce himself is Alpha Gordon. He’s the leader of the werewolf council, and he seems to be familiar with Lord Archer. Then there are his second-in-command and his assistant and the other alphas and betas from neighboring packs.

They lead us to Alpha Maddox’s office, where there are several more men poring over documents and working on Alpha Maddox’s computer. There are boxes of files stacked on the floor and papers everywhere.

They stop working to look at us as soon as we enter the room. Alpha Gordon laughs.

“I guess my men would like to be introduced to you since it’s not every day you get to meet Prince Caspian, Prince Constantine, and Lord Archer.”

Alpha Gordon does the introductions, and by the looks on their faces, it’s like they’re meeting rock stars or something.

After that, we move to another side of the office, where they brief us on their findings.

Apparently, after I passed out from exhaustion yesterday, Alpha Maddox, Beta St. Martin, Delta Roche, and several other werewolves from the Loup Noir Pack were apprehended.

Lord Archer brought his men in for a full investigation, and it opened a can full of worms…or rather a cupboard full of skeletons.

There were a lot of dealings in black markets and other illegal involvements, including attacks on several small packs over the years, dating all the way back to when old Mr. Maddox was still the alpha. They also opened up the steel door in the cell that I was curious about yesterday and made a gruesome discovery.

Skeletons and bodies of werewolves, and even several humans.

They suspect that these are the remains of the pack members who discovered secrets or the people that they wanted to get rid of without any trace.

They just locked those people down there to die slowly and to be forgotten. My heart weeps for them. What an agonizing way to die.

A lot of things seem to be happening all at once, and my head is still reeling with all the information when Alpha Gordon leads us to the pack’s community hall where most of the Loup Noir Pack members are currently being held.

Caspian grasps my shoulders and pulls me aside when we’re a few feet from the building. “All of you go ahead. We’ll be in soon,” he says to them.

When everybody’s gone, he cups the back of my head while the thumb of his other hand strokes the top of my cheekbone down to the line of my jaw gently.

“Your mother and a lot of people that you know and who tormented you are in there.”

His hold on me tightens a little bit, and he presses our foreheads together. The tips of our noses are almost touching.

“You know you can do whatever you want regarding them. Anything at all. Your wish is my command, ~moya printsessa~. You don’t have to go in there if you don’t want to. You can decide their fate if you so wish.”

I put my hands on top of his. How can I not fall for this man? He makes me feel so weak, yet so powerful at the same time.

“I want to go in there. I don’t want to decide their fates, but when you do decide, keep in mind that there are a lot of good people in there too.”

He stares at me.

“As for my ~family~, I don’t care what they do or where they’re going. I just want Jorden with me wherever I’m going, but only if he wants that too.”