Greymoor Academy: I Accidentally Bonded With Four Lycan Royals! novel Chapter 29

Chapter 29: 29. The Butterfly Effect I

Mercer

It was not often that I found myself in a state of utter befuddlement–my lips parting, breath stuttering, nostrils flaring and blood pressure spiking unreasonably high.

Usually, control was easier.

But my senses took leave of me the moment Maisie Adams stepped into the hall.

The crowd parted for her instantly, making way for her. Her chin was tilted high, her spine straight, and her steps sure. Confidential. Like she knew she was the moment.

She was a monument.

I refused to accept that what I was seeing was reality and not a figment of my imagination, until every head in the room turned to acknowledge her. And so the question tumbled out of every mouth.

Who is that?

But I recognized her, even through the laced mask. Those full lips that never quite knew when to stay shut, coated in such sinful, deep red, I felt all the blood rush to my groin at once. Those eyes that pierced yours and expressed everything she felt. That slender neck I’d imagined wrapping my fingers around too many times.

To snap it. Or to mark it. I could no longer tell.

That damning body, voluptuous, and yet petite in a way that made a man hunger for things he should not. Dressed in clothes that wrapped around her body like liquid red, I felt the thing in my chest rattle viciously. My pulse pounded harshly.

And I could tell I wasn’t the only one Ms. Adams’ entrance had that effect on. The waltz had stopped to acknowledge her. The engagement was suddenly forgotten. Nothing else mattered, but the seductive sway of those hips.

Or that face. Those eyes. That mouth.

My skin flushed.

The feelings of my brothers rushed in through the bond we all shared, and one word went through the collective.

Fuck .

***

Soren

Walk to her. Take her hand. Dance with her , my Lycan told me.

I stepped away from the raven haired woman I was dancing with, with an absentminded apology tumbling off my lips. My legs moved of their own volition, a sudden desperation swelling in my chest to close the distance.

I didn’t think I’d ever be sane again if I didn’t dance with this woman. She had stolen my breath and thoughts, moving like something out of a dream. And when she reached the bottom of the stairs, I was there.

She gripped her dress, and in the high fashion of a Waltz, curtsied perfectly. "Your Highness."

My lips parted. "Adams?" I whispered, unsure I wasn’t hallucinating.

"Yes?"

I jolted in place for the second time in five minutes. I frowned. Searched her face. There were no giveaways. No vulnerabilities. Even her voice had changed from what I had witnessed earlier in that receiving hall.

It lacked the usual hesitation. It sounded sultry. I felt my skin prickle. With need. With awe. With the need to possess.

I offered her my hand, with more flourish and reverence than I’d ever offered a woman a dance. "May I?"

Rejection.

And the gods did it sting.

***

Maisie

When Soren saw me, he was transformed.

I didn’t think even after he had approached me, he let himself believe it was me until I spoke. "Yes?"

He jolted in place lightly. Then he frowned. Then he grew perfectly still and his lips parted. He stared at me in disbelief and I looked back at him.

In his black tux and the grown man resting on his brow, he was easily the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. The piercing on his left ear had a silver crescent hanging off it, and for one insane moment, I had the thought of catching his earlobe between my teeth and nipping on it.

No, Maisie. Focus. Yes, he looks like a snack. But you can’t get lost in his beautiful, violet eyes...

He was looking at me. Really looking at me. Not as some inconvenience. Or a charity case. Or an insect that belonged under his shoes. Or furniture.

Soren was looking at me like I was a woman.

A warm flush started rising from a deep place inside me... higher, higher. Good thing I was wearing so much makeup that my blush was probably invisible.

He was so still, so motionless, and a triumphant little smile wanted to break free and settle on my lips.

But I schooled my expression into cold indifference.