The descenting spray Perrie had used on herself was doing very little to mask her absolutely mouthwatering scent as we danced in front of what was left of our rehearsal dinner guests.
Ten men hadn’t made it through the third course and as I spun Perrie around, I could see the blood from one of them still encrusted in the design of the Keane signet ring. Apparently, I hadn’t been fastidious enough when wiping my hands afterward.
My little rats had been playing far too much while I was away getting Perrie settled. For the past two years the older generation of the Keane family had been bucking against my leadership.
They didn’t like the way I did, well, anything and had my eyes not been golden they would have probably overthrown me a long time ago.
I was too modern for their traditional sensibilities and now, to add insult to injury, I hadn’t picked any of their daughters to be my wife.
Just wait until I told them that I was going to be forming a pack with Rhodes. They were going to lose their shit.
“What’s so funny?” my wife-to-be asked, her gray eyes looking almost silver in the light of the ballroom as she looked up at me.
Her words made me realize that I had, in fact, been smiling as we danced.
I cleared my throat, giving her my full attention again. “I’m just surprised that you’re such an accomplished dancer, pet.”
Perrie snorted, her expression turning bland as she spoke. “My father had me in etiquette lessons from the time I could walk and talk. Dancing was just one facet to my rigorous upbringing.”
It made sense that Perrie was fully trained in ways like this, I realized as we turned about the dance floor. Ethan Chandler, as slimy as he was when it came to brokering deals between the five families, wasn’t stupid.
Perrie was close enough in age with at least four family leaders or their children that it shouldn’t have surprised me that the Chandlers had basically groomed her to be the wife of an organized crime boss. Hell, I was half-convinced they’d planned to get pregnant so that one of their children could be more involved. Like he was looking for a way to tie himself to us in a more permanent way.
Chandler’s strength came from winning elections. People had to like him in order to give him power. But for the five families? Our power came from blood.
I would have been overthrown long ago if I didn’t have the blood of the Keane family running through my veins and the trademark golden eyes. They were both a shield and a weapon.
One wrong election could cause Chandler to lose everything. But now, thanks to the existence of Perrie, he now had a very pretty bargaining chip for us all to froth over.
I was sure that, had Alessandro Amante Jr. survived fully into adulthood, the plan would have been for Amante to consolidate the Italian’s power and push ahead of the rest of us with the help of Chandler as mayor and eventually governor.
But an ambush on the young heir had ended that and now Amante was struggling to keep a grip on his own people and create an heir with what was left over from his son’s former pack.
Just the thought of it left a sour taste in my mouth that, no matter how many times I swallowed, I couldn’t get rid of.
It wasn’t love—I barely knew what that feeling felt like—but rather an overwhelming sense of possessiveness over the woman in my arms. The feeling was spurred on by the annoyingly frequent voice of my inner alpha pushing me to taste her, to take her up into that mess of a nest she’d put together and make her scream.
I ignored it, as always. I hadn’t gotten this far by giving into my baser instincts and I wasn’t going to start now.
No matter how pretty the gray-eyed omega was or how good she smelled.
Peregrine Chandler was going to be my wife and the mother of my future children—but letting myself feel anything more than that was just opening myself up for eventual heartache.
I couldn’t stand to see those gray eyes turn vacant the same way my mother’s had. So she would be my little bird up in her tower, only leaving to go to her classes and whatever events I was required to be at.
There would be no repeats of my mother’s depressing fate.
Shaking away the memory of ropes and bare feet, I continued our conversation. “It definitely shows, pet, seeing as none of these fucking animals can keep their dirty eyes off of you.”
I’d known that Perrie would attract attention as soon as I saw her standing up on the dais in the church a few weeks ago.
Even dressed in that monstrosity of a wedding dress she’d been striking.
And now in a glittering silver dress that was nearly the same hue as her eyes and her deep red hair pulled up into an elegant twist, courtesy of Oona, I knew that I was going to spend the rest of my life covering her in my scent to ward off the assholes who would dare think they could look at her.
My eyes moved away from Perrie’s face which was flushed from my words and met with the group of men standing on the edge of the dance floor. They were my subordinates, the younger generation that had sworn fealty to me as soon as my father was in the grave, but it seemed they would need to learn a lesson the hard way about looking at my wife.
This omega was mine and none of them would ever even get a whiff of her delicious scent if I had my way.
There was only one other man I was willing to share with and he was still denying that he was starting to crave her as much as I did.
Shifting my gaze to the man in question, I found his normally impassive face raw with conflicting emotions that drained away as soon as our eyes met.
Despite his reticence, I knew Rhodes almost as well as I knew myself and I knew that he was more than interested in Perrie.
The music ended and with it so did our obligation to be here.
Ignoring the calls of the vassals who wanted nothing more than to ingratiate themselves to me after the bloodbath at dinner, I gently tugged Perrie towards the door, my security team falling into step behind me.
“We’re leaving already?” Perrie asked, her fingers tightening on my forearm as we swept through the crowd.
“There’s no need for us to stay longer,” I told her as I felt Rhodes’ presence at my back. “Besides, I need to get my lovely bride to bed so that she’s well rested for our wedding tomorrow.”
The tops of Perrie’s cheeks flushed deeper as we stepped out onto the sidewalk and headed for the black town car waiting for us.
“I’m not a child, Edison.” Her words were curt, her full lips pulling down into a deep frown.
