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“What I have,” he levelled her with a look sharp enough to slice through her skin, “it isn’t just dangerous for you, it’s dangerous for me.

Kalen. Mikel. My friends and associates and everyone connected to you.

This is a bomb, and it will contaminate everyone it comes into contact with, do you understand? ”

Her skin began to tingle, her head to grow heavy. She rubbed herself against the pole to ease the sting of her uncomfortably hot skin as she pondered his words. “I understand the words, but I don’t understand what you’re getting at,” she mumbled, brushing her cheek on the cold metal.

The violence and rage that had been battering against her through the mirror seemed to have been forcibly reined in.

She could still feel it, but it was like someone—or several someones—were corralling it behind a heavy iron door, fighting against the snarling, hissing mass of emotion to shove it away, where she wouldn’t feel it.

“Did they give you something, Carter?” Ivan asked suddenly, watching her with strong brows drawn in, a frown twitching across his face. “I need you fucking lucid. This is important.”

“They gave me a choice,” she mumbled, remembering that she was supposed to be dancing. But she felt so relaxed , so lazy and floppy. She just wanted to keep rubbing her cheek against the pole, it felt so nice.

“What was the choice?” he asked. She briefly wondered at the quiet, dangerous tone of his voice, and for just a moment, this man reminded her of Kalen.

There was something in the tightly leashed control of his body.

He wasn’t as large as Kalen or as handsome.

He didn’t have amber eyes that simmered and made her stomach burn, or a sexy rumble in his chest that pooled liquid heat low in her stomach.

But still, there was something there. Something vaguely familiar. She wanted to open up to him. He felt … like she could trust him.

“It was me or them,” she whispered, dropping to sit on the edge of the platform, her eyes wide on his.

“All of them or one of me—like those riddles about a train hurdling down the tracks toward ten people, but you can pull the lever to send it to just one, instead.” She frowned.

“Well, except Kalen and Mikel still have to …” Her frown furrowed deeper.

“Do something. But I replaced the others.”

Ivan nodded. He didn’t appear surprised. He was stroking his jaw again. “What else, pet?” he asked softly.

“Only Mikki calls me that,” she grumbled.

He smiled. For the first time, it looked like a true, genuine smile. “What else, Carter?”

“I have to take my top off.” She looked down at her dress with a sigh. “I’m not wearing a top. Did you sign the protection contract? You’re not allowed to touch me, right?”

Something in his expression cracked for just a moment before he was smoothing over it.

“There’s nothing in that contract that prevents me from touching you.

I’m to ask for anything I want.” Before she could even react, he continued speaking, his voice sharp with command.

“Don’t look too shocked. Keep up the show, Carter. ”

What show? Oh, she was supposed to be dancing. She struggled back to her feet, her skin prickling. “I feel funny.”

“What did they give you?”

“A needle.”

“What do you feel?”

“Tingly. Fuzzy. Lazy.”

“Then they know it’ll affect your ability to dance. Why don’t you come and sit on my lap, sweetheart?”

She frowned down at him, emboldened by the drug rushing through her system. “I don’t want to. I have a boyfriend. I have two.”

He smirked. “It isn’t for your pleasure or mine.”

“Then why?”

“I need you to listen carefully and do exactly what I tell you, okay?” He continued without pause.

“I need you to come here and sit on my lap. Dance if you want, or if you feel sleepy, you can lay your head on my shoulder. I’m going to push down the top of your dress to reveal your chest, and then I’m going to slip something into your underwear.

You are not going to react. You are not going to check what it is.

You are not going to mention it to a single person until you’re somewhere safe without cameras or recording devices.

And then I want you to take it out and give it straight to Kalen, do you understand? Nod. ”

She nodded, but her brain was spinning, and her body refused to move.

I have to get close to him , she tried to force the words through her bond, but it was like pushing a cumbersome weight through a mass of syrup, and the effort alone quickly drained her.

“Tell me about your two boyfriends,” Ivan suddenly asked her. “Come and rest in my lap and tell me.”

He held out his hand, and she took it, allowing him to draw her over his thighs.

“You want to talk about G-Gabriel and Elijah?” she whispered, her cheek brushing across the soft material of his jacket. Back and forth, back and forth. His jacket felt so good.

He barked out a sudden laugh. “Not the two names I was expecting.”

“They’re my boyfriends.” She pouted against the soft material.

“Tell me more.” He was rearranging her body, pulling her thighs either side of his so that she could slump against his chest, her chin notched on his shoulders, her wavering focus on the mirror behind him.

She could see her own face. Unfocussed eyes, heavy lids, lax mouth.

“Elijah is so smart,” she whispered, feeling a phantom touch ghosting down her sides.

The mirror seemed to vibrate like someone was hitting it from the other side. She frowned, trying to reach for the bond again, but everything was so fuzzy and it was too much effort. She heaved out a sigh and closed her eyes, turning her nose toward the warm neck beside her face.

His cologne was smoky and spicy, and it made her nose wrinkle. Her stomach clenched in rebellion, and something pinched inside her chest. This wasn’t one of her mates. The thought was like a firefly, blinking in and out of existence, each little flash accompanied by a ping of alarm.

He was fiddling with the straps of her dress and she could feel the cold air of the room kissing her exposed skin as he tugged the silky material to her lap.

The mirror vibrated again, harder this time, pressing out toward her face as though it might explode. Her eyes drew wide, watching as her reflection rippled. Something small and cold was pushed into her underwear, and warm breath skittered across her neck.

She was being nuzzled, or … scratched, with stubble. In the mirror, from behind, it looked like the man was kissing her neck and chest, but he wasn’t really. He was talking.

“Elijah is smart, hm? And Gabriel?”

Her body immediately relaxed, and she noticed she had been trying to lean away from Ivan’s unfamiliar cologne.

He was a big man—certainly bigger than her—but even Kilian, the shortest of her Alphas by a few inches, with a slimmer, more streamlined strength than her larger Alphas, was bigger than this man.

Her body knew the discomfort of straddling one of her mates, and the lack of discomfort had her entire body wanting to rebel.

“There’s nothing bad inside him,” she whispered like she was telling Ivan a secret.

She was so grateful he wanted to talk about her mates, especially when her body was so upset that it couldn’t feel them.

“He’s so cold and calculating on the outside, but inside, he’s so pure.

You know who else is like that? Nobody. My chest hurts. ”

She was now puffing against his neck in pain, the slow fissure that began somewhere inside her chest spreading out further and further until her arms and legs were shuddering with the aftershocks of each pulse of agony.

“I think … I’m gonna …” She slumped to the side of him and threw up all over the leather seat.

He swore and quickly removed her from his lap. He tipped the ice out of a champagne bucket and quickly pushed it into her hands before striding for the door. “I’ll get you some water?—”

She pitched sideways off the seat and crashed into the floor, everything turning black.