Chapter 8: The Midsummer Court

I looked at him for a long moment in the firelight.

"Tell me again tomorrow," I said. "At the Midsummer court, with Dane watching."

"That's your answer?"

"That's my answer for tonight."

He stood still, and then he nodded slowly.

"Tomorrow," he said, and stepped aside to let me pass.

I took the stairs two at a time, and I did not breathe properly until my door was locked behind me.

The Midsummer court was held in the great hall at Highcrest, with every Alpha in Colorado invited.

The envoy had a seat of honor.

Dane had come with six of his wolves and the Silver Creek elders, and he had the grace to stand at the far wall.

Winnie had dressed me.

She had found a green silk dress in the Highcrest storeroom, with a low back and no sleeves.

She stood behind me at the mirror with her mother and said, "Nobody is going to think about paper tonight."

The dress left the mark on my neck bare, and I let it.

I came down the main stairs at nine, and two hundred heads turned.

Caius was at the bottom in a black suit.

He did not move, and he did not say a word, and he looked at me from my hair to my shoes and back up.

It was in front of everyone, and it was the most obvious thing I had ever seen.

"Miss Haskett," he said.

"Your Majesty."

He did not touch me.

He walked beside me into the hall with his hands behind his back, as the terms said.

I felt his attention on every inch of my skin.

For an hour I was introduced to people.

I smiled at a man with a silver chain who ran the Wyoming packs.

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