When We Were Mates (Demetra and Emris) novel Chapter 174

Chapter 174

Luna Demetra.

Contd.

“Whose house is this?”

Wren looks up at the building from the driveway and her glasses do the sliding thing down the bridge of her nose. I reach over and push them back before she has to.

“Um.” I consider my answer. “He’s a friend. Like a brotherly friend. Like

“The Alpha of the Black Covenant Pack is your brotherly friend!”

just a good friend. Nothing else.

I look for Lolly. She is already through the front door and somewhere inside the penthouse, having apparently decided that the building deserved immediate exploration.

“Actually it’s more like a friend of a friend-

“But he showed up as your guardian today!”

“Right, because he happened to already be in Rocksville doing a pack tour and I asked him to help me and honestly this is the first time I’ve ever really asked him for anything so I don’t know him that well and-”

“Whoa. Even if you barely know him like that… the Alpha of the Covenant Pack invited you to his home. That’s insane, Demetra-”

“Wren.” I grab her shoulders. “Forget about that. Are you alright?”

She bites her lip. “Of course, I’m good. It’s genuinely not the first time Cassie’s minions have done something like that. But it’s definitely the first time anyone gave them a lesson they’re never going to forget. Thank you, Demetra. I knew there was something about you that made me stop and ask for help.”

I smile back.

her arms

and I

go

in and we hug properly.

She opens

“GUYS!”

We separate and look up. Lolly is leaning out of one of the upper windows…how she got up there already I genuinely cannot tell but she’s waving both arms like she’s flagging down a passing plane.

you

“Should we ask Travis to come?” Wren asks, very casually.

“Oh… no. No, no. The, um, Alpha doesn’t really love having unfamiliar males around so. We’ll just see Travis at school

tomorrow. Come on.”

I say and we go in.

The Rockville house entrance kinda hits you immediately.

White everywhere….walls, ceiling and hanging in the centre is a chandelier that is genuinely the size of a small weather system.

Wren walks away from me without saying anything, pulled toward it like gravity, tilting her head back to see the full scope of it while I stare at the staircase.

TOGG

20:26 Mon, Jun 1 MO·

Chapter 174

White marble, with the kind of proportion that’s for royalty. Emris absolutely specified this. I know because I can just smell Alpha instinct…

Lolly comes down it at full speed, skipping the last two steps entirely, and zooms pasi me toward another section of the house.

I laugh watching her. I’m about to follow when my phone buzzes.

It’s a text message from Emris.

Come upstairs.

I look at it and roll my eyes. But at the back of my mind, I’m blushing. Why does he want me upstairs?

Another buzz happens and it says. “Now.”

How does he know that I ignored him? I look up and there’s a camera mounted in the upper corner of the wall so now I understand that he has been watching me stand here, reading his text and deciding whether to pretend I didn’t see it-

I check on the girls. The chef has appeared from somewhere and is walking them toward what I assume is the kitchen or the dining area, asking something about dietary preferences, and Lolly is already answering enthusiastically while Wren is reading the menu card.

Twenty minutes. Thirty at most.

I’m calculating how long it would take for Emris and I to have sex.

I find the elevator in front and press the button. When they open again it’s different up here.

Hotel–like…cleaner lines, quieter, with the particular hush of a floor that isn’t designed for gathering but for existing privately. I step out and reach up and unhook the wig from my hair and feel the immediate relief of it.

I feel bad. I don’t want to have to lie to Wren like this anymore. But I also can’t risk her accidentally saying something. One wrong word to the wrong person, and my whole cover is blown.

With the wig removed, I start unbraiding my hair from the two pigtails I put in this morning. My white hair falls around my shoulders and I spot Emris at the far distance.

He is on a floor that opens at the back to an indoor garden with actual plants and actual greenery. The ceilings are all glass so the evening light comes through long amber columns that reach all the way to the floor.

Emris is shirtless.

I start laughing before he’s said a single word.

Why is his chest so shiny? So swollen? Like he’s been working out right before I got here. As if he knew I was staring at that, Emris moves his chest muscles deliberately, up and down, once and then twice, and the absolute audacity of it tips me from laughing into genuinely losing it for a moment, one hand over my mouth and my shoulders going.

“You were about to ditch me for your friends,” he

says.

I ignore that question.

“Where’s the master bedroom?”

Emris presses a remote, and a door automatically slides shut like a screen disappearing into the wall. The soft whir of the mechanism is the only sound besides my heartbeat.

“This is the masters. Emris says.

GG

о

20:26 Mon, Jun 1 MO:

Chapter 171

I spot the flowing river right after the sitting area. It’s like someone built this entire palace around a natural spring, and were currently standing inside it. The water is gray there…slate gray, like storm clouds reflected in glass and there are floating lilies dotting the surface in white and pink delicate.

“It’s gorgeous.” I smile..

Emris walks toward me and kisses me.

He kisses me by hugging my head into his shoulder….his hand cradling the back of my skull, his fingers threading through my white hair and he does it so deeply that the only thing I’m focused on is kissing him back. Feeling his lips on mine. The taste of his power and something that’s just Emris.

He’s simply kissing me, and I’m already so hungry to have all parts of him.

I can hear the sounds of our mouths. Emris angles my face so he can go deeper.

“A quick swim?” He asks before continuing to devour

my

mouth.

I squint. Stop kissing him.

“Swim?”

Emris lets go of me.

He takes off his joggers in front of me until he’s left in his white briefs that stretches across his thighs like a second skin.

At first, it’s scary. But the second time I look, I hear my embarrassing self moan.

All of a sudden, I’m hot.

I’m staring at him half–naked, and I can’t look away.

He’s unholy. His chest is pumped with two perfect pecs, sculpted like they were chiseled by a god who had too much time on his hands. His shoulders are rolling with muscle every time he moves, veins running down and his abs like a ladder of muscle, leading down to the waistband of those white briefs.

And below that-

I swallow.

His essence is curved gigantically against the fabric in many thick inches. The outline impossible to ignore. It makes my mouth water and my thighs clench at the same time. He’s ready.

And we only have a few minutes. He walks into the pool that looks like a river and the water ripples around his calves, his knees…thighs. Those thighs are the size of my waist.

I can feel see myself holding his arm for support.

I can feel myself straddle him, sitting on those giant thighs…pillows of muscle that could crush me if he wanted, but instead they just hold me. How Emris would raises me slightly…adjusts me and my breasts would press into his pecs.

“Come here,” he says to me.