Chapter 17

For one long second, she was wrapped around him like ivy round a gatepost, her mouth on his, and my heart stopped.

Then Caspian took her by both shoulders and put her away from him—not gently—and stepped back so fast that she had to catch herself on the top step.

“Vivienne.” His voice was flat. “Don’t.” His eyes went past her to the grey-haired Lycan standing in the open doorway in a captain’s coat. I didn’t need to be told who he was. I had read his Confirmed Alpha on the plane. “She was to be gone before we landed. You confirmed it.”

The captain went red to the ears. “She said she’d only come to say goodbye, Alpha. She’s the Chancellor’s daughter. She’s always been let in. I didn’t think—”

“No,” Caspian said. “You didn’t.”

So this was her. I had spent the whole flight trying not to picture her, and I had pictured her wrong. I had imagined someone hard. She was taller than me and made entirely of soft things: pale gold hair pinned up as if by ac