NIKOLAI

I resisted the urge to trace my fingers over the woman’s high cheekbones, settling instead for fisting them beside me.

Need pulsed in my body, heavy and hot as I towered over the woman who had refused to meet my eyes, aware that I was breathing too loud.

I had seen Raya Banks the minute she had entered Alpha Toph’s banquet hall, it was impossible not to, with the way her floor-length gown swept past everyone in her way, leaving a hole no one else who walked past could quite manage to fix.

“If it isn't Mother Theresa come to party with us mere mortals,” Olivia murmured under her...