Cerulean Sins   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

He was wearing a black tux with a shirt of deep, rich blue and a matching bow tie. With the new haircut, and the more conservative clothes, he looked—out of place.

His eyes met mine, and the shock of how handsome he was still sent a thrill through me from head to toes. Without the hair to distract, you couldn't pretend that the cheekbones weren't knife-edge perfect, the dimple in his chin didn't soften the strong masculinity of his face. His shoulders were broad, his waist not slender, but small. Nothing about Richard was slender. He was built more like a football player than a dancer.

Jamil and Shang-Da, his Hati and Skoll, the Ulfric's personal bodyguards, flanked him. Jamil was wearing black leather straps for a shirt to complement almost ordinary leather pants and short boots. The bright red beads, worked into his cornrow braids, looked like drops of crimson blood against the darkness of his skin and the black of the leather. He met my eyes, and there was again that sense of warning that I'd gotten from Jason. Something was wrong, something beyond what was already happening, but what?

Shang-Da looked uncomfortable out of his usual suit, but black leather suited his tall frame the same way any kind of armor would have. Shang-Da was the tallest Chinese person I'd ever met. He was physically imposing by any standards. He was also a warrior, and protecting his Ulfric was all he did. He pretty much hated me, because so much of the pain I caused Richard was something he couldn't protect him against. Bodyguards can't do shit about emotional stress. He avoided my gaze.

Jason strutted towards me, making sure his body swayed seductively. He was by profession a stripper so he was pretty good at the seductive sway. His body language said sex, his eyes held a shadow of something else, and when he got to me, he slid an arm across my shoulders, pressing his body up against mine, but what he whispered in my ear wasn't sweet nothings, it was a warning.

"Richard has found his backbone, but he's decided to use it against Jean-Claude first." He smiled as he said it, his face full of the seductive promise that his walk had held. He ran his hands across the back of my neck, playing his fingertips in the hollow of my collarbone.

I whispered against the shell of his ear. "What does that mean?"

He turned my head towards his, so that my face was hidden from Richard and the pack. It looked like flirting. "Richard's going to try and take all his wolves away from Jean-Claude."

I was glad my face was facing only Jason, because I couldn't hide the shock. I fought to control my face, and Jason laughed at nothing that I'd said.