The Lycan Kingpin's Captive: A Baby For The Beast novel Chapter 36

Bastien is wearing a smug as fuck look when I walk into his penthouse with Mia on my arm. He was the one who alluded to me possibly having feelings for her, but I rejected the notion completely. Of course, I was just fooling myself.

I’m here to ask him if he’ll keep an eye on Mia while I’m away. This could have been a phone call, I am well aware of that but I needed to do this in person…he needs to know about me and Mia, anyway, anyway.

“I’m going to say I called it, but you’ll probably scowl at me the entire time,” he says with his arms crossed as he looks from Mia to me. “Dare I say congratulations?”

“Shut the fuck up,” I say when he embraces me and chuckles, then he pulls away and frowns.

“Did…you didn’t flinch when I embraced you,” he murmurs more to himself than to me. “Anyway, you said you wanted to talk?”

I nod as we follow Bastien into his lounge, then I gesture for Mia to sit down on the sofa before I follow Bastien to the bar in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows. I’ll never understand why he chose to rule over Sin City instead of his birthright.

I suppose if something awful happened to Mia, I wouldn’t want to stay in a place that held all our wonderful memories, either.

Bastien pours us each a glass of whiskey, but while he prepares it, my eyes go to Mia. She looks small and uncomfortable on Bastien’s plush sofa, her eyes flickering over his ridiculous amount of wealth on display.

I’ve never known Bastien to love money or status, but over the last few years, he’s amassed so much that I’m not sure what he does with it half the time. His pack is the wealthiest, even more so than Giovanni’s.

A tap on my arm and I see my brother holding out one glass to me. He looks at Mia and then at me before leaning on the bar and sighing. If someone knows me on the same wavelength as Maxim, it’s Bastien.

“So, you and your surrogate?” he teases, and I roll my eyes.

“Her name is Mia and yes, I would die for her,” I say, feeling the burn as the whiskey slips down my throat. “She knows everything about me and yet still loves me.”

Bastien slaps my back and chuckles. “That is the best thing I have heard all year, apart from receiving my petrified dragon eggs,” he says and I make a mental note to inform Maxim that he was correct about his dragon egg theory.

As my mind goes to Maxim, fury grips my heart in a cold embrace.

“I don’t like that shift in your eyes. Is it bad?” he asks in our mother tongue and I nod.

“Maxim went under in Mikhail’s territory a few weeks ago and I haven’t heard a word from him,” I responded in Greek, knowing Mia was listening. “The cunt sent a finger, I need to go find-”

“Are you out of your fucking mind, brother?” he shakes his head. “You know it’s just a trap, right?”

Obviously, I’ve thought about it being a trap. It’s as clear as fucking day that Mikhail wants to lead me away from the pack, but what am I gonna do? Leave him to send Maxim back in pieces?

“Even so, you know I cannot just leave this. If it were you, I’d do the exact same thing,” I say, switching to English and letting out a sigh. “I cannot leave this, Bastien; I need to get him back.”

My brother looks at me, his lips a thin line when he nods his head. “I understand why you want to do this, but you need to think about Mia. What happens to her if you die?” he asks, keeping the conversation in Greek.

I pinch the bridge of my nose and stifle a growl. “Nothing will happen to me. I’ll kill the asshole before he thinks of trying anything,” I say, then I lower my voice. “You, more than anyone, should know why I have to do this.”