Outlaw (Wolves of Royal Paynes #4) - Kiki Burrelli Page 0,50

It depressed under his finger with a click, followed by a sharp swooshing sound. The bottom panel smoothly slid open, revealing a dark, squat passage.

"You have to duck for a bit," Diesel murmured, his face close enough behind me he nibbled at my earlobe while I shuffled.

"Duck?" I twisted my neck around to look at him wondering if he'd forgotten the obvious difference in our heights. "What do you have to do? Crawl?"

His head tilted to the side, pinning me with a disparaging look. "I do not crawl, boy," he grunted.

The brat living in my head replied with a silent, challenge accepted, I turned my head so he didn't have to see my amused snort.

He still heard it though, and his replying growl sounded deeper than normal. Animalistic.

I whipped my head around when I recognized why the growl sounded different and stared into the loving eyes of my alpha wolf. Diesel's wolf.

He was a gorgeous man, but a damn majestic beast. While on two legs he operated as an alpha with a job and only felt as good as he did about the work he'd put in. He wore his confidence differently as a wolf. He could be proud of himself, and—as sad as it was that my mate couldn't truly see himself—his pride was a sight I craved.

Diesel let me look my fill, just as humble as he was when he stood on two legs. When he'd decided I'd looked enough, he pushed me forward with his nose at my back.

The passage would've been creepy if I wasn't with my knight in a fur coat. I didn't end up needing to crouch all that much, but Diesel did. His wolf was still taller than I was. As the ceiling got closer, he had to drop into a crouched shuffle that I wouldn't call a crawl, but only out of respect to him and a burning desire to later see and taste the heat he packed.

After thirty seconds or so of crouch-walking, the tunnel opened into an elegant hallway. The décor matched the rest of the hotel but it was more pristine here in this dark, dry space. This must've been what the Hotel Royal Paynes had looked like in its day—stuffed floor to ceiling with elegance and class.

"Where does the hallway go?" My voice echoed off the arched beams in the rapidly rising ceiling. We'd gone from a dark tunnel, feeling the building brush the tops of our heads, to a corridor that made me feel like I was walking through a palace.

Diesel's human hands lifted and spun me around so we faced each other. It was only instinct to wind my limbs around him as he whispered, "I'll show you."

"But then later we can go outside maybe and do some more stuff in your wolf form, right? I've been thinking over this fantasy of a boy lost in a forest, and he's found by a huge wolf who happens to be a lonely alpha, willing to take what he—"

"Quinlan," Diesel said with a strained edge. "We're definitely fucking doing that at some point," he said before pushing open a large door that groaned as it swung. "First, I'm showing you this."

He carried me to the center of an enormous open room, longer than it was wide, with gold painted arches. At the top of the long outside wall, plate glass windows let in the only natural light the room would see. This deep in the hotel, we had to be partially underground. Those windows had to be at ground level or just above. "What is this place?" I slid slowly out of his arms, unwilling to look away. My skin prickled, but not just from the chill. The room was empty, but it felt full of shared memories and past emotions. There'd been joy in this room, happiness, love.

"It's the ballroom. We never made it this far in our repairs, but as you can see, it's the best kept place in the hotel. The regular entrance is over there, up the double stairs, but I thought you'd appreciate the secret passage."

He'd thought correctly. A few minutes ago, I would've wagered the tunnel was the coolest thing I'd see that day. But that was before I saw this space.

"It's my favorite room," Diesel said softly.

I frowned. That didn't track. Not because of any rude reason toward Diesel, but because I knew he preferred functional things. To him, a room was a space you did something in. Though this place