A Certain Wolfish Charm(27)
"That doesn't give him the right to order me about," Oliver sniffed.
Simon interrupted his show of obstinacy. "In fact, it gives me the right to do anything I want with you."
Tension nearly crackled in the air as Simon stepped toward Oliver, who merely lifted his nose a few inches and turned his face away from the duke in a supreme show of feigned indifference. Lily knew the boy was anything but indifferent. But it would take much more to win Oliver's confidence.
Unfortunately, Simon didn't appear interested in gaining her nephew's confidence, not in the slightest. The situation reminded Lily of when she was a child and had offered to help the cook by going to the henhouse to collect eggs. Invariably, two of the roosters would begin to fight, each battling for supremacy.
That's what the duke and her nephew looked like as Simon crossed the room. But Lily knew Oliver would be the one to get hurt. She stepped between them.
"Move, Lily," Simon said.
"Not if you're going to hurt him, Simon." Lily held up one finger, much the way she would if she were scolding Oliver. Realizing how ineffectual the gesture was when he smirked at her stance, she lowered her hand to her side.
"I won't hurt him, Lily. Not if he listens and does as I tell him." He looked around her at Oliver and bellowed, "Now!"
When Oliver didn't move, Simon took another step toward him.
William called from the doorway, "Are you all involved in a game of charades? I can hear your bellow all the way from downstairs." He glanced around the room. "Why is everyone in Lily's room when she's in her nightrail?" Will glanced down at her bare feet and smiled wickedly. "What beautiful toes you have, Lily." He attempted a casual tone, Lily could tell, as he tried to break the tension in the room. It had little effect on Simon, and Oliver took even less notice.
Despite his casual manner of speaking, William was suddenly on guard as well. He circled around Simon, coming to stand close to her. She watched as he met eyes with Simon, almost as if a silent communication passed between them. Within seconds, his arms were around her, and he took her to the side, cradled in his hold. At the same time, Simon advanced toward Oliver, and the rest was a blur.#p#分页标题#e#
It seemed like only moments later that the room was empty, except for William who reluctantly loosened his hold on her.
"I'll let you go, Lily, but only if you promise to let them be. Simon needs to teach him something, and this is the time to do it."
Twelve
Simon had known that the time would come for him to assert himself as the leader of the pack. But he knew quite well how disastrous the situation could be if anyone else was caught in the middle of the altercation when it happened.
He was incredibly relieved when Will walked through the door. He knew Will would remove Lily from the line of danger while he took the pup to hand.
The boy was stronger than he looked, and it took every bit of effort Simon had to drag Oliver from the room and into the hallway. As he stepped through the threshold, Simon closed Lily's door. The crash of the door slamming seemed loud, even to his ears.
He held the young earl's face against the wall, one hand bending his arm behind his back. The boy kicked and squirmed, refusing to give in, even in his current position.
Simon tightened his hold on Oliver's arm, pressing more forcefully but taking care not to hurt him. It took every bit of concentration he possessed not to simply knock the obnoxious little pup to the ground and stomp on him. But he imagined Lily would take exception to that.
He moved his face close to Oliver's and growled, "If you can control yourself, I will let you go." Oliver stopped squirming. While Simon had the boy pinned against the wall, it was time to tell him the rules. "You have more power in your fingertip than your Aunt Lily has in her entire body. If you fly into a rage when she's in the vicinity, there's a very good chance that you will hurt her, even if you don't mean to." He loosened his hold on Oliver's arm but didn't let him go.
"Do you understand what I'm saying?" Simon needed to know before he would fully release him.
Oliver nodded, a bit of contrition apparent in the way he held his body when Simon finally let him go.
"I know you don't understand what's happening to you and your body," Simon said as he led the way to Oliver's room. The boy followed slowly. "What you're experiencing is more than just the approach of manhood. It's the approach of manhood for us, for our kind. And it can be dangerous."
"I wouldn't hurt Aunt Lily," Oliver sniffed.
"You wouldn't intend to hurt your aunt, but you may do so without even realizing what you're doing." He opened the door to the boy's quarters and motioned for him to precede him into the room. "Do you want to know what's happening to you?"