Hayden looked across at her. She didn’t lower her eyes as quickly as she should have. She saw something peculiar in his expression before she looked away.
“We understand each other,” he announced.
Jasmine risked a look back up. Stafford turned to Hayden and raised an eyebrow at the idea there was any such understanding in place.
Jasmine saw Hayden tug his wrist when Stafford would have disagreed with him.
“Jas did everything her old pack wanted her to do,” Hayden said. “She convinced us to get on well with each other, didn’t she?”
She felt Stafford looking across to her, but she couldn’t bring herself to look up again to meet his eyes.
“Yes,” the vampire said. “We understand each other just fine. Jasmine fulfilled her role perfectly.”
“Then, I think we can consider the matter closed, don’t you?” Mr. Washington said. He sounded very pleased with himself as he stepped forward and unlocked the cuffs linking the two men together.
Once they were free of the cuffs, they stepped away from each other.
Mr. Washington turned to her. “Come along.”
“What?” Hayden and Stafford both stepped between her and the older man, trying to stare him down.
Jasmine knew it was pointless. A human didn’t rise to the top of a council of paranormal beings by being scared of them-or to the top of a community of human dominants by showing any sign of fear either.
She hesitated, but her training gave her the strength to push past her reluctance to uncover herself. She slipped from between the sheets to kneel once more, naked before the council.
“Mine!” Hayden snapped when the Mr. Washington would have pushed past him. He put his hand in the middle of the man’s chest and pushed him back several feet without even exerting himself.
“She belonged to both of you for the duration of the exercise. The exercise is over, neither of you have any claim to her,” Mr. Washington explained, perfectly, calmly.
Stafford stepped in closer to him. “Are you telling us Jasmine has no say in this?” he asked coldly. “Surely it is up to the lady to decide who she belongs to?”
Mr. Washington looked from one of them to the other. “Very well,” he said eventually. “She can have a free choice between you.”
Stafford and Hayden looked at each other as Jasmine stared past them at Mr. Washington. Jasmine could practically see the tension ratchet up between them. Mr. Washington wasn’t an idiot. The rest of the council might think everything would be fine between the two young men forever, but Mr. Washington had to see as clearly as she did that there was no way they were ready to compete with each other, over a woman or anything else.
Each man nodded their head, accepting his terms, and it was obvious each was sure she would pick him.
“But, it will be a free choice,” Mr. Washington said. “Each of you will go to a different room in the hotel. When she has made her decision, she will go to whichever man she selects to be her master and that will be the end of it. You will both accept her decision without comment or recrimination towards her or the other man.”
Stafford moved to stand in front of her. He touched her cheek and tilted her head back so he could look her in the eye. “If you don’t feel safe with him, I won’t leave you on your own with him,” he said, glaring across at Mr. Washington.
Hayden came across and crouched down to be at her eye level.
“I’m fine, sir,” she said to both of them.
With clear reluctance, they eventually took her at her word. A few minutes later they were dressed in what was left of their clothes and had left to wait for her in two of the bedrooms where other members of the council had spent the night. When the door closed behind them, the senior members of the council lost interest and filed out too.
Jasmine stared at the floor as possibilities rushed through her head. If they both wanted her to belong to them then… for the first time in as long as she could remember, she actually thought about accepting a man who offered her a place under his protection.
“Do you have any injuries to report?”
Mr. Washington ’s question dragged Jasmine out of her thoughts.
“No, sir,” she said.
“Very well, then. Get dressed. We’re leaving.”
She looked up at him, all protocols tossed aside. “You told them…”
“And when you don’t arrive at their door, they will each believe you have gone to the other man.”
Jasmine stared at him, at first unable to work out what he was telling her. “Sir, you said…” she trailed off.
“Are you questioning my orders?”
Jasmine shook her head. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t understand…you said.”
“Do you believe that I will look after you, that I have your best interests in mind when I exercise my control over you?” he asked.
Jasmine nodded. “Yes, sir, but…”
“Then you will do as you are told,” Mr. Washington said.
Jasmine closed her eyes for several long moments. He had always given her a free choice before. She knew the older man wouldn’t order her away from someone who offered her a place in his house on a whim. None of that made it any easier for her to obey him right then.
Finally, she forced herself to nod. “Yes, sir.”
It took more effort than she would have ever believed possible to put on her clothes and leave the room with Mr. Washington right then. On the way out of the hotel, she looked at each of the bedroom doors they passed, wondering if she was walking past one of the rooms Stafford and Hayden were waiting in.
She shook her head at herself. Mr. Washington was right-she’d been crazy to think she could go to either of them. She forced herself to remember the truth of the matter-they’d been more focused on each other than her-it was only novelty and a competitive nature that led them to have even a passing interest in her.
That would have faded away in a few days and what would have become of her then? She glanced across at Mr. Washington as she got into his car. He turned his attention to her for a few moments and studied her carefully.
“Sir?” she asked, when the depth of his focus on her became uncomfortable.
“Take a few days,” he told her with surprising gentleness for a man who never forgot who the master was during a scene.
“Sir?” she said again, panic suddenly bursting inside her.
“I’m not disowning you,” he chided as he saw the worry in her eyes. “You spoke about visiting your family for a few days a little while ago. Take a few days to put both men out of your mind. Sometimes the paranormals can get inside a submissive’s head far more easily than a human master. Caught between the two of them all night, it’s no wonder you’re off balance. Take a few days, see your family, and come back to the club ready for the weekend. We’ll discuss everything then.”
He was right. She was off balance.
In that condition, Jasmine clutched onto the order like a lifeline.
“Yes, sir.”