Mine, Forever After

by Beth Bolden

  “Ladies and gentlemen of Fontaine, of this royal court, we are here today to see our king pledge his faith and his hand to Prince Graham, his consort and his protector, and for Prince Graham to return his own promises, both to our king and to the kingdom. Will you hear their pledges?”

  A rush of sound met Gray’s ears. He’d been most concerned about this section of the ceremony, as there was a definite possibility that the court would not want to hear their pledges. But it seemed that was hardly a problem at all. All Gray saw was smiles and encouragement reflected back at them from the crowd.

  Everyone loves a wedding, Evrard echoed in his head. Gray supposed he’d been right the whole time. It was only too bad he wasn’t here so Gray could tell him so and Evrard could gloat properly.

  “I, King Emory of Fontaine, take you, Prince Graham of Ardglass, to be no other than yourself. Loving what I know of you, trusting what I do not yet know, I will respect your integrity and have faith in your abiding love for me, through all our years, and in all that life may bring us.” Rory’s fingers tightened on Gray’s own, like he was trying to calm their trembling, and Gray understood. His own heart was thumping irregularly, excited and a tiny bit terrified.

  “I, Prince Graham of Ardglass, take you, King Emory of Fontaine, to be no other than yourself. I take your faults and your strengths, as I offer myself to you with my own failings and successes. I will do everything in my power to help you when you need help, and vow to turn to you when I need assistance. I choose you as the person with whom I wish to spend the rest of my life.” Gray took a deep breath as Anya took a step forward and extended the embroidered cloth, which he took. He ignored the rustle that went through the crowd; they were surprised, but it remained to see if it was a good or bad surprise. “And now I will pledge my past, and my present, and my future to you, and your kingdom. My promise is represented by this tapestry, illustrated with the story of my birth, and of the most important journey of my life—my journey to finding you.”

  Rory reached up and wiped a single, crystalline tear from his cheek. “Nothing would honor me more,” he said, letting Gray wind the cloth around his neck and cinch it down by his turquoise sash. The golden threads echoed his eyes and as Gray caught a glimpse of Evrard, immortalized in silver thread, he realized that Anya had made sure that he was present for this most important day.

  “Now that you have made your pledges to one another …”

  A snarl rose from the crowd, and Marthe hesitated, Gray’s gaze immediately dropping from Rory, to scanning the crowd.

  It parted, and stalking towards the dais where he and Rory stood was Count Aplin, looking worse for the wear. Mud smeared up one side of his silvery tunic, his hair looked as if he had just ridden for hours, and his eyes were wild and unfocused.

  Panic lanced through Gray in a sickening rush as the guards stepped in front of the Count, who with a single wave of his hand, sent them toppling backwards in a frightening rush of power.

  “Guards,” Marthe called out, and Anya stepped in front of Gray and Rory, pulling her sword from its sheath.

  But Gray knew it wouldn’t do anything, not when the Count was clearly the magic user who had utilized Sabrina’s lair in the catacombs, and who had tried to enact a dangerous spell, before he’d been interrupted.

  Or had he been interrupted? Gray wasn’t sure if he had or not, but his deepest fear was that the only one who could stop Aplin was him and the magic of Lion’s Breath. Gray reached for the sword, and only realized, after his fingers closed around dead air, that he had stupidly allowed himself to be dressed without it today. Today, of all days, he was unprotected, and Aplin was possibly going to murder both him and his almost-husband before Marthe could even complete the wedding vows.

  “Ah,” Aplin cackled, “missing something, Your Majesty?” His snide tone made it horrifically clear that he had interfered with the valet, and made sure that when Gray dressed this morning, he would be without the one weapon that could possibly defeat the kind of magic that the Count wielded now.

  “You will not get away with this!” Rory shouted, his tone deadly angry.

  “Oh really?” Aplin questioned, brushing aside more fully armed guards like they were children’s toys as he made his way even closer to the dais. Gray’s heart constricted. “It seems as if I am. And very easily, too.”

  Gray clenched his fists. How could he have been so stupid? Maybe he was a king, but he was also protector of this kingdom, and of its ping, and he was failing utterly.

  Marthe let out an appalled gasp as pieces of Aplin’s face began peeling away to reveal an enormous silver serpent in his place.

  “This is … really not good,” Rory muttered between clenched teeth as Marthe drew her own sword and joined Anya in front of them. But Gray knew the two women, despite their experience and skill, would be no match for Aplin’s magic. The only way he could be defeated would be with the purifying and cleansing fire of Lion’s Breath, and without the sword, Gray could not hope to summon it.

  He reached out and gripped Rory’s hand. At least if they fell, they would fall together, and at least it would be in front of the entire court. Unlike Sabrina, who had carefully worked behind the scenes and concealed all evidence of her dark magic, Aplin was doing it front and center, stroking his ego with every slithering movement he made towards the group huddled at the back of the dais.

  “I want you to run. You and Rory both,” Marthe ordered under her breath. “Perhaps you can escape him, lose him in the halls of the castle.”

  “And expose more people to his dark treachery?” Rory shook his head. “This will end now. What he wants is me.”

  “You and that usurper,” the serpent rasped out. “That foul-mouthed Ardglassian that you permitted to touch you, to protect you, to marry you. And then you were going to allow him to destroy the throne? I could not let him or you take that step.”

  The crowd gasped as the snake approached the group. Anya’s grip tightened on her spear and she threw it with deadly accuracy—perhaps one of the best throws of her life. The serpent ducked at the last moment, its huge head wavering on its neck, sharp teeth shiny with venom in its great mouth. The spear glanced off its neck, but green blood flowed from the injury.

  “He’s not as strong as Sabrina was,” Rory hissed. “He can be hurt.”

  “If one could get close enough,” Marthe retorted testily.

  It was a split-second decision that later, Gray wasn’t sure he’d truly thought through at all. But the truth was, after the age of eleven, he’d never expected to be anything at all. He’d believed, without a single doubt, that a great life, a meaningful life had passed him by, and that any opportunity to truly change the world was gone. Rory’s love had given him a glimpse of a different future, and it evolved even further with his new plan of crowning Gray King. But what else could give the most meaning to a life? Sacrificing his own for a greater purpose.

  Gray reached out and grabbed the dagger from Anya’s belt, and darting forward, moved past the protection of the two best warriors in Fontaine, so he could face the deadly serpent alone.

  “Gray!” Rory cried out, but Gray blocked out the voice, because it already hurt that the beautiful future that he’d hoped for with Rory was going up in flames. But he could do this.

  He ducked as the great head swung, its jaw snapping shut and just missing his arm. Rolling closer, he eyed the exposed underbelly of the snake, hoping that it was as vulnerable as its real-world counterparts. He poised, hoping to strike with the dagger, praying it would be deadly enough to stop the Count from continuing his attack, but before he could swing with it, flames suddenly erupted out of the pointed end.

  The serpent reared back, screeching as flames engulfed him. Gray, as surprised as the first time Lion’s Breath had summoned its deadly magic, couldn’t believe that this little dagger, of no ancestry whatsoever, was summoning the same flames the ancient sword had.

  Abruptly, it was over, the remains of Aplin smoking on the
marble floor, a horrified hush spreading through the enormous chamber.

  “Gray!” Rory yelled, running towards him, after finally loosening Marthe’s grip. He fell to his knees next to Gray, who dropped the dagger like it had scorched him, even though the metal was as cool as the first moment he’d held it. “Oh god, what happened?”

  Gray stared at his almost-husband. “I don’t know … I didn’t have the sword. I just thought I could hurt it, hurt him. Enough to maybe stall him, maybe give Anya another shot, enough to save you.”

  Rory was crying, tears dripping down his cheeks as he clutched at Gray’s shoulders. “You insane idiot, you saved me, you saved us all.” He put his head in the crook of Gray’s shoulder and hugged him fiercely.

  “I think …” Marthe approached now, her voice as uncertain as Gray had ever heard it. He supposed that it wasn’t every day a gigantic serpent was burned to ash in front of her. “I think it is my utmost honor to pronounce you committed partners and Kings of this realm.” She extended her hand and Gray realized that she carried in it his new crown. Rory glanced back, and smiled, taking it in his own two hands. Gray, who had knelt down to be closer to Rory, found he did not have to move at all. So it came to be that in front of the smoldering ruins of their second-worst foe, Prince Graham of Ardglass became King Graham of Fontaine, and to his own shock and his husband’s, the entire court erupted into wild applause.

  Chapter Seven

  A week later, it was as if a magical fight had never happened in the throne room. The ash from Aplin’s body had been cleared away, and the floor cleaned. A second throne had been moved to join the first, and today, in their first audience as Kings, Gray and Rory sat side by side, holding hands across the space between their respective seats.

  “Your Majesties,” Anya said, approaching the platform they were sitting on, “one last report, this is a message from the unit you sent to track Rinard. He has not been found, and no trace of him exists.”

  Gray sighed. He had not expected Rinard to be found, not after what had happened to his consort in this very room, but the effort had been the very least Gray could do, now that he was nominally in charge of the defense of Fontaine. Still, it did appear from Anya’s reports, mostly given in her guise as the head of the new informant network, that the nobles had mostly, if not entirely, pledged their support to the new Kings.

  “And,” Anya continued, “I believe that is everyone who has submitted a proposal to be heard before you.”

  Gray let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. He knew he’d been trained, at least until age eleven, to be a king, but he’d discovered that king-ing was not as simple as he’d believed it was when he’d been a child. It was complicated and difficult and mostly involved making a lot of compromises and then couching those in such attractive terms that everyone believed they’d gotten their own way, when in fact nobody had. And it turned out, he did have a surprising affinity for it. Or maybe that was the man at his side, who had believed in him, and who he believed in, to the very last breath in his body.

  “See?” Rory said with a bright grin. “It was not so bad, was it?”

  “Well,” Gray grumbled, because it had still been slightly stressful. He hadn’t been entirely sure he was going to convince John the farrier to accept only three cows for his daughter’s hand in marriage, and not five. But love had prevailed, as love had only a week ago, and now the farrier’s daughter was going to marry the farmer.

  Gray decided it had a pleasant symmetry.

  “You did great,” Rory said, leaning in to give him a quick kiss.

  “You were … tolerable,” Gray teased, and then turned to get up to lead Rory away from the throne room and hopefully to more pleasurable pursuits, but then out of the corner of his eye, he saw a sight he had never expected to see again.

  Gray dropped Rory’s hand and stood up slowly with shock racing through every vein in his body.

  “You …” Gray whispered as a man approached the dais. His face was as familiar to Gray as his own face, his own body, his own mind. He’d been sure a month ago, when they had left the Valley, that he would never again hear that voice, or that smug, certain tone ever again.

  And like so many other countless times, Evrard had made sure that Gray was wrong.

  “Your Majesty,” the man said, bowing, “I would like to offer my stewardship services to the throne of Fontaine.”

  “You would?” Gray knew his own voice was strangled, but he wasn’t as young as he once had been, when he’d been equally as shocked.

  “I have heard,” the man continued, as if Gray hadn’t spoken, “that you had a bit of excitement at your wedding, only last week.”

  Gray would have rolled his eyes but that was almost certainly not kingly, and likely he would never get away with anything un-kingly ever again. Especially not with the man currently standing in front of them around. “We did,” Rory said, a puzzled expression on his face, as he approached where Gray and the man stood.

  “I like to think that if I were on the job, nothing of that sort would ever happen again,” the man said confidently.

  “You would be able to prevent … a disgruntled member of the court from unearthing his predecessor’s magical lair and turning into an enormous poisonous serpent, hell-bent on interrupting a royal wedding?” Rory asked archly. “That is quite a promise, indeed.”

  “Indeed,” Gray echoed.

  “I have much experience in negotiations, and on councils of various kingdoms. And …” The man flashed a knowing smile at Gray. “And much experience in educating future princes to be kings. I assume you do not have a child as of yet, but there is still time …”

  “I would say so,” Gray muttered. “We were just married.”

  “Regardless,” the man said, “I offer you my services, such as they are.”

  “I think …” Rory hesitated. “I think we could find a place for you, good sir. And your name?”

  The man flashed Gray’s husband an incorrigible smile. “My name is Rhys, Your Majesty. And it is excellent to finally meet you.”

  Evrard will return.

  Acknowledgements

  Mine, Forever After is my holiday gift to you. When I published Yours, Forever After in September, I knew it was very different than my usual books, and I really did not know what to expect. What I received was incredible encouragement and support from the people most important to me—you, my readers. Thank you for taking a chance and going on this journey with me, Gray, Rory, and Evrard.

  And as I mentioned on the last page, yes, Evrard (or Evrard-as-Rhys) will be getting his own book. I’m not exactly sure when, but it will be happening.

  Thank you for all your support. I would not be writing books I love without you.

  Beth’s Books

  *also available in audio

  KITCHEN GODS SERIES

  Bite Me* - Miles’ and Evan’s story. They were sure they were enemies … until they were sure they weren’t.

  Catch Me* - Wyatt and Ryan’s story. Their relationship is completely fake … until it isn’t.

  Worship Me - a short story about Matt and Alex from Catch Me.

  Savor Me - Xander and Damon’s story. They’re partners in a new restuarant … until they’re so much more.

  Indulge Me - Kian and Bastian’s story. Working together is a necessity, but their mutual love? It’s every bit an unnecessary indulgence.

  STAR SHADOW SERIES

  Terrible Things* - a little grittier, a little darker, a little more terrible. A rock star romance.

  Impossible Things* - Benji & Diego’s story, and the sequel to Terrible Things.

  FOREVER, AFTER SERIES

  Yours, Forever After - a lost Prince, a lonely bookworm and a suprisingly chatty unicorn go on the quest of a lifetime to save their kingdoms from an evil sorceress.

  Mine, Forever After - a royal wedding novella featuring Gray, Rory & Evrard. Sometimes the HEA isn’t quite the end.

  STANDALONES

&nbs
p; The Rainbow Clause* - Shy NFL quarterback meets immovable object AKA the journalist assigned to write his coming out profile. Sparks are definitely gonna fly.

  Taste on my Tongue - Kitchen Wars is the hottest new reality show on TV, but pop star Landon can’t even turn an oven on. Will baker Quentin be able to give him a culinary education so they can win?

  Wrapped with Love - Losing Jordan is the biggest regret of Reed’s life. Will holiday magic and a little Secret Santa be able to repair what was broken?

  Fairytale of LaGuardia - Once upon a holiday season, a hockey player and a baseball player walked into a bar …and the rest is history. A Christmas story co-written with A.E. Wasp.

  Musical Notes - two teachers with nothing in common, except a high school musical that’s only three weeks away from Opening Night.

  About Beth

  A lifelong Pacific Northwester, Beth Bolden has just recently moved to North Carolina with her supportive husband and their beloved cat, Earl Grey. She still believes in Keeping Portland Weird, and intends to start a chapter of Keeping Raleigh Weird.

  Beth has been writing practically since she learned the alphabet. Unfortunately, her first foray into novel writing, titled Big Bear with Sparkly Earrings, wasn’t a bestseller, but hope springs eternal. She’s published fourteen novels and six short stories.

  www.bethbolden.com

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  Copyright © 2019 Beth Bolden.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, at the address below.