by Riley Storm
Still, the losses had mounted. Many Title Holders, those who held important positions in the House, had been killed in the fighting, including the Knight, heir to the Queen.
Life must go on, however, and that is why he was now marching down the Grand Hallway, Kellas on his right, and another loyal soldier, Kedd, on his left. All three of them were decked out in the martial uniform afforded to soldiers of House Ursa. The all-black outfit was decorated with white stripes down the pant legs, the rank chevrons on the arms a deep brown, along with his braided belt and a ring around his cap, representing the various types of bears that made up the Ursidae.
“You ready?” Kellas asked calmly as they paused outside of the doors.
“Oh sure. No big deal. I do this every day,” he said with a powerful snort.
Kedd just grunted; the quiet type, he wasn’t prone to speaking much unless spoken to, a trait that Kirell sometimes wished Kellas would adopt.
The doors creaked open in front of them.
“Here it goes. No pressure, big guy.”
Though his hands were at his sides, Kirell knew his friend would spot the gesture as he curled all his fingers but one upward for a brief moment.
“That’s the spirit,” Kellas whispered one last time as the doors finished opening.
Kirell swallowed as he saw the sight before him. The Queen, on her throne, was no longer alone. Besides her bodyguards, the remaining Title Holders occupied the stone chairs to either side of her. The gaps, where nothing but empty seats were seen, ate at his heart; for the first time in a long time, Kirell hesitated.
Shortly, he would be sitting up there as well. This was to be his nomination ceremony, where the Queen would present him to the assembled members of the House for a three-day review period, after which he would be confirmed as the Captain of High House Ursa.
No pressure. Just like Kellas had said.
A guardsman boomed out the formal words introducing him, and on his cue, Kirell strode forward into the empty space in front of the assembled leaders. Behind him and to the sides, on three levels, the non-ranking members of the House filled pews or stood against railings, watching the proceedings.
The attention shouldn’t have bothered him, but it did. Kirell knew what many of them were thinking, and he hated what his Queen was asking of him. To lie to his kin was a terrible thing, but how could he argue with his ruler? The Queen knew what she was doing.
Hopefully.
“Kirell Ursa.”
He came to attention as the Queen rose from her seat.
“You have been nominated to the position of Captain within High House Ursa. Do you accept this nomination and state that you fulfill all the nomination requirements?”
“I do.” His voice rang out solidly, without so much as a waver as it filled the Throne Room.
The requirements of being nominated were quite simple. Be over twenty-five. Be an Ursa. And lastly, be mated. It was this last one that he was lying about to all of his assembled kin. Many of them had flown in from other places across the world after word of the attempted rebellion had spread, and they had no idea who he was, but they would accept the word of their Queen.
“If any would challenge this nomination, you have seventy-two hours from this moment to declare your intent.” The Queen fell silent, looking around the crowd to see if anyone would say anything.
It wasn’t the newcomers that concerned Kirell, but the other members, those who’d already been positioned at Ursidae Manor. Those were the ones who not only knew he was unmated but would also have the strongest claim to his position. Only the most powerful stayed at the manor. Those weaker, either politically or physically, lived elsewhere around the world, overseeing the interests of the House.
Silence descended as his voice faded, and Kirell held his breath. If there was going to be trouble, it would come now, but nobody was speaking out. Although technically there were a full seventy-two hours for a challenge to come forth, tradition dictated that any who disagreed should speak up now, before the Queen turned to other business.
Kirell felt hope form, but a poignant clearing of a throat killed it before it could gain any traction.
“I challenge this nomination,” a voice snarled, stepping into the light.
Only barely able to hold back a snarl, Kirell’s hands curled into fists as Klebra stepped into the light. Behind him, he heard hisses from both Kellas and Kedd.
Although he’d supposedly fought on the side of the Queen, Kirell knew the man would have turned in a heartbeat if he’d thought that Kven and his ilk had a chance to win. He was no more loyal to the throne than any of the dead traitors had been; the only difference was, he hadn’t fought against them.
“On what grounds do you challenge the nomination?” the Queen asked calmly.
“This man is unmated, and therefore unfit to be a Title Holder of House Ursa. I fulfill all the requirements, and I am a senior member of the House. This position is rightfully mine,” Klebra growled, glaring at Kirell with eyes that dripped hatred.
The Queen turned to him. “How do you respond to these accusations, nominee Kirell?”
“I state that they are unfounded.” He spoke the words strongly, covering up the shame he felt at lying to his kin.
“Then produce your mate!” Klebra snarled, breaking protocol.
Mutters from the crowd followed that. Kirell listened closely, trying to pick up on how the assembled crowd felt. It seemed that most were solidly behind him, but a noticeable-enough portion backed Klebra, sufficient to make him worried about his ability to proceed.
“Kirell?” The Queen said, gesturing at him while ignoring the outburst, though Kirell was confident his challenger would pay for it at some later date.
“My mate is not in the manor at the moment. I sent her into the city when I first felt uncomfortable with the tensions arising last week.”
A pin-drop could have been heard throughout the Throne Room as everyone held their breaths. This was the first reference to the coup that had been made.
“You have seventy-two hours to bring her here to show your eligibility,” the Queen said properly. “Do you understand?”
“I do, my Queen.” He came to attention once more and bowed low before accepting her signal of dismissal and marching out of the Throne Room, Kellas and Kedd close on his heels.
The doors were pulled open by guards and closed after him.
“I didn’t know you had a mate!” Kellas said after the heavy panels boomed closed. He clapped Kirell on the shoulder. “You keep some good secrets, Kire!”
“Yeah,” he muttered, not stopping as he headed back toward his quarters. “It’s a long story.”
It bothered him to lie to his friends, something that everyone had in short order after everything that had happened. So much mistrust was in the air, and now he was a part of it. The worst, however, would be if he couldn’t prove that he had a mate. Not only would it reflect badly on him, but he was sure the Queen’s political rivals would turn it around on her. She would be disgraced, no matter how hard she tried to distance herself from him. It would mean more upheaval at a time they could ill afford it.
Something is coming, Kirell. We must be ready for it.
The words of his Queen echoed in his mind. He had no idea what it was she meant, but if she was worried, then all of Ursa should be worried, including him. Kirell had to do his part to keep his House stable, no matter what it took.
“When are you going to bring her back?” Kellas asked, either ignoring or not picking up on the black mood Kirell was in at the moment.
“Soon,” he growled, lengthening his stride. As soon as I find someone.
He cursed the situation. Enlisting the help of the Hunter wasn’t an option either, because the last Hunter was dead and hadn’t been replaced yet. The Hunter was a Title Holder as well, like the Captain, but one that was imbued with the ability to help locate the mate of a particular shifter. It wasn’t necessarily a controllable power, more one that
came when needed, a combination of the science that created the shifters, and the magic that inhabited the earth.
It would have been really helpful right about then, but Kirell had to do it by himself. He was on his own with no one to guide him, and that bothered him. He hated making mistakes, and now it felt like he was in the middle of a huge one. Finding his mate in less than seventy-two hours, convincing her of their bond, and bringing her back here to stand at his side was an impossible task.
If Kirell was going to produce a mate, he was going to have to fall headfirst into the lie he and his Queen were perpetuating.
He was going to have to fake one.
5
“I still can’t believe Jeremy came through,” she remarked as the Uber pulled up in front of Para.
“Well actually, he came—”
Natalia just ignored Loren. Even as best friends, that was more information than she cared to hear about. Knowing Jeremy was good in bed, with his fingers, mouth or dick, that was something she could handle. Even discussing favorite positions; that was all fine and well with her.
She didn’t need to know where Loren had let him finish in her quest to get them access to Para. That was information she would be perfectly happy not knowing and did her best to keep it that way.
“I can’t believe we never came here before,” she remarked as they gave their names to the bouncers outside and were shown inside after a quick pat-down—not that her outfit left many places to hide anything. The black bralette stopped just below her chest, and the high-waisted black jeans were so tight she’d been forced to wear a g-string, something she almost never did.
Loren had insisted it was how people dressed there, and when she got inside, she realized for once that her friend hadn’t been exaggerating. All the women seemed to be wearing some form of lingerie or another much like the pair of them, though she sucked in her stomach, self-conscious she wasn’t as slim as everyone else she could see.
“Let’s get a drink!” Loren shouted over the bass.
The place was crowded, but not so jam-packed that she had to turn sideways to move. They found a bar and she waited while her friend ordered.
“Here!” A tiny glass was shoved into her hand. “Do this first!”
“Wait?” She groaned. “We never said we were doing shots!”
“If you’re finding a husband, you’re gonna need some courage, woman. I know you better than that!” Loren grinned wildly.
“What? I thought we had agreed that was too ridiculous!” She sniffed at the drink, recoiling at the powerful scent of cinnamon. “Fireball? Seriously? What the fuck did I ever do to you?”
Loren just grinned and cheers’d her.
They tossed back the shots and then Natalia was handed something that looked suspiciously like a vodka-cran. A quick sip showed she was right. That was acceptable at least.
“Come on; let’s find you a stud.”
“How about we just dance for a bit. Let’s be silly and have some fun.” She stared at Loren, imploring her to go along.
Just then, the song changed to one of their favorite tunes. In typical college student fashion—even if they were both well past that stage—the two of them shouted in excitement and made a beeline for the dance floor, hands in the air.
They bounced and danced with each other, and for once, no guys came and tried to grind up on them while they did. It was amazing. Natalia began to relax, a combination of enjoying herself and also probably the alcohol as she finished her drink. It didn’t really matter though; she was having fun and that was what was most important.
“Who is that?” Loren gasped, looking over her shoulder as they danced up on one another, their hips moving to the beat.
Standing up, Natalia looked over her shoulder in the direction of Loren’s stare just in time to see who she was talking about.
He was tall, broad of shoulder and dressed in a black suit that somehow seemed to shine in the dark. The crowd parted around him as he walked, but Mr. Suave and Sexy didn’t even seem to notice them. He towered above the crowd, somewhere around six and a half feet of form-fitted clothing that clung to his frame in all the right ways—and all the right places.
“Wow,” Natalia whispered, unable to tear her eyes away.
The strong jaw, the rugged look to his skin that suggested he was outside a lot, were all pulled together by the blue in his eyes; it was more visible as the lights swung around, illuminating the brightness of them. Natalia was staring, but she soon realized so was every other woman in the club. This man exuded sexuality, from the tautness of his shirt across his chest, to the way his hands shouted delicious, calloused roughness.
Someone rushed out of a back room and approached the man, immediately escorting him to a private booth up a set of stairs Natalia hadn’t even seen before, at the back of the dance floor. The man then sat with his back to the club, and slowly the place returned to normal as the women were once more swept up in the music and the guys stopped being threatened by the presence of someone with such an alpha personality that he could steal the entire room, even over the thumping music.
“You know, I’m going to do you a favor!” Loren called out to her friend over the noise.
“How’s that?” Natalia asked warily, her eyes focused on the stranger, not on her friend.
“You’ll see,” Loren said, but Natalia barely heard her speak.
A pair of women in outfits even more scandalous than her own were headed toward the stairs that led to the mysterious man’s private booth. Out of the shadows, a hulking security guard emerged, turning the women away. Over the next half an hour, the same scene played out over a dozen different times. None of the gorgeous women even made it to the stairs, and the man in the booth didn’t look at any of them.
“This could be the husband you need,” Loren teased, grabbing her hand and pulling her. Right toward the stairs.
“Whoa. Hold on. What are you doing?” Natalia yelped, trying to get herself free.
Loren was holding on tight, though.
“I am not going up there,” Natalia protested, standing her ground. “No way.”
“Oh, come on.” Her friend stopped trying to drag her. “Where’s the harm? You go over there, get up on the stairs and talk to him.”
“Are you serious?” Natalia asked. “He hasn’t let a single person even get up onto the first stair yet, Lore. How am I going to do any different?”
“Just try! If you get turned away, you can come back here, tell me you told me so; I’ll buy us some shots and drinks and we’ll just go dance. I won’t even try to get you to dance with any guys. If he lets you up though, you go and at least talk to him. Deal?”
She groaned. “Are you serious?”
Loren grinned. “Go get him!’
“I don’t want a fake husband, though. Come on, Lore, that’s ridiculous.”
As much as she tried to deny it though, her attention kept tracking upward, fixing on his broad shoulders, barely visible over the railing. Who was he? Why was he up there alone? She wanted to know more about him.
“Go!”
Without warning, Loren shoved her forward, toward the stairs. Natalia stumbled, her friend’s action nearly resulting in her ending up on the floor. Instead, she came to a halt just a few steps away from the nearly-hidden stairway. As before, a security guard emerged from a shadowy alcove, shaking his head at her. He was about to gesture for her to return to the floor when he paused, putting his finger to his ear.
At once, his expression changed. Natalia watched in disbelief as he stepped to the side and gestured for her to proceed up the stairs.
“A-are you sure?”
The guard just gestured impatiently.
Realizing that she was only going to get the one shot at it, Natalia pushed aside her doubts and climbed the stairs. She’d come this far after all, and the weight of the glares from all the women who’d come before her certainly wasn’t going to slow her down. She reached the top.
It
was there that her courage failed her for a moment, causing her to hesitate before following the railing around to the booths. There was more than one booth she saw now, but all were empty except for one.
The music seemed duller up there, less pounding than down on the floor, and she felt herself relaxing slightly, realizing she wouldn’t have to shout to be heard.
Without waiting to be told, she went and sat across from the sole figure up there, sliding gracefully into the chair, folding her hands over one another as she rested them on the table between them.
“Why did you come up here?”
She’d been opening her mouth to say hello, but now snapped it closed. His words weren’t harsh, but they were filled with an intensity only matched by the cobalt blue gaze he now levelled at her.
“Don’t lie, either.”
Closing her mouth slowly this time, cut off twice in the span of thirty seconds, she took her time evaluating the man. Was he really worth this sort of cold directness? Was it just him ensuring he didn’t waste his time, or did it indicate more about him, that perhaps he was just some rich asshole who thought he could get away with being rude to everyone around him?
He was handsome, she had to give him that. His features had the perfect five o’clock shadow without looking scruffy, his jawline could have been chiseled out of marble, and the strongly-defined nose wasn’t too big or too small to fit his slightly oval-shaped face.
It was the eyes though, the eyes that kept drawing her back in, sucking her into their vortex. He was well put together, which included the sharp lines of his suit, which she guessed cost a hell of a lot more than she could ever afford.
Finally, she decided to answer him. Truthfully. It would be a good test, to see how he reacted to the answer. Would he throw her out, or perhaps laugh? She knew he wouldn’t be interested, but that didn’t matter. She’d been allowed up, where so many before her had not, and Natalia wasn’t about to waste that chance now. Not without seeing if she could wipe that cool gaze from his face first.
