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Preview of Rival Love
Rival Love
The Blue Falls Series
By:
Amelia Wilson
Prologue
The war was coming, and all Stefan could do was prepare his people. After so many decades of peace, it was inevitable. His brother had certainly sped things along marrying a human. Harold had been a good man, and he had his heart in the right place when he’d married Lily, but now the traitorous girl had run away with the enemy. The only hope he had of stopping the impending battle was to get Lily back and figure out who was responsible.
He walked along the long Oriental rug in his brother’s office. No, it was his office now, wasn’t it? It was difficult to imagine why Harold had left him in charge. He would need to grieve once he’d settled everything and put a plan into action. For now, he had to suck it up and deal with things. He’d heard rumors of a possible unrest amongst the people and that there might be an uprising if certain rules weren’t altered. Still, he couldn’t imagine that would lead them to kill their leader. It had to be the work of an external party, though one with intimate knowledge of what went on behind these closed doors.
Then there was Lily. She was a once in a lifetime type of girl. For the first year, he’d been insanely jealous of his brother. She was beautiful, sweet, and though her situation wasn’t ideal, she had made the best of it. Once he got to know her, he started to accept they would only be great friends and enjoyed her company.
What kind of woman ran away with the man who’d killed her husband? It didn’t seem like she cared at all and he’d really liked Lily. It just didn’t seem like something the girl he knew would do. Could she have been pretending the whole time? Unable to fathom it, he decided it was important to give her the benefit of the doubt. At twenty-four he was going to be a young ruler, and jumping to conclusions wouldn’t help his people keep faith in him. If he made sure to cover every angle and get them the truth, they’d respect him. He addressed the advisor and a small group of the guards that protected the alpha and their people.
“Men, we have to go after her. It won’t do to let the people know we simply let her run off whether she is responsible for Harold’s death, or not.” He straightened to his full height and put on what he hoped was an authoritative voice.
“If I might say, sir, I think she’s guilty and should be thrown in the jail along with her co-conspirator.” The head guard was twice as tall as Stefan and clearly had a negative outlook on the recent events. Clinton was ready to wage war at all times. Stefan thought perhaps he slept in his uniform.
“Throw away the key for good measure,” Clinton added disdainfully.
“I think we should allow Lily the chance to explain herself. After all, she is to be my wife now that my brother is dead.” The thought excited and terrified him. He wasn’t sure Lily would be willing to taking her place by his side. Even if it was written, as the alpha now he should be able to marry, or not marry, whoever he pleased. He would be content with her. It would be a dream come true, but unlike Harold, Stefan wanted the woman he married to love him in return.
“You’d marry the woman who killed our leader?” Clinton was clutching his chest like the very thought stole his breath. “Your brother?”
“If she killed my brother, my last thought would be to marry her. We will bring her back here, and we’ll give her the chance to defend her actions.” Stefan loved Lily in a brotherly way, but he wouldn’t deny she was beautiful. The fact she was to be his wife in the event of his brother’s death didn’t vex him in the least. That was of course if she wanted to be his wife. The last thing he wanted to do was force it.
Clinton left the room clearly not happy with the options Stefan had given him. He couldn’t go to war over this, not with a much stronger Alornian army. The Slamarion and Alornian clans were named from the places they came from. Years before they’d gone underground to hide from the humans. In the old country, they’d been bitter enemies although history never accounted for why. Once they’d moved, and as the years progressed, they’d struck a deal of peace. Slamarions weren’t known for their fighting style, and Stefan worried his army would be led to slaughter.
His army could very well be overrun by the Alornians who spent their whole life training for battle, whereas his did not. It was their custom, even though a supernatural war hadn’t been waged for decades. Then there was the matter of his enchanting sister-n-law. Stefan didn’t really believe her capable of such a heinous act. As far as he could tell, while she hadn’t truly loved Harold, they had gotten along quite well. Of course, women had fooled his brother in the past.
“Gather four or five men, we’ll set out in search of her. Take two with you and start looking. I shall follow shortly.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh, sweet Lily, what have you done?” Stefan muttered to himself as he looked out the window over the small town which he now ruled and the dense forest beyond.
Chapter One – A Slain Husband
Lily breathlessly chased the man through the forest. He had shifted into a bear, of course, and ran out in front of her, his long strides putting great distance between them. Was he trying to lose her? She sat down on a fallen tree completely winded and cursed as her bottom sank down into the rotted wood. She cringed, hoping the bugs beneath would stay where they were and not creep out onto her lap.
The man would eventually have to come back. There was no way a human could match the speed of a bear, even one who was in decent shape, which she was.
Her thoughts took her back to the day’s events. Closing her eyes tightly, she wished she had stayed in bed. When she had gone to her husband’s study to ask if he wanted to help her replant their garden, the last thing she expected to find was her dead husband lying on the ground and a confused stranger standing over him.
***
“Darling, do you want to help me plant the lilacs first?” She called cheerfully as she rounded the doorway. Lily came to a full stop, all joy leaving her as her eyes fell upon a chilling sight. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Lily Adams Spencer walked into the study to find a man standing over her husband. Harold lay on the ground, lifeless. A sword stuck in his stomach, and glassy blue eyes staring emptily at the sky. His black hair had fallen out of place, and a strand was carelessly draped across his forehead. Harold’s vanity would have never allowed such a thing.
“Did you kill him?” Lily shouted and ran over. She knelt beside her husband putting two fingers to his throat.She couldn’t feel a pulse and she knew with his unseeing eyes that there wouldn’t be. A pit opened up in her stomach. Quietly, she smoothed his unruly hair away from his pale face. The blood still poured from the wound and spread in a glassy, red pool across the floor. He couldn’t have been dead very long. When she had touched him, his skin still felt warm.
“Did you kill him?” Lil
y repeated with quiet intensity.
“I don’t know,” the stranger stumbled back and sat in a chair.
“You don’t know? How in the hell can you kill someone and not be aware of how it happened?” she screeched. None of it seemed real like she was in a movie or a dream.
Shaking his head, the man drew his fingers back through his hair and let out a shaky breath. “I think I might have blacked out.”
Lily looked at him incredulously. “You think you might have, or you did?”
The stranger was showing signs of agitation. “The last thing I remember is I was walking through the forest. I think I was hunting, but I’m can’t be certain. I stopped by the creek to shift, and that’s the last thing I remember. The next thing I knew - .” He opened his arms wide and gestured to his surroundings.
Lily gave a contemptuous snort and looked down at her dead husband. “You’ve obviously killed him,” she snapped with tears filling her eyes.
Gently she brushed her hands over his open eyes, pulling them closed. She couldn’t stand seeing the emptiness that was there. There was a time she could see the length of his entire life in those deep, blue pools, but now, there was absolutely nothing. It was like staring into a yawning abyss. She couldn’t help but wonder if Harold had something to do with his demise. Had he brought it upon himself? Was there an enemy in their midst? No that couldn’t have been it, everyone loved him.
“Oh Harold, what did you do?” she whispered.
“Miss, I’ve brought your afternoon – “ Mary, the woman who looked after the housekeeping staff and the kitchen, gasped in horror. “Oh, my God!”
The tray she’d been carrying fell to the floor, sending shards of delicate porcelain skidding across the carpet of the study. Mary covered her mouth with her hands as her eyes darted from Harold’s lifeless body to the stranger and then to Lily. A sinking feeling landed in the pit of Lily’s stomach as the woman slowly began to back across the room.
“Wait, Mary, it’s not what it looks like,” Lily said, holding up her hand, but she was lying even to herself. Lily knew exactly what it looked like.
There was a wild panic in Mary’s eyes. “Guards,” she yelled.
Lily watched as the woman hustled from the room. Her calls for the guards still echoing through the house. Lily hung her head in despair. “Well, this won’t go over well,” she muttered.
With a sigh, she looked at her husband’s lifeless form. Tears spilled through her lashes and landed on his pale cheeks. For a moment, she forgot that the stranger was in the room with her. She wasn’t threatened by him because if he wanted her dead, he could have easily done it already. No, he’d simply been there for poor Harold who had insisted on doing an hour’s worth of work before helping her with the garden and look where that had gotten him.
She wiped the tears from her eyes and mentally prepared herself for what was about to happen. It was barely three in the afternoon, broad daylight, and someone had killed her husband. Lily had never won the popularity prize for being the only human in her own household which was full of werebears and other paranormal creatures. She’d started to win a couple of them over, but now all those relationships would go to the gutter as they would ultimately blame her.
Werebears were fiercely loyal creatures, reluctant to let anyone that wasn’t part of their clan get too close. Somehow, since their nuptials, she’d managed to cultivate a few tentative relationships. She was still an outsider, and therefore, her shoulders were exactly where the blame would fall. The staff would turn on her, Harold’s family and confidants would too, and here was nothing she could do about it. There was no one left to trust.
“You’re acting very, might I say, docile for a woman who’s just found her husband dead,” the stranger said. Lily started, having forgotten that he was still in the room.
“You’re awfully calm for a man who just killed my husband,” she shot back defensively. She was most certainly not in the mood to deal with his condescending tone.
Suddenly, the guards ran into the room. “Seize her. She’s killed the leader. Get that man, he’s helped her.”
Lily knew as soon as she walked into the room and saw Harold dead she’d be blamed. The head guard, a stubborn ass named Clinton, hated her. He was against a werebear/human marriage, and the entire time she’d been there, he’d worked to make her life hard. Some of those in the werebear community didn’t approve of her because she was human. When her father had almost been killed by Clinton for a grievance against the alpha, she’d agreed to marry Harold to keep the peace and save her father.
Clinton wasn’t the greatest of weres. He reminded her more of a hulking, weird smelling giant. He was a massive man with thick bushy eyebrows that nearly connected in the middle. His beady eyes were deep set in his skull and close together. Couple that with his bulbous nose and thick mustache, the man outright creeped her out. He’d never made a move to hurt her or said a cross word to her, it was just a feeling in her gut. There was something in the way he behaved around her that made her keep her distance.
As the guards made their way toward her, some deep-seeded instincts kicked in, propelling her to fight back. As soon as one of the guards grabbed her, she summoned all the strength she had and drove her elbow into his stomach. Regret filled her as he let out an oof and doubled over. Seeing another opportunity to gain the upper hand on him, she lifted her knee and caught him in the face. The sound of crunching bone filled her ears. She cringed. These men had been her protectors, but now they were her enemies. She was the only one who could protect herself. It wasn’t something she wanted to do, but she had to.
The man fell to the floor, blood trailing down his face as he curled into a fetal position. Then, jumping as if someone had sent an electric shock through him, the stranger launched his own attack. Quickly, he gained the upper hand on his opponent before charging at Clinton. Dropping his shoulder like a football player, he put his full weight behind him as he propelled forward. The sudden action distracted Clinton, giving the stranger just the time he needed to push him from the room and jam a chair under the knobs.
The door shook violently as the men behind it began pounding on the heavy wood panel. The stranger backed away. “That won’t hold lady, we’re going out the window.”
With their chances of escape rapidly diminishing, he ran over to the window and threw it open. He slung a leg over the side and jumped out.
“First you kill my husband, and now I’m left behind,” Lily muttered angrily. She cursed herself for thinking it was a great day to wear her new purple summer dress and went out after him. He was shimmying down a tree since they were on the third floor and looked up at her.
Tentatively she reached out and wrapped an arm around the tree. It was almost out of reach. As she tried to also wrap a leg around, she almost lost her footing in the window. Cursing she realized she’d have to jump. Counting to three, she made a valiant leap, landing on the tree and grasping it tightly with her limbs. The rough bark bit into the sensitive skin of her thighs and arms, but it wasn’t nearly distracting enough to keep her mind from the precarious swaying of the tree. With a deep breath, she began to shimmy her way down.
Lily looked down to find the man staring up at her. What? Was he going to catch her if she fell? Not likely. It was more than likely due to the fact that she was wearing a dress and giving him the perfect view of ... well, everything.
“Keep your eyes on the tree buddy,” Lily snapped as she made her way down the trunk. As she inched her way down, she tried to focus on different things—keeping her mind from the fact that either Clinton could catch her or she could plummet to her death.
Three things she thought of as she made her way down to the platform of Earth below her were certain. There were definitely twigs in her underwear, her cell phone was on the dresser, and Stefan was going to be really upset when he noticed she was gone. Scratch that, he was going to be upset when Clinton told him who she’d left with.
***
&nbs
p; “Why are you just sitting there with your ass in the tree?” The stranger was back in human form, interrupting her thought process. Of course, he was fully clothed. Ever since she’d found out about werebears, she wondered how they took their clothes with them when they shifted. Expecting them to be naked when they shifted back, she was shocked when they returned fully clothed. Sometimes they even shifted back holding the fish they’d just caught as a bear, more often than not, caught between their teeth.
For some reason, the fact that some magic kept their clothing with them disturbed her more than if they would turn up naked.
“I was resting, and besides I thought you’d left me.”
The Werebear began circling her, eyeing her thoughtfully. “So, why’d you do it? The insurance money?” “I’m sorry,” Lily muttered, her eyes flashing at him as he paced. “But why did I do what?”
The man was clearly off his rocker. She took in his appearance. He was broad shouldered with dark brown hair and a day’s old stubble all over his chin and upper lip. He looked approachable but also like he could be a little dangerous.
“Kill your husband.” He said in a matter of fact tone.
“I would never kill anyone. You killed my husband, and you seem to have blacked out.” Lily sneered, making finger quotes around blacked out.
“I did black out, but I don’t think I would randomly kill someone I didn’t know.”
“The leading alpha bear of the Slamarians. That’s who you killed.”
Rune Master Page 21
