by Logan Keys
Instead of relying on our conventional traditions and waiting for the wolf prince to arrive to Summer in five days’ time, I steal into the night, charging through the woods and across realms in my most natural form as a lion, until I reach Winter. I smell the muskiness of their realm before I see it and while it isn’t altogether unpleasant, it’s a scent I’m unaccustomed to. One I’d rather turn my nose away from than move forward.
But move forward I do. So distracted by the new scent, I trot through the forest until I stumble, rather ungracefully, over a large mass lying on the damp ground. The familiar scent of the wolf hits my nostrils and I breathe him in, needing to know my future husband as well as I know the man I’m no longer destined for.
His ears pull back, his eyes narrowing as he snarls in my direction. I let out my own growl, low and warning. He stands, his full height again taking me aback. We circle one another, my prowl graceful, opposed to the slight limp in his gait.
Not wanting to quarrel further, I retreat and sit on my haunches. Although patience isn’t a virtue I possess, I wait for recognition to cross behind those dark, stormy eyes that have tormented me since the day we crossed paths by the river. I angle my face to the side, try to remain passive while keeping a steady gaze on him, observing him as nothing more than my opponent.
His tail drops, pointing straight down as it switches lightly in a wag.
He shudders, his ebony coat trembling with the gesture as his lean muscles constrict. On a yawn, he transforms into human form. Curious, I peer up at him, assess him for the damages I’ve caused, for the strength I sense brewing beneath the surface.
“Well?” He gestures with an impatient wave of his hand. He settles in his form as a human man and I take some pride when he doesn’t shrink away when I stalk around him. “Are you going to change, Lion? Or have you come to admire your future husband?” His mouth bows upward in a tight smirk.
Apparently not shy of his sculptured physique, he splays his large hands on either side of his hips. Veins slope up his arms, the sinewy muscles moving as I admire him as a man. He’s brawny, as well built as the wolf, with wounds still healing from our encounter. Not ready to question him about it, about the reluctance I felt in our brawl, I lick my lips, my eyes darting away from him only to find amusement playing across his face when I look back at him.
“Don’t tell me, my bride is shy?” He laughs.
Narrowing my eyes, I also change. Back in human form, I’m more self-conscious but I hold my posture upright when his stare sweeps over my bare body. My chest heaves, my breasts growing heavy under the weight of his stare. I turn in front of him, a small circle as I let him have his fill, pretending I don’t mind the vulnerability of being naked before him.
“Are we done now?” I question with a melodic lilt to my voice.
“I don’t even know where to start,” he answers, his voice hoarse. “You came to me, Lion. What is it you want at such a late hour?”
“My name’s Liana. You may call me that or my lady. The choice is yours, Noble, but I demand you treat me as your equal.”
Dark, bushy brows shoot to his hairline and the corners of his lips twitch. “Very well then.”
“Very well then, what?” I demand. “Which will it be?”
“If I’m given the option, I’d like to call you Liana in private and my lady in public. So, that I may treat you with the respect you deserve.”
I curtsy, a deep bend of my knees as I bow my head down, showing him the same respect. “My thanks, Your Grace.”
“Your Grace in public,” he corrects. “As your husband, I ask you call me Noble when it is just us two.”
“Very well, then,” I mime.
Humor dances behind his eyes with a glint of mischievousness, mesmerizing me for a moment before I remember what I’m here for.
“You’re to fight my father for my hand,” I say, my voice steady, my nerves quaking. A small tick makes his jaw twitch as his features darken, but I continue. “You’ll lose if you don’t grow more confident. I’m sure from looking at you, strength isn’t against you.”
“And do you fear for my life, Liana?” His lips lift into half a smile that I can’t help but return. “If I remember correctly, it’s you who almost took my life two weeks ago.”
The smile falls, wiping itself from existence as my lips pull down into a frown. “You were spying on me, watching me bathe. When I saw you, you growled at me.” I poke his chest with a firm finger, and must hit a particularly sore spot that makes him flinch slightly. So slightly I might’ve missed it if I weren’t trained to notice these things. “What was I to do? Let some rogue wolf attack me?”
“Don’t do that.” He grabs my wrist, wrapping his fingers tightly around it. “Don’t call me a rogue wolf. I’m a wolf.”
“A wolf that can change when there is no full moon.” I tilt my chin skyward.
His shoulders slump forward, his face growing wary. And then he masks it with an arrogant smirk. He straightens, his expansive chest in full display. “Yes, a wolf that can change when there is no full moon. A wolf that dared to venture outside of his realm. Because I am a royal. And you, Liana, are to be my wife. Be mindful of that and of your words,” he warns me.
“I’ll be no such thing if you can’t defeat my father, and with the way you fight, I’m fairly certain you will only bring more disgrace to your pack.”
“Is that why you’re here, then? To mock me in my own realm? Need I remind you, this is my kingdom and you are trespassing?”
“Shall we fight?” I fold my arms over my chest, the smooth satin of my skin a reminder that I’m arguing with a barbarian who most certainly finds enjoyment in seeing me so exposed. “See who wins?”
“Don’t challenge me, Liana,” he growls. “I may not be able to hold back the next time we battle.”
I inhale a deep breath through clenched teeth, and choke on his words. “You held back?” I whisper. “Why would you hold back? When you fight, Noble, you fight to win. If death is what is warranted, you fight until you are the victor. Until you are drained of your own blood, you fight. Until you expend your last breath, only then can you retreat. You mustn’t hold back. Not ever.”
“We’re done here. Go back to Summer, Liana. Soon enough you’ll have your fill of the cold and wish you hadn’t spoken such careless words.”
Without warning he changes back into wolf form. I study him as he considers me. His penetrating stare digs into me, and I waiver under his silent contemplation. The exquisite black fur feathered together with the deep gray twitches as his long muscles strain beneath the surface of his body. My heart thunders, a loud cadence inside my ears, as sudden passion threatens to explode in lustful craving. He holds me captive and I kneel down in front of him, my knees sinking into the soft ground beneath me. I stroke his massive head and nearly whimper when he nuzzles against it. I stroke the shockingly soft fur, threading my fingers through the strands, our gaze never falling from the others.
I lean into him and whisper, “When you fight my father, don’t hold back, Husband.”
Chapter 11
Noble
Shocking doesn’t cover it. The image is burned into my memory, seared into my eyes, of my future wife, again naked, again fierce, and threatening me. And should I be disgusted? Upset? Challenged and angry? Yes.
But I am none of those things.
As sick as I am, I am more alive than I have ever been. Liana is like a fire in human, well lioness, form.
She doesn’t ask questions without her beautiful face demanding that you answer and answer well. I’ve never met such a creature in all my life. It’s not that she’s a lion. I’ve known many. Bull-headed, and stubborn, and not always quick of wit.
But Liana is none of those things. She is a changeling from her realm, the wit of a wolf matched with the strength of courage the lions are known for. The coldness and calculating woman of my kind, wily creatures, they manipulate at every turn having worked quietly within a pack for rank,
for order. Using their cunning, they will maneuver so subtly, that you don’t know they are there until the glowing eyes are right upon you.
The lions, and seeing Liana, I now know, have no such order. True, they have their king and queen, but everything else is left for challenge, and every order is shuffled based on strength. She would be their queen of queens. My mother had already said as much.
And she’s giving that all up and for what? A wounded rogue wolf?
She’s either insane, or pressured into the union.
I’m half tempted to tell them to forget it. That it’s not fair to someone as destined as she, but the thought leaves as soon as it comes. To let go of such a flame after only finding it? Nay, I don’t think I’m nearly strong enough for that. Liana is far too tempting to simply give away.
And she still assumes I will do the lion rituals. Hold true to their way. Liana has said she thinks that I will challenge her father. She tells me to fight her king, her kin, without holding back.
Before, I’d been too cool-headed, far too clear of thought to even imagine such a challenge, but now, seeing her, and hearing her words to not hold back---she’d called me husband--- but little does she know, after seeing her even the first time, after the memory surfaced of her at the pond, I’d fight a thousand lions without holding back. Just to have that tilted chin jut at me in defiance once more, I’d challenge her king for that alone.
My family will never understand, so what I do tonight, I do in secret. They’d already negotiated that there would be no ritual for Liana’s hand, but this is because of Katarina.
If she risked it all for our betrothal, and I failed her, maybe my challenge now will pay it back. Win. Lose. Or draw.
Only there will be no draw.
The king will kill me, or I will have her hand. It is as simple as that.
I dress, careful of my wounds, all the while in a daze at the prospect of a future that is for once not planned perfectly, not laid out before me. Tonight, I leave my realm and everything that’s there, possibly for the last time.
But first, politics. I have to meet with our leaders of the individual packs. I need to assure them that my father, the black wolf, has not lost his mind.
Our southern borders, secure, never infiltrated before, are now being open wide to…lions.
Lions who cry not wolf, but man! Hunters, they say.
Wolves are a suspicious kind of people. None of this will settle lightly, and my father is now away once again in a southern village, handling disputes over missing wolves.
He’s had to help them investigate the truth of this claim.
I cringe to think of my people’s heads in wolf form lining some human’s wall in some hunting lodge. Used to, those were our stories to tell around the camp fire, ghost stories almost, fairy tales, but gruesome ones. A little wolf in red just trying to see her sick grandmother, who’s tricked by a hunter.
But more than humans, there is rivalry that goes ages deep between the wolves and lions. Under my father’s rule and the king lion, we have had peace for nearly a century where once there was great war.
A war that all but ended the bears who live further north.
There might be none left. We’ve not even seen a bear, not truly, in over fifty years. Some say they quietly sank into a word we must never utter: extinction. To think it alone brings a chill to my heart.
But now with Liana, understandably, the wolves are going to be very upset to see our traditions tossed to the side. To see a lion enter our domain and lead, even. It’s more than just an understanding now, it would mean tying ourselves by blood.
It won’t be pretty in there.
I expect Oren, a subline of my lineage, will be the first to comment about my lack of ability to keep a wolf mate alive. That is his go-to in these discussions. Or now, so it seems, he can bring up how I can’t seem to marry one of our kind at all. What a failure I have proved to be.
Then there is the matter of their soon to be king risking his entire line in a fight with the King of Summer, the King of all Realms, the lion king. Suicide, they’ll say.
So, I won’t tell them of my plans to challenge Liana’s father.
We fight as a pack. Die as a pack.
This would never be approved of. They’d lock me in the dungeon before they’d allow it. But they’ve not seen Liana’s expectant glimmer in her eyes. They’ve never even been around a lioness, not like this one.
It has a way of changing a man…wolf.
And besides, they don’t know the real difference here. I’m a rogue.
Maybe it’s time I should embrace the lore. Perhaps my battles were always meant to be won or lost in solitude. That must be my fate.
I finish fixing my cravat and despite the wounds, I stand tall and leave my rooms for the great hall.
There is energy once again in my stride. I face certain doubt within my people, but I can’t seem to feel down about it. No, I actually smile a wolf’s smile, a toothy grin, all the while glowing inside because the flame I’ve found, is one I plan to keep. And if I have my way, it will be that same fire in woman form that warms me on cold winter nights from here on out.
Liana…
Even her name makes every risk make sense, somehow.
I’m not stupid enough to think it love…no, ‘tis lust I feel rushing my blood into the places that are least necessary.
Chapter 12
Liana
Foolish dreams made for a restless night where I fantasized about a certain wolf with eyes as vivacious as they are perfect. They’re like a beacon of smoldering gray that stands out in a sea of the light eyes I’ve seen my whole existence. Noble’s eyes, they shine, they glimmer. They do all those silly things females ramble about.
What draws my attention most though, is the way they change color. One minute they’re gray and the next they’re any icy blue that rivals the clearest of skies. They bore into me, melting me so I’m nothing more than a puddle on the floor. They should be outlawed.
Thumping my head on the cool grass beneath me, I roll my eyes at my suddenly romantic mind that now wants to spew stupid words about beautiful men. It’s so cliché. So juvenile. So unlike me.
But even now at midday, lazing beneath the canopy of my favorite tree, I think about those eyes, the eyes that flickered, perhaps even twinkled at me. Eyes I dreamt about into the long hours of the night. Eyes, so raw and true, that promise an endless possibility away from the alluring oaths I thought I was destined for.
I’m trapped between last night and the lengthy days before I can see him again. Unless he comes to me again in the form of a delicious dream.
It startles me how much I want to see him, if even in my imagination. The dips and curves of his body. The easy smile that shoots static electricity sizzling through the air and zests into me like a flash of lightning.
My betrothal to him is a certain type of hell with redemption only a step in his direction and into his strong arms. My marriage to him is almost like heaven, where I will be free from other wives and able to run wild and fast with the pack that will be my family.
And love? Just as I can’t control the sudden gust of wind, spiraling and whirling around me, I can’t force love to grow between us. But I can hope. Lost in thought, I dip my face upward, listening to the promise behind the low hum of the breeze.
“When did you plan on telling me?” Crede’s tempered voice slices into the silence.
I sit up, leaning against the rough bark of the tree. “I’m to be married, Crede. I no longer have to answer to you.”
“That may be, Liana, but we’re still friends.” His words come out broken, as if it wounded him to even speak them. “I’d have liked to hear it from you that we were no longer betrothed to one another. That you were no longer my beloved.” Hard, he swallows the words down as if it brings him nothing but agony.
My rigid shoulders crumble and on tired legs I stand to hug him. The man I’ve shared my heart and body with. His arms fold around me, h
is embrace regretful and forgiving.
“I didn’t know how to tell you,” I mumble.
Seeking comfort, I dig my face into his chest and clench my hands into fists around his shirt. Comfort from the pain and uncertainty of losing my destiny. Comfort from the desire I find in my new destiny. Comfort from the brewing passion for the man and the wolf that makes my heart stutter within the confines of its cage.
“It’ll be okay,” he whispers in my ear.
I shiver and although he holds me closer to him, this time the shiver isn’t out of want, but because Crede’s breath on my skin, the intimacy of his embrace makes me anxious.
“I’ll find a way to get you home. I’m not giving up on us.”
Stepping back, I peer into his eyes. Eyes so unlike Noble’s, they rival one another. Crede’s brims with hard confidence, an incomparable golden hue that steels into our pride as if every member were after his throne. Noble’s are softer, more settled, a gift of peace he grants me with each lingering gaze as they tremble with a worry I’m yet to know.
“I’ll come back to you,” I promise him. “In another lifetime. Not this one, Crede.”
He shakes his head, his shoulders resolute in his decision. His hands grip around my wrist, much like Noble did last night and I neither feel the power of his hold or the warmth of his skin on mine. “I’ll challenge your father, our King. When I win…”
“Crede.” I sigh.
“You’ll sit by my side as my queen,” he continues as if I hadn’t spoken.
Taking his face with my hands, I bow him to me and press my lips on his temple. I brush my fingers through his hair. He rumbles a soft sound that once made me weak with need. When he nips my neck, I inch away. He lets me, a dark expression marring his features.
