by James, Honor
“It’s because I know without a shadow of a doubt that you would never, ever hurt me. That is something I know without a shadow of a doubt. You say that I can meet your natural dominance, but I think it’s more that I want to be enveloped by it than anything.”
“An Alpha male can’t have a weak Alpha female in his life, or the balance is off. That’s why the Alpha never mates to any rank lesser than his own. It’s not good for the whole of the pack.” Leaning back into his corner of the carriage again, he narrowed his eyes. “You have a question in your eyes. What is it, Rissa?”
“Am I strong enough to be that Alpha female? I’m not a wolf like you are. Would I be able to be a part of that side of your life? The most important part of your life?” Pack was pack, she understood suddenly. They were like family, tighter than family if she had to guess, and it was all because of the Alphas and how they led. “And would I be Alpha female for all three Alphas?”
Michael watched her for a long time before he nodded. “I think you are strong enough to take on all three of the Alphas, not always an easy task. And yes, you would be the female for all three males. It is how it’s done.”
“Why is it done that way?” She was curious, not turned away by the fact, but curious. “That there are three Alphas and they would have one Alpha female? Not that I mind, I actually don’t,” she said with a smile.
“Sometimes it’s only two Alphas, other times it’s as many as five, it just depends on the pack itself,” he said quietly. Opening his mouth, he paused and inhaled slowly. Holding up a hand to her, he let out a low growl, and a moment later they came to a stop. “Stay in the carriage,” he told her. Leaning over, he brushed a kiss to her lips. “Don’t step out,” Michael said, climbing out quickly.
Chapter Four
Rissa wanted to step out. She wanted very badly to step out with him. “Be safe,” she said instead and leaned back against her seat. Lifting the curtain only slightly, she looked out, but at her angle couldn’t see anything, which frustrated her all the more.
Whipping the door open a moment later, Michael, hood in place once more, looked at her and held out a hand. “Come, quick now,” he said on a low, growling rumble. “We need to leave the coach to ensure your safety, Princess, so be quick about it.”
Rissa didn’t hesitate. Grabbing just the bag at her feet, she slipped her hand into his and then raced right along with him. She trusted him implicitly and knew that he wouldn’t have her out of the carriage unless it was necessary.
Jumping onto Raphael’s destrier, Michael pulled her up in front of him. Looking to his old friend, he nodded and lay heels to the animals’ flanks. Holding tight to the reins and to Rissa, he pushed the horse into the forest as fast as they could move.
Rissa closed her eyes and leaned back against Michael. She always got sick on the back of a horse if she watched the scenery flying by them. She shuddered slightly and then turned her face so that she could press it against the side of Michael’s neck. “I hate being on horseback.”
“I know, Princess, but we may have need of the horse, so we had to take it,” he said quietly. Cupping her head, he held her to him. “Just hold on and take slow, deep breaths. I’ll slow us down in time, and then we can walk. For now, we need distance.”
“I’m trying,” Rissa whispered and held onto him closely. She did as he instructed. She breathed in slow and deep breaths, she held him close and listened to the beating of his heart, and focused on that alone.
Pushing the horse up and over a hill, Michael slowed their pace until they were at the bottom. Stopping, he inhaled again and nodded. “We can walk now,” he told her, easing her down before sliding out of the saddle. Taking up the reins, he held out a hand to her. “Are you all right, Rissa?”
“Thank you.” Rissa rubbed her stomach and nodded. “I will be okay,” she told him softly. “I just never got over my traveling sickness. When the woods fly by so fast, it makes my stomach roll and ready to empty itself.”
“I cannot believe that you still have traveling sickness, Princess,” he murmured. “Seems much, too”—Michael paused and his lips twitched ever so slightly—“common for a Royal. Are you not above such trivial things, due to your lofty birthright?” His lips twitched again.
She laughed at that and shook her head. “I only wish that my birthplace in the world was a deterrent to something so common.” It was something she would never be able to get over, sadly.
Squeezing her fingers, he drew her closer and wrapped his arm around her waist. “I won’t make you ride any more than necessary, but you need to be aware, we may yet need to get on the horse again. Those brigands from earlier were part of a larger group, thus why we are out here on our own.”
“Why are they coming for me?” she asked with a frown. “The crown is not going to pass to me but a child, should I ever have one. In the meantime, a cousin will rule the kingdom.” As she was only female, she couldn’t rule without a King. “Unless I have a King, you, at my side.”
Looking down at her, he sighed. “I’m not exactly King material, sweet. Hell, I’m barely Alpha material, and yet by a chance of birth I’m not only an Alpha but Prime as well. But whatever you decide, I will stand by your side, Rissa.” Hugging her to him, he pressed a kiss to her hair. “Just remember, without you there is no chance of a child to take the throne one day. Who would it then fall to?” he asked quietly.
“My cousin,” she told him as they moved along. “If anything were to happen to me, Jaysen would take the throne. He is the son of my uncle’s first wife. He’s not truly a cousin. However he’s the only male left in the family. Sadly, our family wasn’t very prolific.”
He gave a low hum in his throat as they walked, silent for a long time. “Would it be something he or his kin wanted? The throne, I mean. Would they perpetrate these attacks to remove you from the lineage and get their own in place?”
“His mother, my aunt, she has always coveted her title, but it is one that she retained at my father’s behest when my uncle died,” she explained. “Jaysen as well has always enjoyed the power and privilege that his mother married into. However, I don’t think that he would be able to commit murder. He simply doesn’t have that in him.”
“But he could have hired someone to ensure you never sat the throne or found a King,” he said softly. “He would know the laws that govern your throne, Rissa. He would know that you would either have to marry a man of enough position to be King or have a male child.” He stopped their movement and turned to look down at her. “If he is power hungry enough, or his mother is, they could have hatched a plan to get rid of you, Rissa. One where their hands stay clean and they can be the mourning kin.”
Rissa’s eyes went wide and shook her head, “No,” she whispered, but in her mind, she could see it. “Do you think they had a part in the death of my parents, if this is truly what is afoot?” She prayed it wasn’t, because if he were right and telling the truth, then the only family she had left alive wanted her dead, well, family aside from her grandmother.
“I do not know, Rissa,” he said, touching her cheek lightly with work-roughened fingers. “But we can’t assume anything at this point as well. We need to look at this from all angles. The most logical is someone close to home like your cousin. The other option is a neighboring kingdom that wants the lands for some reason, or merely to enlarge their own. Are there any kingdoms that have had wars with yours beyond the normal petty chest-puffing and pounding of newly crowned Kings or Queens?”
“No, none. We are at peace for the most part with all of our neighbors, and those that we aren’t at peace with, there is at least a truce. Mother came from the kingdom to the West, which brought peace between those lands. My cousin wed a woman from the North, again bringing peace, and his mother came from the South. No, none.”
“You didn’t mention the kingdom to the East,” he said, pointing out her obvious omission. “Is the crown still at peace with them since the turmoil there?” Looking around, he took h
er hand again and got them moving once more.
“There has been peace with them for many generations. We trade heavily with them and supply them with flax, and they supply us with salts and tanning supplies. We have worked well together for a very long time.”
“Then there is only one place that the attacks against you can be originating, Princess. It’s within your own borders.” He looked down at her. “Which is both good and bad. Good because they’re working the same territory we all know, and bad because of the exact same reason. But we’re working in the dark because we don’t know for sure that they want you dead. They could want to kidnap you, and, well.” He shrugged. “You’re not going to like this, but they could plan to marry you forcibly and ensure you were with child to secure a place on the throne.”
“My cousin?” Shock colored her words. “They would try to force me to marry my cousin? No. I wouldn’t. I would never lay with him.” Disbelief was there, but so, too, was the hint of knowledge that Michael was telling her the truth.
“You wouldn’t have to be willing, Rissa.” He lifted a brow. “You’ve heard such tales before, I’m sure,” he murmured. “All they would need to do is keep you bound until you were with child and then keep you in a secure situation with guards to keep you from harming yourself or the child. By that point, he’d be on the throne and you’d be living a hellacious life. Especially if the firstborn wasn’t a son.”
“Oh my.” Rissa’s shock was still on those two breathless words. “How do we stop it? How can we ensure that he doesn’t force a marriage and babe upon me? I would kill him, or myself. Somehow and some way, I would never allow him to touch me like that.”
“He’s not going to touch you, Rissa,” he told her quietly. “He’s never going to get the chance. We will do whatever you wish to ensure that. But we need to get you somewhere safe before we can do that, and we still have two days to your grandmother’s home. A home she is likely to ban me from.”
“If she bans you then she will ban me as well. Where you go, I will follow, Michael, and I will ensure that Grandmother knows this. I will never be without you again. I don’t know what we can do to stop him, if he is the one who wants my throne, but I’m sure that we will figure something out.”
“You will need to wed sooner rather than later, I’m afraid, Princess. It is only one step to ensuring that you can’t be forced into the same with him. But it is a great deterrent, since you’ll be able to sit the throne in the palace and the Royal Guard will surround you from there out. It will make his attempts to get at you all the harder and limit his options since you will have a King sitting at your side.”
“And will you be my King?” Her voice was small, hushed as she asked that question, and worry laced her tone for fear that he would say no.
“I have loved you from the first moment I laid eyes on you. I care for the others as well, a great deal, but I have loved you from the beginning.”
Stopping their movement once more, he tipped up her chin with a finger and stared into her eyes. “If that is what you truly wish, I would be honored to be your King.” Leaning in, he brushed a light kiss to her lips.
Her form leaned in closer to him, Rissa lifted a hand and placed it on his chest and whispered, “I would very much love to have you as my King. You are noble and honest, and even though you have only been gentle to me, I know that you could wage war if the case ever arose. Goddess praise it doesn’t.”
“May the Goddess hear you, Princess, but I fear you may be asking for the impossible. Anyone that comes after you with thoughts of harming you or taking you from me will suffer. And they will suffer my way, not the way of the kingdom,” he warned and growled before kissing her again, harder, deeper.
Rissa clung to Michael as he plundered her mouth with his. Opening for him, she stroked her tongue to his after he suckled on her. Moaning low in her throat, she shivered and dug her nails into his hair, holding him as tightly as she could, and felt her body burning up as if kindling struck by lightning.
Cupping her head in one hand and her ass in the other, Michael pulled her body up flush to his. Rocking his hips to her, he rubbed his erection to her soft belly. Growling deep in his chest, he lifted his head to stare at her. “We need to keep moving,” he panted out. “I didn’t mean to start this here in the midst of the woods, of all places.”
“Moving, yes.” Rissa’s tongue darted out and wet her lower lip. “That was an amazing kiss, a wonderful first kiss.” She panted right along with him. “And where is it that we will finish this kiss? Finish what fires you have fanned into life?”
“Somewhere with four walls, a bed, and a way to bar all entrance to said room,” he told her, lifting his head further. Sucking in a deep breath, he shook his head hard. “We have a long way to travel, and we need to find a place for the night, too, before the sun gets too low. While the sun lasts much longer outside the forests, deep within as we are, it will be full dark long before one would think. And we are still much too close for my comfort to those that would cause you harm.”
“And you know these woods well? You and the others will be able to find us a place to stop for the night? How will we sleep? We have no provisions. While I do not require a tent, something other than the ground would be truly wonderful if possible.” If not, she would just have to suck it up and deal.
“So many questions,” he said, shaking his head. “I know these forests very well. I’ve lived around them for most of my life. The others will be moving away from us as quick as they can, providing a distraction for a time until those after you figure out you’re no longer in the carriage. There are several caves near here that we will utilize for cover, and the forest will provide for us. The last I cannot make promises about, but since Raphael is a good little soldier there should be at least a bedroll for you to lie on.”
“If so, I think that I owe him a kiss as well,” Rissa admitted. “Because, while I will sleep on the ground should I need to, I would truly rather not.” Her skin flushed in her embarrassment as she admitted, “I’ve never gotten over my fear of bugs.”
“Well you shouldn’t worry overmuch. They are usually much more terrified of you than you of them,” he said, taking her hand once more. He tipped his head back and appeared to be studying the sky through the leaves. “This way,” he told her, guiding her and the destrier onto another path.
“I’m very happy that you know where you are going, Michael, because I have to confess, I am completely lost.” She had gotten turned around, and if not for him holding her hand and guiding her along, she would likely be going in circles.
“I do not know why it surprises me any. You had the same trouble in the palace where you were born. More often than not, I was out hunting you down for one of your parents or the other because you’d wandered off and no one had seen you in too long. Though, you did manage to find one room with regular skill as a wee girl, probably the only room you ever found without having someone point the way.”
Right, the only room she had ever found on a regular basis when she was a child was his bedroom. “Even then I only felt safe when close to you. I hated being so far from you all the time, so of course I found you. I listened to my heart, and it led me to you.”
“And that’s the part I keep telling you that you need to listen to when you are tracking, too. That and your gut. You have excellent instincts, Rissa, always have,” he told her as they walked. “While you may occasionally get lost, you know that you can always find your path by focusing on one thing.”
“You,” Rissa said with a smile. “You seem to have become the center of my world from an early age. I more than likely got in the way of your finding pleasure and bedmates more times than not.” With her constantly finding her way to his bedroom, even finding him through the maze of the hidden tunnels in the walls.
Chapter Five
“I never took pleasure or bedmates once you were born,” he admitted under his breath. “I had a feeling about you from the moment I saw you that
first day, and it only grew from there. I likely shouldn’t tell you such things but there it is, out in the open.”
“You haven’t been with another in twenty-one years?” she whispered with shock in her tone. “I’ve never, well of course I haven’t, but…” She was making such a mess of things. Taking a deep breath, she sighed. “I’m glad, Michael. I want you to be first, and I want to be the last.”
Chuckling faintly, he looked her way. “No, I haven’t been with another for your entire life. From the moment you first drew breath, right up until this moment. And I know you haven’t as well, your father would never abide that without marriage first.”
“Nor would I. At least a commitment of the heart, and since my heart has belonged to you from the moment that I first saw you, I think that is pretty much you,” she confessed with a smile. “We will be together. I will get to see my Wolf in all his glory, as well as the other two when they catch up to us.”
“We will be together when the time is right,” he told her. “And the others will catch up to us when it is safe to do so. That likely won’t be until we reach your grandmother’s since they won’t want to lead the brigands to the doorstep. As to seeing the beast, it’s a rarity for him to come to the forefront and is not really like a wolf as you think of one.”
“Well as long as I have you, I think that we will somehow manage. As to the others, hopefully by then Grandmother will understand. We will explain everything to her and put it all out there in the open so that she understands why I need you. I will also ensure that she understands that I love you, and that, where you go, I follow, as it should be.”
“I wouldn’t mention them for now,” he said quietly. “In time you can, but for now say nothing of Raphael or Gabriel. They are Royal Guards, and we need to keep that image utmost in her mind. Plus, until we know exactly who is behind the attempts on your life, the fact they will be more is best kept a closely guarded secret.”
