Reign: A Royal Military Romance

by Roxie Noir

  “No, stop having hand-eye coordination,” I say.

  He throws it into one of my cups. I drink it. We’ve both only got one cup left, and he throws again, but I bat the ball away across the room.

  “That’s cheating,” he says, very seriously.

  “I can’t play any more,” I say. “Someone else play.”

  “Come at me, bro,” Kostya says, and he sways a little.

  Alice just giggles from her couch.

  “You teach him that?” she asks.

  I slump next to her.

  “Sadly, yes,” I say.

  Kostya finishes the last solo cup of beer, and no one comes to play him, so he sits next to me on the couch.

  “Guys, we’re not twenty any more,” Courtney says. “How did I ever do this all night?”

  “I don’t know,” Vivian says, her head back on the couch.

  “That was fun,” Kostya says. “Anyone else wants to go I’ll still take you on.”

  We all groan.

  He nuzzles the top of my head and tries to slide his arms around my waist, even though we’re on a couch with another person.

  “You are drunk,” I say.

  “I’m tipsy,” he says.

  My friends are all grinning like the cat that caught the canary.

  “Guys, it was a success,” Vivian says. “We should ask them embarrassing questions now.”

  “No,” I say.

  “Has he ever told you to call his dick ‘Your Majesty’?” Courtney starts.

  “What? No,” I say.

  “I never told you not to,” Kostya says, and they giggle hysterically.

  “Have you had sex on the throne?” Alice asks.

  “There’s no throne,” I say.

  “Is it weird that you’re gonna be a queen?” Vivian says.

  “It’s weird as shit,” I say.

  “Is your brother single?” Alice says.

  “Yes, and he’d probably have sex with you,” Kostya says.

  I giggle. I can’t help it.

  “He’s eighteen,” I say. “And please don’t.”

  “Oh, ew,” Alice says. “I don’t fuck babies.”

  “What about your hot military friends?” Vivian says.

  “I thought you and Chuck were moving in together,” I say.

  “He’s not here,” she says. “And I can look, okay?”

  “I’m not moving in with anyone,” Courtney says.

  “Dmitri and Sergei are single,” I say. “Niko’s engaged.”

  “They like Americans?” Vivian asks.

  “They like Hazel,” Kostya says. I think he’s falling asleep, half on top of me.

  The girls raise their eyebrows.

  “Not like that,” he says. “Like normal.”

  The rest of the party is starting to die down, and people are meandering through the living room, leaving.

  “We should go before you sleep on this couch,” I tell Kostya. “I can’t carry you.”

  “I should buy a royal golf cart to drive through the halls,” he says.

  “Fuck, I would love that,” Courtney says.

  “We could race,” Kostya says.

  I push him off me, stand, wobble, and hold my hand out. He takes it, and I brace myself to pull him up.

  “Night, guys,” I say as handsy, drunk Kostya stands behind me and puts his arms around me. “See you tomorrow. Kostya, stop it. Come on.”

  “Byeeeeeeee,” Courtney says. The other two just wave.

  When we get to our apartment, as soon as we close the door Kostya grabs me and pulls me in, and then just holds me tight for a long, long time.

  “You okay?” I finally ask.

  He kisses the top of my head.

  “I was gonna do this tomorrow but I think I’m braver right now,” he says.

  “The hell do you need to be brave about?” I ask.

  “Stay there,” he says.

  I sit on the couch and listen to him pawing through something. I’m drunkish, but mostly sleepy, and I know I have to be up early tomorrow for a full day of ceremony and regalia.

  Kostya comes back. There’s something in one hand, and he just looks at me for a moment. He swallows, like he’s nervous. I pull my legs up and sit cross-legged on the couch, getting a little nervous myself.

  Then he sits down on the couch and turns toward me, still holding whatever it is in his hand.

  “I still get nervous about you,” he says.

  “Don’t,” I say.

  He looks at his hand and thinks for a moment, while I lean against his shoulder and he puts his arm around me.

  “I found this when I was kid,” he starts, his voice going quiet. “I kept this box of these little treasures I found, and even after everything got better and I grew up, I kept them and I never told anyone. And sometimes I take them out, still, when I feel like I’m getting too comfortable. Because I want to remind myself that it wasn’t always this way.”

  I take his hand in mine and lace our fingers together.

  “I’m not explaining this well at all,” he says.

  “You’re fine,” I say.

  He exhales hard, looking at the wall opposite us.

  “That’s not what I’m trying to say,” he says. “I’m trying to say that all that, the secret box, the being afraid that this will all fall part again, it’s all part of me that I never told anyone until I met you. And I think it’s easy to love a king with a palace and harder to love a dirty, scared kid who hoards trinkets because he always thinks everything might fall apart.”

  I squeeze his hand and he takes a deep breath.

  “And tomorrow is all king stuff, but I wanted to give you this first, alone, from a dirty scared kid who has nothing, but he loves you and would do anything for you.”

  I’m crying, and I bite my lip hard, a tear running down my face. Kostya opens his hand and there’s a dull, dark gray ring inside. He turns it over in his fingers.

  “It’s an iron wedding — don’t cry,” he says.

  “It’s good crying,” I whisper.

  “You sure?”

  “Yes,” I say, rubbing the tears off my face. “Tell me about the ring.”

  “It’s an iron wedding band that I found in the chapel when I was five or six,” he says. “I think it’s a couple hundred years old, and it’s pretty ugly, and you don’t have to wear it, but I wanted to give you something with no pomp and circumstance. I wanted to give you something that’s mine, not the king’s.”

  He’s flipping the ring around in his fingers, rubbing the outside along his thumb.

  “I always thought that all that would be a weird, secret part of me forever, and I’d never share it with anyone. But then you came along, and I wanted to share it with you, and you love me anyway and I don’t know why but I’m glad you do,” he says.

  I hold out my hand. He takes it and kisses it, then looks at me.

  “Put the ring on me,” I whisper.

  “Oh,” he says.

  It doesn’t fit on the ring finger of my right hand, but it fits on my middle finger, already warm from his hand. He wipes tears off my face with one thumb.

  “I didn’t mean to make you cry,” he says.

  “It’s okay,” I say, and swallow. “I’m glad you love me even if I’m a fuckup who fucks up a lot. I didn’t get you anything. I’m sorry.”

  “You moved across the world,” he says. “You volunteered to get married in a language you don’t know

  I just burrow my head against his neck and look at the iron ring on my finger.

  “I love you,” I say. “And I love you better because you were a scared dirty kid once, not despite that.”

  “I love you better because you met my family wearing spandex,” he whispers.

  “I really thought you hated me,” I say.

  “Not at all,” he says, leaning his head against mine. “You made me feel funny and I didn’t know what to do.”

  He strokes my shoulder, and I take his other hand in m
ine.

  “We should go to bed so we can get married tomorrow,” I say.

  “This is nice, though,” he says.

  “It is,” I say. “This won’t change, right?”

  “Not at all,” he whispers. “I’m yours forever.”

  “Ya lyublyu tebya,” I say. “A lot.”

  “I love you more,” he says.

  “It’s not a contest,” I whisper.

  “I’d win if it were,” he says.

  I laugh, and he kisses me.

  “No way,” I say.

  Kostya stands, still drunk, and pulls me up after him. He slides his arms around me and squeezes my ass.

  “You’ve got one night left as a commoner,” he says, pressing me against him. “Let’s make it count.”

  “Are you saying that once I’m Queen all the fun stops?” I ask, teasing him.

  He pulls my skirt up and then slides a hand under it, up my thigh.

  “Hell no,” he says, his voice getting lower. “I’m saying I’m drunk, I love you, you’re the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen and I want you to ride my cock on this couch right now, and I love you.”

  “Dirty,” I tease.

  I kiss him and slide my hand along his cock. He growls into my mouth.

  “Just honest,” Kostya says, and kisses me back.

  The End

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  (Or keep going to read the complete North Star Shifters.)

  Jackson Cody nearly ruined my life.

  I was dumb, drunk, and eighteen. He was a rodeo star with a smile that could melt steel, and I was this close to giving him everything.

  I learned my lesson, grew up, and moved on. Now I’ve got my first huge assignment as a photographer, and if I play it right, this rodeo shoot could make my whole career.

  There’s just one problem, and it’s got spurs, boots, and hazel eyes.

  Get it now on Amazon, or free with Kindle Unlimited!

  They call me The Scorpion because I’m fast, lethal, and I pack plenty of heat.

  The only thing more dangerous than doing my job is not doing my job. But for her?

  Sign me the fuck up.

  Get it now on Amazon, or free with Kindle Unlimited!

  Also by Roxie Noir

  Standalone Novels:

  Loaded: A Bad Boy Romance

  Ride: A Bad Boy Romance

  Series:

  Shifter Country Bears: The Complete Series

  Shifter Country Wolves: The Complete Series

  Copper Mesa Eagles: The Complete Series

  Or, for the complete North Star Shifters, just turn the page!

  About Roxie

  I love writing sexy, alpha men and the headstrong women they fall for.

  My weaknesses include: beards, whiskey, nice abs with treasure trails, sarcasm, cats, prowess in the kitchen, prowess in the bedroom, forearm tattoos, and gummi bears.

  I live in California with my very own sexy, bearded, whiskey-loving husband and two hell-raising cats.

  roxienoir

  www.roxienoir.com

  roxie.noir@gmail.com

  Grizzlies & Glaciers

  North Star Shifters Book One

  1

  Delilah

  Delilah drove carefully down Main Street. On the passenger seat of her little Toyota was a street map of Fjords, Alaska, and her grocery list. She’d bought the map the day before, when she’d gotten into town after nearly fifty hours of driving, but she hadn’t needed it yet — it turned out that almost nothing had changed in the town since she’d moved away nearly eight years ago.

  Even the Carrs grocery store was standing exactly where it had been while she was in high school, the biggest store in a shopping center that also had a 7-11 and a Payless Shoe Source. The stores around it had changed, but she was surprised that no new roads had been built, no new bridges from their peninsula to the Alaska mainland. When she had left for college in California, there had even been talk of building a regional airport in Fjords, but that had never happened.

  Sitting at a red light, looking at a Thai restaurant, Delilah heard the crash without seeing it. Her head whipped around and, in shock, she saw a mass of steaming, crumpled metal. For one second, there was an eerie silence as everyone stopped and stared.

  Then she realized that the mass was two cars, right in the middle of the intersection. Some kind of big SUV had t-boned a tiny car, practically driving right over it, leaving it crumpled right in the middle of the intersection in front of her.

  Delilah gaped for a few seconds — the SUV had obviously run the red light, was the driver drunk? In the middle of the day like this? — but then her training kicked in and she ran toward the wreck.

  Already, two other people were standing there, staring at the two cars now smashed almost completely together, moving their hands around uselessly as though that would help.

  “I’m a doctor!” Delilah shouted as she jogged the last few feet, approaching the two cars. The word still sounded weird coming from her mouth, but it was finally true. She was a doctor.

  Either steam or smoke poured forth from one of the cars, and for half a second, she wondered whether the cars would explode, like in the movies.

  All at once, her head cleared, and she knew she had to take control of the situation.

  She pointed at an older woman with dyed-red hair who was simply standing there, gawking. “You,” she said. The woman looked up, aimlessly. “What’s your name?”

  “Karen.”

  “Karen, I need you to go find a pay phone and call 911. Can you do that?”

  “But—” said Karen, waving her hands at the wreckage.

  “These people need an ambulance,” Delilah said firmly, far more firmly than she felt. “Go call 911.”

  Karen nodded and then ran off to the row of shops along the street, entering one and jabbering loudly to the guy behind the desk.

  Breathing deeply, Delilah approached the two intertwined cars. An instinct told her that exploding was just a myth, and she needed to see whether the drivers were still alive.

  First she approached the SUV. Inside was a thirty-something man, blood running down his face from the broken windshield, pawing at the door handle ineffectively.

  “Oh shit,” he was saying, over and over again, tonelessly.

  “Sir,” Delilah said, rushing toward him. “Sir, please just stay where you are. An ambulance is on its way.”

  “I gotta get out,” he said in that same strange, toneless voice. Delilah knew it was shock — she’d met plenty of people like this during her emergency rotation. “It’s — there’s an accident — I gotta get out.”

  “You need to stay right where you are,” she said. “You could have serious injuries and you shouldn’t move.”

  Delilah went up to the car and looked inside, down at him. He was at least wearing a seatbelt. She inhaled deeply, smelling hard for alcohol on his breath, her extra-sharp senses kicking in.

  There it was. Bud light, it smelled like, or maybe Coors — some cheap beer. Delilah ground her teeth together and did her best not to get angry. The police would test his blood alcohol level, and he’d get what he deserved.

  For his part, he just looked at her, blankly.

  “Stay there,” she said, hands up, trying to sound soothing.

  Since the guy in the SUV was talking and moving, she wasn’t too concerned about him. Besides — and she knew this was un-doctorly — he’d been drinking, and whatever he got, he deserved.

  As she was checking over the guy in the SUV, there were alarmed shouts from the little Hyundai, and Delilah looked up.

  “Stay there!” she shouted to the guy in the SUV, pointing at him, and running around the little silver car that he’d smashed into.

  From the other side, it was worse
than it had looked at first: the nose of the SUV had come almost completely through the passenger side of the car, and now the woman who’d been driving — who had been completely, utterly in the right of way — was trapped underneath.

  Worse, she was unconscious and covered in blood.

  The onlookers scattered when Delilah approached, and she heard mutters of doctor, not that she paid too much attention. Right away she could see that the blood was from a huge gash in her right leg, where a piece of metal had gouged her, but that wasn’t even her worst problem: the worse problem was that the SUV was practically on top of her, crushing her.

  The woman wasn’t breathing.

  Fuck fuck fuck shit fuck damn, thought Delilah, her thoughts little more than a stream of curse words.

  She took a deep breath.

  “Someone needs to lift the SUV off of the car,” she called through the broken windshield. “It’s crushing her.”

  There was no way the woman would make it until the ambulances got there. The three men that had gathered around jogged to the front of the SUV and started a count: one, two, three, lift!

  The SUV didn’t budge. Delilah cursed.

  “Try it again,” she said. She tried to tamp down the panic that was rising in her chest. The men counted down again, but again the other vehicle didn’t move, not even a little. Desperately, Delilah tried to think — if only they could get this woman free, she could staunch the bleeding from her femoral artery, and there was a decent chance she’d make it out of this alive.

  If not, though. The woman had another minute, maybe. Delilah didn’t even hear the sirens yet.

  “Come on!” she shouted at the men. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she thought hasn’t the adrenaline kicked in yet?

  “Hold up!” she heard a voice shout.

  She knew that voice. She couldn’t think about it now, though.

  “Scoot over and let me get the bumper,” the voice said. The men reshuffled themselves, the new guy at the very front, and Delilah heard them start counting again.