Reign: A Royal Military Romance

by Roxie Noir

  Lately he’d smartened up a little and started getting the room before the woman — that meant that once he was ready to go, there was less time between leaving the bar and getting his dick wet, and that was all Nathan wanted.

  “You want the one on the end?” the kid said. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-three or twenty-four, and he had a shit-eating smile on his face that said hey man, I know you get a lot of pussy and I think it’s awesome. “Less people to overhear, you know.”

  “Sounds good,” said Nathan, barely paying attention to what the kid was saying.

  Instead he was looking at the half-beardless face that still had traces of puppy fat.

  I’ve beaten kids younger than you bloody, he thought, and swallowed hard. He needed plenty of whiskey and a woman, stat.

  The kid pushed the key and a receipt across the counter, and Nathan pocketed one and signed the other.

  “Thanks,” he said, already heading for the door.

  “Have a great night, man!” the kid yelled after him.

  Nathan shut the door quickly so he didn’t have to hear what the kid said next. It was probably something along the lines of have a totally sick night getting that pussy, bro, and Nathan just wasn’t in the mood.

  Ten minutes later, he was sipping rotgut whiskey on the rocks and standing at the end of the bar at the Moby Dick Saloon, a bar on the waterfront that was heavily decorated with a seagoing theme. It was very, very popular with the sort of single woman who went on a cruise to Alaska.

  For the moment, he was alone. Years of just hitting on the first woman to make eye contact had yielded some good results, but these days he was being the tiniest bit pickier and looking over the crowd before jumping right in with both feet.

  He sipped again, the whiskey burning down his throat, as he leaned his big, tall frame against the bar. It was still a little bit awkward. Besides the bar he’d built himself in his house, he’d never stood at a bar meant for someone his height. After all, there weren’t a lot of six and a half foot tall men in the world.

  There they were. Two blonds, down the bar a bit, both drinking colorful drinks from martini glasses and touching their hair a lot, like they wanted someone to notice them.

  Deep inside, his bear made a noise somewhere between a growl and a sigh. They weren’t who he really wanted, and he knew it. But one of them might manage to scratch his insatiable itch, just for a little while.

  His bear grumbled, but Nathan quieted it and moved around the bar to talk to the women.

  He walked up right behind them and addressed the blond on the left.

  “Your tag is out,” he said with no introduction. “Do you want me to fix it?”

  Her hand went straight to the back of her neck as she twisted her head to look at him.

  “It is?” she asked.

  “I got it,” he said, pretending to flip her tag back inside her shirt.

  His fingertips brushed against her skin, and he could feel her and her friend both look him up and down, their eyes lingering just a little extra on his bicep tattoo: a bear outline with a constellation inside.

  He nodded toward the bar, where their brightly colored cocktails sat.

  “You know, they sell real drinks here, too,” he told them. “Not just candy in a glass.”

  “These are alcoholic,” the one on the left said, a little defensively. She was wearing a bright pink tank top, a short skirt, and those shoes that were high heels but the bottom was all one big triangle. Nathan had no idea what they were called, and really, didn’t care.

  “They’re totally alcoholic,” her friend said. She was wearing a blue tube top that showed off a prominent collarbone under tanned skin. Nathan could smell hairspray, fake tan, and soap on both of them. Nothing like the deep, sweet scent that Leah had.

  Stop it, he thought.

  “It’s fine if you like kid drinks,” he said, shrugging slightly. Blue Tube Top had a pretty nice rack, and didn’t look like she was wearing a bra — a sure sign that she’d come here to meet someone and have some fun.

  Really, all that was left was to decide.

  Pink Tank Top looked at her drink, then looked down at Nathan.

  “What’s a real drink, then?” she asked.

  One hand went to her neck, fluttering near her collarbone, and Nathan knew it was all but over.

  He forced a grin.

  You’ll be enjoying this in an hour, so just shut up, he told himself.

  “Whiskey,” he said, and stepped between them and up to the bar.

  “The room’s not too impressive,” he told the women, one on each arm.

  That part, at least, was a surprise. He’d only had a threesome once before, and he hadn’t really liked it — the women were friends, but they’d been subtly fighting over him the entire time, making him feel like he was always doing the wrong thing to the wrong person.

  Much easier to stick with one woman.

  Tonight, though, he was feeling reckless. Maybe two of these cruise ship blonds would erase the thoughts of Leah better than just one. After all, that was four boobs, two vaginas, two mouths to suck his cock.

  “I don’t care what the room looks like,” said Blue Tube Top, a little too loudly. The women were slightly drunk but not too much, and Nathan had to untangle himself from them to unlock the door to the room.

  “All we need is a bed,” giggled Pink Tube Top. “Looks like you got one of those, at least.”

  They went in, pulling him along, and he shut the door after himself.

  “We’ve never done this before,” simpered Blue Tube Top, her erect nipples brushing against his arm through her shirt. She ran her hands down his chest, feeling the hard muscle there.

  “Ooh,” she said. “We’ve got to get this off of you.”

  “This too,” said Pink Tank Top, sliding her fingers beneath the waistband of his jeans.

  Nathan didn’t have an erection, not even a little. He knew if he took his pants off, both women would be incredibly disappointed.

  Trying to act cool, he took Pink Tank Top’s hand out of his pants and put his hands on both women’s hips as they looked up at him.

  “How about you two do stuff for a while?” he said, trying for his most rakish grin. “I love to watch.”

  Normally, it was true, but even as he sat on the bed and watched the two women, whose names he still hadn’t learned, kiss each other with lots and lots of tongue, he could barely make himself pay attention.

  Blue Tube Top pressed her breasts against Pink Tank Top’s and let out a little moan as she pinched the other woman’s nipple through the cloth.

  “Touch me, baby,” Pink Tank Top said, a little too enthusiastically.

  In one quick motion, Blue Tube Top took her shirt off. Nathan had been right — she wasn’t wearing a bra, and her round, full tits bounced free.

  Down below in his pants, absolutely nothing.

  Come on, Nathan thought to his dick. Come on come on come on.

  It wasn’t working.

  “You like it?” asked Blue Tube Top, turning slightly to face him and rubbing her hands over her tits, hefting them for his pleasure. Pink Tank Top bent down and flicked her tongue over one theatrically, and Blue Tank Top made an exaggerated sigh.

  Nathan tried to imagine his face in between her breasts, their weight pressing against the side of his face, but he couldn’t.

  All he could think of was Leah, the way it might feel just to touch her, his hands sinking into her warm, yielding flesh. Biting her shoulder and sliding inside...

  “Just like that,” he said, his brain on autopilot, and Pink Tank Top’s shirt came off. She was wearing a serious pushup bra beneath it, and now it looked like her breasts might be ready to strangle her.

  “Let me see those pretty titties,” said Blue Tank Top, sounding like an actress in a porno. Normally, Nathan was really into the dirty talk, but his mind was a million miles away right now, with a woman who’d told him to stop eating her chocolate tarts.

/>   “You wanna see?” Pink Tank Top asked him, and Nathan didn’t answer for a long moment.

  There was absolutely no movement in his dick. It was practically asleep, even watching two horny women rub each other silly.

  I shouldn’t be here, he thought.

  “Baby?” she asked, both women frozen and waiting.

  “I gotta go,” he said, practically leaping off the bed.

  He grabbed his jacket from where he’d left it slung over a chair, and turned the knob.

  “Wait!” shouted Blue Tube Top. “What the fuck?”

  “Sorry,” he said, opening the door. “Keep the room, it’s cool.”

  Both of their mouths were little pink O’s of surprise, and then he shut the door, practically ran to his motorcycle, and drove off into the night before either of them could even get their shirts on.

  6

  Leah

  Nathan crouched in a kitchen, carefully pulling the silverware drawer in and out, when the door swung open and Brock was suddenly in the room with him.

  “I thought you might be here,” he said, crossing onto the paper-covered floor that served as Nathan’s workspace.

  “Watch the nails,” Nathan said, only half-paying attention to Brock, despite the knot that had suddenly formed in his stomach. When Brock found him suddenly, like this, it was rarely for a good reason. Usually, Brock wanted something bad done to someone.

  “You could have called,” Nathan pointed out, finally sliding the drawer smoothly back into the cabinet face and standing.

  “I did,” Brock said. “You didn’t answer.”

  Nathan patted his pockets and realized, for the first time all day, that his phone wasn’t there. His eye fell on his jacket, draped over a chair in the next room.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, brushing sawdust from his hands. He could feel a single bead of sweat work its way down the back of his neck.

  “I think it’s time you mated,” Brock said.

  Nathan’s heart leapt and then sank. Brock wasn’t talking about Leah, and he knew it. Leah was betrothed already, and even if it was to a monster, she’d be married and mated within the week and Nathan couldn’t do much about it.

  “How come?” he finally asked.

  “It’s time,” Brock said, simply. “You ought to settle down and have a few cubs. It’s not right for someone to turn thirty-five and still be unmated, you know.”

  I found her, Nathan desperately wanted to say. She’s going to marry the wrong man.

  He couldn’t do it, though. Jonah and Brock had agreed on this, and he knew neither man would be willing to turn his back on the deal — especially not Jonah, who didn’t seem like the kind of man willing to marry his virginal daughter to someone like Nathan.

  “You have someone in mind,” Nathan said. He knew Brock well enough to know that, at least.

  “Emily Whitehorse,” said Brock, and Nathan frowned. He had no idea who that was.

  “One of the Whitehorses?” he asked.

  “The sister of the woman getting mated to Ian,” Brock said. “She’s the real reason I made this deal with Jonah Whitehorse. Twenty years old, pretty as a picture. Perfectly ripe. Comes from a very old shifter family.”

  Nathan’s rage surged, and he felt the itch of his bear just below his skin. Brock was making Leah marry Ian as some kind of side deal?

  It wasn’t fair. Nathan flex his jaw and forced his bear back.

  “I don’t remember her,” he said.

  “You will.”

  Truth be told, he barely remembered anything from the party except Leah herself, as though she was a supernova and her light had drowned everything else there into background noise.

  “I don’t think I can marry a twenty-year-old,” Nathan went on. Needing to do something with his hands, he picked up a level and set it on the countertop, the bubble landing perfectly in the middle.

  At the very least, he was good at his work.

  “The Whitehorse girls are supposed to make excellent mates,” said Brock, something icy and slimy in his tone. “Two are already married, and by all accounts they’re compliant. And fertile.”

  Nathan’s stomach turned, just a little, and he focused on the level instead of on Brock. Leah hadn’t seemed compliant, not in the moments they’d had together, anyway. She’d seemed fiery, a girl with plenty of backbone.

  Maybe that’s why her father was pawning her off on Ian, though.

  A chill swept through Nathan.

  That’s it, he thought. They think she needs someone like Ian to control her.

  “I don’t think I can do it,” Nathan said, half his mind still on Leah.

  “I told Jonah you’d attend family dinner at their house tonight,” said Brock, still standing in the middle of the half-remodeled kitchen, his arms crossed over his chest. “Just go. If you really don’t want her, there will be plenty of takers, but I wanted to offer her to you first, as my right hand man.”

  Nathan looked up.

  Leah will be there, he thought. Or will she be with Ian?

  Nathan’s stomach clenched yet again, and he did his best not to break into a grin at the possibility of seeing her again, no matter how stupid and pointless it might be to see her.

  He realized Brock was still watching him.

  “Thank you,” said Nathan. What else could he say?

  “Six, at the old Soren farmhouse,” Brock said. “They don’t appreciate tardiness, so be on time. And try to clean yourself up.”

  “Think you could spare Violet to come yell at me?” asked Nathan, half-joking.

  Brock turned to go, but looked over his shoulder, half-amused. “Watch it,” he said.

  Then he left Nathan alone in the half-finished kitchen remodel.

  Nathan rubbed his temples in the new silence. Elsewhere in the house, he could hear its inhabitants moving around, but they tended to avoid the kitchen for now, since it was still an empty shell.

  In fact, the kitchen was just another way that Brock lorded his power over the rest of the clan, and even Nathan had to admit he was kind of genius.

  The kitchen’s owner, Roy, had been alpha for at least twenty years. He’d been alpha when Nathan was born, right up until his early twenties, and then Miles Kamchatka, Nathan’s older brother, had fucked everything up.

  Miles’s high school sweetheart had come back, now a doctor, and Roy had kidnapped her. Miles had snapped and challenged him to physical combat for alpha status — technically still allowable, but something that hadn’t been done in fifty years.

  Miles had won, nearly killing Roy.

  Then, the next morning, he’d driven out of Fjords with Delilah, and nobody had heard from then since.

  The North Star clan had no idea what to do. What happened when your former alpha was nearly killed, and the new one picks his lover over his pack?

  Brock had stepped in, and at first everyone had assumed he was just filling in until Roy got back on his feet, but then he simply stayed alpha. Now, ten plus years later, he was still alpha, reinforcing his status by paying for Roy’s kitchen. This way, Roy was indebted to him and could hardly complain; besides, a man whose kitchen — and car, and vacations — got paid for by another man was hardly alpha material, after all.

  With a sigh, Nathan sank back to his knees and went back to fiddling with the drawer, making sure that everything lined up exactly right. That, at least, was something he still had complete control over.

  7

  Nathan

  Usually, Nathan worked until six or seven before knocking off, but that day he was gone by four-thirty. It wasn’t like Roy or his mate would complain; after all, they were getting cabinets from the best carpenter in southern Alaska for free.

  As he rode home on his bike, Nathan felt like he was buzzing, half with excitement and half with dread. Leah might be there, but she wasn’t his. He didn’t know if he’d be able to control himself around her — not with the incredible way she smelled, the way she’d looked at him when he’
d been a bear just about ready to rip Ian apart.

  Once he was home, he spent a long time standing in front of his single dresser in his boxer briefs, frowning.

  He’d already worn his best outfit to Leah’s party — he refused to think the word betrothal — and had torn it to tiny pieces by shifting out of it, so that was out.

  Otherwise, Nathan wasn’t exactly a fancy guy. Nine days out of ten, he wore a white undershirt, jeans, and work boots. In the winter it was a long-sleeve t-shirt and a sweatshirt. He was a carpenter, after all — it wasn’t like he wore a three-piece suit to work.

  As it turned out, he didn’t have a lot of options, and he was glad that Violet wasn’t there to give his choice of outfit the stink eye. He settled on a plaid button-down shirt, currently the nicest one he owned, and a clean pair of jeans, simultaneously wondering whether Leah would like it and praying that she just hated everything about him.

  After all, he couldn’t have her, and if she wasn’t interested, that would make it easier.

  Then he donned his black leather jacket, got on his bike, and headed out to the Soren farmhouse, just a little ways outside of town.

  On the way, he tried not to think about the Sorens. What he’d done to them wasn’t the worst thing he’d ever done, but it was up there.

  Kaitlyn was the worst thing he’d ever done.

  The Sorens had been an old shifter family in Fjords since the early 1800s at least. They hadn’t had an alpha in a few generations, but the Soren men were always among the pack leadership in some capacity. As advisors, as bankrollers, that sort of thing — their words held weight in clan meetings and with whoever was alpha.

  At least until the alpha was Brock.

  Brock didn’t like the Sorens and the Sorens didn’t like Brock. They didn’t like the way he ran the clan, they didn’t like that he was in his early twenties when he took over, and they didn’t like the way his followers, including Nathan, deferred to him. Brock didn’t like the way they tried to wrest power back from him, or the way they tried to get their supporters to do the same.