Reign: A Royal Military Romance

by Roxie Noir

  “My dad and Brock gave us a joint wedding gift,” she said. “Well, I think it was mostly Brock, and my mom made my dad sign the card. He’s been sulking in a corner all day.”

  “It’s still progress,” said Nathan. “Maybe he’ll come around. If not, fuck him.”

  Leah held up a small, flat box with a card attached, and Nathan watched as she opened the card.

  Noticed you were still missing these.

  Brock & Violet

  And underneath that, in different handwriting:

  18k Yukon gold. Bit of home wherever you are.

  Dad / Jonah

  “I think I know what it is,” Nathan said.

  He put the card in his pocket as Leah opened the small box, revealing two simple gold bands inside.

  “They’re beautiful,” Leah breathed. The gold reflected the sunlight, turning pink and orange. She reached for the smaller one, but Nathan pulled the box away.

  “Hold on,” he said. He put his empty plate on the ground, took out her ring, and turned to her.

  “Leah, will you be mine for the rest of my life?” he said.

  She smiled, her hair glinting in the light of the sunset.

  “Yes,” she said.

  Nathan slid the ring onto her left hand, then raised it to his lips and kissed it.

  Leah took the box and took the other ring out, then looked up at him. She almost looked like she was glowing.

  “Nathan, will you be mine for the rest of my life?” she said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Then he kissed his wife as the sun set over the ocean.

  The End

  Forests & Fate, Part 1: Bear Country

  North Star Shifters Book Three

  Prologue

  The bear rose on its hind legs and sniffed the wind. It smelled like rain, of course, because it was always raining, but the bear could smell other things as well: the mushrooms growing under the log at its feet, nervous deer just out of its range of vision. Somewhere nearby, there were humans: camping or backpacking by the smell of them, nylon mixed with cooking fuel. Whiskey and hiking boots.

  The bear steered well clear of humans, even though they were asleep. No use in freaking out a couple of hikers, even though it’d be kind of fun. Even then, better to wait until morning, when they were sleepy and fixing their breakfast. Then, scare them off and eat their bacon while they told the park ranger some tall tale of an enormous grizzly bear who’d lumbered out of the forest, roared twice, and then sat at their table and ate their bacon when they ran.

  The forest rangers, of course, had never seen any grizzly bears in the area and routinely chalked any grizzly sightings up to the overactive imaginations of hikers, who had simply seen a larger-than-normal black bear. And, everyone knew, black bears were basically harmless.

  If he tried hard enough, standing on his back legs, the bear could smell exhaust fumes from faraway Highway 20, but the bear didn’t really like to try that hard. This was his time off, the time that he needed so he felt like himself, why spend it thinking about cars, and people, and the civilized life he’d need to go back to in a mere twelve hours?

  No, much better to slowly amble back to the lot where he’d parked his truck. On the way he’d swing by the lake and catch himself some nice trout. He was hungry, but not hungry enough to bother chasing one of the deer.

  The bear yawned, stretched, and licked his snout. Then he headed for the lake at a slow, loping pace, moving easily through the thick forest.

  1

  Ariana

  Evergreen, Washington, was two and a half hours from the Seattle-Tacoma airport, and Ariana was afraid that Theresa was going to talk about Doctor Who the entire way there. Right now she was explaining the back history of Daleks, and what made them — cones with toilet plungers — the most feared thing in the universe.

  “Then the third doctor stopped them from destroying the Earth,” Theresa explained.

  Ariana loved Theresa, but this was why she never minded when they didn’t sit together on airplanes. She couldn’t imagine five hours of this.

  “Did he have the scarf?” Ariana asked, only half-listening.

  “That was the fourth doctor,” Theresa said. “He’s a lot of peoples’ favorite, though I like—“

  Ariana slammed on the brakes as something ran across the road, eventually coming to a full stop right in the center, across the double yellow line. Luckily, they hadn’t seen any other cars on the road for at least twenty minutes.

  “Watch out!” shouted Theresa much, much too late.

  “Thanks,” said Ariana. She was still shaking. The animal had scampered off. She took a deep, deep breath, and then steered the rental car back into her own lane and continued on.

  “We have to be close, right?” said Theresa. She turned her phone on again, uselessly. They’d been out of cell range for an hour. “Wait, I’ve got one bar...”

  As if to answer her question, a sign, lit by floodlights, appeared on the side of the highway.

  WELCOME TO EVERGREEN, it read, the word silhouetted in front of mountains, tall pine trees in front.

  Visit our lovely downtown! it suggested, underneath.

  It didn’t take the girls long at all to find the Pine Cone Lodge, a big log building with a green roof, and to sign in and get their room keys.

  In the elevator, they strategized.

  “What time is it?” asked Ariana.

  “Ten,” said Theresa.

  “Okay,” said Ariana. “Want to meet downstairs at eight for breakfast and coffee, and then we’ll get moving on this?”

  “Sure,” said Theresa. “What’s first?”

  “We’ve got to talk to the two people who had the sightings,” Ariana said. “That’ll take a day, and then we’ll regroup and figure out whether there’s anything worth sticking around for.”

  The elevator reached the third floor, and a pleasant ding sounded. They pulled themselves out of the elevator and to rooms right across the hall from each other.

  “Ooh, I like this,” said Theresa. “When I get it on with a handsome ski instructor, you can’t listen through the walls.”

  Ariana laughed and stuck her tongue out at the other girl. She tried to not be a little annoyed that Theresa wasn’t entirely kidding. She really did get more than her fair share of attractive men wherever they went, and more often than not, Ariana had to make do with noise-canceling headphones while texting Graham, her boyfriend.

  “Night,” she said.

  “Night,” Theresa said. They both closed their doors, and Ariana flipped on the light switch in her room.

  It was almost exactly what she’d expected. The whole place had wooden walls, giving it a very cozy, cabin feel, and the fireplace had a hand-carved mantle over it, depicting some lumberjacks chopping down trees. She’d read somewhere that Evergreen had a lot of logging in it, or at least, it had for a long time — it seemed like now, there was less logging and more tourism, thanks to the national forest nearby, but she hadn’t put a ton of work into researching the town itself.

  She flopped her big rolling suitcase over on its side, and tossed her backpack gently onto the king-sized bed. When she and Theresa went on these trips, she was never sure how long they’d be: sometimes, they found evidence right away and they were in the area for a few weeks; sometimes, their leads dried up completely and they were out in days.

  For example, last month there had been yet another Loch Ness Monster sighting, in Loch Ness, Scotland, and Ariana had hoped that would be a long trip. She could see Scotland, maybe take some time at the end and go to London. Instead, there had been nothing after the original spate of sightings: no one had pictures, videos, not even sound recordings. They’d headed home after only five days.

  On the other hand, when there was a Mothman sighting in rural West Virginia, it had taken them nearly a month, all while staying in a small town where there was absolutely nothing to do and almost no cell service. Every time they thought they had run the course of
the investigation, someone found footprints or saw Mothman again or had some blurry photo that they wanted to show the girls. Ariana had thought she would never get out of there and back to Boston, where her boyfriend was eagerly awaiting her return.

  Well, her friends had been happy to welcome her back and pepper her with questions about her weird job. Grand Theft Auto V had come out the day before, so Graham had been kind of occupied. It was OK, though. Ariana was sure that most boyfriends prioritized new video games over sex with their girlfriend for the first time in a month.

  This time, the Cryptid Research Foundation — CRF for short — had sent its only two full-time employees to northern Washington state for a Bigfoot sighting, of course. There had been three in the course of a week, and that was enough for the eccentric guy who funded the CRF to decide that they should go there.

  Well. Here she was, ready to put on her hiking boots and look for Bigfoot poop.

  Ariana glanced at her phone. Nothing from Graham, but that wasn’t really surprising for a boyfriend who railed against what he called “clinginess” and “codependence.” She thought about texting him, didn’t, and instead brushed her teeth, washed her face, and got ready for bed.

  2

  Ariana

  The next morning, Ariana woke with a start, her eyes flying open.

  Did I oversleep? she thought, searching for the bedside clock that she knew had to be somewhere, her hand flailing over the unfamiliar bedside table. She finally found it, yanking it toward her face, then relaxed. It was only seven, a perfectly acceptable wake-up time.

  Whenever she stayed in hotels, which was most of the time, she felt like she overslept even when she didn’t. It was the unfamiliar surroundings, she guessed.

  For a few more seconds, she dragged the other pillow across her face, giving herself just a few more moments of quiet peace, before she forced herself out of bed.

  She shed her pajamas on the floor, rubbing her eyes and yawning, and stepped into the shower. She’d tried nearly every system for becoming a morning person, but the only one she’d ever come across that worked was the just get the fuck out of bed already system. There was something to be said for simplicity.

  When she stepped into the bathroom she noted the full-length mirror on the back of the door, but didn’t mind that it had fogged over once she was out. It wasn’t that she didn’t like seeing herself naked in the mirror, it was just that... well, it wasn’t her favorite.

  She’d always been a little uncomfortable in her own skin, too good at finding her own imperfections, and then college had come, with a pizza place open until 2am and Oreos anytime she wanted them at the 24-hour convenience store, and she’d gained thirty pounds. Ariana knew she was still fairly attractive, and she could hold her own almost anywhere — backpacking, swimming — but she just didn’t want to see herself naked.

  Downstairs, Theresa was eating Froot Loops already, chugging down coffee and reading the USA Today provided free to all Lodge guests. Ariana surveyed her options and grabbed instant oatmeal, a banana, and a cup of watery hotel coffee.

  “News?” she asked.

  “Nah,” said Theresa. “Someone wore something scandalous to the Oscars, I guess.” She shrugged, and then slurped at her flavored milk.

  “All right,” said Ariana, getting down to business. “Three people had Bigfoot sightings in the past week. First up in Sam Croner, who was fishing on,” — she stopped to check her notes — “Diablo Lake, and said that near sunset, he saw a large figure crouch at the edge of the lake, and then run away when he thought Sam was watching.”

  “That’s a lot of interpretation by Sam,” Theresa said.

  “The second was a woman backpacking with two friends. She was off alone — uh, the exact phrase she used was ‘answering the call of nature,’ so I think she was peeing — and across a small valley, she saw a humanlike figure ambling along a ridge, opposite her. Also not far from sunset.”

  “Bigfoot’s a creeper?”

  “The third is an older guy, Dustin something, who was drinking at his favorite establishment a little ways north of town when he claims that he saw Bigfoot come out of the forest, shake himself a little, and then drive away in a dark green Ford pickup truck.”

  “That’s specific.”

  “It is.”

  Theresa sipped her coffee for a few moments, looking at some point behind Ariana. “Where’d Bigfoot keep his keys?”

  “This says he reached into the truck’s wheel well before driving off, so presumably they were hidden there.”

  “Anybody report a green truck missing, or was that Bigfoot’s own vehicle?”

  “We’ll check,” said Ariana, and she started making a note.

  On the table next to her notepad, her phone buzzed.

  Cool, Graham had said.

  “That him?” Theresa asked.

  “Yeah.”

  Before Ariana could do anything about it, Theresa grabbed her phone and was scrolling through the texts.

  “Those are not entirely representative of my relationship,” Ariana said, making a lame attempt to fend off what she knew was coming. “Also, they’re none of your damn business.”

  Theresa just sighed and put Ariana’s phone back on the table.

  “Stop making that face,” Ariana said.

  “I’m not making a face.”

  “You’re making your ‘Graham sucks’ face.”

  “I don’t have that face. That’s not the face I’m making. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Ariana laughed a little. “Which is it?”

  “I have no opinion on your relationship with Graham, and that includes no opinion on whether you could do fifty times better than him.”

  “Good, because I’d hate to hear that opinion for the five hundredth time already.”

  Theresa said nothing and drained her coffee cup. She’d gotten better recently, Ariana had to admit. When they first became friends she’d brought up her belief that Ariana deserved better almost constantly. Now it was more of a low background hum, disapproving faces and slight scowls whenever the subject of Graham came up. Ariana had made the mistake of telling her about how he’d chosen a new video game over sex once. Theresa hadn’t bothered to hide her shock and disbelief at that.

  “Really, you could do so much better, though,” Theresa said.

  “You keep saying that,” Ariana said. “He’s really sweet.”

  “What’s the last nice thing he did for you?”

  Ariana thought, fast. They didn’t actually spend too much time together, and a lot of that time was spent just hanging out, playing video games or watching movies. She’d lightly brought up moving in together, once — they’d been together for almost two years, after all — but Graham had not been in favor. Sometimes Ariana wondered where he got off, a chubby guy who played lots of video games and most of whose friends seemed to live on the internet, but then again, she was a chubby girl who did play her fair share of video games, and who hunted cryptids for a living, so it wasn’t like she had a lot of room to talk.

  “You can’t think of anything, can you?” asked Theresa.

  “Last time I was home he picked up pizza and came to my place instead of me going to his,” Ariana finally said.

  “So he paid for the pizza?”

  “We split it.”

  “He got you the toppings you wanted?”

  “It was just cheese. Everybody likes that.”

  “He picked up a bottle of wine as a surprise?”

  “I had some already.”

  “Did he even order the pizza?”

  “I did it online, it was no big deal.”

  “So the nicest thing you can think of, in recent memory, that your boyfriend did for you, is literally carry an okay pizza for about a mile.”

  Ariana poked at her oatmeal. When Theresa put it like that, sure, Graham sounded like kind of a dirtbag, but he was sweet and funny, sometimes. He had lots of positive qualities, she was sure of it.
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  “What if you texted him something dirty?” Theresa asked.

  Ariana looked at the other girl. She was wearing thick-framed glasses, had a blue streak in her hair, and was wearing an Adventure Time t-shirt. Yet she got three times as much action as Ariana did, and didn’t even have a steady boyfriend.

  “I’m not dirty-texting him,” she said.

  “Why?”

  Ariana squirmed, and she could feel her cheeks heating up. “Because that’s... I dunno. It’s weird.”

  “Is the real reason that he wouldn’t text you back, and you’d just be left hanging with a dirty text and no response?”

  Ariana chose not to answer. Instead, she scooped the last of her instant oatmeal into her mouth, drained her coffee, and stood.

  “We’re wasting time here,” she said. “We’ve gotta meet our hiking guide at noon. Let’s go find us a Bigfoot.”

  3

  Jake

  Even though it was almost summer, Jake put a long-sleeved flannel shirt on that morning. He knew how long it took him to shift back — he’d been doing this most of his life, after all — but lately he’d been putting off turning human again off longer and longer, and now, the morning after, he still had the slightly-too-hairy arms to show for it. That would be gone by midday, though, and he could roll his sleeves up and it wouldn’t be so hot.

  Besides, today was an office day, so he’d be in the air conditioning.

  In his twenties, Jake had been a lumberjack, and he’d loved that job. He got to be outside, in the forest, he got to work with his hands, and he was naturally huge — almost 6’4” and built like a brick wall. Using heavy equipment and doing physical labor had come naturally to him, and half the time, he’d shifted right after work and walked home in his grizzly bear form. In fact, a few of the other guys had been bears too, and sometimes, when all the humans went home, they’d shift and wrestle each other as the sun went down. It had been a wonderful life.