by Jayme Morse
“It might be the safest place for you, Princess,” he replied quietly. “But before you go anywhere, I need you to do something for me. A favor, if you will.”
“What sort of favor?” I found myself questioning.
“If I tell you, you might not want to escape with me,” he replied.
I hesitated. “I will do any favor you ask of me, as long as it means you can help me escape.”
“Then the favor doesn’t much matter now, does it? If you say you will do anything,” the guy responded.
I supposed he was right. I couldn’t imagine anything worse than marrying Milos. Whatever this favor was, I was sure it was the preferable option.
“Your wish is my command.” I felt him reach out and touch my arm lightly.
Before I even knew what was happening, a cloud of smoke—a cloud of magic—had surrounded us, and we were being whisked away.
As we traveled, I half-regretted my decision.
You see, I had heard about the wolves who could travel like this.
There was only one wolf who possessed this sort of power. And it was the type of wolf who I wanted no part of.
A wolf who was capable of dark magic.
The memory of this part of my past life normally stopped there. I wasn’t sure if it was because this invisible stranger was here with me now or what it was, but for some reason, it continued this time.
The stranger and I fell to a pile on the ground, but this time, I could actually see him.
He wore his dark brown hair short, and he had a scruffy-looking beard with sideburns. It was the type of beard the Queen would have called improper.
What I noticed the most was the size of him. His arms were so muscular that I thought his fitted jacket might tear right open. Even through the material of his jacket, I could see that he was pure muscle.
My eyes met his then for the first time, and my breath caught in my throat.
He had the most beautiful emerald green eyes I had ever seen in my life. And when he looked at me, all I could feel was pure lust. It was as if his eyes were pouring deep into my soul.
No one had ever looked at me that way before, not even Nicholas, the only guy who I had ever loved.
But the way this beautiful stranger stared at me made me feel things I had never felt before.
I shouldn’t have felt this way. It had been less than twenty-four hours since Nicholas had even died. There was no way I could have been feeling things for someone else already.
And yet, I was.
Reaching over, he brushed the hair out of my eyes. “Are you okay, Princess?”
“I will be now, thanks to you.” I rose to my feet, brushing off my bare knees. “I can never repay you.”
“Actually, you can repay me,” he replied as he rose to his feet, too, and I realized how high he towered over me. I wasn’t sure that I had ever seen someone as tall as him.
“Okay. Are you going to tell me what this favor is or are you going to forever let it be a mystery?” I questioned. Based on how I felt when I looked at him, it was hard to imagine me saying no to anything he was about to ask of me.
“I need you to marry me.”
“You can’t be serious.” I thought he was joking at first, but there was a look of seriousness behind his emerald green eyes as he stared back at me. “You are serious.”
“I am more serious than I have ever been about anything in my life, Princess,” he said matter-of-factly.
“This is quite a commitment you’re asking of me,” I murmured.
“It was quite a favor I did you,” he replied pointedly.
“But this is a long-term commitment.” I swallowed hard, my cheeks flushing at the thought. He was absolutely gorgeous. Stunning. If I could build a dream man, it would have been it.
But I also didn’t like that he was asking me to marry him as a favor.
The only thing I really wanted in life was to marry for love. I didn’t want to be forced into a marriage with anyone. And even though he was certainly nice to look at, he was trying to force me into a marriage, too—the same way the King and Queen who I had just escaped had.
“If I was going to be forced into a marriage, I may as well have stayed in the castle.” Except I knew full well that I would have been happier with this stranger who stood before me than I ever would have been with Milos Santorini.
I didn’t believe that Milos had a single good bone in his body. But this stranger who stood before me seemed like he did. He had helped me escape, after all… even if it was for his own selfish gain.
Still, why was he so insistent on a random stranger marrying him?
Oh. Correction: why was he so insistent on a princess marrying him?
I realized that I must have solved the mystery. This random stranger had helped me escaped merely so he could marry a princess.
“Why do you wish to marry me?” I asked him, mostly curious about whether or not he would tell me the truth.
“If you marry me, Princess, you will make me a King.”
Well, at least he was honest, I supposed.
“Actually, you are incorrect in your assumptions,” I informed him. “I am not yet a Queen. Marrying me will only make you a Prince.” I paused, thinking about it. “Now that I have run away from the palace, I guess I will never actually get to be a Queen, so therefore, you would never have the opportunity to become King, either.”
I wondered who would end up ascending the throne once my parents were no longer able to reign over the kingdom. I was an only child. There were no siblings who would have been the next heirs to the throne; it had only ever been me.
My entire life, I had thought my future would be as the next Queen of Nocturne Island. Now that I had run away, I could never show my face again.
If the King and Queen didn’t find me, that is. They had me found the last time I had run away, after all.
“Even though you’ve run away, you’re still a Royal. My plans for us go bigger than Nocturne Island,” the stranger explained. “We can start our own kingdom. We’ll build a fortress that’s all ours on another island, and we will reign over it completely, without a care in the world—just you and me. There’s another benefit of you marrying me,” he added. “Once you are mine, then you belong to me. No one could ever force you to marry anyone ever again. What do you say, Princess?” He got down on one knee then. Staring up into my eyes, he took my hand in his. “Will you marry me?”
Every ounce of my being knew this wasn’t a good idea. It would have been completely foolish of me to marry someone whose name I didn’t even know, someone whose intentions couldn’t have been entirely pure if he was asking me to do something so extreme for his sake.
And yet, I found myself drawn to him for some reason.
I wasn’t sure what it was about this guy who stood before me, but there was this magnet-like energy, a force between that just made me want to be with him. I wanted to marry him and have babies with him.
Did this mean that he was my mate? I was afraid that if I didn’t agree to marry him, then I would never actually know.
So, even though I knew it was a foolish thing to do, I nodded. “Yes. I will marry you.”
He beamed up at me and then stood up. “Perfect. We’ll get married tonight.”
“Tonight? How will I plan the wedding of my dreams?”
My mom’s words echoed through my mind. “You deserve a wedding that’s fit for a princess.”
“A marriage is about the union of a man and woman, not about the wedding ceremony, isn’t it, Princess?” I could hear the tone behind his voice; it challenged me.
“Under ordinary circumstances, I suppose so,” I replied. “But nothing about this situation is what one would call ordinary.”
“I’m going to be honest with you, Princess. When I broke into that castle with the intentions of rescuing you, I had one thing on my mind and one thing only—and that was becoming King. But now that I’ve met you, I would be lying to you if I told you I didn’
t want to marry you for who you are.”
There was so much sincerity behind his voice that it was hard for me not to believe him.
“So, what I’m asking you is to please marry me tonight.” There was a hopeful look in his emerald green eyes.
“Okay,” I agreed. “I’ll marry you tonight.” I paused for a moment and then asked, “Are you going to tell me your name now, at least?”
He smiled. “If I told you my name, there’s no way in hell you would ever want to marry me.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” I asked him.
“Trust me. You wouldn’t. I have quite a reputation. The Queen hates me.”
“Then that’s all the more reason for me to like you,” I replied, a smile hitting my lips. “I’m not sure if you’ve figured this out about me yet, but I tend to like everything that my mother doesn’t like.”
“I know you’re quite the rebel.” He smiled down at me. “I have a feeling that you and I are going to get along really well, Princess. I can feel it in my bones. Together, we are going to become the most powerful Royals who will ever walk the paranormal realm.”
“But you really are going to tell me your name before the wedding, aren’t you?” I asked.
“I’ll tell you tonight during the ceremony.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “I should probably tell you that I really hate mystery.”
“You will probably hate me then. My life is full of mysteries waiting to be solved.” His eyes held mine. “Does that scare you away?”
I considered it for a moment and then slowly shook my head.
For some unexplainable reason, I was too intrigued by him, by the way I felt about him, to be scared away.
“I thought you told me I needed to go to Wolflandia or the human realm,” I realized then. “You said you can help me start a new life. Now you’re telling me that we can start a new life together on another island.”
“We’re going to need to hang low for a little while,” he explained. “Just long enough for the King and Queen to not have a search party looking for you. Once the timing is right, then we’ll work on building our own kingdom. So, what do you say? Are you in for a little adventure?”
I didn’t have to even think about it before I nodded. Everything about his plan sounded absolutely perfect.
A new life, away from the King and Queen. The parents who had murdered the one and only guy who I’d ever been in love with.
A new kingdom that would be our own.
A new gorgeous husband, who best of all, wasn’t Milos Santorini.
I couldn’t have chosen a better life for myself if I tried. It had been sheer luck that this handsome stranger had ended up in the castle in the first place, and even better luck that he’d had the means to help me escape.
“Meet me at North Lake at eight p.m.,” the stranger said.
“North Lake? That’s right near the Royal Palace. We can’t get married there,” I insisted.
“That’s the point Fallyn. Think about how nice it will be to look up at the castle and know that you are completely going against your parents’ wishes for you.” His eyes locked on mine. “It will be the ultimate victory.”
Honestly? I hated the idea of getting married at North Lake. I hated knowing there was a possibility that my parents could look out the windows of one of the castle towers and see me getting married. Not only would they try to stop it, they would end up bringing me back to the Royal Palace where they would force me to get married to Milos Santorini.
It seemed so risky and like such a bad idea.
But how could I say no to the gorgeous stranger who was standing before me? He had rescued me from marrying a monster. I owed him everything.
It was more than just that, though. There was a part of me that didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity of marrying him at all. Even though I still hated the idea of being forced into a marriage, the idea of not having a chance with him at all sounded even worse than that.
So, I nodded. “I will marry you there tonight.”
“You helped me escape when I was Princess Fallyn,” I whispered to the stranger as we stood in Milos’s dungeon. “You wanted me to marry you in exchange for helping me escape.”
“So, you do remember me.” He sounded extremely surprised by the fact that I did. Even I was surprised that I remembered. I had tried numerous times to help spark memories from my past life, but this was the first time I had gotten to see any of that.
“Did we end up getting married?” I whispered. Here I was with four mates, and I had believed that I was single. Was it possible that I hadn’t been single at all? What if this entire time I had been married?
“You don’t remember?” There was a tone in his voice that told me he was amused.
“No.” I shook my head.
“Do you feel like we are married?”
“I still don’t know your name.” I racked my mind for a name that could have been attached to this familiar voice, to the face that I could now picture in my mind, but I just couldn’t seem to think of a name.
“That’s because you never knew my name. The answer is no, we never married. You didn’t show up for what would have been our wedding.”
“I didn’t?” My eyes widened.
“Nope.”
“Huh.” I wondered what could have happened in between the time my memory ended to that night that had prevented me from marrying this beautiful stranger. But I had no idea what could have possibly happened.
“Yeah, you never help up to your end of the deal,” he replied. “But here I am, about to offer you another favor.” His voice sounded closer, and I was pretty sure his mouth was right against my ear as he whispered, “I’m going to help you escape again.”
“In exchange for another favor?” I found myself asking.
“Actually, this one is out of the goodness of my heart,” he whispered. “Now quiet. Iris is about to walk down these stairs any minute. She’s planning to shoot you. I need to get you out of here without her figuring us out. Are you ready to do this?”
I nodded. At that moment, I heard the sound of the door to the dungeon opening. He hadn’t been wrong. Iris really was headed down here.
“Raven,” I heard her say. “I have a special treat for you today. It’s going to be the last day of your life. It’s going to be so much fun. Milos is gone. He won’t even know what we’re up to down here.”
A moment later, I heard the sound of a gun being fired. It was loud and close enough to nearly make me jump out of my skin.
Holy. Shit.
This stranger had really not been kidding. I wasn’t sure how he had known, but Iris really did plan to kill me.
“Ready?” he whispered.
I nodded, just as Iris came into view. Even through the darkness, I could see that her gun was pointed right at me. If she pulled the trigger right now, she would have hit me.
I felt a cool breeze as something was draped over me. I watched as my arms and legs were invisible and then a cloud of smoke as it encircled us as we were whisked away.
Just as we were being pulled out of the room, I heard the sound of Iris fire the gun again. I was positive that if this gorgeous stranger hadn’t been here, if I had been all alone, I would have been dead by now.
I owed everything to him. This time, he hadn’t just saved me from a marriage I didn’t want to be in.
No, this time, he had completely saved my life.
Chapter 17
During the weeks after Iris had visited the Darken house, I made a point of avoiding her on campus. I didn’t want her to get the wrong impression after the favor I had done for her. Even though I had been nice enough to give a message to Milos for her, the last thing I wanted was for her to think that I had forgiven her when I hadn’t.
In between classes and schoolwork, I hung out with Vince and Maddie whenever I was able to find the chance. Vince had slow phased Iris out of his life. I was sure that she probably suspected that the reason had to do with me, but
she wasn’t about to lash out after me when I had helped her. When it came down to it, I had the one thing that she wished she had but never would have: a direct mental connection to Milos.
I often worried about when Milos would appear in my life again in some sort of way. The fact that he hadn’t yet was pretty baffling.
The only thing I could seem to think of was that he was planning… well, something. Probably the impending war.
By the time December rolled around, I was anxious to get our midterm exams over with already. It was probably due to all the stress this semester, but I was struggling to get through my classes. I was putting in more hours studying than I ever had before, and I was so over studying. What I needed more than anything was a break.
I had just slammed my book shut when my phone began to vibrate. I glanced down at the number that lit up my phone.
It was him.
My heart pounded against my chest as a wave of panic rushed through me. I didn’t want to talk to him.
I couldn’t talk to him.
Any time I thought of talking to him, this crippling fear just took over. I knew I was probably being irrational. Eventually, we were going to have to talk. But I just wasn’t ready for that yet.
Swallowing hard, I hit the ignore button, sending his call straight to voicemail.
My phone alerted me that I had one new voicemail.
Shit.
Usually when I ignored his calls, he didn’t actually leave a voicemail. He would just try calling a few days later.
Honestly? I was terrified to hear what he had to say.
With shaky hands, I pressed the play button and pressed the phone to my ear to listen.
“Hey, Raven. I really need to talk to you, but for some reason, you keep ignoring my calls. That isn’t how you should treat your mate, now is it? Remember, I am your last mate… meaning I should hold the dearest spot in your heart. Anyway, give me a call back as soon as you listen to this.”