King Fairbucks looks lost in his anger, turned around and not in control, which is a rare color on him. He’s breathing hard through his nose while the trumpets play happy tunes outside. We all wait in silence while the General cusses in pants and huffs as Salem leans more of his weight on the man’s spine to squish the air from his lungs. I swear, I see the corners of Salem’s mouth twitch at finally being able to keep Lily’s tormentor under his control.
When King Fairbucks finally speaks, his voice is a low boiling kettle, just barely holding back his steaming rage. “Very well. King Ronin, I’ll send General Klein to my prison.” A collective exhale hits the room while General Klein squirms, his face red. “And as for your treaty, I’ll draw something up tomorrow.”
“You’ll draw up nothing. We’ll see General Klein locked in a cell and then all of us will come up with a plan that suits all three of our kingdoms in the morning.”
“All three?” King Fairbucks says, his head whipping in Salem’s direction. “You can’t mean you expect the fae to align with the shifters as well.”
Ronin slides Lily’s hand into mine and steps out from behind us, his arms at the small of his back as if he’s readying to give a lecture in school. “Lily is married to Destino and Alexavier, uniting our territories. She’s next going to marry Prince Justice, so when his mother passes on, she will be queen of the three territories, uniting us all.”
Lily’s hand stiffens in my grip. She shrinks back and steps away. When I turn my head over my shoulder while Ronin and Fairbucks go back and forth, dread fills my belly. We didn’t tell her. I forgot to confirm that she knew she wouldn’t be marrying Salem, but rather his older brother instead. When I’d made the mistake of assuming she’d marry Salem because I wasn’t thinking clearly, I presumed she’d been on the correct train of thought from the beginning. She knows, as well as everyone else does, who the heir to the shifter throne is.
“Lily?” My voice is quiet, so the kings can keep on fighting without her shock being the center display.
“I… Prince Justice is older. Of course. That makes sense. He… I thought… I just assumed… Excuse me.” I catch a glimpse of moisture welling in her eyes. For all the parts of me that want to keep her entirely to myself, my chest constricts with pain at the thought of her never getting the chance to be with Salem. It’s clear they both want this so very badly, even if they’re too afraid to admit it.
Salem’s only ever been in love with her, and now he’s had to watch his two best friends marry the woman of his dreams. Soon it’ll be his brother, if all goes as planned.
Lily backs up and then turns to run when a tear trickles down her cheek. She’s kept her composure so heroically, but this is too much. Even I’m devastated at life’s cruelty in keeping the two of them apart.
“Lily, wait!” Salem calls after her, more concerned about our woman than he is about the bloke who’s struggling to break free beneath his weight.
“I’ve got him,” I offer. “Alex, give me a hand and find some rope or something.” I kneel down on my father-in-law’s back, edging Salem out of the way. “Go,” I tell him. “Go get her.”
Salem shoots me a look of pure panic. “What am I supposed to say?”
For how old Salem’s always seemed in my eyes, he looks like a scared boy right now. Despite the rocking world, the corners of my mouth quirk upwards. “Tell her you love her, and then kiss her so beautifully, she forgets your brother’s name.”
Maybe there’s better advice to give my best friend. Something more prudent to our master plan. But at the end of the day, I’m not a ruler. I’m his brother, and I want things for him that maybe fate will be too cruel to give him.
Salem stands, running his hands through his hair before he turns and takes off toward the east wing. Toward his love.
Toward my wife.
14
All This Time
Lilya
I’m so stupid. Just beyond hope with how little I thought this whole thing through. I simply assumed I’d be marrying Salem because that’s what I wanted. I mean, I didn’t want-want any of this, but that made the most sense to my hormone-laced brain.
I have two husbands. I don’t have space in my life for a crush that’s never amounted to anything. Now it’s clear to me that whatever fantasies I entertained hold no weight. They can never come true, because I’ll be married to his brother, whom I’ve never met. Never seen. Don’t know.
My only relief is that no one saw me break down. I didn’t cry through seeing the General again. Didn’t lose myself in front of the throngs of people. Didn’t devolve into a puddle when the General attacked me and threw me on the ground. Marrying Salem’s brother is the thing that’s wrecking me, turning me into a mess of emotions when there’s work to be done. I should be standing with Lexi and Des, who are my true heroes. I should be reinforcing this treaty between King Fairbucks and Ronin because that’s the right thing to do. I should be thanking Salem for intervening when the General roughed me up.
I guess everyone has their breaking point. It’s been a while since I met mine. This stupid dress is hard to run in, so I heft up the skirt as I dart up the steps. This dress isn’t me. I get the whole matrimonial image thing, but it’s also a fae thing, stainless, pure and nearly glowing with light. I’m not that girl, and I feel foolish for pretending so hard that I thought I could trick myself into thinking things could be different, that life could be fair.
But I’m not playing fair. I’m taking two, maybe even three husbands for myself. I’m snatching up whole territories and telling them how to be.
“Lily, slow down!” I hear Salem call from the base of the steps.
I’m halfway up, and there are still so many steps to go. “I’m fine!” I lie, and keep my feet moving. Crying in front of Salem would be the humiliation I can’t survive. Especially because he won’t understand why. He doesn’t love me like that, not how I’ve loved him for so many years.
I’m the barmaid, nothing more, no matter what this dress declares to the world.
Salem usually doesn’t want to be near me, so when I feel the vibrations from his heavy boots swallowing three and four stairs at a time, my pace quickens as much as this dress will allow.
Of course my foot catches on the hem. There are so many layers of silk to this thing. Of course I trip and fall, smacking my chin on the hard step and clacking my teeth together. I struggle to right myself and scramble away, but Salem catches up to me, because of course he does.
“Are ye so afraid of me tha you’ll literally run away?” He’s frustrated, not angry when he helps me up and fingers my tender chin.
“I’m not afraid of you,” I spout off honestly, forgetting my filter because we’re alone, my shin and chin sting, and he’s standing so very close. “I’ve been head over heels in love with you for years! Is that what you want to hear? Do you want to know how pathetic I am that everything in me lights up whenever you came into the pub? How about that I lived for the smallest slice of a moment when my finger brushed yours when I set down your stein of ale? Would it make you happy to know that I never let anyone drink out of your stein because I didn’t want anyone else’s lips near something that had touched yours?” Tears are streaming down my face, and I’m certain this is the moment I’ve lost my mind. I’m never this honest, this raw, yet here it is.
Here I am.
I swipe at my cheeks, drying them as best I’m able so my humiliation doesn’t drip spots on my dress. “And now I’m supposed to marry your brother, who I don’t know, and who isn’t you.”
He opens his mouth, his whole face filled with such revulsion and confusion that I know I’ve really stepped in it this time.
I hold up my hand and step back, my butt pressing to the railing. “I know you don’t like fae, and you’ve never seen me like that. Believe me, I get it. I’ll fall in line. I’ll marry your brother.” I trap a sob in my lungs before it can explode out of me, shaking my head at this whole scene, and the steps that led me her
e. My hand grips my throat, and when I speak once more, my voice comes out in a whisper. “But going through everything up until this point, seeing the General again, all of it—I can handle the whole mess. On the day I marry your brother and not you, that will be the day I mourn my losses.”
Salem’s mouth is still open, mute with horror that I ever thought I might have a chance with someone as incredible as him. I know it. I feel the end of my girlish ways cementing in my bones, weighting me down so much that I’ll have to cast my silly dreams aside to move on into all I’m supposed to accomplish.
I walk away from him because I know he’ll let me go. He doesn’t want to be stuck in this conversation, so I release us both from it and trudge up the steps, broken and so very sad.
My door closes behind me, and I can’t get my dress off fast enough. It’s a lie, the whole thing. That I’m happy, perfect and fae. I pull a knee-length strappy nightgown out of the drawer because I have no intention of leaving this room ever again. I collapse onto Lexi’s giant mattress, cover myself with the blanket and let my tears fall freely, not judging a single one of them because they belong to me.
When a knock sounds at the door, I cringe that Salem isn’t the kind of guy who can let this mess go and pretend it never happened. That would be the best-case scenario. Who would’ve guessed that the man who doesn’t like to talk about anything won’t do me the kindness of looking the other way when I’m clearly wallowing in my own humiliation?
“No, thank you,” I call over my shoulder. “I’ll see you all in the morning.”
“I’m coming in,” Salem announces like a threat. I open my mouth to protest, but Salem stalks into the room, closing the door behind him. At least my shame is limited to just us. “Ye love me?” Salem asks, his voice rough.
“No,” I spout, my attitude in full swing. “I just like to say that to random men and then burst into tears.”
He rips the comforter off of me, startling a squeak from my lips. He doesn’t look angry; he looks untamed, his eyes wide and his nostrils flared.
I sit up with a scowl as I push the skirt of my nightgown down to make sure my thighs are covered. “Can I help you?”
Salem looks truly worried, confused that the world’s thrown him this curve he can’t possibly want to catch. “Did Des make ye say those things? Alex?”
“Huh? Of course not.”
“Tha’s really ye? Tha’s what you’ve been thinking about me all this time?”
“Would you get out of here? I don’t want to talk about this with you another second. At least have the decency to pretend it never happened!”
Salem sits on the foot of the bed, his long legs over the edge while he leans his elbows on his thighs and pushes his hands through his shortened hair. His face is washed with an intensity that stills my movements until a quietness falls over us both.
When he speaks, his voice is so low that I have to lean in to hear him. “Five years ago during the full moon of the fifth month, I’d been in a bad fight. My men had lost a battle with the fae army, and we were still licking our wounds. I never take time off, unless it’s to visit Alex and Des once a month. After hanging with them for a day, I didn’t want to go home. So I wandered into Neutral Territory. Into your pub.”
It’s not what I expect him to say. I mean, it’s so very specific. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard him string so many sentences together at once.
When I don’t speak, Salem continues. “There weren’t supposed to be any fae in Neutral Territory, but there ye were. Purple hair and prettier than anyone has a right looking after my people took such a bad beating. I sat down in your pub and ye asked me what I wanted to drink. I was so mad at ye. For no reason, of course. I was mad at any fae who could look me in the eye after all your people had done to mine. Maybe I ordered. Maybe ye just brought me a drink. I can’t remember. But ye said I looked like no one had been kind to me in about a hundred years.” He pauses and swallows hard. “Then ye brought me some water and a napkin, and scrubbed the dried blood off my knuckles for me.”
He brings his hand down and flexes it a few times, as if seeing the blood all over again.
Then he clears his throat. “It was the nicest thing anyone other than the lads had done for me in a long time. Then ye smiled like it was all no big deal and refused to charge me for my drink.” He shakes his head.
“I don’t remember that at all. The first time I saw you was five years ago, yes. But you weren’t injured. You came in and ordered an ale. Barely looked at me, but I couldn’t keep myself from staring at you.”
“Staring at me?”
I nod slowly. “I thought you were the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. So still. So regal. You carry yourself like… I don’t know. There’s just something about you. When you walk into a room, I’m sure other things are happening, but I can’t remember them.” It’s a stupid thing to say, but apparently I have no pride anymore.
He shakes his head as he rubs the nape of his neck. Is he blushing? “I was wearing my cloak with my hood covering my face the first time I came in. Ye looked after my cuts when ye didn’t even know who I was?”
“I had no idea. I don’t even remember doing it. I mean, it was five years ago.”
“I didn’t know what to do with the idea tha any fae other than Alex could be good to a shifter. So I came back a month later to see if ye were only nice to shifters when ye felt sorry for us. Tha must be the day you’re thinking was the first time ye saw me.” He reaches into the breast pocket of his military shirt and pulls out a stack of napkins, lain flat against each other in perfect order. “I took one of these to mark every visit. Wrote down anything ye said to me, along with the date. This is only part of the stack. The rest is back home in my safe.” He hands them to me without looking in my direction.
I leaf through them, my brows furrowing. “I don’t understand. Is this you spying on me to see if I’m trying to trick you or something? You’re cataloging what I say so you can prove that… what? That I’m just as awful as the fae soldiers who hurt you?”
He still can’t look at me, so he stares at his hands, his elbows resting on his knees. “Nothing like tha. I was curious at first, and then I was… I’m not sure what the word for it is.” He swallows hard, his fingers tightening and loosening over and over. “I just wanted to hear your voice. Wanted to make sure I got it right when I went back home and replayed your little mannerisms in my head.”
I’m completely still, except for the thrumming of my curious heart. “I don’t understand.”
“I’ve been in love with ye for five years, Lily. I just knew ye could never love a shifter, so I kept my distance.”
There are no words. No coherent ones, anyway. I leaf through the napkins, my eyes widening at his tight scrawl that’s all caps. “‘What can I get you to drink?’ is on practically all of these. Man, I’m generic.” My eyes flick over maudlin waitress statements like, “Would you like a refill?” “Can I get you anything else?” “Are you hungry tonight?” I hold up the next napkin, dated from two years ago. “This one was supposed to be sexy, but it looks lame on a napkin.”
It’s the only way I can get Salem to look in my direction. He nods after scanning his handwriting. “It was sexy.” His gray eyebrows tent, perplexed. “All this time, ye really wanted me?”
I nod, handing him back the napkins. Our fingers touch, as they have so many times over the years when I’d set down his stein before him.
I don’t know why that’s it, but the confusion dies in my soul in that instant, and all I feel is need. All the times I denied myself what I truly wanted swarm around the room, muting out all the reasons why this can’t work, why we shouldn’t go in for that second touch.
His lips are on mine in the next breath, and all I can think is that this is the one man I’ve wanted for no reason other than pure need.
I need him, and so I take him.
15
So Very Mine
Lilya
There’s no politi
cs in our kiss, no plan. It’s a mess, and so are we. The introduction to this new phase of our lives is given only a cursory greeting before the panic that this might get snatched away drives us to deepen each kiss, make each touch count. Light caresses turn to manhandling, and I honestly can’t tell if I’m being rougher with him or if his hands are gripping me in the best kind of too-tight way.
I’ve kissed exactly two men my entire life, but my body knows what it wants, even if it doesn’t know how to get there. I find my way to straddling his lap on the edge of the bed. Whether he draws me there or my legs part of their own accord, I can’t say. My fingers fumble with the buttons of his military shirt, needing more of him, always more. His body is warm, and I love how very hairy he is.
Salem’s chest is broad and thick, begging me to memorize every inch of it with my hands. I press him down across the mattress, his eyes going from wide to lidded when my thumb trails across his nipple. “All this time…” he asks, his voice ragged as his hips buck into me.
My thighs clamp down, holding on for the ride I never dreamed I’d be so lucky to enjoy. “We could’ve been doing this in the storage closet of the pub for years,” I snigger, and then meet his lips when his chin jerks toward me, inviting me to kiss him more, harder. “Tell me this is what you want.”
I love his growl, and swallow it down greedily when it passes between our hungry mouths. He bites down on my lower lip, and I’m fairly certain I’ve never wanted anything more in my life than this man. This kiss. It’s surreal, the whole thing. I worry I’m dreaming, that I’ve wanted him so badly, I’m hallucinating the life I crave.
But he tastes so real, so very mine.
His hands are large and calloused, rough as he grips the backs of my thighs and trails his thumbs upward over the layers of silk. His lips claim me with a fervor that makes me feel both brazenly bold and simultaneously shy. The bristle of his facial hair on my skin makes me feel alive, like I’ve been asleep for so long, and now this beautiful mountain is finally mine for the taking. It’s too good to be true, so I close my eyes and give in to the dream, hoping it never comes to an end.
Wicked Prince: Book Two in the Territorial Mates Series Page 10