The Last Emperor

by Kari Gregg

  “When I give a damn about your approval, I’ll let you know,” Lydia said with a glacial smile.

  Nick snickered as Arit’s mouth gaped. “Don’t mind Lyd. She gets testy when she’s tired and hungry. I’m sure we’d all like to freshen up before dinner.” He waved at a wide staircase along the wall opposite the fireplace. “If you could direct us to our rooms?”

  Arit’s eyes narrowed. “Noryl,” he said, calling to the porter hauling their luggage inside. “Show the security team where they should set up on the first floor.”

  When his stare focused on Nick, a shiver raced up Nick’s spine.

  “I’ll show the principles to their quarters upstairs,” Arit said.

  “B-but your father wanted to help check in our guests.” A woman wearing a green polo with the lodge’s crescent moon logo frowned. “I notified him of the train’s arrival as soon as Marni let us know, and he must have heard the shuttles park outside, too. He’ll be on his way from your cabin by now.”

  Benjic paled, his jaw clenching.

  Nick’s potential mate only shook his head. “Send someone to intercept him.” He jerked his chin at Benjic. “I won’t tolerate Dad being upset. He’s been through enough. He shouldn’t have to—”

  “Nonsense,” said another tribesman entering the great room through a pocket door by the fireplace. He shared Arit’s height, had the same muscular build, and his hair streaked with the dark-gray, mottled coloring characteristic of the Ural tribe, but while Arit’s shoulder-length mane had been tied at his nape, the latecomer had allowed his to freely brush the tips of his shoulders. He walked into the hall with Arit’s strutting swagger, too. The resemblance between the two couldn’t have been more striking—the newcomer had to be Arit’s dad. When he reached them, Benjic audibly gulped. “Why should I be bothered by greeting an old dear friend? My son is a worrier, but there’s no need for his concern.” He grasped Benjic’s hands and leaned forward to kiss the elder’s cheek, first one and then the other. “Ben, handsome as always. You haven’t changed a bit.”

  “Emyn.” Muscles taut, the elder grunted. “I’m thicker around the middle.”

  “Aren’t we all.” Arit’s dad chuckled while his glance swept the entourage from the train station. “No Katya? The children?”

  Benjic grimaced. “Not this time,” he said, though his tone indicated never was the genuine answer. “Everyone in the capitol is working tirelessly to arrange the funeral and abdication ceremony. I was fortunate to obtain leave to accompany His Highness. The council would not have countenanced losing anyone else to this trip, especially Harr, who has taken the lead for organizing the memorial.” The warm smile gracing Arit’s father’s face remained fixed in place. “The invitation for your capitol family to visit your ancestral land is always open. Any time.”

  Benjic dipped his head. “Thank you.” Breaking his former mate’s grasp on his hands, he turned to gesture at Nick. “Emyn, may I present his Imperial Highness Nika Marisek?”

  Drolly amused at Arit’s scowl when his father bent to a bow that included tipping his chin to deferentially expose his throat, Nick finally stepped forward. “I’ll vacate the throne after the funeral and as soon as the council arranges the ceremony to their liking. Please, formalities are unnecessary. Call me Nick.”

  “Nik,” Emyn said, pronouncing it with the long e of Nick’s imperial name among the tribes.

  Nick opened his mouth to correct him, but Arit spoke first. “Not with the hard e of Nika, Dad. He adopted the soft i pronunciation prevalent in the lands of men. Nick, like brick, is human. Nik, like creek, is tribe.”

  Surprise shot through Nick. He gawped at Arit, who had picked up a distinction even Benjic had neglected…or had at least chosen to ignore. “It’s all right. Few have remembered the customs of men since the border closed, and fewer still recognize the name I chose after the war.”

  Arit’s brows beetled. “You are the crown prince.” He glared at Benjic when his sire sniffed in irritation. “Until you abdicate, you are the emperor the Goddess selected for the tribes and as such, you decide your own name.”

  Nick wished it were that easy. “It isn’t important.”

  Lydia snorted.

  “You belong to us and to yourself as Nick, not as the Nika they tried to kill,” Rolan disagreed. “The tribes’ refusal to honor your name is a grave insult.”

  “I meant no offense,” Arit’s dad said, gaze stricken.

  “It’s true. He doesn’t know humans as I do.” Arit’s shoulders drooped. “I travel through the mountain passes to trade with smugglers, as our peoples have done for generations. I’ve picked up human ways, including their manner of speaking. Dad stays at the lodge rather than defy the capitol. He has no familiarity with their customs anymore.”

  Outrage writ across his features, Benjic stiffened his spine and pivoted to face Emyn. “You showed him the trail through the mountains?”

  “Of course not,” Emyn said on a low growl. “The pass is dangerous. I would never risk my son to it.” He glared at Arit. “He discovered a path through the Urals with friends during his teens. I haven’t been able to break him of joining them in summer pilgrimages.”

  “We closed the borders.” Benjic’s mouth compressed to a grim line. “He could be arrested.”

  “I wouldn’t try prosecuting me or any of the others unless you crave riots in the borderland.” Arit glowered. “The funds for heating oil we earn in the lands of men keep our village alive through the winter.” He stared at his sire. “Goddess knows the capitol doesn’t care if we freeze.”

  “Enough.” Nick smothered a laugh when Arit started at Nick’s harsh tone. “No one will be arrested. The point is, although I prefer Nick, I was Nika once, too. Either is fine.”

  “You wish to be Nick.” Arit frowned. “You should be Nick.”

  “As long as I am not Your Highness’ed into oblivion, I’m satisfied.” Nick shrugged.

  “Nick,” Emyn said, shooting a glance at his son to confirm he’d pronounced it correctly. When Arit nodded, Emyn curved his lips into a smile. “I think we can manage that.”

  “If you could manage it while also pointing me toward a shower to scrub off the travel grime before dinner, that would be lovely,” Lydia said.

  “Certainly.” Emyn blinked. “I’ll—”

  “—let me show them to their quarters.” Arit squared his shoulders. He also glared at Benjic. “I’ll deal with the security detail after our guests are settled.”

  Arit’s father sniffed his disdain. “I’m perfectly capable of doing my job.”

  “As am I.” Arit’s fingers curling to form fists at his side.

  Emyn’s eyes narrowed on Arit, then abruptly widened. His attention ricocheted between Nick and his son. “Uh-oh.”

  Arit chopped a rigid hand through the air. “That has nothing to do with it.”

  “That has everything to do with it.” Benjic grinned smugly at Emyn. “I’d like my quarters near the security team. I’ll require constant communication with the capitol as arrangements there proceed. I’ll need ready access to secure commlinks.”

  “I suppose granting our son’s potential mate privacy from a chaperone on the lodge’s upper floor is no never-you-mind to you,” Emyn quipped.

  Benjic chortled. “Quite.”

  “Arit won’t yield to temptation because you’ve cleared the field for him to wallow in their heat. I’ve taught him how to deal with unwelcome heats and had I not, that you wish for the mating alone would prompt his wariness. You grasp that, don’t you?”

  “Oh, I understand.” Benjic jerked his chin at Nick. “He’s been raised outside the tribes, though.”

  Nick choked down his laughter. “You think I’m weak.”

  “Untutored,” the elder corrected. “Living among men, you’d have no experience with mating.”

  As if intermixing with humans made any difference. Rolan and Lydia had begun their dance toward a potential mating, hadn’t they? As a human, Lydia
knew little about mating, but only a fool would bet against her getting exactly what she wanted. Nick pushed down his disappointment with wrong-headed stereotypes still endemic in the tribes. Their failure, after all, was his opportunity. “You believe I would succumb to a mating heat simmering between us if surrendering was not my choice?”

  Arit’s forehead furrowed to a sharp V. “You sensed the quickening?”

  “A 2x4 would’ve been less subtle.” Nick smiled, though his disappointment redoubled. Did they underestimate him so much? Apparently. Not for the first time, Nick wondered if allowing the mistaken assumption that he was an omega—and a woefully unprepared and damaged one—continue. The fiction had allowed him a lot of breathing room in the capitol, where the tribes had failed to anticipate Nick acting and reacting as any alpha would. They hadn’t watched him as closely…but at what cost? “I’m not as clueless about my tribal blood as some wish to believe. You’d be wise to remember that.” His stare found Benjic. “As would your sire.”

  “He isn’t my sire.” Arit snarled.

  Benjic rolled his eyes. “Technicalities.”

  “Empires have fallen because of such technicalities.” Nick forced a chuckle. “Including my own.”

  “No capitol mating pact will be fulfilled, regardless of our heat,” Arit said. “I’m not his pawn.” He glared at Nick. “You shouldn’t let him manipulate you, either.”

  “Nick is the most methodical person you’ll ever meet and will do nothing unless it suits his purpose, so we are agreed.” Lydia beamed. “Our rooms, please.”

  “Are all humans as delightful? I begin to understand my son’s affinity with breaking the council’s border laws to trade with them.” With a gallant bow, Emyn offered Lydia his arm. “Allow me to escort you to your quarters.”

  Arit hurried forward. “But—”

  “Take His Highness to the imperial suite, son.” Emyn patted the arm Lydia had looped in his, and when she scowled at him, his smile widened. “I mean Nick. Show Nick upstairs.”

  That earned him a grudging though decidedly regal nod from Lydia. “Nick, go. Rolan and I will see you at dinner.”

  “Wait. What?” His brother blinked at her as Lydia and Arit’s dad ascended the sweeping staircase. He nevertheless followed them. “You’re okay with leaving Nick alone with…” He narrowed his eyes on Arit. “…that guy?”

  “With Arit’s sire pushing the mating, His Highness’s virtue couldn’t be safer,” Emyn said as they climbed.

  “Virtue?” Lydia barked with laughter. “Oh, he thinks Nick is a virgin. How precious.”

  Rolan, however, would not be distracted. Though he trailed Lyd and Emyn up the stairs, he tossed a warning glare over his shoulder—at Nick. “Behave for once.”

  Nick curved his mouth into a wolfish smile. “You know me.”

  Because Rolan did, he stabbed a condemning finger at Nick. “No seductions. I mean it. Leave the boy alone.” When Nick didn’t immediately concede, he sighed. “At least for the next hour. You can manage an hour without jumping him, I promise.”

  “Yes, sir,” Nick said, voice ripe with his amusement.

  Once they’d disappeared down a hall at the apex of the staircase, Nick turned to face Benjic and Arit. The sly elder had taken advantage of Nick’s preoccupation to join the group’s security team at a set of double doors where porters had begun stacking trunks packed with surveillance equipment. The rooms set aside for their bodyguards lay beyond the doors, Nick presumed. Arit, meanwhile, rocked his weight from foot to foot as he stared, unabashedly, at Nick with a mixture of fascination and abject horror that entertained Nick exceedingly.

  Nick had learned to never argue with his mom because her instincts were usually right, and Rosalind Goode couldn’t have been more correct about Lydia and Rolan accompanying him on this infernal visit to the tribes. They could always be relied upon to save Nick from himself…but not today. Rather than examining why his friends would abandon him to his whoremones, Nick instead embraced these few quiet moments alone with Arit. “Are you a virgin? Please say yes,” he said, clapping his hands in anticipation.

  Arit’s brow furrowed. “You aren’t all there, are you?”

  “You are!” Nick hugged his side as joyful gratification rolled through him. “A virgin. At your age, no less. Tell me you didn’t fall for tribal nonsense about sex mystically cementing a mating bond between partners.”

  “Sex provides the link for shifter mating. A few moments of fleeting pleasure can result in a permanent and unhappy marriage.” Arit grumbled. “Physical relationships should be approached with caution.”

  “If that were true, I would’ve bonded with Kenny Danner behind the bleachers in the ninth grade.” Nick rubbed his watering eyes. “I had no idea the tribes were still so superstitious.”

  “In the capitol, shifters are not—as you say—superstitious, but marriages there are rarely blessed by the Goddess with a mating heat.”

  “From what I’ve seen, marriages in the outer territories are as much a business arrangement as a coupling for love or affection, too.”

  Arit sniffed his contempt. “Some have not turned our backs on our heritage.” His mouth tightened. “I built this business on honoring my shifter roots and would prove myself a hypocrite by turning from the old ways.”

  Nick shook his head, already trembling at the idea of teaching Arit the pleasures of his body, but curse him, Rolan was right. A quick fuck would never do if Nick wanted to maintain any chance at mating Arit and thereby establishing an alliance with Benjic. Not that he’d decided on a closer relationship with the elder yet. Nick hadn’t. He hadn’t known forging such a connection was still possible until he’d exited the train and smelled a potential mate with scent markers that so strongly mirrored the elder’s that the association had to be close. If his birth parents had taught Nick anything, however, it was the value of strategic prudence. Instead of grabbing Arit as he wanted, he enjoyed the buzz of longing that intensified inside him with the pounding of his heartbeat and the sizzle of desire warming his blood. He must be content in knowing Arit felt it, too. For now. “If it helps, although Eton and Olina were no strangers to arranged marriages, my birth parents would have agreed with you about remaining chaste. I subscribe to a more modern approach to life they would have abhorred.”

  Frowning, Arit walked to the staircase and gestured for Nick to accompany him. “I don’t know. According to my dad, Benjic said the emperor and empress had begun maneuvering from traditional rule toward a new order before war disrupted their plans.”

  “They were working to incorporate elements of human government into the tribes when the riots started, yes.” The stairs were wide enough to allow them to walk side by side. When Nick joined Arit as an equal climbing the steps beside him rather than an omega’s typical position walking behind, Arit started. Again. The others hadn’t noted behaviors that didn’t jibe with their image of who they believed Nick should be, but satisfyingly, Arit hadn’t. He remained surprised, but Nick gave him credit for refusing to ignore the unexpected. “Near the end, Father gathered tribal elders to negotiate the duties of a rudimentary parliament, but infighting and jockeying for power stretched the process out too long.”

  “Benjic left my dad before the revolution.” Arit exhaled a prolonged breath, his shoulders sagging. “He must have played a part in the political turmoil.”

  Of that, Nick entertained no doubts, but he only hummed vague assent. At the top of the stairs, Arit marched down a hallway. Beside him, Nick allowed his attention to wander to open doors, noting at which room Rolan and Lydia’s scent lingered the strongest. He and Arit moved around trunks and suitcases to continue to twin doors marking the end of the corridor. Arit reached for the doorknob. He pushed both doors wide.

  “The imperial suite,” he said as he ushered Nick inside.

  If the rest of the resort was plush, this set of rooms was its crowning jewel. Nick hadn’t imagined such luxury outside the capitol, but Arit had cultivated the
same sense of wealthy excess, from the mosaic pattern of tiles embedded in the entry’s richly burnished oak floor to elegant tapestries at least as old as Nick, if not older, gracing the walls. As the name of the suite suggested, the furnishings were in the imperial style, built from carved redwood common in the palaces that had been ransacked near the capitol and upholstered with intricately embroidered cushions. Some showed wear. Nick didn’t recognize any of the pieces, but he and his siblings had stuck to the private quarters in each of the palaces. He wouldn’t have been as familiar with the grander furnishings displayed in public areas. Still, the antique couch, wingback chairs, footstool, and secretary’s desk had almost certainly been spoils of war from the rebellion. Nick’s sisters might have stitched the intricate designs on any of the pillows.

  Nick hated all of it.

  Heavy velvet drapes had been pulled away from picture windows with jeweled tiebacks, but the emeralds and rubies didn’t catch his attention as much as the mountains beyond, scarcely concealed behind a layer of wispy sheers. Nick still walked to the window, lifting a hand to nudge the lace aside. The Urals rose majestically into gray clouds promising rain or possibly snow at this elevation. Rocky crags interrupted the heights, green trees and brush thinning as the mountains climbed higher and higher. The unrelenting gray rock at the top melting into the storm caught Nick’s breath. “Beautiful,” he finally said.

  Arit studied him with narrowed eyes, his jaw tipped at a curious angle. “Benjic sent much of what you see in this suite after the war ended. According to him, the furniture came from the Crystal Palace in the south while the art and tapestries originated in the capitol itself.”

  Shrugging, Nick bent closer to the glass to peer up the mountainside. “He said you’d added an upper camp. How far is it?” He squinted, trying to spot snow on the ground. “I’d like to see the camp, weather permitting, as soon as practicable.”

  Frowning, Arit focused first on Nick, then the posh suite, and then back to Nick. “You don’t care, do you?”