The Last Emperor

by Kari Gregg

  “What part of no do you fail to understand? Nick won’t marry your son.” Lydia jumped to her feet and shoved Benjic off the arm of the couch. “He doesn’t have to, and who says he wants to be your stupid tribe spokesman anyway?”

  “Lydia,” Nick said, warming at her instant defense and gladdened when Rolan, too, leapt to his feet beside her. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay,” Rolan and Arit snarled in unison.

  Swallowing down his amusement, Nick stood, and his heart skipped a beat when Arit immediately pushed to his feet to join him. Instinct won out. Every time. Rather than wallowing in yet another sign their mating heat could transform into something more than lust, Nick grabbed Lydia’s hand and gently pulled her away from Benjic. “You’re right. Trying to pressure me and Arit isn’t okay, but it doesn’t matter.” He sighed. “I won’t be their spokesman, so the price he demands I pay for it isn’t important.” He glared at Benjic. “I’m not buying what you’re selling. Neither is your son.”

  Flabbergasted, the elder gaped at him. “You don’t want to be crowned emperor?”

  “I won’t be your tool.” When Nick reached for Arit’s hand, his mate’s firm grip lightened the weight Nick carried every moment of every day of his harrowing return to the tribes. “We won’t be bribed. Or manipulated.”

  “No? You’re saying no.” Benjic scowled, his voice ringing with disbelief. “No to restoring the legacy of your bloodline. No to more status and authority than you’ve experienced since you were a boy. No to—”

  “Nick would never allow himself to become a puppet of your corrupt, power-hungry council,” Lydia said, tone cold and unyielding.

  His best friend knew him well. “She’s right. I wouldn’t and I won’t.”

  Arit stared at him, eyebrows raised quizzically. “You won’t?”

  Benjic glowered. “You don’t realize what you’re giving up. What you’re throwing away.”

  Nick begged to disagree. He knew precisely the future the elder and his cronies had doubtlessly laid out for him and he couldn’t be less interested. In remaining emperor? Yes. He desperately wanted to keep his throne, but not on Benjic’s terms…even when some of the elders’ terms coincided with what Nick increasingly suspected might be best for him, for the mate whose hand grasped his, and for the tribes. He wouldn’t sacrifice his integrity for the shallow mockery of a role the rebels plotted for him, not a chance. If nothing else, he owed his ancestors better than a bargain to hang on to flimsy scraps of feigned authority. His duty to his station and to his people required more.

  He smiled, furtively rubbing the bump of the locket beneath his shirt. “No thanks.”

  Chapter Eight

  Against his better judgment, Arit shuffled toward the imperial suite later that night. He’d tried to stay away. After the bombshell of Nick turning down the chance to hang on to his crown, Arit had left his guests with his capable staff in the hall to shift and run as his wolf. Sometimes reconnecting with his animal nature helped him process issues that perplexed him or, at the very least, gave him a release valve for the stress and pressure building inside him.

  He’d ranged the mountain, racing to the camp to check on his guides and beyond. Where the trees and vegetation thinned, and snow blanketed the rocky passes where the arctic blast of the wind burned his lungs, so high few shifters roamed or explored, Arit found the space to think.

  It hadn’t helped.

  The questions chasing him up the mountain had followed him back down it when the cold had finally settled into his bones and forced him to seek shelter. In the thrall of his mating heat, Arit had known he couldn’t rely on his wolfen instincts to unravel the mysteries that taunted him, but he’d hoped. Fruitlessly.

  His only shot at finding the answers lay beyond the imperial suite doors to which he walked with leaden feet and slumped shoulders. Goosebumps pebbled his skin, though he’d dragged clothes on as soon as he’d returned from his run. The warmer temperature of the lodge, set for the comfort of its lone human guest, should have slicked him with sweat, but he shivered instead. Anxiety screamed through him. As he stared at the sturdy doors of the suite, he knew there was nowhere else he would rather be, though.

  That was the problem. One of many.

  Maybe he’d discover a solution or two behind those doors.

  Heart thudding, Arit clenched his fingers to form a fist. He lifted it and knocked before he lost his nerve.

  “Come in, Arit.”

  Muffled through solid oak, the husky order lit Arit’s blood on fire and intensified his trembling. Swamped by his longing, he froze. Couldn’t move or whisper a word in reply.

  Emperor or not, Nick was still a shifter and one involved in their mating heat as intimately as Arit. He would’ve heard Arit’s thundering heartbeat, sensed his mate nearby, perhaps so attuned to Arit that Nick might’ve scented Arit’s arousal from within the suite. Arit didn’t know or especially care how Nick knew Arit stood in the hallway rather than someone—anyone—else. What mattered was the quiet plod of footsteps approaching and the turn of one of the doorknobs. The left side of the double doors cracked open. “It’s unlocked,” Nick said from the dark interior of the suite. “I told you to come in.”

  Arit shuddered anew.

  Nick’s inky silhouette retreated from the door he left gaping a few stingy inches, and with a little distance from his intended mate, Arit could breathe again. Bolstering his resolve, he walked into the suite. After shutting the door behind him, he marched to a floor lamp nearest the suite’s entrance. Claiming the piece had originated from the Crystal Palace, Benjic had sent the lamp from the capitol to Arit’s dad to add to Arit’s legacy when Arit was a roly-poly whelp. Like Arit’s relationship with his sire, the lamp was more decorative than functional, but the dim glow lit one corner of the suite which soothed Arit’s jagged nerves. He glanced around. The crown prince stood before the suite’s wide picture window looking out and onto the rear patio as well as the majestic mountains beyond. Narrower windows flanking the main one had been cranked open, and cold wind coming off the peaks cooled the suite, providing relief from the lodge’s overbearing heat.

  That hadn’t stopped Nick from stripping down to his boxers in the privacy of his rooms. Otherwise, only the locket gleamed at this throat. Arit’s hungry stare drank in bare shoulders taut with muscle and the broad expanse of his mate’s chest sprinkled with wisps of golden hair. Nick’s stomach didn’t boast the six-pack abs Arit’s did, but Nick made his living as a small business manager, not by the sweat of his brow as an adventure tour guide. Still flat, though, not an ounce of him softening around his middle. Lean hips capped long, toned legs. Arit’s pulse hum with avid interest at even the prince’s naked feet.

  Thankfully, Nick didn’t turn to him. Nick’s attention focused on the craggy mountain peaks revealed by the window, both the heavy drapes and lace sheers pushed aside and anchored out of the way by antique jeweled tiebacks. “My bloodline never built a palace in the Urals, but I visited frequently from the time I was too young to understand why Mother and Father would make cultivating my fondness for this particular territory a priority.” He splayed his fingers against the glass. “I missed this place. After.” He sighed, shoulders drooping. “Dad and Mom settled in the borderlands on the other side of the Urals, not far from where we stand. My home is probably no more than two or three days’ run from the town you probably trade with. My human parents chose to sink roots near the tribes after the war to soothe Rolan and I with an environment at least somewhat familiar to us, but…”

  It wasn’t the same. Having crossed the high places to smuggle goods to and from the lands of men, Arit had witnessed the evidence with his own eyes. Where the tribes ruled, the land was as wild as ever, but humans had developed their piece of the borderlands with McMansions and tourist traps that had given no consideration to preserving the natural resources Arit and his people prized. “You refer to the emperor and empress as Mother and Father.” Unable to resist, Ari
t crossed the casual seating area of the suite to join Nick at the windows. “But you call the humans who adopted you Mom and Dad.”

  “You caught that distinction, did you? I’m not surprised. You’re exceptionally perceptive.” The corners of Nick’s full, ripe lips curved. “Eton and Olina loved their children, but as rulers, they owed their first allegiance and duty to the tribes. We children were the same. Any of us would have sacrificed everything for our people.” He huffed a laugh. “I suppose we proved we valued the tribes higher than our lives, in the end.”

  “I wondered. Many have.” Unwelcome arousal seeped into Arit, warming him against a hardy gust that blew through the windows. “You could have escaped.”

  “If we’d only cared about surviving, we would have tried, yes, and some of us likely would have succeeded, but for what purpose? To continue in luxurious if helpless exile while the tribes suffered?” Nick snorted, spiking Arit’s frustration when Nick yet again displayed his nervous tic of reaching for the mysterious locket. “When the rebels claimed they wanted peace with the White Army, insisted sharing power was their singular ambition, we believed them. To our ruin, we hoped. Eton and Olina risked much for the sake of our people, and we all lost their bet. They were my parents, though. I loved them. I still do.”

  Arit nodded. “The humans who rescued you wouldn’t have gambled your lives?”

  “Every decision the Goodes made was dictated by whatever they believed would keep me and my brother safe, healthy, and happy.” For the first time since Arit entered the suite, Nick glanced at him. “Paul and Rosalind weren’t royalty, of course. They enjoyed freedoms Eton and Olina hardly dared imagine.”

  “You loved the humans who fostered you.”

  “They didn’t foster me. They raised me. Protected me. Taught me a different way to live and to be a better man.” Nick shrugged. “Paul and Rosalind Goode were parents to me, as my birth parents could never be.”

  The puzzle of the crown prince’s affection for the humans, honoring them alongside the empress and emperor who’d birthed him into monarchy, was in part what had compelled him to seek out Nick. Despite the countless reasons coming to the imperial suite was an unnecessary and stupid risk, Arit stood next to Nick because Arit must know, had to ask. “You rejected Benjic’s offer to retain the throne. Why?” He fidgeted. “Was it because of them? Your humans?”

  “You suspect I love my human parents more than the family of my birth.” Frowning, Nick rubbed his thumb over the locket. “Is that the gossip circling the tribe? The suggestion I might betray my people because I love my adopted parents too well?”

  He had wondered, and Arit wasn’t the only one. Did Nick love his humans enough to give up an empire? “Do you?”

  “Love isn’t a finite quantity.” Nick chuckled. “It isn’t pie. When I gave my adopted parents a slice, that didn’t mean there was less remaining for the parents I lost.”

  Frustrated at the prince’s shallow platitudes, Arit shoved his hands into his front pockets, which made grabbing Nick less tempting at least. “Then why? Why give up your throne if not for love of your humans and the life you built among them?”

  “I’m proud of my adopted family and what we, together, have achieved. No matter what happens during my visit with the tribes, never mistake that.” Nick turned to face Arit, mirroring Arit’s pose by perching his hands on his hips. “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for Rosalind Goode or my brother. I grieved the loss of my second father, Paul, as deeply as I mourned the murders of Eton, Olina, and my brothers and sisters.” He bunched and unbunched his shoulders. “I fell into the business after college, while I was still struggling with what I wanted to do with the shiny new marketing degree I’d earned, but when Mom invited me to buy into The Stitchery as an equal partner, I snatched the opportunity with both hands.” His stare swept the dim suite. “You joined your family business, too.”

  “I did.” Arit hadn’t meant to work for the resort his dad had founded, couldn’t have been less interested in the lodge while he was growing up, although he’d served guests and learned to be a trail guide from his dad to keep the place running as he’d matured. At various times in his life, like every other shifter he’d grown up with, he’d dreamed of becoming a cop, a soldier, a healer, a pro athlete, and a rock star. He hadn’t cared about Shifter Frontiers and the ancestral lands his absentee sire had bequeathed to him…until, suddenly, strengthening the business was all Arit could see, hear, touch, or taste. He’d worked tirelessly since to build and expand the resort into the thriving adventure tour the business was today.

  Every generation resisted, but in the end, shifters continued whatever trade his or her bloodline excelled in once they reached adulthood. Part of it was innate devotion to family that was genetically programmed into shifter DNA. Benjic was an oddity because he’d left his home for the capitol, but he’d still bent to the call of his blood because, until his premature death in a hunting accident when Benjic was a boy, Benjic’s father had led the Ural tribe as high alpha. That’s how life worked in the tribes, avocation bred into every shifter’s bones at birth. Parents encouraged talents catering to a bloodline’s profession and sharpened supporting skills in their young as a blade on a whetstone. Arit’s dad had left the inn his family had kept in operation for hundreds of winters to mate Benjic, true, but to do what? Open his own hotel. Blood called to blood. Always. Builders begat builders. Pack enforcers begat the next generation’s policemen and -women.

  And political leaders begat other politicians. “My dad’s clan are innkeepers.” Arit slid his hand from one pocket and patted his chest. “Their blood fills my veins, Dad’s influence on me strongest and far surpassing Benjic’s—I became an innkeeper, too.” He gestured at the suite around them. “Shifter Frontiers is a different sort of hotel, but I’m an innkeeper just the same.” Hs frowned at Nick. “Your parents ruled an empire.”

  “Did you ever want to be something else? Do something else?”

  Arit blinked at him. “What?”

  “When I was the emperor’s son, I pestered our cook, Kaya, to teach me what she knew. My destiny was to become a prince of the Urals, but I loved the smells in the kitchen, the chopping, curing meats, and selecting ingredients to flavor our meals.”

  “You like cooking?” Confusion whirled inside Arit. “Everyone cooks, else we’d starve.” He tapped his temple. “Only some of us are born with the intelligence and talent to lead.” He halted the motion of his finger. “You have the gift. I’ve seen you wield it.”

  “That isn’t the point.” Nick jerked a stiff shoulder. “As a child, I desperately wanted to create the delicious meals Kaya regularly produced in our kitchens, but I could only learn from her if we were sneaky and when I convinced her that I’d completed my training for my fate in the Urals to the best of my abilities. I was heavily discouraged from pursuing my interest in cooking otherwise, including by Kaya.”

  “You didn’t become a chef in the lands of men, though.” Arit narrowed his eyes on him.

  Nick growled in frustration. “My career interests changed as I grew, but what matters is my adopted parents allowed me to develop whatever talents I chose. My lineage no longer defined who I was and what I would become. I decided, not my bloodline.” He sighed. “One more way the rebellion failed the tribes. The circumstances of birth still determine who each shifter must be.”

  Irritation blossomed inside Arit. “You forget we are linked by virtue of our mating heat. You want to rule. I grasp your desire to lead as readily as I sense how good you would be at governing if given the chance. I feel it strongly in you because the gift to rule is in your blood. Yet you rejected Benjic’s offer.” He scowled at Nick. “Ostensibly, to run a yarn shop.”

  “I’ll compare the Stitchery’s profit and loss statement with yours anytime.” Nick smirked.

  “I’ve no doubts you are a successful manager, but being a good businessman doesn’t change the fact you were never meant to run a business.” Arit squared his sho
ulders. “You were born to lead a tribe. This tribe.”

  Amusement glimmered in Nick’s eyes. “I was born to marry well and trained from birth to support my future husband—who was to be the high alpha of the Urals, not me.”

  “I’m the only one of Benjic’s children who hasn’t mated and I’m no high alpha. Harr is probably the closest of his children to fit the bill, except Harr has never set foot in the Urals and rose to power in his mate’s tribe instead.” Arit stiffened his spine. “I’m happier as an innkeeper. By process of elimination, you’re stuck with leading.” He glared. “But you tossed it away. What for, if not for love of your human parents? To prove some ridiculous argument against our tradition of inherited professions?”

  “I threw away nothing. Because nothing is what your sire offered me.” Nick grimaced, handsome features twisting with displeasure. “I would retain my title and my crown, but why? To lead the people? To affect change and make life better for the tribes?” He hissed out a frustrated breath. “Benjic wants only to continue his farce of a PR stunt, one I agreed to tolerate in exchange for decently burying my birth family. I won’t prolong his mockery of everything they died for a moment longer than arranging their memorial requires.”

  “You’re giving up…to squander the rest of your life running a yarn shop.” Arit couldn’t stand it anymore. He reached for Nick, fingers digging into the warm skin of his biceps. “Benjic would not have suggested you could hang on to the throne if other elders weren’t likewise sympathetic to the cause, and Goddess knows you’ve won over the peasantry despite your bizarre ideas about humans mating with shifters and what jobs we should work.”