The scent of his mate’s fear assaulted his sensitive nose and Tobias’ movements stopped as he watched her clutching the grass around her, her face pale from fear. God, what must I look like? No wonder she’s afraid of me. I just killed someone and she was there to see it. She has such a kind heart; she’s probably terrified. I shouldn’t be here. Turning away from her, he was surprised to hear her voice calling to him.
“Tobias!” Just where does he think he’s going? “Tobias, come over here!” Is he hurt? Fear once again rushed through her. “Tobias please come here.”
Her pleas had him moving towards her and his surprise increased as she began to examine him, her eyes darting to and fro over his frame.
“Can you change back? I can’t see if you’re hurt because of all this fur.”
His body transformed back to his human form and she gasped at the deep bleeding furrows on his shoulder that stretched down to cut his chest. “You’re hurt,” she gasped, reaching forward, her hand hovering over the wound.
“I’ll heal,” he intoned, his mind still trying to understand her actions.
“Are you ok?”
“I told you, I’ll heal.”
“You don’t sound ok Tobias.”
“You’re afraid of me, I can smell your fear and I don’t like it.”
“Tobias I was scared for you not because of you and I was right to be, you’re bleeding.”
Hope flared within him. “You mean that you’re really not afraid of me?”
“I’m beginning to understand how your mind works, I might not see things from the same perspective as you but I know that you aren’t really a violent person. Wolfie on the other hand…” She raised a hand to cup his blood-spattered cheek, slightly surprised when he began to practically purr with contentment. “Wolfie isn’t a bad person, he just tends to overreact in situations like this. Besides our law isn’t the same as it is for humans.”
“Our law?” he questioned.
“I’m the Princess of the wolves remember, your people are my people too.”
“You don’t have to be dearest, you don’t have to be the Princess of the wolves anymore.”
“What are you talking about sweetheart?”
He groaned, desperate to pull her into his embrace but all too aware of the blood that covered his body. “This isn’t the first time you’ve been hurt because of my crown, first Lucinda and now Elijah. I’m a failure as a mate and so I’m willing to let you go.”
What are you saying idiot? his wolf snapped.
Ignoring the voice in his mind he continued. “You don’t have to stay with me.”
Her jaw dropped at his statement before her eyes narrowed in the beginnings of frustration. “Is that what you want Tobias? Do you want me to go? Don’t you love me anymore?”
“I love you more than anything.”
“Then why are you trying to get rid of me?”
“I’m doing this to protect you.”
“I don’t need protecting,” she snapped. “Bad things happen to people all the time Tobias, it’s no one’s fault least of all yours. If you want me to go because you don’t love me or care for me anymore then that’s one thing. But if you just want me to go because you think I’ll be safer away from you then I think you should know that people die from accidents everyday and they’re gone. Life isn’t safe no matter where you are, so you should live it to its fullest while you still can and I can’t imagine one more full than the life I want to live with you.”
“Dearest,” he groaned wanting nothing more than to take her words at face value and hold her close.
“Even if you tell me that you’re willing to let me go, I’m not going to let you go, ever. We’re mates remember?”
“Yes dearest, how could I ever forget that I have a mate as perfect as you? Mates should stay together.”
“Always?”
He pulled her close disregarding the blood that covered his body. “Always dearest.”
“I love you Tobias.”
“I love you too dearest, with everything that I am,” he whispered into her ear as his arms tightened their grip around her body.
Would you really have let her go? his wolf questioned.
Yes. I might even have left her alone for a full day before I went after her, but I’ll always find my way back to her side. She’s my mate and the better half of myself.
I told you I make good decisions, the wolf laughed.
Just this once lets say that you’re right even if we did have to wait two hundred years.
Yes, but now we have eternity.
Eternity? I like the idea of that.
Epilogue
A few weeks later
Lying against the soft sheets of the bed in their room, Alex watched through hooded eyes as Tobias walked in from the bathroom, his skin glistening with small droplets of water after his shower.
“So sweetheart, how does it feel to be King?”
He smiled at her, towelling the last drops of water from his body before approaching the bed and slipping between the sheets. “Not all that much different to how I felt when I was Prince.”
She turned to face him. “Yeah?”
“Well there is one small thing.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a relief to have finally gotten rid of my Council of advisors, I don’t need them anymore and after what happened when you went missing I’m glad. I don’t think I could stand the sight of them anymore. What about you, how does it feel to be Queen?”
She groaned at the reminder of her new position and the events that had led up to her acquiring it. The coronation ceremony had been a lesson in anxiety and had stressed her out more than she cared to let Tobias know. Conducted in front of every member of the clans, she hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that she would manage to embarrass herself somehow. The feeling was even worse as Tobias had surprised her by somehow managing to incorporate a traditional human wedding into a wolf King’s coronation. All eyes had been on her at that moment and she had barely managed to suppress the words of shock that threatened to spill from her mouth. Somehow she had managed to escape the two ceremonies unscathed, with her dignity still in tact and she was exceedingly glad that both events would only happen once in her lifetime. The Queen thing on the other hand… “That will take some getting used to but I think I’ll manage somehow. Your mum is still showing me the ropes.”
Yvonne had been a godsend in helping her learn exactly what it took to be Queen. The lessons, if she could call them that, weren’t as formal as she had thought they were going to be. However she should have expected something along the lines of informality, the wolves weren’t really very big on making too much of a fuss and the same thing seemed to apply to their treatment of royalty. When she had been Princess, she had seen that people respected both Yvonne and Thomas, but the respect was mutual. There wasn’t a single member of the clans that Yvonne couldn’t recognise on sight and she knew so much about everyone, that if Alex hadn’t known otherwise she would have suspected that she lived with each and everyone of them. That however wasn’t the case and that was the only downside she had found to being Queen, she was expected to know everybody. The meetings made her anxious and her stomach churned wildly when she had to meet new clan representatives, though she had recently discovered that the antics of her stomach couldn’t be blamed on just nerves alone.
“She’s not being too hard on you is she?”
“Don’t be silly. No one is being too hard on me. I’ve got you as a mate and they’re all too afraid of you to even come anywhere near me.” What an understatement that is.
After her disappearance Tobias had become almost like a second shadow, refusing to let her out of his sight. The constant proximity to him she could cope with, it was the threatening behaviour he exhibited to any one who so much as breathed the same air as she did that made her laugh. News travelled fast as it always did within the clans and once people had heard of Tobias’ brutal decimation of his cou
sin, people began to go out of their way to avoid her, lest they accidentally harm her and incur the wrath of their new King. It was at the very least odd to be treated as though one had the plague but Alex didn’t mind being able to avoid meeting lots of new people at once. There was no need to make excuses to avoid seeing people when they came up with such creative ideas all on their own. It wasn’t as though she were lonely, when she got sick of Tobias following her and sent him away, Ilyanna and Maria were always about to spend time with. Ryan was a little preoccupied at the moment and Sebastian…She groaned at the thought.
“It sort of makes the guards I assigned you redundant if they won’t go anywhere near you.” Tobias laughed.
“They’re a special case and they’re all lovely anyway. It’s still sort of weird to have them following me about though.”
“I’m not moving on this dearest, I reduced the guards down from ten to two. There’s no further I can go without getting rid of them all completely.”
“Well having ten guards was a bit ridiculous. Have you spoken to Amanda lately Tobias?”
“Yes, she’s settling in fine as her clan’s leader. She does keep reminding me that it is only temporary though. I think she keeps saying it more for her benefit than mine, so far she seems like an excellent leader. Honestly though I hadn’t thought that the two of you would become friends after all that happened.” His voice was low as he recalled the incident that had almost taken her from him and he unconsciously reached for her, touching her skin softly to reassure himself that she was fine.
“Why not?” Alex shrugged. “It isn’t as though she had anything to do with what happened with Elijah, I figure that she’s the one who suffered more out of the two of us. She actually had to live with him for the last hundred years, she deserves a medal for being able to do that. It does seem a bit unfair that she’s going to be alone for the rest of her life because of what that bastard did, all her dreams for a family are gone now.”
“That isn’t true. It is possible for her to seek human companionship if she should wish it. She may one day find a man that she falls in love with, she could build a family if she wanted to.”
“I guess, though I don’t think I’d want to. Can you imagine falling in love knowing that the one you loved was going to die while you lived on?”
Tobias chuckled, “She’d have to claim him as her own just like I did for you, he would share her lifespan and she his. The instinct doesn’t place the same restrictions on our females. Elijah never treated her the way he should, he never loved her and so the bonds between them are weak enough to overcome. His passing hasn’t seriously effected her. She would have to be very sure of her choice for if something happened to him, she would die, but she does have the choice.”
“Oh,” she replied inanely. “Tobias?” She murmured.
“What is it dearest?”
“What do you think is going to happen to Sebastian?”
“You shouldn’t worry too much about him dearest.”
“Do you think he’ll be alright?”
“Of course he’ll be fine. Everything is going to work out for him just as it did for me. Besides, we have more important things to be thinking about.” He pulled her close, before rolling atop her small frame caging her in with his body.
“Oh and what would those more important things be then?”
“Well I did my duty and ascended to the throne,” he began, lightly sprinkling kisses over her face.
“Yes you did.”
“My next duty as Prince will be to produce an heir and I think we should get in some practise.” He grinned before pressing his lips against hers.
I don’t think you’re going to need to worry about that one. She grinned in her mind. The doctors within the estate had confirmed it after Ilyanna insisted she go and see them about the near constant nausea she was experiencing. She had made them promise not to tell Tobias and was waiting for the perfect time to spring news of his impending parenthood on him.
His head shot back as the words floated through his mind. “Did I just hear you right?”
“I didn’t say anything.” She smiled, doing her utmost to appear innocent.
His head lowered and he breathed deeply, inhaling her scent. Well that explains why she smells slightly different. Pride filled him and he kissed her deeply. “You shouldn’t try and hide these things from your mate, we can tell. However, just because we didn’t need to try for this one, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t put in practise for the next one.”
“I can deal with that.” She smiled pulling his head back down to hers.
About the Author
Jennifer T. Alli lives in London and spends her days praying for sun. She adores hearing from her readers and can always be reached at [email protected]. For information on upcoming releases and contests visit her at: www.jennifertalli.wordpress.com. To take a look into her daily writing process then she can be found on twitter @jennyt82_
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