by Grady, D. R.
Julia’s fingers trembled as she shakily attached the teardrop shaped earrings to her lobes. Giselle fastened the bracelet around her wrist and the women stepped back to admire each other. Julia noticed that Giselle’s jewelry matched the tiara she wore and was as exquisite as the bride herself.
“You’re gorgeous,” they said together and then Lila arrived. Together the women picked up their bouquets, and Julia hastily pinned Lila’s arrangement to her lapel before they all left.
The wedding was to take place in the ballroom of the palace. From there, they would shift to the Summer House for the reception, a home she hadn’t noticed before. Mallen informed her that they used the building only occasionally these days. It had been established for visiting royalty who wished some peace and quiet away from the activity of the palace.
Lila told her later that before his father had been taken, Mallen lived there, but he moved back into the palace after his father’s disappearance. She further stated that the Summer House was actually the official residence of the King’s son or the dowager queen.
She had just enough time to kiss Annie and Jared hello and goodbye before being swept into a ballroom anteroom to await the start of the wedding. Jared and Annie popped into the little room for a quick visit, so the four of them sat down for a cozy chat. Annie’s belly barely showed, but if you knew her, her pregnancy was evident. Giselle and Julia fussed over her, and Julia teased Jared. Soon, even her brother and sister-in-law had to leave to be seated, so they lost that distraction.
When the time came for her to walk down the aisle, Julia looked for and easily located Mallen. Their eyes locked and she kept her eyes on him as she progressed to the gorgeous flower entwined arch that had been erected for the wedding. Her breath stalled as she drank in Mallen’s magnificence.
Finally she reached the front and took her place, smiling when Mallen winked at her. She smiled at Stefen who looked so happy, tears welled in her eyes. They turned to watch Giselle glide down the aisle. The bride held onto her mother’s arm. Lila pushed Hugo in a wheelchair and together, the three made their way to where Stefen, Mallen, and she waited with the magistrate who would marry them.
The tears that welled in her eyes fell unashamedly as she soaked in Giselle’s beautiful happiness. The bride had wanted so badly for her father to be at her wedding, and Julia was heartened to see that he appeared lucid. She caught sight of Jenna slipping from the pew where she sat with their family to move to the bench where Lila and Hugo would be seated after they gave their daughter to Stefen.
“Who gives this woman to this man?” the magistrate intoned.
“We do,” Lila and Hugo replied together, holding hands.
“And upon whose authority is she given?”
Here, Hugo would normally have answered, however, given his condition, instead, Mallen stepped forward.
“I, Mallen Hugh Bridges Saltaire, King of Sandovia, add my blessing to this union,” he said calmly, with power. Julia smiled as her happy tears fell unheeded. What an incredible day.
The ceremony took nearly an hour, mostly because of the pomp and circumstance due to Giselle’s place in the royal family. She informed Julia that Mallen shortened the service as much as possible, but they would still have to endure.
Julia spent some time looking at her family. She waved minutely, and was rewarded with their smiles. Jared and Annie, her parents, and Jenna seated with Hugo and Lila lent an air of unreality to the day. She couldn’t be happier to have them here.
To be able to share this special place and these wonderful people with those who meant so much to her was a privilege. The knowledge that Damon and Emmy were on the verge of divorce did diminish the bubble of happiness. But this wasn’t Damon and Emmy’s day and with force she removed the memory of their wedding from her immediate consciousness. Right now, she needed to concentrate on Stefen and Giselle’s day.
A sea of happy faces in the crowd was testament to the people of Sandovia. Every available space was jammed with someone. No one seemed upset at being wedged into the space and they all appeared pleased for the happy couple. Julia couldn’t imagine Giselle not understanding how these people loved her. Of course, the ditz had only just realized the depth of Stefen’s love, so Julia concluded Giselle Saltaire Bannette did not possess a big ego.
Finally, the ceremony ended and the glowing bride and groom kissed with passion and love, were pronounced man and wife, and exited up the aisle. In a custom alien to Julia, but one she thought she might adopt, Giselle and Stefen entered another room in the palace while they waited for their guests to return to the main rooms where those invited would pass the picture taking time mingling.
After a speedy, but thorough round of photographs, the guests all lined up on the Summer House steps and as Giselle and Stefen passed to the reception area, they blew bubbles on the happy couple.
The bubbles intended for the bride and groom landed on her and Mallen, too, as they would help form the receiving line and were directly behind Giselle and Stefen. Julia clung to Mallen’s hand as they hurried up the stairs. It was wonderful to have him hurrying by her side, laughing with her, sharing in the joy of the day.
The guests passed through the large double doors and into the smaller ballroom of the Summer House. Each took a bit of time to offer their congratulations to the newlyweds and made sly innuendoes as to when Mallen and Julia planned to take the same step. Something Julia herself would have dearly loved to know. It was difficult not to imagine one’s own future in the midst of a wedding, but with people alluding to things she wanted but might not get, the questions weren’t helping her nerves.
Fortunately, since it was cold, those guests still on the steps helped push the others through, so no one lingered too long. Julia was delighted that she knew many of the faces. From palace help, to those she’d met at various parties, to still others she recognized as relatives, she knew their faces if not their names.
As Giselle had warned, the weighty tiara began to grow a massive headache, so with relief she slipped the heavy headwear into Michaela’s hands when that lady came through to offer her congratulations. She noticed Giselle followed suit with Simone and they shared a smile of sympathy in between guests. Not that she would say no to ever wearing one again, but she suspected a woman needed to build up a tolerance before she was fully comfortable with tiara weight and wearing jewels that were expensive family heirlooms.
By the time the line had dwindled and the wedding party seated, everyone was ready to eat. Each course was exquisitely prepared, and Julia enjoyed the meal. She glanced around the room, amazed at how much this smaller manor resembled the palace. She could see the home would make a splendid residence, and couldn’t fathom how she had missed the building in the time she lived in Sandovia.
After Giselle and Stefen cut their cake, the guests wandered through the manor, visiting and chatting. She herself felt pulled to the sweeping open terrace at the back. Mallen followed and explained the three hundred foot drop from the railing was a safety precaution.
“An enemy could sneak up on visiting royalty or dignitaries, but we just shoved them off the railing if they were stupid enough to scale the wall. Of course, the view is also spectacular from here,” Mallen added, and she had to agree. Dappled blue-gray water stretched as far as the eye could see. Birds swooped and cried to one another as the sun tickled the water into playful waves.
Eventually, she and Mallen ended up closer to the terrace doors than the railing. So they weren’t near enough to push the intruders into the sea when without warning, a familiar, unwanted figure appeared to ruin the romantic, loving atmosphere of Stefen and Giselle’s wedding.
Eyes wild and demented, George leaped off the stone balustrade and into the reception. Julia heard two growls, as though in surround sound, one from her left, the other from her right. Sebastian stalked from her left, in all his feline glory, with predatory grace toward George. From her right, Mallen wore the most dangerous look she had ever seen. He calmed his pet with a quick
, “Sebastian, no,” but Julia saw the sinewy muscles bunch in protest as the cat fought the battle of instinct versus training.
She didn’t fight anything. With the assured realization that George wouldn’t hurt her ever again, she crossed the broad veranda and stood up to him. That tender plant that had started from the minuscule seed the Saltaires had helped nurture now burst into full and vivid life as her confidence level tipped into the full zone.
Julia sent Mallen a look that she hoped he understood. She needed to do this on her own first. She appreciated that he stood at her back, though.
“You weren’t invited,” she told her ex-boyfriend calmly but with bubbling menace.
“You slut, you ruined everything. You’re coming with me,” George burst out and Julia only then noticed the knife, gleaming sharply in the afternoon sun.
“I don’t think so. The only place you’re going is a nice drafty prison cell.”
He reached out again, to grab her arm, and she realized he wasn’t listening to her. Whether he was beyond that or not, she didn’t now. Instinct took over and Julia kicked, her high-heeled foot nailing the soft flesh of his stomach. Without thinking, she aimed another blow to his chin, which snapped his head back with sickening precision. She didn’t feel the knife slice her flesh, and wouldn’t have cared if she had. George would never, ever intimidate or harm her again. She was free of him.
With an open palm, Julia placed a well-executed chop to the back of George’s neck, and with a cry, he plunged forward. He reached out a fist and caught her in the ribs, and the blow hurt but lacked power. He hit the stone terrace with a satisfying crunch.
A flurry of activity in the corner snagged her attention and Julia watched with horror as a man she had never seen before, but heard Giselle breathe, “Malcolm” with disgust, leapt from the same balustrade George had. In his hand he carried a powerful looking handgun, one he waved at them.
“Time’s up, Saltaire,” he claimed with malicious glee.
She was only vaguely aware of George stirring at her feet. Her eyes were focused on the vile monster waving his small, but deadly weapon, straight at Mallen. Her heart plunged to her toes before zooming to lodge in her throat.
After that the reception became a blur. A streak of cream rushed past her, the bride, tackling the menace with the gun. She snarled something like, “Thanks for making my day, Malcolm,” and took the man down before he could aim directly at Mallen.
As the palace guards rushed onto the terrace, Malcolm managed to fire the gun, but the shot went wild and instead hit the fancy stone working high on the wall above Mallen. The bullet severed a heavy piece of stone, which crashed with alarming accuracy into Mallen’s skull. Julia’s self-proclaimed protector crumpled, his massive body smacking the stone floor with a near crash.
She gasped at the same time she bounded to his side, leaving George to his own fate. On her knees beside Mallen’s inert figure, Julia heard a high-pitched scream. Looking up in time only to see Giselle overshoot the tackle and the man she attempted to take down went, not on the stone terrace with her, but instead hurtled over the side of the banister. He screamed again, the sound echoing as death reached for him.
The wedding guests watched in wide-eyed horror as the man plummeted several hundred feet into the lake. The swirling waters, as though sensing supper, seemed to reach up and snatch the man from the air. Although there could be no doubt of surviving such a fall, the waves appeared playful and dashed the already broken body of Simon Malcolm against the sheer, stone cliff wall. Once, twice, thrice, and then once more before pulling the body beneath the surface. The waters emitted a soft hiccup or perhaps a polite burp before innocently splashing against the cliff face. It resumed the rhythmic, melodious clash of water against stone.
The silence was extra loud after the earlier chaos.
By this time, George lumbered to his feet, either not aware, or uncaring of his friend’s fate. He scanned the crowd for Julia, and upon finding her clumped toward her. The look in his eyes scared Julia as no other. He looked like a man who had left reality far behind and now lived in the realm of his own creation. She hadn’t really looked into his eyes before now. Her focus had been in severing ties with him and his hold over her.
He took another step toward her until a menacing growl caught his attention. The murder and hatred drained from George’s face as he took in the cat. Four hundred pounds of angry, dangerous muscle, razor sharp teeth, and vicious claws stared back at him.
Predator’s eyes met predator’s eyes, assessing one another. And the feline apparently found the human lacking, and therefore expendable. With a growl of deadly intent, Sebastian’s muscles bunched before he leapt, as instinct overcame training.
George A. Chalmers III was dead before he hit the stone veranda, a gaping hole where his throat had once been. He never even had a chance to cry out, so fast had Sebastian been in dispensing justice.
Giselle, barely the worse for wear after her part in the action, stroked Sebastian. Julia’s mind had ceased to function as she looked down at the unconscious man before her. Blood flowed freely from the wound on Mallen’s head and Julia finally noticed Jenna crouched beside him, capably working to staunch the blood flow and assess his condition.
Palace guards quickly removed George’s body. Another guard calmly turned on a garden hose and washed George’s life blood into the hungry lake, then turned the hose on Sebastian, where the cat needed no coaxing to open his mouth. The guard blandly moved the hose around in Sebastian’s mouth, rinsing George’s vileness from the victorious predator’s deadly teeth. The guard grinned at Sebastian.
“You like to eat people food, ‘Bastian, but we’re all sure glad you don’t like to eat people.”
Many of the guests smiled at the guard’s remark and several wandered over to pat Sebastian. None of the Sandovians seemed alarmed or reviled by the big cat’s behavior.
Julia held Mallen in a death grip, as she watched her cousin work. She wasn’t aware of Giselle’s tug on her arm until the bride nearly picked her up. But she rose obediently to her feet. Giselle hauled her into a hug, then pushed a stray curl behind Julia’s ear.
“Do not fear for my brother. He has a very hard head, my friend. He’ll have a sore disposition on the morrow, I’m certain, but he’ll be fine, nonetheless.”
“How can you be certain?”
“He’s not bleeding nearly as badly as the time when I brained him with a stone planter Mother kept in the courtyard. I actually feared I killed him that day,” Giselle admitted with a sigh.
“You broke that planter, didn’t you?” Stefen mused, as he joined the conversation.
“Yes, she did. Giselle wasn’t the only one concerned she’d killed Mallen, either. I thought for sure he was gone.” Lila touched her son with a shaking hand. “However, he was planning retribution all too soon. He does have a hard head.”
“I doubt he’ll even be concussed.” Giselle sniffed. “I hit him harder than that.”
Julia was aware that they all tried to calm her, but her mind swirled with chaotic thoughts and emotions of the magnitude of a mental hurricane. She braved a smile for them, trying to relay how she appreciated their efforts. A warm, furry head knocked against her hand and Julia sank to her knees as she took the big cat into her arms. “I’m sorry for what you had to do today, Sebastian, but thank you for protecting me.”
Sebastian let out a small, “Meeooo” for her, a sort of “you’re welcome” and she gathered him close for another hug. By this time, her parents, who had been inside on the far end of the ballroom and only just learned of the events on the terrace, arrived. Both took her into their arms, and then patted Sebastian with appreciation. Sebastian reveled in their praise, accepting their thanks as his due.
Jenna rose to her feet then and began directing palace personnel to gently lift Mallen onto a stretcher and take him to his room. She hurried to Julia, where she hugged her cousin. “Julia, he’ll be fine,” she reassured. “Mallen doesn
’t strike me as the type to be felled so easily by a piece of stone.”
Her mother tugged gently on Julia’s arm and she, tired now, followed. Helen helped her strip out of her gown and Julia shooed her away. “Go back to Dad,” Julia requested quietly. She needed some time alone.
Helen did as she was bid, but Julia could tell she hesitated. “I’ll be fine. Sebastian is with me, and there’s no need to worry.”
“Dear, you are aware that your father and I need to leave tonight?” Her mother asked anxiously. They had to be back for a hastily scheduled meeting her father was expected to attend.
“I know, Mom, I remember. I’ll be fine. It’s Mallen I’m worried about.”
“Yes, I can see that.”
“I just need some time.”
Her parents both hugged her and said goodbye, as they had to catch a late flight.
Jenna breezed in, insisting she needed to see Julia’s knife wound. She remained calm as her cousin stitched her up.
Once she was finally alone, Julia gave way to her shaky emotions. She cried for Mallen, and for George, the ex-boyfriend who’d been killed by her protective shadow. A man who so lost himself he murdered his own mother. And then come after her.
She didn’t understand what had made him snap, but she wouldn’t have chosen death for him. Sebastian had done his duty and protected her. She wondered briefly if Sebastian had killed George because with his predatory, animal instincts, he hadn’t recognized a human, but the monster lurking inside. Had George sold his soul after killing his mother and that poor unidentified man?
Not all of the times she and George shared had been bad ones, only the last few months had been truly intolerable. Julia still didn’t understand what he wanted but she did understand what he’d lost. She cried for his losses. And for the family who lost Celeste and gained Hugo, still not certain whether he would live although all the signs were hopeful.
Once her tears finally quieted, she began to feel the effects of the knife George had wielded. Fire lanced through her injuries and she struggled to block the pain. Jenna had given her painkillers and Julia finally relented and took a dose.