The Big, Bad Wolves [Mischievous Fairy Tales 2] (Siren Publishing Menage Amour)
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Mischievous Fairy Tales 2
The Big, Bad Wolves
In only moment a life can change. His did the night he saved the young Princess from certain death. In that very moment though his own life was forever altered, and Michael knew it was better to move on than to wallow in a world not meant for him any longer.
Rissa Baker may be the Princess and future Queen, but without a King to stand at her side it all means nothing. Especially if that King isn’t Michael. Surrounded by her guard, Gabriel and Raphael at the head of it, she sets off to tend to her duty.
A chance meeting that isn’t quite so chance gives Gabriel and Raphael the opportunity not only to reunite with Michael but to pull him back into the life he never should have left behind and into the arms of the woman they have, and always will, love. Times are changing, death is coming, and it will take all three to keep her safe.
Genre: Contemporary, Fairy Tales/Myths, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Paranormal, Vampires/Werewolves
Length: 79,892 words
THE BIG, BAD WOLVES
Mischievous Fairy Tales 2
Honor James
MENAGE AMOUR
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Amour
THE BIG, BAD WOLVES
Copyright © 2014 by Honor James
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62741-449-4
First E-book Publication: April 2014
Cover design by Harris Channing
All art and logo copyright © 2014 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
Letter to Readers
Dear Readers,
If you have purchased this copy of The Big, Bad Wolves by Honor James from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.
Regarding E-book Piracy
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This is Honor James’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. James’s right to earn a living from her work.
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DEDICATION
I would like to dedicate this book to my best friend. To the woman who is always there on the other side of the phone when I am working through a problem with writing. The one that picks me up when I fall down and reminds me that writing is a full-time learning experience. It is a career just like any other. We practice and learn with every single book that we write. Thank you for being there with me and for me. Thank you for being you. You rock. I couldn’t do this without your support. Also, thank you for letting me borrow your laptop when I’m looking for a quiet place to edit and write outside of the chaos of my normal daily routine. You are a Goddess!
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
About the Author
THE BIG, BAD WOLVES
Mischievous Fairy Tales 2
HONOR JAMES
Copyright © 2014
Prologue
He’d given it his all. His life’s blood, his every waking moment, and sometimes he believed he’d even given his sanity. All to protect one precocious little girl. Not that he regretted much about that time. His life had meant something then.
Now all he had were four walls, the forest around him and, if he was truly blessed that day, no pain. Sometimes he thought about what he would do if he could go back to that moment. The moment when a man had tried to kill the little girl he was charged with protecting. Could he have done differently, or would the outcome been worse, better, the same?
All he knew was that she’d been safe. He’d been forever scarred and was now forever reviled.
At first, right after the incident, he’d not thought on it. He was a hero. The man who had saved the sweet Princess. The King and Queen had been grateful, overflowing with words of praise and pleasure. For a time he’d been waited on hand and foot, but that had grown old for him fast. He was a man of action, not one to sit on his ass when he could be doing.
He’d returned to the job, protecting the Princess who had been shaken, greatly shaken by the attack. No one had blinked twice at the badges of honor he carried so clearly on his visage and some which were well hidden under his uniform. No, he’d saved their Princess, their future Queen, and that was all they cared about.
Until it all changed in one moment, one blink of an eye, and all because of some spoiled, obnoxious little Prince who thought he was God’s gift unto the world. The words he’d spewed from his mouth had been vile, especially for a boy barely twelve summers of age, words that even a seasoned warrior would never utter in mixed company. His parents had been mortified, as had the rest of those assembled, but it was the look in the young Princess’s eyes that would forever haunt his days.
That very night he’d tendered his resignation with a letter left on the King’s desk. He’d left without a word, taken only those belongings that were his, and left his life, his uniform, and all that he’d gained behind him. Forever.
Or so he’d tho
ught.
Many weeks prior—two, ten, he could no longer keep track—he’d found himself in her path once more. She’d been in danger, and as before, he’d been helpless to do anything but help. He’d saved her and she’d wanted his name, but he’d just shaken his head and left, not a word slipping past his lips.
She’d been even more beautiful than he could have believed. Elegant, even in her disheveled appearance from the impromptu rescue. Sweet, kind, and worried for the mere scratch he’d received because he’d been distracted by her. Not that he could blame her. It wasn’t her fault she appeared as an angel fallen from the very Heavens. No, he should have been paying attention instead of staring at her perfection.
Shaking his head, he pushed to his feet. She was gone. She was part of the past, a part that would have to remain in the past. While he willingly had chosen to live a life barren of all comforts, she wasn’t and could never be a part of that life. No, she was a treasure and one that should have been better guarded. Had he still been Captain of the Guard, there was no way those ruffians would have gotten as close as they had.
He didn’t know who was running things at the palace any longer, but whoever it was, was indeed the greatest fool. Sending but two guards with the Princess, even within the realm of her father, was stupidity at its finest. All that could have happened to her still circled his mind, his heart and pulse racing at a mad rate. He didn’t want to think of what could have happened to that precious blossom. Unfortunately, she’d never been far from his thoughts since he’d left, and now, after the incident, she would haunt him forevermore.
Chapter One
Time was one of those things that was subjective. You either were in the moment, or you weren’t. With time you sometimes also wished that you were able to turn it back, that you were able to simply move back in time to a better day. Today was one of those days for her.
Looking at the basket in her hands, Rissa shivered and licked her lips. It wasn’t possible. Gripping her hands time and again, she simply knew that she would wake up and time would be reversed. She would wake up from this nightmare and things would be where they should be. She would wake up and her parents would be alive. She wouldn’t be going to her grandmother’s, a woman she barely knew. No, time would return back to her sitting at her mother’s feet, listening to her humming as she sewed up a shirt of her father’s or something. It had to happen, it had to be.
“I am sorry for your loss, Lady Baker, but your parents had express concerns and directions for what was to happen to you if they passed before your majority.”
“Thank you, Mr. Spaulding,” she murmured and clenched the basket in her fingers again.
“Your grandmother is waiting for you. Her home is one hundred miles into the forest.” The man shifted from foot to foot as he spoke. “I would come with you. However, I do have other duties I need to attend to. There is a carriage awaiting you however.”
“Thank you, Mr. Spaulding,” she said again. “I really do appreciate it. My parents would have ensured that everything was taken care of.” It was simply how her parents were. They would have ensured that every eventuality was seen to.
“Yes, they were amazing people. Lord and Lady Baker were very amazing people. They were giving and kind and ensured that everyone in their care was well taken care of. You, my dear, are now a very, very well heeled young lady. The estate left to you by your father was immense, but the one left by your mother was even more so. Until you and your grandmother have chosen a new firm, I will watch out for your interests.”
“Thank you, Mr. Spaulding.” Rissa kept repeating the same things over and over again. However, she couldn’t seem to be able to come up with anything else. She couldn’t seem to think of anything other than the very basics, because she was still more or less in shock. Her parents’ bodies had only recently been entombed, and all she had left was her mother’s sewing basket, which she held clutched in her hands now. The money didn’t matter, the money never mattered, not when it was her parents she wanted back in her life again. She was twenty-one, she was an adult in the eyes of the law and her peers but at that moment, she felt like a small child. At the moment Rissa felt as if she were about to fall apart, all because she had lost the two most important people in her life.
“Being at your advanced age, we, of course, understand that you wish to withdraw from society for the duration of your mourning period.”
Advanced age, that was something that she had to keep her mouth shut about. She was not “advanced” in her age. She was honestly just a girl. She was honestly just barely beginning to live, and now with the death of her parents, she would be shut off into her grandmother’s home and what little living she had done would be no more.
“As I said, the carriage will be waiting for you. There are guards that will travel with you as well. You should be at your grandmother’s before the nightfall.”
“Thank you for ensuring that I will make it there safe.”
“Of course, Lady Baker. You are now my client, just as your parents before you. Do not worry. You will be safe in my hands.”
“I’m sure that I will,” she murmured quietly. “Again, thank you for ensuring that I have safe passage through the woods to my grandmother’s. I have heard tales of all sorts.”
“Do not believe them, Lady Baker. The tales are simply that, tales. Fiction. Do you truly believe that, in our day and time, there are such things as man-beasts? Ridiculous notion, truly,” Mr. Spaulding stated simply.
“Of course.” Rissa knew something that he didn’t, however. The man-beasts, as he called them, were real. She knew that they were because she was positive that she had seen one before. She was certain that she had one that had saved her life on the night her parents were murdered.
“Good-bye, Mr. Spaulding,” Rissa stated softly. “Until we meet again.”
“Of course, Lady Baker, and please, do not hesitate should you need my help.”
“Of course,” she murmured quietly. Gathering her red cloak tighter around her body, she wrapped a stray strand of her ruby-red hair behind her ear once more. Without another word, she walked toward the waiting carriage and the men that were likely going to be her guardians until she was behind her grandmother’s doors.
Chapter Two
“Michael’s been avoiding the pack,” Raphael said softly as he checked his saddle once more.
“I know.” Gabriel stroked his destrier’s nose as he fed him another apple. “The pack is becoming worried about his separation.” He looked toward the doors of the office where their Princess was meeting with the man overseeing her estate until she wed or came of age.
“They are not the only ones.” He patted his destrier’s flank before turning to face his friend, comrade and pack mate. “Except for that one incident that we can only assume was him, naught has been heard in too long.”
Heaving a sigh, Gabriel rested his brow to the horse’s forehead before him. “I’ve heard talk among some of the betas that they think he is close to the edge of going rogue. I wish I could tell them all otherwise, but I, too, worry that he is precariously close to that edge. He’s not been near us in too long, hasn’t even come in to seek comfort from one of the beta females. He is living out there in the forest, God only knows where, and has forsaken even his pack. That is not right.”
“Nay, ’tis not right, but it is his choice,” Raphael said quietly. “He is alpha, too, Gabriel, and we must respect his choice. We do not have to agree with it, we do not even have to like it, but we must accept what he has chosen to do. He is not harming any other. He is not causing trouble or making his presence known in a way to cause us trouble, so we need to let him live how he has chosen.”
“I do not think that I will ever be able to accept him walking from those that would never turn their backs on him no matter what, Raphael,” he snapped out as he glowered at the other man.
“Be calm, Gabriel,” Raphael said softly, putting a hand to his shoulder. “I didn’t once say that yo
u had to like it or pretend to like it, but we must accept it. Should he come back to us, we will take him in, and then, once he is settled, we will beat him silly for worrying us as he has.”
Grinning at that, he nodded. “I like that plan, but without the waiting preferably.”
Laughing in a deep rumble, Raphael shook his head. “You were never one much for patience, old friend.” Turning when the doors behind him opened, he quickly shot him a warning look. “She is not to know any of this, Gabriel. She believes he is well and living a good life.”
“God help us if she knew otherwise,” he muttered. “We’d end up on some horrendous jaunt to track him down.” Moving to the coach, he opened the door and got her inside with a slight bow. Once again, his eyes were pulled to the pendant she’d worn since she was but a child and never once, to his knowledge, taken off.
Shutting the door, he went back to his horse, collected the reins from Raphael, and swung into the saddle. “She still wears the pendant he gave her,” he murmured quietly as they set off.
“She likely always will. It is her talisman more times than not in these trying times. I’ve caught her many a time holding it tight and looking as though she was trying to divine some knowledge from it,” Raphael said, resting his wrists on the pommel of his saddle.
Gabriel could only nod. He remembered the Princess the day after Michael had left his post for good. She’d been distraught, torn open with emotion and so angry he truly thought she would storm out of the palace after him.