Bearly Royal_Alaric

by Ally Summers

  “They just decided last night. I’m sure you’ll have it sometime this week. I can’t believe it. I’m so excited for Bonnie.”

  I watched as Eden heaped the ripe berries on her plate. I couldn’t let Russel’s idiocy destroy this morning. For two weeks, I had tried to find the perfect place. The perfect time. But the world kept colliding with my plans. I had to make sure Corbin was settled. The irrigation grants had to be finalized. The Bostique Islands were impatient to start the new trade arrangements.

  If I waited for everything in the country and my family to have complete peace, I’d never have my queen.

  “Alaric? Aren’t you going to say something? Bonnie and Russel are going to be together.” She sipped the coffee. “You are going to grant his request, aren’t you?”

  “To abdicate his position as duke and leave his wife?”

  “Yes. He’s miserable. He loves Bonnie. It’s obvious the way he looks at her. You can see that, right?”

  I didn’t want to argue. I wasn’t going to fight with her this morning about someone else’s love story.

  Today was the beginning of ours.

  “Alaric?”

  I walked to the other side of the table. The ring was pressed between my thumb and fingers.

  “Yes, I’ll grant it,” I replied. “I don’t want to talk about LeRoy. I want to talk about you, Eden.”

  Her eyes lifted. I could get lost in those shades of blue for the rest of my life.

  “Me?” she squeaked.

  “Mmmhmm.” I ran my fingers through her hair, sweeping it from her shoulder. I lowered to one knee and she gasped.

  “Oh my God.”

  I grinned. “I want to talk about you. About me. About us, my love.”

  She started to shake. “Alaric,” she whispered.

  “I’ve given a lot of speeches as king. So many lectures and talks, but I’m almost at a loss for words right now.” I gazed into her eyes. “I look at you and I see light, kindness, strength. I see a woman who loves me despite my crown. I see home. I see a future. Eden, I see the woman I want to love and to protect.” I revealed the ring from behind my back and held it toward her. “I don’t know what’s ahead for me as king. I can’t promise you normal. This life is far from it. But I can promise to fight for you. To fight for us. To love you. To give you as many mornings like this as I can. And I promise to do my best to consider your counsel.” I winked. I was still working on that one. “I’ve never knelt before anyone. But I’d do far more than this to show you how much I want to spend forever with you. Will you marry me, Eden Jacobs?”

  The ring sparkled between us. I held my breath. It felt like the longest second of my life.

  I didn’t exhale until she collapsed into my arms. “Yes. Yes. I’ll marry you.”

  She crawled into my lap, kissing me. I tasted the salt of her tears on my lips.

  “Then I need to give you this.” I threaded the sapphire stone over her knuckle. It fit perfectly.

  “I can’t believe this.” She held it toward her face.

  “I knew it had to be a sapphire,” I teased. I dragged my lips over hers. “Always my sapphire.”

  She giggled. “Yes. Always yours.”

  I untangled us and helped her stand. “Let’s have a toast.” I reached for the champagne.

  Eden crinkled her nose. “Maybe just the orange juice. Sorry, I think I’m too excited. The champagne would send me over the top.” She smiled.

  “All right.” I handed her an orange juice in fluted crystal.

  Our glasses clinked. “To the new queen of the House of Marquis. To our future.”

  “To our future,” she echoed.

  My hand rounded over her ass as I pulled her to me. “Before we announce this to the world, I could use some time alone with you.”

  “Please,” she whispered.

  I lifted her in my arms and carried her across the threshold.

  40

  Eden

  “Oh God.” I fell back on the bed. Every part of my body felt exquisitely sensitive. Sex had never felt like that before. The way he touched me was like lightning shooting from his fingers. My nipples tingled. My clit buzzed. I was still on fire even after three orgasms. I realized I had a lifetime of incredible sex with a shifter ahead of me.

  Alaric nuzzled behind me. He ran his fingers along my arm, twining them between mine. The ring was the only thing I had on.

  “I should have Wallace clear my schedule so we can spend the entire day like this,” he growled. “We could never leave the bed.”

  I nodded. “Can we?”

  “I wish. But Galonians might not accept how much we enjoy fucking each other as an excuse to ignore my royal duty to them.” He laughed.

  I twisted to face him. His body was damp with sweat. I placed my palm over his chest. I could feel his heart still beating wildly. I kissed his tanned skin.

  “What is today?” I asked. It was easy to lose track of time in the palace.

  “The thirtieth. I have a cabinet meeting this afternoon. Why?”

  The deadline to schedule my study at the London Institute was tomorrow. I had been a coward for two weeks. Afraid to suggest abandoning Alaric while he dealt with Corbin’s health. He needed me to stay. And the thought of asking him if I could leave for six weeks seemed out of the question.

  But I hadn’t sent my reply.

  I counted back on the calendar. In a month’s time my life had changed more dramatically than any fictional character’s in any piece of literature I had studied. One month of Alaric had turned everything upside down.

  “Wait, are you sure it’s the thirtieth?”

  He nodded. “There is always a cabinet meeting the last day of the month. I’m sure. But I was thinking maybe the middle of next month in between sessions we could go somewhere. A pre-honeymoon, honeymoon.”

  “A month,” I whispered.

  He tilted his head. “Yes.”

  I sat up in bed. “Oh shit.” I hopped off the side and slid a robe on. My phone was on the dining table. I ran through the apartment.

  “Eden?” Alaric followed me through the apartment naked.

  I grabbed my phone from my purse and pulled up the calendar.

  I looked at him.

  It had been six weeks since my last period.

  “Eden, what’s wrong?”

  I didn’t know what to say. I sat on one of the chairs embroidered with the Marquis family crest in the center. My head spun. Was it possible I was pregnant? I had heard stories about IUDs not working, but I couldn’t be one of those cautionary tales, could I? This wasn’t the time to fall into an online rabbit hole of birth control gone-wrong blog posts. I needed the truth.

  I had gone to bed last night with a terrible headache. I had blamed it on too much screen time researching. I had fallen asleep two days ago while I was working on chapter outlines in the middle of the afternoon. I had been exhausted all week, but my body was coursing with heightened sexual energy like never before. And the smell of the champagne this morning had made my stomach turn. The signs had been creeping up on me the past couple of days, only I hadn’t noticed them—or maybe I didn’t want to.

  “I think I need to buy a pregnancy test,” I blurted.

  He was silent and motionless.

  “Alaric, did you hear what I said?”

  He nodded. “I’ll go get one now.”

  “Wait.”

  He turned slowly. He was in shock. He had to be. I expected him to curse or roar. React with his deepest emotions.

  “It could just be all the stress of the past few weeks.” I looked into his eyes. “I might be overreacting.” I shouldn’t have said anything to him until I knew.

  I reached him in the doorway. He cradled my cheeks, drawing my lips upward. “I hope you are pregnant.”

  “You do?” My eyes darted back and forth, trying to read his mood. It was the last reaction I expected from him. My stomach flipped. Was he serious?

  “Yes, love.”

>   The words warmed me, sending heat through my chest. “I-I can’t believe this. You want a baby?” First a proposal, and now this.

  His lips burned mine. The kiss was fiery and raw. I tried to catch my breath. I gripped his neck. I was off balance, falling into his arms.

  “I want our baby,” he growled. “Cubs, love. I’ve wanted them inside you since I saw you.”

  “Ok.” I nodded. “A baby? We want a baby?”

  He laughed. “We do.” He kissed my cheek. “Now, I’ll go get what you need. I don’t trust this errand with the staff. Wait here.” He broke free and disappeared to get dressed.

  I heard him depart in one of the side tunnels instead of the elevator.

  I returned to the chair. I couldn’t move. My hand instinctively moved to my belly. Was this really happening? And holy hell, did he say cubs?

  “How long did it say?” Alaric paced outside the bathroom door.

  I tugged on his arm. “It’s only three minutes,” I replied.

  The suspense was killing both of us, but he didn’t handle this kind of wait well.

  “Did I buy enough boxes?” he asked.

  “Yes. I think six is plenty. Hopefully, one will be enough.” I tried to smile, but really all I wanted to do was throw up. The enormity of this situation was starting to sink in and I didn’t have a result.

  I still wasn’t sure how he had pulled off leaving the palace and buying so many pregnancy tests undetected, but he had years of experience maneuvering through the system. I still wanted a map to get to the kitchen.

  “Should we look?” he pressed.

  “Thirty seconds.” I held up my phone to show him the timer. “Almost time.”

  “Fuck. Someone needs to invent something that works faster.”

  I giggled. “That is insane. You can’t wait three minutes to find out if you’re going to be a father?”

  He shot a cutting glare at me.

  “Sorry.” I bit my lip. It was comical how antsy he had become. I was used to him pacing because of the cabinet or the family. But this was different. It was adorable.

  He ran his fingers through his hair.

  “Alaric, it might not be positive.” I tried to steady him. I didn’t want him to be disappointed if there was only one line on the stick.

  He finally stopped making a track in front of the bed. He tugged the tie on my silk robe, pushing the fabric off my shoulder.

  “Then, we’ll make sure the next one is. You are going to be the mother of my cubs.”

  “You’re serious?” I gulped.

  “I’m serious. This morning I asked you to marry me knowing that one day we’d have a family. But as soon as you said it could start now, it’s like a switch flipped. All I can think about is my cubs growing inside you. They have to be.” His hand cupped my breast, exposing my sensitive flesh. If I wasn’t pregnant, then I had no idea what was going on with my hormones. Every touch sent me over the edge. The last few days I blamed it on his sexy shifter behavior, but maybe it was a baby.

  I moaned as he lowered his head to my nipple. “I want you to have my baby, Eden.”

  I nodded, loving the sensations. “I want to have your baby, Alaric.”

  My eyes closed just as the timer on my phone beeped.

  Alaric jerked away and my eyes flew open. I twisted my lips together, pulling my robe back on.

  No matter what, a baby was in our future. It didn’t have to be today, I tried to convince myself. There was time. We had plenty of time to plan a future together.

  We walked into the bathroom. I reached for the stick.

  “Well?” he asked. He was about to jump out of his skin.

  I grinned. I turned it so he could see the two pink lines. “I’m pregnant.”

  Epilogue

  Alaric

  I pulled the sunglasses to the edge of my nose. I drank in the long legs on the chaise next to me. I followed her sun-kissed skin up her thighs and along the small swell of her belly, stopping at her full breasts, spilling from the pink bikini top. Damn, she was gorgeous carrying my baby. That cub had no idea how lucky he was.

  She reached into the beach bag between us. She looked up and caught me eyeing every inch of her.

  “Are you checking me out?” she teased.

  “I can’t help it if my wife is hot as fuck, can I?”

  “Shh,” she hushed me. “We aren’t the only people at this resort. You are a royal scandal waiting to happen.”

  I climbed off my chair and straddled hers, sending her into a fit of giggles. “Alaric, stop. You can’t do that.” She swatted at me, sliding under me with slippery oiled skin.

  I laughed. “Does the queen object to this?” I lowered my mouth to hers. “I can show you a real scandal.”

  “Mmm,” she purred, arching toward me, deepening the kiss. “No. The queen likes it.”

  “I think I’m going to turn this into a completely private resort.”

  She looked at me. “You can’t be serious.”

  I nodded. “Oh, I’m fucking serious. I want my wife all to myself.”

  Her nails dug into my back. “You have me. You’ve always had me.”

  I palmed her stomach. We hadn’t announced the news to anyone yet, but I couldn’t keep my hands off her. Eden pregnant was sexier than I thought possible. And her appetite for me had exploded. Our honeymoon had been fucking phenomenal.

  I returned to my chair, repositioning my sunglasses.

  “Have you heard from Wallace this morning?” she asked.

  “He sent an addendum with the lodestar.”

  She rubbed lotion along her legs. I was mesmerized by her.

  “Are the details worked out?”

  “You realize we could go about this my way.”

  She snapped the cap back in place. “We aren’t doing that. It’s completely unfair to use your position like that.”

  “Then what’s the point of being king?” I grumbled.

  “We can’t deprive scholars of those texts because you don’t want me to go to London.”

  “What I want is my wife.” My hand landed on her knee.

  She smiled sweetly. “I know this London thing isn’t your first choice, but if Wallace followed my instructions, then I’ll be home every weekend. And you will be there with me the first and last weeks of the project. It will fly by. We’ll barely spend any time apart.”

  “Or we could have the texts flown to the palace and held in the royal library while you complete your work.”

  “I love that you want to do that for me. But you know what I love more?”

  “What is that?”

  “That you let me figure out how to make this work. You didn’t just shut it down.”

  When Eden first told me her proposal had been accepted by the institute, my gut reaction was to voice a forceful no. I didn’t want to let her go. I especially didn’t want her to leave the country pregnant. But this woman got me. She understood what I needed and when.

  And I had to do the same for her. To love her nerdy book habits. To support her work. To loosen my hold, even when it drove me crazy. London was going to be hell. But I knew I’d go through hell for her.

  “I would do anything for you, love.”

  “Even ask,” she teased.

  “Yes, even ask. I love you, Eden Marquis. I said it at our wedding, and I’ll say it again on this beach. The entire country of Bostique can hear me proclaim it.”

  “Shh,” she giggled. “No one in Bostique wants to hear a crazy king.”

  “You can’t stop love. And I’m in love with you. And our baby. I’ll do whatever it takes to show you that every day.”

  Eden sat forward, swinging her feet into the sand. She scooted in next to me. “You have lost your mind, do you know that?”

  I ran my hand along her back. Her skin was warm. I brought my palm to rest on her belly. “You know without you, I wasn’t a very good king.”

  She settled into the chaise. The warm ocean winds breezed over us.
r />   “That’s not true. You’ve always been a good king.”

  I shook my head. “No. You’ve made me a better king. A better man. And soon I’ll be a father because of you.” I pressed gently at her bikini line. Our future rested beneath my hand. We were a family.

  “God, I love you.”

  I turned her lips to meet mine. She moaned as my tongue dipped inside her mouth. I pulled her under me. I didn’t want the honeymoon to end. The cabinet could wait. The royal council didn’t need me. This was fucking nirvana, lying with the woman I loved in my arms, baking under the island sun.

  “Can we go back to the cabana?” she whispered in my ear.

  “Only if you tell me why,” I taunted.

  “I need you, Alaric.”

  “This isn’t enough?” I kissed her again.

  “No. All of you. In that honeymoon bed.”

  “See why I want the resort to ourselves? I could strip this tiny bikini off your body.”

  She inhaled. “You can, inside.” She leaned forward to gather her book and beach bag.

  The security guards moved from the palm trees behind us. We were flanked, even on our honeymoon.

  Eden started to walk toward the cabana, sashaying her curvy hips, driving me wild. I started to run full speed and whipped her up in my arms.

  She yelped with laughter as I began to sprint toward the beach cabana. The officers were trying to keep up.

  I darted through the door, slamming it.

  My mouth found hers. “Finding you changed my life, Eden.”

  She melted into my arms. “And you changed mine.”

  And I knew that I meant it. I would do anything to keep her safe. To hold her. To protect her. I’d do anything to make her happy. I may not have been the man she deserved the night we met, but I had changed. I had won the love of the most incredible woman. The most incredible queen. And I would give her everything she needed for the rest of her life.

  After all, she was my queen and my mate.

  Thank you so much for reading Bearly Royal: Alaric.

  If you want to know when Ally’s next shifter book is out before anyone else, sign up for my mailing list, and check out my other books. allysummers.com