The Lycan's Princess, page 16
Something disquieted tickled along her spine.
She was speaking as if…
“Mother!”
Chapter 23
Khaldur’s bellow shook through the halls as the doors were flung open. Their guards were standing at attention when he came skidding into the room, irises searing with fury. Deacon lunged awake, bewilderment on his face, and Mara could only gape as her husband ate up the remaining distance to glower at the queen.
His shoulders shook while undulating muscles bulged beneath his shirt, the jacket he’d worn long discarded by the looks of it. Dirt scuffed his shoes and pants and clung to his nails. His hair was disheveled, dark strands flying in every direction, and he shoved a hand through it in seething frustration.
“How could you do this?”
His roar trembled through the room, but it was more than the volume that stunned her. He was shouting at his mother. Only a tiny crease at the edge of her eyes revealed itself while Deacon balked, rendered mute for all of two seconds before he was leaping to his feet in her defense.
“Who do you think you’re speaking to? You will lower your voice—”
“She let him go!” Khaldur’s snarl was choked, fangs pushing past his lips as he clutched his forehead. He swayed unsteadily, reeling back a pace that brought him to the opposite side of the room. “She let him go, and he took Audrey!”
“Enough!” Deacon yelled eyes peeled wide as his head whipped between his wife and son. “What are you talking about? Why would you say that?”
He spoke to Khaldur but stared at Roselyn with a pleading gaze. Willing her to deny it.
“…It’s true. I let him go.”
A wounded howl rattled in Khaldur’s throat, and he crashed to his knees. His palms slammed into the ground while his back bowed, ebony flesh roiling in patches across his face and hands as he threatened to shift. Brutal gouges were torn into the floorboards when pointed claws sprouted from his fingers, sounds a piercing shriek within her ears.
The shock finally snapped from her locked joints.
Mara stumbled to his flank, dropping down beside him as she gripped him by the shoulders. She shook him as the guards formed a tight perimeter around them. They thought he was dangerous. That he might hurt someone.
“Khal!” Mara begged, grasping him by the cheeks to wrench his eyes to hers. They were entirely black, emerald swallowed by a thrashing cacophony. “Please calm down. You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“Sol,” his voice was distorted around sharp teeth, and an agonized whine strained in his chest. “S-Stay back—I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You would never hurt me,” she believed it with all of the conviction she possessed. Mara trusted him with her life. “I’m not going anywhere, so, please, Khaldur. You need to calm down. There has to be an explanation for this,” she peered past the security that caged them, finding Roselyn. “Right?”
The queen scowled at their guards, knowing they wouldn’t budge until Khaldur was in control of himself. “Nolan didn’t take your sister, Khaldur. She left with him willingly. It was her decision.”
“She doesn’t know what she’s doing!” he growled around the crack of shifting bones, his rage panting from taut lungs. “He could kill her—”
“Impossible,” she snapped in an uncharacteristic burst of anger. “He’s been hexed. He can’t harm her. He will die protecting her if it ever comes to that.”
“That shouldn’t even be an option! We were handling it, mother. I don’t understand why you interfered!”
“Audrey made her choice. She’s been making choices her entire life, and you have always stepped in to make sure she never faces a single consequence. Your sister is an adult! She made an adult decision to keep this child, and she’s allowing the father into her life. You can’t keep treating her like a damsel who needs saving!”
Khaldur roared his frustration. “This isn’t the way! He’s dangerous!”
“She’s his mate. He would never harm her, just like you could never hurt Mara—”
“Don’t compare us,” his hiss was lethal, anger pouring from him in waves. “This isn’t the same. I never blackmailed or abducted her. He’s unhinged, and you just let her walk away with him?”
Roselyn sighed and fanned a palm to her face, shoulders slumping. “Khaldur…”
He struggled to his feet, pained contortions bending his spine as he glared. “You need to make this right. Tell her to come home.”
“No.”
“What?”
“I said, ‘no’. It’s her life. She can choose the way she wants to live it. Neither you nor I or anyone else can make those decisions for her. That is something you have to come to terms with. Your sister is no longer a child, and you are not responsible for her every action.”
Khaldur’s jaw throbbed while his teeth ground together in silent wrath. He wrenched his eyes away from his mother like the sight of her at this moment was too much to bear. Mara remained huddled on the ground in disbelief, and he quickly bent down, hefting her into his arms. She clung to his back while he stalked from the room, saying nothing else as Mara caught a last glimpse of Roselyn’s teary glance before they turned a corner.
Stomping through the corridors, she was bounced within his arms and forced to clutch onto his shoulders. He remained quiet, roiling unrest coiled along his tense limbs.
“K-Khal, where are we going?”
His rumble was threaded through the tight clench of his molars. “I’m bringing you to our room.”
“Just me?”
“Yes.”
Mara braced her palms on his chest, staring up at him with unrestrained befuddlement. “And where are you going?”
He refused to look at her. “I’m going to search for Audrey. They couldn’t have gotten far.”
Her hiss surprised them both. She dug her fingers into his collar and yanked on the fabric of his shirt, a scowl pinching her brow. “You’re not going anywhere without me.”
“Mara—”
“No! Enough, Khaldur. Wherever you go, I go. It’s as simple as that. If you don’t want me to come, then don’t leave.”
He jerked to an abrupt stop and glared down at her with narrowed eyes. “Are you really going to fight me on this?”
“If I have to, yes! Roselyn said that it was Audrey’s choice to leave. Why are you trying to drag her back?”
“We know nothing about the man,” Khaldur barked in disgust, shaking his head. “He could have easily pressured her into going with him. He’s proven he’s not above coercion.”
“Do you honestly believe your mother would let her leave with a man she thought was dangerous?”
A snarl throttled from his chest, and Mara squeaked in alarm when she felt his muscles ripple beneath her hands. “I don’t know what to think anymore. I thought we were all on the same page, and now I’m learning that my mother and my sister went behind my back. The people I trust most in the world didn’t think I was worth consulting with.”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it? What am I supposed to tell the Pruissuthens? ‘Sorry, princess Geilu, I know we had a deal, but my sister decided to run off with your fiancé’? This isn’t how things were supposed to go. There was a plan—”
Mara grabbed the sides of his face and forced him to look her in the eyes. His irises were shifting between pale green and midnight onyx, and dark flesh erupted intermittently across his skin. “Things aren’t always going to go to plan, Khal. You can’t be in control of everything…especially not Audrey,” he glowered at her admission, and she swept her thumbs up his cheeks to rest beneath his eyes, murmuring. “You have to trust that she knows what she’s doing.”
“I don’t,” his voice cracked, and he hung his head, raw grief falling from the depths of his gut. “I don’t trust her. Not after this.”
Her heart broke for him. He felt betrayed. Blindsided by half of his family. She couldn’t blame him for feeling the way he did.
She soothed a kiss to his temple and drew her arms around his nape, offering the comfort that she could. “You have to try. It’s the only way to move forward,” he was rigid under her touch, gone to a distant place as she tried to reach out and bring him back. This was going to tear him apart if he allowed it. If she allowed it.
And that wasn’t something she would stand for.
“Come on, let’s get out of here. I know a spot.”
Khaldur raised his head, light winking within his pupils as misery painted his features. He was always there for her in her moments of need. Her confidant. Her cheerleader. A sturdy shoulder to share her burdens.
‘I love you.’
That’s right. She would show him that this was only a singular moment in their lives. A single blip on the unending chain of time. They would make it through this.
Together.
Chapter 24
Moonlight was a glow along the river reeds that clung to the lake’s edge. Smaller tertiary pools spilled into the surrounding forest, and it was there that they sat hand in hand, legs dipped into cool waters. Mara rubbed a thumb across the back of his knuckles and leaned into his flank as a quiet breeze blew through the trees. Tucked as she was under his arm, she felt him shift against her side and glanced up in question.
He was gazing at the mellow ebb and flow of the pond’s surface against the mossy bank, brows furrowed in thought.
“What are you thinking about?” her voice was soft in the stillness. Cautious. He hadn’t said anything in the time they’d been out here, meekly following at her heels as she guided them through the forest.
“Everything. What I did wrong. What I should have done. How I’m going to fix this mess,” he turned to look at her, and his lashes fell low over emerald irises that pulsed with a curious glow. “…how much I love you.”
A burst of warmth snatched the air from her lungs, and pleasured waves coursed up her nape to settle hotly in her cheeks. Now that he’d said it, she couldn’t believe that she hadn’t seen it sooner. He had always been open with his affection. Through the writing in his letters and every day since their wedding, he’d shown her his love. Without his admission, she hadn’t wanted to accept the truth of what was plainly before her. She didn’t want to be hurt.
Didn’t want to risk the possibility of him finding her presence simply tolerable or, worse, someone to regard with pity.
She banished those thoughts now, and they dissolved into ether, frail against the crescendo of adoration that swelled in her heart and every other inch of her body. Mara lifted his hand to her face and nuzzled against his palm to heave a warbling whisper.
“I-I love you, too.”
Khaldur smiled at her, fingers brushing along her jaw in a gentle caress as he pulled her into his lap. “I know,” he rested his cheek atop her head while a vibrating drone rolled within his chest. “I’ve felt it for a while now.”
“Felt it?”
“Mm,” he coaxed her eyes to his, and his mouth quirked in a weak grin. “Everyone’s been talking about ‘mates’, and I’m sure you have questions. I’m sorry for not bringing it up sooner.”
Mara hummed a confused sound, tongue darting out to wet her lips as she wiggled in his lap. “Okay…but what does that have to do with us? Are we mates?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
He nodded and brought an arm around her waist to pillow her along his abdomen. Breathing against her temples, he slowly sighed. “Did your family ever tell you why we were engaged?”
She startled in alarm and drew back to stare at him, blinking her surprise. “Um, just the basic political runaround. Solidify our alliances, strengthen blood ties…is that not why?”
“It is in part, yes, but it’s not the main reason. I insisted.”
Mara could only echo his words in question, thoughts swirling. “You did? But we’ve been engaged since I was like, three.”
“You were too young to remember, but I first saw you at your eldest sister’s formal introduction. Maybe something shiny drew your attention in my direction, but you caught me staring. You gave me a big, drolly smile. It was only for a moment before you became upset and started wailing,” he laughed at this, and Mara flushed in embarrassment, the picture of herself screaming her head off not hard to imagine. “I was immediately smitten. My parents thought it was cute how I wouldn’t stop talking about you. I probably spent close to a year begging them to arrange our engagement.”
She would’ve liked to be a fly on the wall during any one of those pleading sessions. She was sure he would have been adorable.
“They eventually agreed to it and negotiated with your parents,” Mara had always found it strange that she, the last daughter, was his betrothed. But if Khaldur had insisted on having her… “It was years before I presented as a Lycan, but I felt inexplicably drawn to you. I knew we were supposed to be together. You remember I mentioned having a Lycan mentor? I figured out we were mates right around the time I started training with him. That’s why I stopped seeing you. I knew I wouldn’t be able to let you go.”
Mara splayed her palms along his sternum, and the rampant pounding of his heart beneath her touch reverberated with her own. She grinned at him, a sheen of unshed tears wetting her eyes as she choked a laugh. “I couldn’t at least get a phone call?”
“Hearing your voice would’ve tortured me. I needed to prove to myself that I could keep you safe before I came to you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me we were mates? Were you ever going to say anything?”
Chagrined, he briefly glanced away before forcing his gaze back to hers. “I didn’t want you to feel pressured. Since I had already arranged our marriage, I didn’t want you to think my feelings for you were solely due to our mate-bond. I wanted to properly woo you,” Khaldur ducked his head and nudged his nose along her pulse. “I wanted you to love me for the man that I am and not just because of our predetermined bond. It didn’t matter to me that we were mates because I already loved you for a hundred other reasons. You were always going to be mine, mate or not.”
Mara felt a telltale throb of heat at her apex. Her limbs hummed into awareness at his declaration, words starkly possessive as they ravished their way through her bloodstream. Her breaths came short as her core ached with an abrupt sense of excruciating emptiness.
Gods, she wanted him.
She was maybe still a bit peeved that he’d waited so long to tell her, but it was easy to ignore in the wake of her mounting desire. Her tongue laved along her lips as she clenched her fingers within his shirt and rolled her hips in a short, unmistakable jerk.
Khaldur’s eyes dilated while his nostrils flared. His hands tightened on her waist, and he groaned a low oath, pelvis stuttering as she arched against him. “Sol…”
A moan burst from her chest, that pulsating hollowness braying for attention. “I want you, Khal. I want you for you. I love you for the kind, generous, charming man that you are. You have my heart, baby. Every piece of me is yours.”
The beam that overtook his face was so blindingly joyful that she was almost distracted from the demanding hunger coiled like a serpent in her belly.
Almost.
Khaldur chuckled. “You think I’m charming?”
“That’s what you took from my speech?” she laughed, spearing him with a tender gaze. “Did you hear the part where I said you can have every piece of me?”
“I don’t know if those were your exact words—”
Mara growled and reached for his belt, yanking at the clasp as he pretended to yelp. “It’s close enough. Are you going to make me work for it?”
Flames kindled within hungry eyes while he raked them down her body. He covered her hand with his and helped tug the belt from its loops. Making short work of his zipper, he pulled his hard cock from his slacks and rubbed his thumb beneath the crown. His fist closed around it in a slow, luxurious pump, and a whimper caught between her teeth. Mara pawed for his stiff length, and he let her have it with a low chuckle that tapered into a moan when she stroked long drags from his root to tip.
Thighs bracketed around his waist, she lifted the hem of her dress and pushed her panties to the side. Khaldur groaned as she dragged his cock between her folds in teasing brushes and rubbed his thumbs to the small of her back in gentle urgency.
“H-Help me out, big guy,” Mara whined, sluggishly sinking down on his thick girth with a shivered wince. He shifted his palms to cup her rear and supported her on the way down until he was fully sheathed, air huffing from his lungs in a ragged burst.
“E-Ease up a little, Sol. You’re—ngh—really tight,” Khaldur dropped his brow to the crook of her neck and panted against her skin. “Are you trying to squeeze it off?”
A bark of laughter bubbled in her throat, and she tossed her head back to let the night air cool her face. “N-No, I like your cock right where it is. Attached to your body,” she swiveled her hips and bit her lip, eyes fluttering as he scraped across sensitive ridges that shot lightning through her flesh. “—buried deep inside me. F-filling me up—oh, Gods—fuck me, Khal!”
The world pivoted as he rolled her beneath him to the mossy forest floor. He cradled the back of her head in one big palm while the other pressed on her thigh to hold her wide open. Heat crawled to her cheeks at her vulnerable spread, and Khaldur’s strained smirk sent a treble of electricity straight to her spasming core.
“You like saying that to rile me up, don’t you?”
He set a pace of leisurely thrusts that drove her near the brink of madness. She needed more. Everything that he had. “I-It works, doesn’t it?”
His laughter trickled over her twitching spine in ways that should embarrass her. He dipped his mouth to the soft space by her ear and rumbled something wordlessly seductive. It had the effect of snagging all her limbs taut as a sudden orgasm barreled into her from an orbit she was unprepared for. A lustful cry burned its way past her lips, and Khaldur snarled while she gripped him in a ravenous vice. He kissed her with a muttered curse and swallowed the rest of her moans, slicking his tongue inside her mouth to tease her teeth. Muffled vows she could hardly string together struggled through the brief pauses of their hungry lips.
