Episode 17 The Princess and the Press Release #2
His phone drops to the floor as he rushes over to me, enclosing me in his strong arms. “Oh, sunshine, no. No, it doesn’t change anything for me. I want you. So bad. More than that I need you. I’ve needed you since the first day I met you.”
I let out a little shuddering breath, my fingers curling into his shirt, my nose burying itself in the fabric and inhaling, deeply. His cut grass scent calms my nerves and the gentle sweep of his big palm up and down my back helps even more.
“Do you think-” I mumble against his shirt, before stopping myself.
“Do I think what, little bird?”
Well, there’s no help for it now. I have to just do it, get it out of the way. “Do you think it’ll change things for them?”
He sighs. “I don’t think so, but there’s only one way to be sure, isn’t there, love?”
I pretend not to know what he means, nestling into him deeper. I feel him grin against my hair, as he pulls me tighter against him. Guilt pinches at my stomach, enough so that I pull back and peer up at him.
“I’m sorry.”
His smile falls and his hand moves to cup my cheek. “Why are you apologizing, Ren?”
“Because I’m an asshole.” I turn my head to press a kiss to his palm. “This is a big deal for you. A big happy deal and I’m making it about myself. How do you feel?”
He stares at me hard for one long moment, then leans forward with a groan and presses his mouth to mine. The kiss is not nearly as long as I’d like, and doesn’t have nearly as much tongue, but it’s soft and sweet and it makes my toes curl all the same.
“Sorry,” he rasps when he pulls back. “Couldn’t help myself. You’re just so bloody perfect.”
“Never apologize for kissing me, Piers.”
“Well, well, well, what have we here?” Court drawls from the door.
We both turn to find him lingering there, water dripping down his chest, off his swim trunks to splatter on the floor.
His green eyes sweep over my body, taking in my bikini top and shorts.
“I was wondering what was taking you both so long to join us.” He saunters forward, pure lazy predator.
“Damn, Pixie. I have to say, I’m glad you never went swimming on the show.
I’m not sure my alpha would have been able to handle millions of people seeing you like this. Bad enough in the damn yoga pants.”
My lips twitch, almost pulling into a smile, but it doesn’t fully form, and Court's own lazy smirk falls. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
I look up at Piers and wait, giving him the choice to tell his pack mate or not. After a long moment the beta clears his throat. “Isadora released a statement.” A curse comes from the door and we’re suddenly joined by the rest of the Ashbourne pack.
“What did she say?” Forsythe asks, approaching cautiously.
Piers’ fingers tighten on my face, almost as if in apology, before he drops his hand and turns toward them. “She claimed me. For the pack. Said I always had a place in her future. And she’s excited to bond me.”
I wince at that, at the idea of someone else bonding him, bonding my pack, but I know it’s a possibility. Now more than ever.
Thayer’s brows jump. “Really?”
“That would have come from the queen, right?” Grieves asks.
“Isadora certainly wouldn’t have made a statement like that without consulting my grandmother first.”
“She’s all but saying if we bond her, we can finally claim Piers as ours,” Court says, bouncing on his toes. “Publicly.”
The prince gives a slow nod. “Yes.” A smile spreads over his face and he crushes Piers to his chest. I stumble back a step, feeling both filled and hollow at the same time.
“We can finally claim you, love,” he murmurs to his beta, stroking a hand down his back.
“Everyone will finally see what you mean to us.”
Piers deserves this. And didn’t I always know this was how this was going to end? With one statement to the press Isadora and the queen granted them the ability to do something that should have been done years ago.
The queen will sanction their bond with Piers, accept him into the royal family, so long as they bond Isadora.
And that’s what leaves me hollow.
There’s a long moment where the five of them stroke and kiss and murmur to each other and I stand on the outside looking in at what this pack should have always been. A contradiction of emotions swells and swells. Happiness and hurt. Gratitude and resentment. Hope and loss.
Tears prick my eyes and I don’t know if they’re the good tears or the bad. Only that when I blink they’re spilling over my cheeks silently. I need to leave, need to get out of here. Need to get space from them.
And they need time to process this as a pack. Without some interloper watching on like a creeper.
I step back on quiet feet, intending to sneak out the door and go to the big house, let Haven wrap me in her arms and hold me close. Or if she’s busy with one—or all—of her pack, I can go home. To my mother’s and cuddle with Ginny on the couch instead.
I swipe at my cheeks, my eyes, and turn to flee.
“Where do you think you’re going, bubbles?”
I pause, one foot lifted and look over my shoulder to find all five of them watching me, Piers still at their center, like he should always be.
“I’m just… I’m going to give you space to discuss this as a pack.”
“And you think that doesn’t include you?” Thayer asks, in that professorial way of his.
“It doesn’t.”
A chorus of growls meets that statement, their displeasure at me clear.
And under any other circumstance, with any other groups of men—of alphas—I would quell under it, my omega cowering under their dominance.
But not here. Not with them. They don’t deserve my submission.
So I twist back around and face them, square up to them, lifting my chin and glaring at them.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Do you think offering to make me your mistress makes me a part of your pack?
Do you think doing the bare fucking minimum to make sure I’m not dying means I’m suddenly a part of you?
You haven’t actually offered me anything beyond being your dirty little secret, you do realize this, right? ”
Forsythe’s jaw ticks. “We can discuss this more later. Right now we need to think about going back. This is a concession on the part of the queen and we need to capitalize on it. We’ve been gone too long.”
I blink at him, at the way he just brushed aside my concerns, my truths.
The rest of the pack looks at me, waiting to see how I take this. “Are you willing to give me more than a cottage in the country and a quick fuck every now and then?”
The prince, who had apparently been caught up in his plans for the future, jerks his attention to me, his gaze sharp. “My heart. Our hearts. Our love. Our devotion. Everything.”
“Everything but your time, right? And probably not your bonds. Hell, I wouldn’t even have freedom, would I?
I’d have to stay hidden or people would wonder why I was in Bravonne, wouldn’t they?
No, they wouldn’t even wonder. Because everyone knows we’re fated mates.
They’d know and they'd also know that you still picked Isadora over me.” I shrug, folding my arms over my chest. “Until you can give me more, I’m not going anywhere. ”
“Killer, come on. We’re talking about your health here. Your life.”
“I don’t need you to remind me of that. It's my body, my pain, my fever. I’m well aware of what it’ll mean for me when you go. But I’m not willing to give up my entire life, my family and friends, my community, to be your kept whore.”
Court makes a wounded sound. “You know that’s not what you are to us, Pix. You could never be that to us.”
Just like I can never be their chosen mate. Not until they get over their misguided sense of duty. Maybe I’m being unfair. But I don’t think I am. I deserve better than this.
I have no fucking clue what fate was thinking when she pushed us together.
“Go, if you need to. I’m staying here.”
“Florence,” Forsythe growls. “Please. You’ll get sick all over again. What will you do if you pass out again? If you spike a fever again?”
“I’ll handle it.” Like I handle everything in my fucked up little life.
“You can’t keep us hostage by holding your health over our heads, Florence,” Forsythe growls. “It’s not fair to us.”
“Oh, but you can keep me hostage by doing that? How is that fair?”
Thayer blows out a breath and lifts his hands in a placating manner. “That’s not what we’re trying to do, killer. And I think you know that.”
“Well, it’s not what I’m trying to do either, but it doesn’t stop him from accusing me of it.
” I throw up my hands in frustration. “I’m trying to keep what little dignity I have left.
I know I’m just a lowborn commoner to the rest of you, but I’ve got some pride.
And if I go with you, give up everything that I love to move to Bravonne, only to be called the royal whore? What does that leave me?”
“So you’re willing to die for your pride?” Grieves growls out, and for some reason that fucking hurts. That he’s not taking my side.
“We all gotta go sometime, right?” I say somewhat cavalierly because I don’t want to die.
It's not like I’m looking forward to being sick for the rest of my life, to medicating myself into a stupor just to be able to function relatively normally.
But I honestly think it would be worse if I went with them, if they left me over and over again to return to her. Isadora.
At least this way they’re only leaving me the one time. Well, twice technically. But I can probably survive this.
“Pixie,” Court says, sounding like he’s already grieving me. “Please don’t talk about your death like that. Like it doesn’t matter. It fucking matters. You matter.”
“You all have a funny way of showing it.” I lower my voice in a mockery of theirs. “Come to Bravonne. Be our mistress. Watch as we bond someone else.”
“We’ve already told you we won’t bond Isadora. She’ll be our princess in name only. You’d have everything else. Why is that not enough?” Forsythe asks, sounding as wrecked as I feel.
“Because it’s not,” I say simply. “Because I don’t want to have to hide how I feel about you, but more than that, I don’t want you to hide how you feel about me.
Call me selfish if you want, I am being selfish.
But I deserve to be about this one fucking thing.
My fated mates. You’re meant to be mine.
Only mine. And you’re telling me I have to share?
I don’t want to. I refuse to.” I straighten my spine and force the swell of agony down.
“If our positions were reversed, would you be okay with me being with another pack?” The growl that comes from Grieves at the mere mention of it, is enough for me to know his answer.
“Even if I never fucked them, but I let them claim me as theirs publicly. To everyone we met, I would be their omega, their chosen mate, and they would be mine. How the fuck would you feel about that?”
They’re all silent, their stormy expressions and the low rumbling growl answer enough, but I want to hear them say it, want them to admit out loud that it would tear them apart. So I repeat the question slower and with more force. “Answer me. How. The fuck. Would. You. Feel. About. That?”
“I’d hate it,” Courtland is the first to break. “Of course I’d fucking hate it.”
Thayer’s hand presses into his chest. “My alpha is rampaging from just considering the idea.”
Grieves’ hand flexes at his side. “We never should have asked you to do that, bubbles. What a bloody awful thing for us to do.”
Piers turns, tilts his head to look up at Forsythe, who’s just staring at me. His expression one of anguish, because he knows I’m right. If our roles were reversed, he’d never agree to it. Ever.
He doesn’t say anything.
Piers looks back at me, disappointment clear in the downturn of his mouth.
I sigh. Because I didn’t expect anything different.
“If you need to go, then you should go. You have your duties to the crown, to your family, and I can’t fault you for that.
I actually admire how devoted you are, Forsythe.
How devoted all of you are. But I have to be devoted to myself, and so if you do go, if you return to Bravonne, you shouldn’t think about coming back. ”
It doesn’t feel good, telling them this. And as soon as I say the words I want to take them back, to beg them to come back, to stay, to never leave my side again. But my begging won’t change anything. It has to come from them. From him. Forsythe.
And I already know he’s not ready for that. He might never be.
“Florence.” That’s it. That’s all he says. Just my name, like that should be enough to get me to change my mind.
“Forsythe,” I say back to him. “I mean it. Go if you need to, just don’t come back. Please.” I glance at the other pack members in the room. “All of you. I don’t think I’d like having you come here only for you to leave me again. It's not fair of you to ask me to go through that.”
I swallow thickly. Part of me really hopes they’ll all declare that they’ll stay, but I also know that’s not going to happen. So I brace for another assault on my defenses, another plea for me to just give in and go with them.
Instead, I get Piers. Beautiful sweet, dimpled Piers, saying resolutely, “I’m not going anywhere.”