Chapter 35
T he stifling sun sat high above the treetops bordering the lycan lands, and Clara had never been more grateful to be on the other side of the perimeter. Not that it was cooler or different in any way from how the oppressive sunlight leaked through the leaves where she was standing. When she was going to let her wolf out beyond the stronghold’s borders for the first time since she’d been crowned queen, she figured it was best to trick her mind into thinking the experience was something significant.
Yesterday, on the morning of the summer solstice, her father’s sentence had been carried out. To say there was some dissent with her ruling would have been like saying a bonfire had a bone to pick with the rain that was snuffing it out.
The tide her words had ushered in was inevitable, but she hadn’t been prepared or particularly interested in the backlash that followed. Gasps and cries and groans had bubbled up around her declaration when she’d first voiced the intended repercussions for her father’s attack on her life. That had been a week ago, after which she’d promptly fled the room because she only had so much interest in hearing her advisors’ opinions. Words like unconventional and unprecedented had floated along the stone walls, chasing her out of the great hall and constantly prodding her mind with doubts about how she wasn’t equipped to rule the monarchy on her own.
As if she needed another reminder of just how horribly backward her life had become.
So, with a new fleet of guards at her command and no one on the premises to tell her otherwise, she decided that being off -premises sounded like a fine idea. Definitely the best she’d had in days.
Her wolf, at least, agreed with her. Besides, it would be the first time in her life she’d let her wolf run free beyond her father’s borders.
Not the first time, Clara. You shifted in these woods once before.
And just like that, her throat tightened up again with the familiar remorse she’d toiled at choking down over the past few weeks. She’d done so well, working herself up to a full four hours of sleep each night instead of the one or two she’d managed in the early days following Bronze’s betrayal.
God, she hated thinking of that word. Betrayal . Even its own letters seemed like daggers, with its towering T and underhanded Y. The bold B was the most ruthless of all, as it was a constant reminder of the male who’d stolen her heart, then struck it through with a blade so well concealed, even her wolf hadn’t been able to sniff it out.
“Lady, do you wish to shift here? The guards will hang back,” Broderick offered, his sandy blond hair and broad shoulders catching the sunlight on its way to the forest floor. He had escorted her to the perimeter with two other males, and while the rest of the guard followed Broderick’s orders closely, he followed her exclusively. It was a protocol she appreciated, but one that had quickly advanced from endearing to overwhelming at times.
It was also not lost on her that part of his duties as the newly appointed chief of arms was accounting for the security of both monarchs. A hard thing to achieve when the queen had chased away the days-old king and not addressed his absence publicly yet.
There was no need. They all knew. Gossip wasn’t exclusive to humans. If anything, it spread faster among the lycans, who had the benefit of keener senses on their side with which to grasp the whispers faster.
So, yes, everyone knew what had transpired between her and Bronze, and Broderick had been showing her immense kindness in not bringing up the subject. That courtesy wouldn’t be afforded her for much longer, though. Soon she’d have to declare the facts of the matter and officially give voice as to why the rightful winner of the Betrothal Games, the champion she’d selected, had not shown his face in?—
“Oh, Lord Bronze! I had not expected to see you today.” Broderick stepped past Clara, casting a shadowy blur in her periphery that blocked out the approaching figure.
“Hey, my man.”
That voice. By the Moon Mother, that voice .
A painful twitch pricked beneath her ribs at hearing the resonant baritone, and damn her foolish heart, the stimulus wasn’t anything she could resist. Her head had already jerked up in response, swiveling back and forth in frustration to try and get a peek beyond the mountainous width of Broderick’s back.
A slap, as if arms had been grasped, resounded off the tree trunks surrounding the males, but it was quickly muted. Had that been a . . . handshake?
Broderick’s voice followed up the out-of-place greeting. “Pascal did not?—”
“Actually,” Bronze cut in, “you mind if I speak to Clara alone for a bit?”
And that was when Broderick stepped aside, and her jaw nearly hit the ground.
Gone were the magnificent waves of auburn hair that always dusted Bronze’s shoulders and seemed to dance with enthusiasm every time the wind caught them. He’d shaved his head nearly to the root on the sides, while the top was fashioned into a neatly and only slightly thicker trimmed patch down the center. The high-and-tight appearance was so at odds with what she’d remembered of him, and yet her heart still clenched at the sheer brilliance of all he commanded. Ever so handsome, ever so domineering. And despite the painful nudge of his mark’s heat radiating from her wrist—or perhaps because of it—he was still ever so hers.
The reminder stung almost as much as his betrayal.
Clara collapsed onto a nearby log, and, not trusting her legs or her wolf to carry her away quickly enough, protected herself in the only way she could: she turned away from him.
She couldn’t look at him, not like this. He had no right, no right to walk back here, regardless of whatever claim fate dared to make of them. It was on the tip of her tongue to say so when more male murmurings rose up behind her, and Broderick’s great hulking shadow glided past her in the exact opposite direction of who she considered the enemy.
“Where are you going? You’re retreating now ?” she asked, letting all the derision she’d silently worked up over the past few weeks pelt her new chief of arms in the back. “All because he showed up and the law dictates you must abide by his word over mine?”
“I have heard his words, lady,” Broderick said with a sad smile over his shoulder. “I know you are hurting, but I do believe it’s best if you hear his words, too.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
The answer, when it came, only served to agitate her confusion even more.
“It means Broderick doesn’t have to listen to me or any other male monarch anymore, not unless you expressly allow it. I’ve taken care of that problem.”
Clara shook her head, still refusing to meet Bronze’s eyes. “What are you talking about?”
A cylindrical leather-bound scroll of papers plunked down into the soft earth at her feet. “Read ‘em.”
Clara slammed her eyes shut and breathed through her nose, doing her best to calm the agitation of her wolf prowling around in her mind. “If you think, for one minute, you can just come back here, to my home, and act like what you said, what you did could be swept away with some sort of . . . what? An apology? A show of male affection to my guards? Then you’re about to find out just how deadly my arctic wolf can truly be.”
She let her fangs drop and angled her head in his direction, fully intending to display whatever force necessary to get rid of him so she could break down all over again in peace.
The sight of Bronze on his knees, however, stopped her short. His massive weight no longer stood strong and commanding as it had done in Broderick’s presence. Instead, the great fallen angel had crumpled somehow, shoulders rounded, head lowered, mouth pulled down at the corners into an exhausted frown.
The subtle breeze around them fell silent, mirroring Clara’s shock.
Where was the confidence and discipline that had always tightened Bronze’s muscles? Gone, apparently, along with the fire she expected to see blazing in his eyes. Instead, a cold lifelessness stared back at her, causing her snarling lip to lower into a frown that had grown so familiar these past weeks.
“What is this?” she asked again, gesturing toward what he’d thrown at her, forcing the words out through a tight throat.
He dropped his eyes lower so they no longer captured hers and ducked his head. “Please read them.”
Perhaps it was her curiosity or the fact that a stupidly foolish part of her still hoped this whole thing was just some nightmare and she’d wake up any minute with a truth that saw them happy and together. Whatever it was urged her to untie the leather cord around the papers and read them.
For the second time in as many weeks, words her eyes took in failed to make sense in the context of how they were written. It didn’t matter how hard she furrowed her brow or how often she blinked and reread paragraphs. None of it made sense, nor did the eerie sensation of having his eyes on her as she pored over what had to be the biggest practical joke of all time.
“This isn’t real,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief. “This can’t be real. How could you have done this?”
Bronze sat back on his heels and, despite the kneeling, exhibited every ounce of warrior’s strength she’d known from him. Where her face was surely painted with all sorts of confusion and incredulity, his revealed only absolute certainty. Her heart pounded out a rhythm of chaos, while his stony jaw and stoic gaze never wavered.
His chest rose and fell with the steady power of a calm sea, all while the silence roared between them.
“Pascal drafted it, and among all the advisors as witnesses, I signed it into law this morning while you were out visiting some of the farmers on the northern edge of the property.”
Clara’s head spun, and she was once again grateful for the log supporting her. “I can’t let you . . . Why would . . . To do this, to enact it into the official canon of lycan law . . . Bronze, why would you do something like this?”
“Because you are the queen your people have always deserved, and now you’re the sole monarch of the northeastern lycans. It took some fancy legislative tap dances on Pascal’s part in terms of the wording, and I probably owe the male an entire brewery’s worth of craft beer as thanks, but as of today, your monarchy will be exclusively matriarchal. Any male you choose to take as a mate will be considered a consort. A member of the monarchy, yes, but in name only. He will not have any say regarding your official rule, laws, sentences, proceedings, nothing, unless you wish it.”
Clara could only shake her head as the silent minutes she took to reread the documents stretched on into eternities.
It was all there. Everything he said, everything he’d promised to help her achieve at the start of their journey was now baked into the official constitution of her people.
“I will never,” he ground out, the muscles of his jaw flexing, “outrun the nightmares of seeing the anguish on your face knowing that I was the bastard who put it there. They’ve haunted me at the beginning of every single sunset these last agonizing weeks, and I’ll gladly bed down with those fuckers each night for the rest of my life if it means you’ll never have to wonder again whether your wishes will be granted by the whims of a male. No middlemen. Not anymore. You’re the smartest and most courageous being I’ve ever known, and I’ve been around the block a long damn time, Clara. It’s time for your people to see the female I fell in love with and to start loving her as much as I do, too.”
Clara frowned, hating that the words she’d once longed to hear now came shrouded with humiliation. Hot tears stung her eyes. “You can’t say that, Bronze. Words on a page don’t negate one’s actions. You lied to me about your true emotions, about us, about me .”
The dirt littering the short distance between them kicked up into the air, clouding her already misted vision. Bronze appeared before her, faster than she thought possible. He was still on his knees, with eyes speaking pleas no warrior had ever known. Then his arms were around her waist, and he cradled his head in her lap like a child begging for atonement. By the Moon Mother, he clung to her, grasping at the back of her blouse and stretching it until she felt it pulling at the tops of her shoulders. The strength she’d always known him to possess was now around her, bunching into the cruxes of his joints with the force of a desperation that shook his sturdy frame.
“I’ll tell you what my true emotions have been, Clara.” Bronze shifted against her and placed a small dagger with a black blade—not metallic—in her fist, curled her fingers around it before wrapping his around hers, and pointed the lethal tip at his heart. “And if any lying words fall free, I happily give you permission to take the rest of them. The prime mages granted me a big fat mouth for a reason, and it’s long past time I put it to good use.”
There wasn’t a thing Clara could do but hold the male in her lap as he gave everything to her. It was like being strapped into those past-vertical dive coasters he’d told her the humans loved so much, with any objectionable screams being swallowed up by the force of the fall.
“You want to talk about emotions? Fine, let’s do it. I can’t control my first thought. My lizard brain spews up whatever it needs to in the moment, and I execute it based on habit and skill. There’s no logic in it, only emotional reaction. But that second thought? And the third? And the millionth? I sure as shit can control those thoughts. Those are the ones that have carried me through these eternally long years, keeping my brothers safe and keeping my miserable ass alive until I found you. Since then, though, you have been my every thought. The first, second, millionth. All of them. Emotions have nothing to do with the way my brain and soul are wired when it comes to you, and it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that. You’re not my emotional security blanket, Clara. You’re my survival and the truest reason for my existence.”
His back expanded on a great breath, the muscles shifting beneath his shirt, and Clara couldn’t help but lay the knife down and drift her fingers over his body to map the breadth of him. “Malik, Polina, they’re memories, ghosts of a time when I thought my station meant more than what it does now. I think a part of me was still trying to cling to that, to them. But you are my present, my reality, my future. I was so wrapped up in my goddamn head that I couldn’t see what my heart and a frickin’ goddess were trying to show me all along.”
Then he lifted his head, and Clara’s breath caught at the earnestness that stared back at her. “There will never be enough sunrises for me to express how sorry I am, nor will there be enough sunsets for me to vow against the moon how ardently I love you. But I’ll keep doing it, day after day, night after night, because you’re the first whispered word of my heart each time I rise and the last thought of my soul before I sleep. I love you, Clara. I need you to know that and to know that I’ll happily follow you wherever you lead because you’re the strongest being I know, and this sentinel of the Empyrean recognizes nothing above the strength of his queen.”
There were words she meant to say, she was sure of it. Really powerful, monarch-worthy words that would have the male before her cower in fear. But, well, he was already cowering, wasn’t he? And there were entire summits one had to climb before they could truly ascend to the heights he’d already placed her at, weren’t there?
The tears that spilled over her cheeks smoothed away her doubts and answered her questions. All except one.
Clara moved her hands over the sides of his shorn scalp, curling her fingers around the downy skin above his ears. “Why?”
He grabbed up her hands, kissing her palms first, then the tattoo on her wrist. “Because I support my queen, now and always.”
The vastness of the forest fell away from her. The vibrant greens above and loamy soil below were nothing more than vague sensations as she flung herself at him. And with the reflexes of a true warrior, Bronze caught her with practiced precision and guided them both to the soft earth. She didn’t care about crushing him or dousing the poor male in a pool of her tears. It was the least he deserved and nowhere near the most of what she hoped for him. Oh, Moon Mother, she was a mess as she kissed him soundly and, yes, emotionally. Tears fled from her cheeks to his, chasing down both the cause and the cure for her present state of turmoil. But it wasn’t until those strong arms banded around her back and pulled the tension free from her taut muscles that the words of her heart were let loose and finally permitted to soar free.
“I don’t know how or why any of this happened, but I don’t really care. My wolf, a far less emotional creature than me, mind you, claimed you from the moment she first smelled you in the forest, before I’d even fully risen to consciousness. But love has a way of carving out the meat from the fat, and nothing would gladden my lycan heart more than to spend the rest of my days filled with you by my side as my soul bond. My mate. My love.”
His eyes misted over, and he squeezed her close as he blinked away the emotion pooling there. But when he opened his eyes again, they’d taken on a darker hue. “And don’t forget consort. I kind of like the way that sounds. Gives off a naughty vibe, don’t you think?”
On any other day, Clara would have rolled her eyes and begged the Moon Mother for patience and understanding. On this day, however, she mentally closed the curtain on any and all intrusions from fates heretofore known and unknown and made it her personal mission to consort with her soulmate in as many ways as her heart and wolf could imagine.