Page 179 of Settle Down, Princess

My answer was blunt. Somehow inside my heart, I knew what was needed. If the gods had stirred me to build an army when all I was trying to do was inform people of the king’s treachery, then I would wait here, ready to be deployed until I got word. As if summoned by that thought, a runner approached the cook fire, his face flushed red. He must’ve sprinted from the edges of a camp that spread over many fields to bring me this news.

“Apologies for interrupting, Alpha—” he said, dropping down on one knee.

“I am not the alpha,” I replied, then shook my head. No one ever listened, or they did too well, scurrying to do what I suggested, the human need for hierarchy somehow being reshuffled until I was placed at the top of it. “But please, share your news with all that stand here.”

“They’ve come.” His eyes shone bright with excitement, and it was then I saw how young he was. A boy of his age would not be allowed to join the army if he grew up on the packlands.

“Who has come, boy?” Herald asked, keeping his tone gentle when I knew he wanted to bark the order out.

“The Bastard Prince…”

He said more, babbled it out, full of the excitement of being the first person to sight them before rushing here to share the information, but I couldn’t take any of it in. My brother… My pack? I swallowed hard, my heart now beating hard and fast in my chest, every muscle tensing as the wolf fought me for control.

This was what we’d been waiting for, he told me in a terse growl. She was here, he just knew it, and I needed… I didn’t require my wolf to direct me to do something I’d been preparing for since the moment I saw Jessalyn leave with that fucking monster. I strode away from the group of them, unable to answer questions or give orders, not when she was here.

I walked through the camp, then jogged, then broke out into a run, people turning to stare as I passed, others calling out questions. I couldn’t answer them either, my focus entirely narrowed. Tents were obstacles, so were cook fires, blankets, even people sleeping in the crushed wheat stalks of the field. They were just things I needed to jump over, dodge past as I got faster and faster. The wolf approved, lending me his strength as we loped closer, only to come to a skidding halt.

More men, more horses, more weapons, I catalogued that with my eyes, having learned to quickly assess a potential threat with all of the battles we’d been forced to engage in, but that was all just background noise to this.

The commander I saw first. He led the troops forward, but it wasn’t lords or dukes that rode at his side. Roan’s bright, red hair gleamed in the sunlight like a lit beacon, warning me of what was coming. Silas stared at the camp, trying to take in its length and breadth, assessing what resources we already had to add to the mental tally he had going, but he wasn’t what took my breath away.

It was her.

Riding on her own horse, my heart felt like it would wrench its way out of my chest when I saw her. The golden fall of her hair, the way she sat on horseback, spine perfectly straight, had me whining like a pup. The wolf began to scrabble in earnest inside me, fighting to get free and go to her, but he needn’t have bothered. There was nowhere else I wanted to be. I took off at a dead sprint, my legs and arms slicing through the air as I ran towards her.

“Creed…!”

My name on her lips was almost as good as my mouth pressing against them as I appeared at the side of her horse. One of my hands whipped out to grab her horse’s bridle and I murmured gentle words to settle him, right before I took his mistress from her saddle. Her hands found mine, and I hauled her down and into my arms.

“Jess…” I couldn’t get her whole name out, not when I was lunging closer, sucking in her scent and unable to believe I was breathing it. My hands rubbed up and down her arms, trying to convince myself she was here. “Jessalyn…”

My throat closed up and I blinked furiously, my eyes aching. I was tired, so damn tired. I’d pushed myself harder than I ever had before, and I knew I’d pay the price for it, my control on the wolf growing thinner, but I couldn’t stop, not until I did this.

“I know I’m not worthy of you. You ran from us because you were terrified you were going to die, and I did nothing to assure you things would be different. I should never have allowed…” My mind raced, thinking of all the different sins we committed against our mate. “Any of what happened, but…” I shook my head slowly. “I’m trying to make amends. I raised an army, Jess, one that will fight the king and bring him to his knees so that he never kills another girl. So that he never lays a hand on you.”

“Did you?” She let out a tiny, little laugh, her brows creasing as she looked over my shoulder. Her eyes widened as she took in all the troops stationed here. “Well, we did too.” She glanced over her shoulder, and that’s when I saw just how many soldiers had joined this fight. Trained knights with lances, well armoured swordsmen and brawny bowmen. It looked like she’d brought the other half of Khean with her.

“Almost.” A man with the deep lines of grief in his face dismounted and then offered me a mailed hand. “I’m James, Lord…” His gaze dropped for just a second. “Duke of Fallspire, and we’re here to right a wrong. My father meant to wage war to support the claim of our true king years ago, and I aim to honour his intention.”

A roar went up through the crowd, but as I looked up, Arik shot me a wry smile. My commander, my alpha, would never have his head turned by such a display. It was why the elders approved us forming a pack.

“That boy has more wolf in him than he should,” Elder Wren said with a nod. “He’ll do. He’ll do.”

“Herald of the fifth division,” the wolf shifter I’d been talking with said as he appeared at my shoulder. “Looks like you’ve brought quite the number of men to this party, Lord?”

“Duke of Fallspire,” James said, thrusting out his hand for the shifter to take.

“Seems like a war council is in order, Alpha,” Herald told me.

“I can’t.” I couldn’t look at him, couldn’t meet his eyes, not while Jessalyn stood before me. My hands shook, claws pressing through the skin as I reached up to touch her cheek. I went to snatch them back but she grabbed a hold of it, then pressed her face into my palm, a shy smile forming. “I can’t do anything with anyone, not until…”

I shot Herald a brief look over my shoulder.

“This is Jessalyn, my mate. She’s the one the king took.” A low growl went up through the wolf shifters who had run over to join us. “He intended to rape her, kill her.” The growls grew more thunderous. “Everything I’ve done, everything I am, it's for her, for Jessalyn.”

I watched colour stain her cheeks and her eyes sparkle like dewdrops in the sun as she searched my face, looking for evidence of a lie, but she didn’t find it. I loved her, that had to be evident in my eyes, in my body, because it saturated every fibre of my being. All I was, all I would ever be, started and ended with Jess.

“I need—”

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