Page 218 of Settle Down, Princess

Creed shot me a thankful look, the rest of his contingent nodding slowly.

“But you’re one of them by blood now, aren’t you?” This was Lord Rochester, a blustery idiot and one of Fallspire’s bannermen. “What’s the point of being in this pack arrangement”—he waved his hand around vaguely—“if it gives you no authority?”

“That’s not—” I started to say.

“Arik is my brother.” The whole room turned to face Creed. “We are bound in blood to protect each other until death takes one or both of us. There is no bond deeper.”

“So use this bond to command the shifters to the border, Your Highness!” another lord said in frustration.

“Here, here!”

The sounds grew louder and louder as the humans shouted their support and the wolf shifters protested, until I was forced to act.

“Enough!” I jerked myself to my feet and slammed my hands down on the table, finally getting silence. “You act as if this is something that can be argued about, but it’s not. Each one of you stood by as Magnus ruined everything…” I sucked in a breath, then let it out again, somehow still able to feel his hands around my throat, squeezing. What else explained how tight my chest felt? “As did I. The situation is dire. No one is disputing that, but rather than try and berate people into action, we must work with what we have. How many soldiers do we have?”

The general rattled off a distressingly small number, his eyes staring into mine as he willed me to see it. We had no ability to defend Khean without the wolf shifters.

“Your Highness, enlistment numbers have been down for some time. Magnus made a career in the army less and less attractive by reducing the weekly pay rate and taking gold marked for the army to swell the numbers of the guards because they remained loyal to him alone.”

We both knew where the money had gone. Frittered away on yet another perverse amusement, it wasn’t hard to accept Magnus was not my father’s son. He cared only for the privilege of his position, not the responsibilities. Not for the first time I cursed Magnus’ name silently in my head. I’d killed him far too quickly for what he’d done.

“So we can change that,” a lord said. “Conscript every able bodied man and lad and send them to the border.”

I saw the shine in his eye, knew what he was thinking. That if we had enough men, we wouldn’t need the wolf shifters, but he didn’t know. None of them did. They’d grown complacent under my father’s rule and disengaged under Magnus’, but that was about to change.

“We aren’t conscripting anyone,” I snapped. “If we can’t convince men to fight to save their own country, then I am not the right person to become king. What holds us up is the meeting with the elders of the wolf shifter clans. They cannot ride fast towards us, but I can.” I nodded to Creed who smiled slightly. “We can. Creed is my brother in truth, and he will select a number of the wolf shifters here to represent the army’s interests in the conversation.”

“Will we be present at this meeting?” another lord asked with a frown. “This is a treaty that will affect all of us.”

“No.” I stared him and all of the others around him down. “I am to be king here, not you. You’ll either have to trust I have the country’s best interest at heart or depose me, just like I did Magnus. Then you can try and bargain with the shifters.”

“I wouldn’t anticipate that being successful,” Creed growled, fur prickling over his arms as he crossed them.

“We’ve been at this all day and got no further,” I said, feeling so very tired. I hadn’t had enough sleep for days and it was starting to weigh me down, but the ache in my chest was more than that. “I need to find my mate. Jessalyn was stolen from me by the Raven, terrorised by a man I was raised to think of as my brother and only returned to us by luck, it feels. I’ve sat in here and listened to everyone squabble over what we should do, right when all I want to do is hold her as tight as I can and persuade myself that no one will ever try and take her from me again.”

“Oh…”

That little feminine voice would’ve stood out in a room seething with testosterone, but her voice? It was like the song of angels, and I couldn’t help but turn towards it. Jessalyn stood there with her hands on the door frame, a small frown on her face.

“I apologise for interrupting, but you said to fetch you for dinner? It’s getting late and—”

“This meeting is over for today,” I said, rushing towards her. I couldn’t bloody stop myself, not until I had her close in reality, rather than just fantasising about it in my head. “Our contingent will ride out at daybreak to meet with the elders.” I hated the look of concern on Jessalyn’s face, my thumb itching to smooth the line between her brows away. “The Duke of Fallspire and two of his closest allies can join us.”

Perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing to become king. The blessed silence that followed was enough to convince me of it.

“You heard His Highness,” Silas said, rising to his feet. “Fallspire, you’ll have your choices ready in the morning?”

“Without a doubt,” came James’ reply.

But I didn’t care, not when she stood before me, because that was what they didn’t understand. I was never raised to be king, never intended to be the one responsible for a whole country. I’d narrowed my focus down to keeping my pack alive, and now it was complete…

“I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to kiss you right now,” I told Jessalyn in a low voice. “I don’t think I can hold myself back.”

“Don’t,” was her only reply as she moved closer, craning her neck to reach my lips.

She’d never need to. I felt like a wolf hunched over my prey as my mouth smashed down on her. I was hungry like one, sucking in a breath at the first taste of her, then going back for more. I had her pressed against the wall, my hands clawing at her, needing her, needing inside her, but Roan appeared by my shoulder.

“What?” I snapped.

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