Page 117 of Settle Down, Princess

“Well, not for long.”

The king pushed forward like a greedy child, intent on snatching all the sweets for himself before anyone else could grab them. “You are to become queen now.” I watched him undo his breeches with a growing sense of horror, red spots forming in Silas’ cheeks as his hands slid downwards. To snatch knives from hidden pockets I was sure, and part of me wanted it so very much, but this was the thing I’d neglected to consider in all my impetuous decision making.

Killing a king before I was made queen, before Arik had identified a power base to support his claim, would just have the lot of us facing the scaffold and some distant cousin being placed on the throne. I shook my head slightly, something Silas caught, even as he stared into my eyes, mutely pleading to be given free rein to despatch this loathsome creature. The fact remained that while he was trained to kill in increasingly creative ways, I’d been schooled in this.

Lying back and thinking of my duty to my country and my husband’s, as he performed his husbandly duties. “Just think of something far more pleasant,” a confidant had told me once. “A field of flowers perhaps? Feel the sun on your skin and the breeze in your hair, not him.” She smiled then as if seeing just that. “Never him.” She had blinked then and focused back on me. “They can only touch you if we allow it, in here.” She tapped her temple with an elegant finger. I clung to that idea with my whole heart as I watched the king’s knee press into the bed.

“I wouldn’t rush into that, not if you want to avoid war.”

Arik’s eyes stabbed so viciously into his brother’s back, I marvelled at Magnus’ ability to ignore it. The prince’s gaze was filled with an unearthly blue fire that threatened to consume the both of them. Magnus seemed fired by a similar impulse, turning slowly to face his brother.

“And what has war to do with my queen?”

“You’re not married yet.” Silas bent down to gather up the papers that had been discarded, but Magus knocked them from his hands, which made Arik smile. “Stormarian law does not recognise marriage by proxy. If you were in such a hurry to claim your queen, you should’ve done a little research, brother.”

“The contract says that the queen’s family must attend the wedding, that she must be allowed to observe the religious rites of her people with a period of purification in the women’s temple,” Silas read, his voice picking up as he scanned the documents. “If these conditions are not fulfilled…” He looked up then. “Then the marriage and the agreement are voided.”

Magnus didn’t move, instead remaining frozen half on, half off the bed as he stared at the lot of them.

“This is what you agreed to in my name? This is what you signed as a representative of Khean? You allowed your own country to risk war for…” His focus shifted to me. “A girl?”

He had more to say, the king working up to a right royal rage, when a sharp knock at the door announced he had a visitor. That gave him another target to comfortably unleash his terrible mood on as he jerked himself away and stormed over to the door, jerking it open to see a man in a richly braided uniform standing there.

“What?”

“Apologies, Your Majesty.” The solider bowed low. “I realised this is an inopportune moment to interrupt, but I bring word from the borders.”

“What now?” he drawled, looking the soldier over. “More money, more troops needed, I assume.”

“All of that now, sire, in greater need than ever before.” Magnus went still, losing his sardonic attitude. “The wolf shifters, Majesty…”

“What have the beast men done?” he asked in a low growl. “What have they done?”

“Word is some have deserted. Soldiers have left battlefields; commanders have handed their position to the next ranking human soldier. The reports have been coming in thick and fast all day. Beast men all over the border have left their posts.”

The soldier was trying to maintain calm and failing utterly, swallowing hard as he stared at the king.

“Both our flanks are utterly exposed, and the Lanzenians and the Mattenite forces are on the march.”

Chapter 68

Creed

If Jessalyn was in the capital, how did I end up here? I didn’t know because I wasn’t in control. It was the wolf that padded closer to the garrison, not me, and while our haunches ached and our paws bled, he pushed us on, head hanging.

“What the fuck is that?” a human soldier asked from the top of the wall. We watched him pull his bow, aiming the arrow at us.

“Put your bow away!” a shifter commander snapped, shoving the arrow away from us when the human didn’t respond fast enough. “Open the gates!”

His order rang through the entire garrison, so we heard the clang of the gate bar being lifted and then the doors opened for me moments later.

“Here, lad…” Another shifter soldier stepped forward, hand outstretched. “You’ve been on the road for some time. Are you well?”

He wanted to know if I was feral. My human brain was able to parse that, but the wolf just moved forward. He sniffed at the soldier’s fingers and then it all came. Which pack this male belonged to. The lands he was born on. His mate, a pretty girl with long brown hair, the last time I saw her. His brothers… All the information that the man paid attention to, but not the wolf, flooded my brain until I was able to wrest control and take skin.

“There you are.” The male, Jasper, I remembered, nodded at the sight of me. “You’ve come a long way, brother.”

He offered me his hand again, but this time for me to take. I clasped it firmly, trying not to cling because my whole body shook with the effort of what I’d done. I’d run all the way to the front, not towards the city. I looked around me, seeing the marshy lands of the border country with fresh eyes.

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