Page 221 of Settle Down, Princess

The doe’s hooves, my feet, came to a skidding stop as a massive shape loomed up out of the undergrowth. Wolf, my now primitive mind supplied, the jumble of images that followed a confusing mix of pleasure and fear. Neither were appropriate, it seemed, as I realised it wasn’t Creed or any of the other wolf shifters in the palace, but a stone carving. Worn smooth by the weather, half destroyed by the inexorable growth of the forest, I saw both the artwork itself and what it had been.

This area once had thinner undergrowth, and men with the heads of wolves installed the newly carved sculpture here, sending up howls of appreciation when it was free standing, but it was a howl now that had me running onwards.

“Jessalyn…”

My name was a hiss on the wind, and I couldn’t tell if it was the moon calling my name or them, but in the end, it didn’t matter. It forced me on and on, almost running at the doe’s side now, before another shape appeared in the dark.

This sculpture was better preserved. I could count each one of his claws, each fang in his mouth as the wolf shifter was frozen mid snarl, but stone he was. He didn’t move forward, seek to attack me, which couldn’t be said for others. I heard noisy steps behind me, the sound of a man—several men—crashing through the undergrowth. No, men and a wolf shifter.

I understood Creed’s how now. No words were needed, not when pure emotion throbbed within it. Of longing, need, but also rage that I would try to slip free of his grip, a promise that I would never again in the edge of the sound. I grinned, my mouth taking on the same snarl as the sculpture before I shot off again.

The next sculpture I saw I didn’t bother to stop for. The doe sailed past it because we knew what they were. No man would dare to come this deep into the forest, the space protected from poachers by the king’s law, but it was more than that.

This was a sacred space.

Something that became apparent as I skidded into a clearing not made by the demise of trees. My feet hit stone pavers, not dirt or leaf litter and that had my steps slowing.

The doe made a strange little sound, the reason soon evident. The golden stag, the beast kings felt the need to kill to take the throne stood within the remains of the stone circle, with two fawns pressed into his side. Their ears flicked and their eyes searched the woods as the sounds grew louder, their haunches bunching, ready to leap away as another howl went up. I thrust my hand up instead and shouted, “No!” Every muscle in all four creatures quivered at that, the need to run, to get as far away from predators as possible pumping through their veins in a way I knew all too well.

That was when I saw it.

I was just the first in many girls sent into the forest. Some found the stag and some didn’t. The pack whose mate found the stag, the one that used their love to bring the beast to ground, they emerged as victors. The massive span of the stag’s antlers was chopped up with ragged axes then bound with twigs and greenery to create not one antlered crown, but as many as there were packmates. They were elevated to a role within the packlands that now would’ve been called king.

“No…” I said again, much more gently. I saw death after death, of wolf shifters falling on the stag like a pack of wolves. Red of teeth and claw, they tore into the stag, reducing it down to blood and meat. As if summoned, they came bleeding out of the tree line, each one with eyes gleaming green in the moonlight.

“Jessalyn, you ran from us…”

There was no trace of gentle-eyed Master Creed. Instead a wolf shifter at the peak of his power stood before me. He wore the face of his wolf, the white fur gleaming in the moonlight, growing brighter and brighter as he took one step, then another step towards me, but it was the body of a man that drew my attention.

I had never really looked that closely at his beast form. It usually came out when we were in danger, other people’s blood matting his fur. There was no blood now as my eyes trailed down.

Every muscle was delineated because as a wolf man, there was no softness in him. His chest seemed broad enough to block out the moon’s light, his gentle hands now claws with wicked talons that could rip the doe, them, me apart. He flexed them now, the dull clack of them against each other forcing my own body to shake with the barely repressed need to run. But it was the vein that snaked down his taut abdomen that my eye followed, right to where his manhood swelled.

I knew he was different to a man, but we’d skirted around that, almost pretended that it wasn’t the case. When we made love, he was careful, so careful, yet somehow I knew the beast man wouldn’t be. His muzzle curved, flashing his fangs at me in answer. Teeth that had buried themselves into my neck, claiming me as his forever. My hand strayed to the bite, a shiver of pleasure twining with the one of fear that coursed through me. Run, run, run, my instincts told me, sure I knew exactly what we needed to do to survive this.

But my body?

The most primal part of me knew Creed on a whole other level. He was my mate but it was only now that I understood what that meant. He was mine, I felt that in the savage beat of my heart. Every step I’d ever taken was towards him, so I did that just now.

“My mate.”

I need that growled assertion. I needed his complete certainty as I reached out to touch his chest. Fur and skin I felt as I slid my hand down. He felt hot, far too hot, the muscles jumping under my touch, that involuntary movement reminding me of something else. I didn’t drop my hand as I looked back, seeing the stag had put himself between his family and us now. His head was dropped down, his rack of antlers brandished but he did not charge.

He couldn’t while I was here. There was something about my presence that forced them to stay exactly where they were in this uncomfortable holding pattern.

“The stag…” Roan, Arik and Silas moved closer, their focus shifting from us to the small herd of deer. “It’s a sign.”

“This is your opportunity to take the stag in truth, brother,” Roan told Arik.

I watched my mate’s hand drop down to his pants, a knife pulled out, but I stepped in their path.

That was when I realised what role I had to play here.

I was never going to just submit: at first to fate then to their will. All they saw was a symbol, but I… I turned and stared at the deer and saw why they were such a potent symbol for Khean. That primal instinct to mate, to procreate and then protect the family you made, in their minds it translated to this. By killing the stag they proved that they were the ones to protect all others, that they had the gods’ favour, but what if…

“No, Arik—” I said, putting my hand up, and he linked the fingers of his spare one with mine.

“Jessalyn, this was always meant to be.”

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