Page 125 of Quest for her Knights
We stay pressed together, panting heavily, until we finally pull part. Someone finds something to clean me up with, although my panties are no longer usable.
I brush my hands down my dress to smooth it out and when I look back up, Draven is holding out a ring towards me.
“Better make it official,” he says with a smile.
“It’s beautiful,” I tell him as I step close and take a better look. It’s a gorgeous, deep green stone set in a platinum-colored band.
He slides it on my finger and I grin up at him. “Thank you.” He leans down and kisses me. I take turns thanking each of them as they lead me around the garden.
“You know, I feel kind of bad for some of those lords,” I tell them, thinking about all the effort they went into to come here and compete in a tournament.
“Why?”
“Well, it seems like women are few and far between in this world. Where would they find someone?”
“You don’t have to worry about them. Now you’re married, they’re the most eligible people in Dyconia,” Arrow tells me.
“And unlike you, they can marry commoners," Blaze adds.
“Oh, well that’s good.”
“If you’re gonna feel bad for anyone, feel bad for the Lonelings.”
I remember Blaze telling me about them months ago. “They’re men with no brothers, right?” I ask. “Like you and Blaze?”
“Technically, we were, but you lose that status when you become a knight as it’s supposed to mean you are putting yourself out of the running for having a mate.”
“You never wanted a mate?”
“It wasn’t that we never wanted it, it was just we never thought it’d happen.”
“Yeah, if you’re a loneling and really want a wife, you’d have to join the mating hunt.”
“What the heck is that?” I ask imagining women running through the forest as they are hunted down.
“It’s a very primitive practice that takes place in the South. Men and women who want to be wed, sign up for it. If a group of men catch a woman, they get to keep her.”
My eyes practically bug out of my head. “What, like she’s some prize to be won?”
“Women sign up for this willingly. It’s not easy to win, there are hundreds of men who participate. To win means you would be the strongest, fastest and smartest of the bunch.”
And most dangerous.
“Well, I’m glad I don’t have to participate in anything like that. The tournament was crazy enough for me.”
“Me too,” Arrow says, placing his arm around my shoulder and pulling me to his side. “Now we just have to decide where to live.”
“I didn’t realize we had options.”
“Freya said we could live at her family’s castle…”
“Where they tried to kill me with a curse? No thanks!”
“Yeah, we crossed that one off our list, too,” Blaze says. “We could stay here, we’d live in your suite.”
I wrinkle my nose. “It doesn’t feel like ours.”
“The other option is we could just travel around, see if we find a place or a piece of land we like, and build something on it.”
