The Noble Throne
Author: Logan Keys
Date: 2017-11-17 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy; Paranormal; Romance; Paranormal Romance; Shapeshifters
Description: Lions, wolves, and more in a realm shapeshifters. Reviewers already call it "The best paranormal of 2017!" A prince and princess from opposing kingdoms find themselves in an arranged marriage after one near-fatal mistake. Liana was destined to rule all of the realms, that is, until she puts her throne in danger when she attacks a wolf and prince who's wandered out of winter and into her territory.Noble isn't supposed to be king of winter yet, but fate has other plans. When he agrees to marry Liana he finds that trusting someone with your heart is twice as difficult as trusting them with your k

Table of Contents

- Prologue
- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 3
- Chapter 4
- Chapter 5
- Chapter 6
- Chapter 7
- Chapter 8
- Chapter 9
- Chapter 10
- Chapter 11
- Chapter 12
- Chapter 13
- Chapter 14
- Chapter 15
- Chapter 16
- Chapter 17
- Chapter 18
- Chapter 19
- Chapter 20
- Chapter 21
- Chapter 22
- Chapter 23
- Chapter 24
- Chapter 25
- Chapter 26
- Chapter 27
- Chapter 28
- Chapter 29
- Chapter 30
- Chapter 31

The Noble Throne

Game of Realms Series Book One

Logan Keys & Yessi Smith

Copyright © 2017 by Logan Keys & Yessi Smith

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Created with Vellum

This book is for the broken hearted still searching for their fairytale.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

A Note from the Authors

Prologue

Frost clings to Katarina’s long, black eyelashes and icicles stiffen in her midnight hair. Sitting primly on a block of ice, she waits for her intended.

She puts her palms up against the freezing chill of the night and her heart beats evenly, even though pain burns every bit of her naked body.

Katarina’s obsidian eyes dart to and fro, searching for one who isn’t here.

He has to come. He must.

If he doesn’t claim her, she’ll surely die out here.

The royals are tested in this way. Always.

Without her scent, her heat, he’ll have trouble finding her. But he’s being tested, too.

Wild and free, for one whole month.

And still, on the last night, he’s supposed to seek her. His chosen bride, who sits frozen in the deepest winter, waiting…waiting.

“Noble,” she whispers, her vision growing blurry.

But he doesn’t come.

Katarina’s blood slows in her veins. Her heartbeat is no longer even. Her eyes close.

It doesn’t hurt anymore.

Chapter 1

Noble

Through the open window, the first frost bites at my nose. I sit at my desk and write. Well, I was writing, but now I’m just staring. The white snow is a blank canvas that seems to catch my thoughts and luckily doesn’t return them back to me.

I like the numbness it provides—the way the blanket of pure, untouched nature washes everything out.

I could gaze like this for hours.

“Did you hear me, Noble?” Winnie says, and I blink over at her, just now remembering she’s been reading in my chair by the fire. “You can’t still blame yourself.”

How she knows my thoughts are drifting to that long winter night, the fateful eve of Katarina’s death, is a mystery.

Winnie closes her book. “You can’t still think it was any of your doing. Not after all this time. You were naught but a child.”

I frown at Winnie before rubbing a hand over my face. When had we grown up? We’ve elevated quickly from playful foot-races to talking of death, guilt and blame.

And she’s gotten so beautiful. Winnie—Winifred —a name she hates almost as much as her plain, brown hair. But it had never seemed plain to me. It had always seemed… lovely. Too bad she’s a springer, and I’m just…

“I can’t stop thinking about it. You didn’t know her well, but Kat was sweet. Ambitious at times, yes. I tried so hard to find her, but then, it was like I lost myself…”

I turn to look outside again, fading off, like I usually do.

Winnie comes near and tries to pull me from the window. “You were in the woods for six whole months before they found you. How could your parents know you’d gotten some sort of rogue gene? It’s not fair. Wolves lose more mates than any other.”

“They shouldn’t have to die. Not simply to prove a connection. It’s barbaric.”

Winnie gives up on me when I don’t move and searches my bookshelf instead. “When you’re the King of Winter, you’ll change that, Noble. Can I borrow this one?”

“Yes, of course.”

She wiggles her nose when she opens the old book, dust pluming.

I laugh at the sight. “My lady, I think it’s time you head back to your home.”

“What?” she asks, and her little face twitches even more.

“Your nose,” I say.

She sighs. “Damn. And I can’t stop thinking about carrots, either.”

It used to be cute. Now, it’s endearing more than I’d like to admit. The way her face is always moving. The subtle hints of her truest form. When I am as I am now, I think of her long, pretty ears when she changes. It’s kind of alluring. The bunnies always are too damn pretty for their own good.

But then, when I am as I am during the full moon, I try not to think of how I’d rip Winnie’s flesh from her bones without hesitation. I shudder.

Her brown eyes narrow at me. “Getting close, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“I can tell. Your eyes lose the last of their blue and become slate. You’re already like your father in ways, but somehow, Noble, when the full moon is almost upon us, you become a man of silver shadow.”

Her hand finds my cheek, but I stop her. I push it away—the scent of her away.

She rubs her palms on her dress. “My parents have already packed. We’ll be out of your hair in no time.” She winks, trying to lighten the mood.

It’s that time of the year when we seem to change more often than not. We let ourselves run wild for longer and we find new people in the pack to bond with. But now that I’m older, I’ll also find more who will challenge me. I don’t have to worry about mates. No one wants to try to marry the murdering son of the king. They think I purposefully left Katarina to die. That they picture me as such a savage is the reason I hardly see anyone at all but Winnie. She’s truly my only friend.

My father says it’s good, that the pack thinks such a thing—it makes me look cold, strong. He says it’s better for our realm to have a lone wolf as King, anyway. He brings up our history and shows me the loners who’ve ruled before. He’s trying to help bring me back from the maudlin place I’ve been since Kat’s death.

Since I killed my own betrothed.

At first, I liked the idea of being alone. At least no more mates would have to die. But the truth is the bigger lie. I’m rogue. It’s almost unheard of in our lineage, but my father won’t ever let on to the pack the real reason why I left Katarina. Because it’s a defect.

And…if they found out…I’d never be king.

I rise and hug Winnie, so that she’s not too hurt by my rejection, but I hold my breath, just in case.

Winnie knows the truth. And she won’t ever betray me.

She pulls away to look at me and smiles, and I smile back.

Her eyes widen. “You’re looking a little long in the tooth, Noble.”

I close my mouth.

“Son!” My mother comes into the room. She frowns at our proximity.

I back away a step and she visibly brightens. “Winnie, your parents are waiting.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” Winnie curtseys, sighs, and then looks me over. She’s worried about me.

A bunny. Worried about a wolf.

“Bye, friend,” I say.

“Take care of yourself, won’t you?”

What she means: don’t let the pack bring me down.

Chapter 2

Liana

Life on the prairie is a hard life, a rugged life. A life of scars, of battles lost and of wars won.

The men, our mates, don’t fight for us. That’s not how it’s done. They vaunt for our affections, while we, the women, contest and hunt.

We aren’t like the wolves who only change under a full moon. We aren’t like the Spring animals who wait for the early part of year to mate and eat. Nor are we like the bears whose very existence hangs on by a fraying thread.

We are the lions.

We drink from the ancient springs as if it’ll quench the same thirst that drives us—the innate thirst that we embody. Sunlight courses through our veins, radiating warmth throughout our body. At night, our souls glow dimly against the black backdrop, like stardust painted across the heavens.

We’re governed by laws, but by nature, we are untamable. We change any time we feel like it. We rule all of the seasons but none as much as summer.

Our women take charge in our realm and we command it by brute force. Three queens to every king. We fight for that position, to the death if necessary.

There are many tribes that live in our realm, and each tribe has their own king with three complacent queens governing their family. But there is only one kingdom that rules them all. One king and queen the pride looks to for direction. I was fortunate enough to be born a royal. Destiny whispered her demand into the fleeting wind and I was born. I know it deep in my bones I am meant to rule over not just our pride but all the realms.

My mate, Crede, was chosen with that same knowledge. We are the heirs of Summer. As such I will have to tolerate the other two wives, my own sisters, who will rival against me for our future husband’s attention.

As cubs, our mates are named during the Ceremony of Promises where we are officially betrothed to our partner. We accept our selected groom or bride as our soulmate. The stars have spoken, and we are fated for one another. But always, there’s one female that stands out to her husband-to-be more than the other wives. One lioness the lion prizes above the rest.

As the preferred daughter of the king and queen, I guess it’s only natural that the man I’m betrothed to also favors me. We’ll rule together, Crede, the future king, and me, his wife by his side, with my sisters behind us, always wanting more than they will receive. It’s our destiny.

A destiny I want and shy away from at the same time. Because, although I want my rightful place at the throne beside my closest friend and soon-to-be-husband, I also yearn for something more, something I can’t quite name. Something unknown and, I’m sure, something my parents would disapprove of. I shudder at the thought of their disapproval, of disappointing them.

Behind the soothing, almost melodic sound of the rushing water, something rustles. Tilting my head away from the river and toward the tree line of the nearby woods, all I hear is the wind singing through the trees. I smile when a small fox runs from deep inside the trees and scurries to the meadow. Angling my face upward, I soak in the unending blue sky that spans above me and the sun glistens on my tan skin.

Secure in the loneliness of my surroundings, I undress. My dress falls to the ground unceremoniously and as I step out of it, I unlatch my undergarments, still holding onto my washrag. Walking to the river, the thigh-high grass runs smoothly across my legs. I dip a toe into the cool water. When I’m waist deep, I dive in head first, my carefree glee coming out as a giggle when I come up for air.

This is the life I want. Swimming and bathing in solitude, surrounded by the familiarity of my realm while keeping a watchful gaze at the closest realm where the peaks of the mountains break through the puffy clouds—as if the mountains themselves are cruel and demanding.

Having already put soap on my cloth, I lather myself, beginning with my long, light-brown hair. The same shade of brown that covers my lion form.

A gentle whisper of leaves crackling catches my attention again. For a second time, I scan my surroundings. The sun streams into the dark spaces, permitting me to see the thick wooded area better. I startle, gasping for air, when I spot a pair of electric blue eyes emanating from behind a nearby bush, a dark mass of fur surrounding it.

The lone wolf prowls forward, sending me a quick glance as he dips his face and laps the cool water into his mouth. I still, both of us watching the other, and when I cover my naked body with my hands, his eyes narrow. I inch forward, anger making my body tremble with every casual step I take. In response, he pulls his muzzle back as he bears his white, sharp teeth at me. A growl rumbles from deep within his chest. I jump, changing form, and the transition is swift but empowering. In my true nature as a lion, my muscles twitch with power desperate to be released. The wolf flees the moment I land where he once stood, watching and antagonizing me.

The coward runs with his tail firmly between his legs. Unsure of his true nature—if he is simply a wolf or a spy sent from Winter—I follow him with the same quiet and patient footsteps I use when hunting.

I let him lead while I stalk back, as he rushes back to safety. When his stance relaxes, confident that he is alone, I stride forward, away from the shadows I’d hidden in.

We circle each other. His ears suddenly erect and he holds his legs stiff, he stands tall. He holds his tail high, thrashing side to side. We pace in front of each other. Watching. Waiting.

He snaps his jaw, his dark fur bristling as he stares intently at me. His muscles expand and retract with every step, and dominance radiates from him. His eyes change color, alerting me of his true nature.

This isn’t a regular wolf who accidentally strolled into our realm but, as I suspected, a wolf from Winter.

He crouches, as if readying himself to attack, so I pounce, landing on him and sinking my teeth into his neck. A howl crackles, reverberating around us as the first star appears onto the falling sky.

Chapter 3

Noble

I wander from the pack immediately.

My animal side takes over, just like before. It’s why Katarina died, because once I’m wolf, I’m not half myself as my parents are, as the parents before them were. If I change, I become the wolf. If I die, I wouldn’t even feel the death.

I do remember much later, but in the moment, it’s as if I’m asleep. The memories will tumble back unexpectedly afterward.

As soon as I transition, I head for the wood line, but the wolf doubles back. Before transitioning, I’d been seeking to be alone, and the wolf follows suit. I can sense the wrongness of where I’m heading, but the wolf pushes on never-the-less.

What I can recall next is waking - naked and bleeding.

I’m against the walls of our castle trying to hold chunks of myself together, blind with a pain I’ve never felt before.

Bites have been taken out of me.

I try to yell, but can’t summon the energy to do more than whisper.

A growl makes me flinch, huddle into myself, and I stare into the wood, waiting for the monster that did this to show themselves. To finish the job.

Three wolves watch me. Just blinking eyes before they come into the growing light. Their markings are ones I cannot recognize. They must be from the furthest parts of our kingdom. The large black one strides over and I wait, breath held, ready for them to attack.

If a wolf could look offended, this one does.

It sets back from me and raises its beautiful face to the sky. I’m realizing this is a sweet she-wolf, elegant and pure. And from the color of her coat, to the bright blue tinge of her eyes, she’s got noble blood.

She howls. A loud, mournful sound. A cry for help.

The doors to the kingdom spring open. Riders on horses thunder out to us and the wolves remain. We are one people.

My guards lift me to the saddle and I let go of the consciousness and sleep the sleep of a dead man.

Staccato memories pepper my brain before I’m even fully awake. They come back unbidden and out of order. I’m in a fever, and the infection’s settled deeply into my wounds, perhaps even my bones. The razor-sharp claws of an apex predator had sliced me in so many places that I’ve lost count. The rents sizzle with heat, and the sweat burns the edges of the torn flesh.

Every move I make is agony.

The wolf had led me to battle this time. But why? And where is this enemy now?

I know I’d been in a warm place when it happened. I remember feeling the sun’s warmth sinking in, like hot fingers through my thick fur.

That I’d left the cold, a home I’ve always known, and run straight into the warm blaze of Summer, shows how far from the pack I’ve become. How distant and alone I’ve turned.

“My son.”

“It’s okay, Momma,” I murmur to her blurry outline. But I’m not convinced. Surely this fever and blood loss will end me.

My mother presses a rag to my forehead, something she’s done since I was a cub. “What have they done to you? My sweet boy.”

“Elisa.” My father’s stern tone makes me try to turn my head, but it hurts to move. “Don’t coddle him.”

“Why won’t you stay with the pack, Noble?” she says, ignoring the King. “Why must we keep having these terrible things happen to our family?”

My mother often blames happenstance on bad luck. Ill omens and things of that nature. I was starting to see her point. If there is any wolf in the realm that’s cursed, it’s this one.

“Shhh,” I say, closing my eyes. And later when I wake, I realize I’d dozed off again mid conversation. I find that they are still in my room, arguing.

I try and say, “I’m sorry, don’t fight.” But my voice is too weak. They give me water, and it revives me some. The heat dissipates long enough for me to try to sit up.

My mother’s drawn face tells me that I look as bad as I feel.

“Who did this?” I whisper.

My father, who’s stormy eyes are narrowed on my biggest bandages like he cannot believe what he’s seeing, says, “Lion.”

My father’s voice is almost breaking. I’ve never seen him like this. He clears his throat, returning to the gruff speaker and leader we know him to be. “We’ve already sent a dispatch to Summer. They’ll send us the one who’s done this. If they don’t answer, hell to pay, my boy. Hell. To. Pay.”

He touches my shoulder, but realizes the pain it’s causing, and lets his hand fall away.

“Lion?” I say, not remembering anything. Not yet.

And when I do, hours later, I wake suddenly, pushing straight, despite the pain.

The memory shifts something inside of me, not the attack, that was brutal---the lioness had been relentless, furious that I’d caught her---but what…what had she been doing?

Then it returns in flashes, images of a blinding summer, the prairie set afire by golden grass and a pond, blue amid the yellow, but something’s caught the wolf’s attention. Satiny skin touched by the sun, baked golden bronze, leagues of it. Water sleuths down long legs, drips from wheat colored hair that’s wet and shaped to muscle and softness. A balance of each. Perfection.

The wolf had been trying to get a drink, but it’d watched her---he’d stalked her, as water ran rivulets down her naked body. He’d waited, not out of lust, he’d been there over hunger.

He’d seen her as prey.

But she wasn’t a Spring girl who’d merely shifted into a bunny, no, she was a lion, and when she’d turned and saw me---him, the yellow eyes widened with fury, and the full view of her nakedness, even now, brings fever to my body.

Something about her, even distantly looking through the wolf’s memories, strikes me to the core.

Ferocity.

She’d shifted in an instant and chased me back the way I’d come. Relentless in her pursuit.

The wolf fled for Winter, his tail between his legs, and then, once cornered in the prairie, he’d turned to fight. He would die with honor. Even alone. Knowing without his pack, facing a full-grown lion would be a lost cause.

But she hadn’t been behind him anymore.

The prairie had been empty---or so it had seemed. And when he’d flicked his ears forward, sniffed the air, relaxed his guard, seeing no predator, she’d pounced.

I close my eyes, and cringe, reliving the ripping of my coat, then my skin, sinew and muscle.

She’d pinned me and paused.

Her yellow eyes were the same as before, but now catlike slits watching me, thinking, clearly able to still be both girl and beast. Then she hesitated. She’d given me my life in that second.

A gift of another chance.

No pack would have done that for a lion this far into our realm without invitation. There would have been nothing left of her had she been the one here in our wood instead, running loose, and without protection from us royals.

I lay back on the bed and throw my arm over my eyes. I fight the urge to search the memories again and again. Not the lion. Though, she was beautiful in her form.

The other when she’d turned to face me, baring her form, chin up, shoulders back, wet and bold, and stricken with anger.

I fight the battle of invading on her privacy… and give in so many times, that I lose count.

Chapter 4

Liana

I should feel sheltered, safe, in the sprawling halls of my home. And while normally I do, that emotion evades me today. I sense the tension rise in the room in front of me, behind the closed doors that separate my parents from me. There’s also an eagerness to my father’s other wives, and it is their eagerness that scares me most. Jealous of my mother and me, their strong desire for something my parents are apprehensive about, can’t be good.

At least not for me.

“Liana, they’re ready to see you now,” a house servant says, ushering me inside with an elegance only our pride can embody.

I walk into the room of thrones where four sets of steely eyes watch me.

My mother sits closest to the King. She’s the strongest of the queens, making her the most powerful person in all of the realms.

When I bow, it’s to her. My father is next, and the other lesser queens after.

My mother’s eyes dance across my face as she pulls her lips down into a slight frown. “We’ve received a message from the wolves,” she says, not meandering over nonessential business.

I stand erect, chin up. “So, they’ve captured their rogue? Good. Hopefully he won’t come around again--”

“Liana.” The harsh whisper of my name stops me and I grow silent. “It says that you attacked their wolf. That he’s barely recovering,” my mother says, her voice stern, her features hard, but her fingers twist on her lap, worrying the fabric of her dress.

“He surprised me. I was bathing. I only…”

“Liana!” My father’s voice cracks like thunder, the echoes reverberating in the large room. He rises, pacing in front of my mother and the other queens. The wildness behind his stare makes my insides tremble, but I hide my emotions from everyone in the room so as not to show any weakness. “They ask for us to turn over the idiot lion who’s attacked their son, Liana. The son of the Royals of Winter.”

“Son of the Royals?” I repeat, unsure if I heard him correctly.

Thinking back to that day, I try to remember the wolf, but it had all happened so fast. I was bathing in the warm water. A wolf darted through the brush. It was a rogue off his mark, out of his realm, and although I didn’t know that immediately, I protected myself.

“That wolf had been watching me,” I stammer. “He was out of bounds.”

My mother stands beside my father and he takes her hand when her knuckles brush over his. A heavy sigh falls from her lips before she explains the gravity of the situation. “He was heir to the Winter throne. Noble.”

My mind races, but I fall into silence, letting the drumming in my chest fill me with dread.

“If their demands are not met, there will be war,” one of the other queens chimes in.

Her eagerness for me to go to Winter is obvious and I bite my tongue so as not to remind her of her rank in our family and infuriate my father further. Her daughter, Lia was named so directly after my birth, because everything with the queens is competition.

Not my mother, of course. She’s superior, the one the other two copy. They vie for her attention, and for the King’s.

Lia lost rank to me last year, and our elder sister Calla, who’s also my senior, lost rank to me just before the wolf found me. Bathing.

Battle adrenaline still moves the lion’s share through me.

I suck in a deep breath and try to sound diplomatic. My father, who always reminds me I need to learn to be a better leader, that I need to find a more constructive outlet for my anger, waits for the brewing rage to spill from me. Steadying my nerves, I look to my father and then meet my mother’s attentive gaze.

“He was…watching me bathe.”

My mother gives me a half smile. She knows how private I am, which is my one trait that makes me stand apart from the pride who shares everything. Too often for my liking. I wrinkle my nose thinking about it, but straighten it when my mother shoots me a disapproving glare.

Lions are passionate, but I’m past that. Reigning in my emotions drains me, but still I stand tall and wait for them to issue their final command on my life.

Unease settles in the room. My parents approach me, their front united as they clasp onto one another. The strain behind my mother’s hazel eyes tells me more than I care to know. I bow my head, thoughts coursing through me, unnerving the confidence that’s always been a part of me. And I know, deep in my bones, I have nothing to fear. I’m their favorite. The one destined to command over the realms.

Chapter 5

Liana

Frustrated, I storm out of the great hall, finally letting my temper loose. A non-decision, I huff, remembering my parents’ words. They’ve decided to discuss it further with the King and Queen of Winter as if there’s anything to discuss.

Crede, a longtime friend and the man I know I’m destined to rule beside, waits for me, a wary smile crossing over his handsome face as I stomp over to him. His strong arms encircle me immediately, and I rest my face against his sturdy chest where I listen to the drumming of his heart beating.

“What if they send you? To the wolf court?” he asks, resting his chin on my head.

I draw in my brows in disgust. “You think my mother would sell me to the wolves? Crede, you’ll be a rug on a hunter’s floor before that happens.”

“You still believe in the realm of man?” he mocks, his voice tinged with a bit of humor. “That’s for children.”

Again, silence folds its warm arms around me and I don’t tell him about what I saw as a child. About the hunter. About the truths I know.

The realm of man isn’t a fairy tale.

Needing space, I step away from his embrace and walk through the open wood doors that lead outside. With his hands behind his back, Crede follows me out into the sun, his golden hair catching in the light. I stop and face him, tension twisting my gut. I open my mouth to speak, but not yet having found my voice I choke on the words.

“You hurt a wolf cub, who really cares?” he asks, not understanding the reality of my situation.

Bringing my hand to my lips, I start biting my nails. “He wasn’t a cub. He was big. A Royal.”

Not wanting to meet his gaze, I look down and mentally chastise myself. Because I should’ve noticed. I shouldn’t have been so stupid.

“How do we even know he was rogue and not a spy?” Crede shakes his golden mane, and brown eyes twinkle with mischief as he tries to joke in a meek attempt at making me feel better. “If it only takes pretending rogue to see you bathe, Liana…”

“Don’t even, Crede,” I mutter under my breath and stalk away from him.

Bellowing laughter follows my every step so I walk faster, suddenly needing to put some distance between us. He catches up with long, easy strides, and his closeness both annoys and soothes me. While I understand his sudden growing attachment, I can’t help but also resent it.

Crede’s going to be King. He doesn’t even have to wait for my father to pass. He has far too many wins, and my father won’t fight him once he’s ready to challenge. Out of respect for me, for my own affections he hopes to possess, Crede has remained patient.

But even the most patient man can’t resist the pull for something more, for something greater.

With one rash act, I’ve endangered my future as Queen of all the Realms. And wife to the beautiful lionheart.

He’s not the usual gruff male; he’d let me rule as my mother has. He’d spoil me, and not make me hunt for him. But I would, because I love to hunt. The chase, the thrill, the freedom.

It would be perfect.

One house…three women.

That part - that’s the part I’ve never liked. Sharing my life, my love with Lia and Calla. All under one roof. Our children would play together.

It’s the way of the pride.

Lia and Crede have already been promised and they’ll be wed soon. Calla will follow. And I would be next.

The idea makes my palms sweaty. I would be the most important, the one he truly honors. Yet, the thought of any of this actually coming to fruition terrifies me. It’s what I’ve always wanted. What I’m furious about losing.

Still the pull for something else tugs me. The need to be with my pride fights for position with the desire for something…else.

It’s silly really. I won’t even bathe near the males or females. I want to be more part of the pride but…

And now I’ve attacked a royal wolf.

For a long time, there was a joke that spread through the pride like wild fire. They ribbed on me, everyone saying I was the first rogue we’d had in three generations. The memory of it churns my stomach, because although I’ve never voiced my concerns, I think there might be some truth to it.

Especially after this debacle with the wolf.

My parents will no doubt leverage this against me. Try to use it to force my hand into marrying Crede. Immediately.

It’s my only option. I try to remind myself it’s what I want. What I’ve always wanted, but even to me, it tastes like a bitter lie.

“Liana.” Crede brushes his knuckles across my cheek, pulling me from the spinning thoughts running haphazardly in my head.

“I can’t do this right now, Crede,” I stammer out, inching a step away from him. “There’s too much going on in here.” I tap a finger to my temple.

He nods, and a radiant smile breaks across his face. “Then let’s get you out of that crazy head of yours.”

In the second it takes me to blink, to momentarily shut my eyes and open them again, Crede changes. His golden mane now covers his glorious lion body, his clothes lying a rumpled mess on the ground beneath his four legs. Brown eyes watch me, their gaze lazy as he waits for me to make a decision.

“Turn around,” I say.

Crede tilts his head to the side and sits on his rump as his tail swishes, making the leaves rustle at the contact. Familiar in this childish game we play, we each stick to our roles.

“Crede.”

He yawns, arrogance vibrating off him when he stands up to nuzzle my hand with his wet nose.

“You’re impossible,” I mumble.

Although I normally undress in front of Crede before I change, I leave my clothes on this time. He hisses and I shoot him a knowing smile.

I feel the shift, the intimacy between myself and the awakening lion as I transform.

Fierce. Majestic. Spirited.

On four legs, I glide forward, with Crede beside me. I give him a sideways glance and because our spirits are in tune with the other, we sprint toward the line of trees in unison.

My muscles stretch and I run faster. The pads of my feet dig into the soft ground and for the first time today, I feel in charge. Like my future is still unwritten. Like I may have a say in what lies before me.

Always my protector, Crede runs beside me, letting me guide us past the tall trees until we reach the plains.

He pushes his head to my neck and I ease myself down onto the glistening grass. He peers down at me. Fire burns behind his eyes and I feel the power swimming inside this magnificent creature I always thought was destined to be mine.

Chapter 6

Liana

It annoys me how closely Lia follows behind Crede and me. Like she can’t wait for the future that’s been paved for her. As if continuously coming in second to me, always trailing behind me, is a success of sorts. I scoff. As if I want to share my home with a houseful of women who are inferior to me in everything but their title.

“Be nice,” Crede grumbles under his breath, the deep rumble of his voice reaches me, and I avert my eyes for only a second before I meet his gaze.

“Don’t you ever get tired of this?” I ask under my breath. “Our whole lives are orchestrated, each detail thought out before we were even born.”

Thick eyebrows shoot to his forehead. “Would you do anything differently, Liana? Would you choose differently?” he clarifies.

“No,” I reply without hesitating. “Or I don’t think I would. Maybe, I don’t know because I was never given the option to choose.”

Abruptly, Crede stops walking and his large hand grips around my waist. “I don’t understand you. This -” he waves his unused hand around us – “is what you want. To rule our pride, to rule all the realms. It’s all you’ve talked about since we were cubs. There’s only one way to get what you want.”

“Marriage,” I reply.

“You say it as if marrying me was a bad thing.”

“It’s not,” I argue without any real vehemence behind my words.

“Is it at least better than marrying a wolf?” he tries to joke.

“Royal or not, no one’s marrying some rogue wolf, least of all me,” I bite back.

He chuckles, a deep rumble that starts in his belly and I smile back at him. He leans into me, his breath inches from my ear and I close my eyes at the sudden shudder in my body. “Just think of all the times you’ll be able to see me naked once we’re married.”

Laughter builds and explodes from within while his words settle and tense in my gut. “You’ve already seen me naked more times than I’d like anyone to know about.”

Heat emanates from my body as I flush at the hunger behind his gaze. The reminder of the intimacy we’ve shared makes me feel powerful in this moment. Wanted and desirable.

I first felt the butterfly of my attraction to Crede when I was sixteen years old. It danced inside of me, somersaulting in my belly until I was certain I’d be sick. There was a small flicker between us and every time our gazes met, I felt the power of our mutual affection for each other grow.

Years passed and while the power grew, attraction dwindled. It wasn’t him or me. It just was. He was and still is a beautiful lion. A magnificent creature.

My destiny.

“Liana,” Lia interrupts, her eyes dancing across the thick garden, “your mother.” She drops her chin and sinks into a deep bow when my mother reaches us.

“Mother,” I say, also bowing with my head tipped ever so slightly.

A long slender finger glides under my chin and she lifts my head. Silently, I observe everything she doesn’t say. Sadness, anticipation, and pride twist her features, and I take it in trying to figure out the meaning behind each expression. While she ignores Lia’s presence, she smiles warmly at Crede.

“Liana.” My name falls from her full lips with a tenderness she reserves only for me. “Let us speak in private.”

Crede and Lia melt into the background as I walk beside my mother, her leading while I still maintain my stand alongside her. While independence isn’t something others in our pride value, it’s something I hold dear. And something both my parents understand. Maybe even appreciate.

I may be part of our pride, but I’m an individual. Strong, resilient, capable.

Together we cross the garden, dry leaves cracking as we step on them. Water trickles through the crystal pond, the sound replenishing its surroundings. Summer smiles back at me with the warm vibrancy of the overhead sun. When we reach the foyer, we take a seat at the small table set in front of the vines scaling the tall walls of our castle. Immediately, house servants bring us two glasses of wine and a plate of cheese. Swirling the cool liquid beneath my nose, I take in its sultry scent and let my eyes droop closed.

“I have spoken with your father,” my mom says, and I open my eyes in time to watch her avert her attention away from me.

My mother lifts the glass to her lips and takes a small drink. Her movements are purposeful, confident. When she puts the wine back on the table, she rests her hands over her lap, folding them with a simple interlacing of her fingers.

“Your father and I have tried everything to resolve the problems your attack on the prince wolf have brought our realm. There is no other solution, Liana.”

“Yes, Mother.” I bow my head as I imagine my life beside Crede. I’ll be his beloved, always his beloved. But I’ll also have to share him with my sisters, and it is that alone that drives me mad.

“We’ve agreed marriage is the only way.”

My heart races forward to a fate I’ve known about since I was a cub, while it trips over the same nuisances of our customs that will likely bother me until I meet my death.

I tip my head up and catch my mother’s gaze. “I understand.”

“Good.” She takes my hand in hers. “I’m proud of you, dear one. Your father and I thought you’d be more difficult.”

I smile, the sides of my lips wobble at the attempt. “I’ve always known I’d marry Crede, my lady. While I thought I still had some time, it will be my honor to have a lion such as Crede as my husband.”

The hands that held mine, loosen and drop while my mother’s face contorts. “Oh, Liana.” She places a shaky hand to her lips before she composes herself once again. “Liana, you are not marrying Crede.”

My brows draw in confusion and I cough to clear my tightening throat. “Mother, you can’t mean…”

“It has been decided,” she cuts me off. “You must be wedded into the realm of Winter.”

“Mother,” I protest.

Sharp hazel eyes pierce through me and again, I bow my head. My teeth grind against each other in the hopes of keeping further grievances in check.

“Speak, Liana, but speak with confidence, not with fear. Tell me, dear one, what troubles you about your marriage to Noble.”

Holding my chin up, I gaze into her kind eyes and speak with clarity. “He is rogue, Mother. A rogue wolf in a realm I do not belong in. This is my home. Crede is who I am destined to marry.”

“Crede will do well in marrying your sisters.”

“It is I he favors.”

“He will learn to favor another.”

I turn my head downcast, not as a sign of respect of her demands, but because the weight of what she and my father are asking is too much.

“What of love? Crede and I love each other. Should I not be permitted to marry for love?”

“Sometimes fate smiles on us and we marry someone we already love, or someone we grow to love. But peace, Liana, is what we marry for. Lions and wolves will be united for all of eternity. Your cubs will be heir to Winter. We shall have lions in another realm, which will make our pride even stronger. That is what your obedience will grant us.”

“You’re sacrificing me for the greater good of our pride? Is that what you’re telling me? Because if it is, if it’s better for the pride, then I shall do this without complaint. My loyalty is always with our pride and if I am better served in a different realm, then I will leave without so much as a mutter. But if this is because I attacked a rogue wolf, a wolf who was spying on me, I cannot go. I will not go.” Straightening my shoulders, I face my mother with the confidence I was born into. “My place is with Crede as his queen, but if my lady and my king wish me to marry a wolf for our pride, speak it and it shall be done.”

My mother leans into me, pressing a warm kiss on my temple and I feel her shudder when she places a palm to my cheek. “It is what the king and I demand of you, Liana. It is your duty to marry Noble and be the first queen of our kind in Winter.

“Yes, Mother. May I speak freely?” I drop my head in a deep bow, letting her know I am as always loyal to her and my father.

She nods, a slight dip of her head.

My bottom lip trembles but as I’ve been taught, I hold my gaze steady, my head held high. “I feel as if my world is crumbling beneath me, and you, my own mom, aren’t going to be there when it all shatters.”

Chapter 7

Noble

I’m able to walk again. But it’s a near thing, and my father warns me to stay away from court. He doesn’t want the pack to see me as weak as I am. His ways are old, but our realm has progressed. None so much would touch a hair on my head with me in human form.

My mother’s propped me up in a chair by the fire. She’s nervous, and it has nothing to do with my sickness. I’m suspicious, but too tired to care about the realm's politics at the moment.

The wolf queen’s voice is extra high pitched when she says, “Now, Noble, I think you’d like to thank the wolves that saved you. Wouldn’t you? Knowing how close you were to death, you’d want to see and meet them, yes? The ones who called for us at the gate.”

“Certainly,” I say, squinting at her anxious expression.

“Bring them in, Tomas,” she says to our servant.

“This is Emilie,” my mother introduces, quietly.

“Emilie,” I say, to the woman who’s entered with two others. She’s young, dark headed, the same eyes as before. I know her instantly as the one who’d found me at the gate. The blue-eyed wolf. I try to rise.

She curtsies. “Don’t trouble yourself, my lord.”

I stay seated. “Noble, please,” I say. “I can’t thank you enough. I---we owe you a great debt of gratitude. Your call for help may have saved my life.”

She rises from the curtsy, her sharp features not quite pretty, but elegant. Emilie graciously nods her head. “We would do it again, your grace.”

“Noble,” I say again, gently.

“Noble.” She tries for a smile, but it’s tight and unpleasant. “But we’ve come on other matters. My two sisters and me. We had a fourth but… Katarina…”

The name sends ice to my blood. Shame flows through me.

My mother subtly moves into my frame of vision. “The sisters have come for refuge. Their village is our farthest one. The customs…different than our own. Katarina’s death means we owe their family. Instead of a fortune, these three have asked to live in the palace.”

“What?” I can’t hold back the horror in my voice. To see them every day. To be reminded of my mistake without cease. “Why the palace? Why now?”

Emilie boldly meets my gaze. For all her ‘my lords’ and ‘your graces’ she’s a pack leader through and through. The villages run separately from court. Court is the only place that I’ve ever run. This girl has just told me what I’ve wanted to know. Do they still fight for top tier, or do they decide it based on blood? By the way her eyes shine, and the pure wolf lineage that’s apparent, it’s both.

Katarina had been sweet. She’d been naïve. She’d been sold for the money that her family had wanted, given life and limb to the old customs, and it was truly on their heads for allowing her to take the risk.

And mine for failing as a betrothed to find her.

Emilie should have been the one, now that I see her. She’s stronger. But she’s a pack leader, it’s obvious by the way the other two stay just behind. She’d have fought her own parents to avoid being forced to marry. And they might have lost.

This piques my interest further.

“They want to remain here at court,” my mother says again, as if trying to get me to read between the lines. “Noble, they want to live here, with us…”

And suddenly, I realize…

“You want to marry me? You can’t be serious!”

Chapter 8

Noble

I pinch the bridge of my nose.

The queen and I are alone.

“Mother, I’ve abided you most the day. Don’t make my temper shorter than it already is with your nagging.” I rub my temples. We’ve been at this for hours.

My mother knows she can wear a wolf down if she keeps on long enough. Nipping at our heels, as it were. It’s almost a stronger tactic than calling for trial by fire.

Right now…I’d face the fire.

“You’d hardly have to do much of anything, Noble.”

“Hardly?” I sit back in bed, my energy waning. I’m still not fully up to my usual self. “In what realm do you think it would be wise to risk another poor soul in the betrothal matching? What in all the realms are you thinking? How many more must die to prove to you that I’m rogue? That I’m no good for that life, mother. That lion---a LION, almost killed me while I ran, because I left the pack, the entire realm, for Summer. I wanted to be free of this place so badly, that the other version of myself risked death to get away! And now this. Emilie must be desperate, she must have great need. I won’t exploit that. If she’s here begging for us to take her on, instead of giving her family the money, they are in trouble, Mother.”

The wolf queen wrings her hands. I remind myself that my mother’s temperament is unsuited to shouting. She’s not even a strong she-wolf for a leader. The most basic of girls in our realm could take on the great black wolf’s wife. Soft and sweet, and I have no idea why my father chose a woman like her to lead our realm, or why she sat on that block of ice so long ago waiting for him after thirty days. All I know is, that when she looks at my father, not as she is now, but as her other self, he’s rarely ever not by her side while running.

“Speaking of the black wolf,” I say in exasperation when my father storms into the room.

He’s holding a parchment. His face is thunderous. If he were in wolf form, his hackles would be raised. “Woman,” he growls. “What is the meaning of this?”

Anyone else would be cowering about now. But my mother only glances at the parchment and shrugs.

He slaps the paper downward. “Not this! This!” he roars motioning to the room, my mother, then me.

The two of us stare at him in confusion. My father may be strong, but eloquence is not his forte.

He looks at the ceiling as if there is an answer in heaven. “There are three she-wolves under my roof waiting for you to pair one of them up with our son. Another villager, too. I didn’t like the last pairing, but you said it would enrich our line, that they give and raise children better, and that a royal would only make more trouble, but this…after the last time?”

“But…”

“It won’t happen,” he says. “Besides, there’s another larger issue at hand now.” My father gives her the missive. “Noble won’t be marrying the village wolf. Or any wolf for that matter.”

“What is this?” My mother scans the paper.

“It’s an offer.”

“Of what?” she chirps in frustration.

“Marriage.”

“To whom?” I ask, fearing the answer.

My father’s dark eyes narrow on me. “To your lion.”

Chapter 9

Noble

The days after my father’s missive are confusing to say the least. But time will tell us what we truly are dealing with, and how large a scale, after I go from zero offers of marriage, to two different possible betrothals in an instant.

I know there is more to Emilie’s offer to marry than what meets the eye. Why risk her life after I’d killed her sister? And why would anyone marry the person responsible for the death of their family member?

We three, my father, mother, and I, stand with Emilie and her two sisters, Grace and Laura, to discuss the predicament, once again.

In addition to the proposal of marriage, the Lions are suddenly claiming outlandish things. They are saying that hunters had appeared near the edge of both of our borders. Near Emilie’s village.

After some pressure put on by the Great Black Wolf, my father and our king, Emilie says, “What you have heard is true. The realm of man has encroached upon our village and poached many wolves as well.”

The silence is a gaping hole of disbelief.

My father’s less surprised than us both.

Emilie had been afraid to admit it. And rightly so. The court would laugh them out of the kingdom. She is, as I’d guessed, the leader of the village’s pack. She’s doing this for their protection.

I admire her for it.

But who would believe them?

“These hunters don’t want little foxes or bunnies. They want big game,” my father says, reading from the missive. “If we don’t come together as one, we could be at war with the human realm, and we have no idea what that would mean,” my father adds. “However, I’ve refused to come to any agreement with the lion king until they provide us with Noble’s attacker.” He eyes me shrewdly. “But they are in the same predicament as we are with the lioness who cut up Noble being their daughter.”

I suck in a breath, as does my mother, and Emilie.

“Daughter?” I say. “You mean she’s a lion royal?”

It makes sense. The girl I saw bathing, she couldn’t be a commoner. She’d even stood regally when she’d thought no one was watching.

“But the queen lion, the girl’s mother holds her ground,” my father says.

“As would I!” my mother exclaims.

He shakes his finger at my mother. “I knew you would, so it was between the lion king and I, that we should talk terms of a treaty. Women would just muck it up further. For both the attack on Noble and the unified front against the realm of man, we discussed at great length what should be done.”

I remain silent. Without knowing what he’ll say, the subconscious already seems to guess.

My father stands proudly as he does when giving an unbending decree. “Noble should marry the lion.”

I gape at the black wolf, the sudden matchmaker? My mother nearly faints.

My father hurries on to say, “But you wouldn’t have to do the betrothal custom, Noble. I’ve already told the king we wouldn’t put her at risk in such a way, since you wouldn’t find a mate like this …naturally, anyway. There will be a completely new custom made, because theirs is equally deadly.”

And the pack wouldn’t have to hear from the new queen herself that I’m a rogue. What would a lion know or care about my running? She wouldn’t be with us. She couldn’t tell the tale. My father must have considered this. No one would know about our failing lineage.

“What is it?” I ask, curious. “The Lion custom.”

“You’d have to face their king.”

“Oh...”

Emilie shifts, and I just now remember she’s in the room. Her anger is palpable. The incredulous look on her face is clear. She’s about to lose her chance of helping her village. Of giving her sisters a place to live. “But you can’t just---I mean the wolves won’t even---this is preposterous!”

The room is silent. My mother’s still trying to catch her breath.

“Emilie,” I say, decided. “You and your sisters can stay here as long as you need.”

My mother closes her eyes in relief.

I sigh. “I’ll do it,” I say to my father. “I’ll marry the lion.”

Chapter 10

Liana

Customs be damned. I won’t permit my father to disgrace the wolf I nearly killed. If he is to be my husband, then I can’t permit my pride to see him for his weaknesses.

My father, a prideful king, will surely expose them all and I will be nothing more than the princess to a prince who doesn’t deserve the title. Worse than Lia or Calla, for at least their husband is bold and capable in battle.

My heart aches for everything I’ve lost, everything I took for granted. The love I almost had. The high rank I’d been promised since cubhood. Now, my name and reputation will be tainted because of the wolf whose cowardice I despise.

Power and strength, that is the lion’s honor. This wolf, Noble, has neither. If he did, he wouldn’t have been prowling around our realm like some… rogue! And he surely wouldn’t have shown such hesitance. He wouldn’t have wavered away from the fight. As if he were meek, rather than the mightiness I felt beneath his strong build.

Instead of relying on our conventional traditions and waiting for the wolf prince to arrive to Summer in five days’ time, I steal into the night, charging through the woods and across realms in my most natural form as a lion, until I reach Winter. I smell the muskiness of their realm before I see it and while it isn’t altogether unpleasant, it’s a scent I’m unaccustomed to. One I’d rather turn my nose away from than move forward.

But move forward I do. So distracted by the new scent, I trot through the forest until I stumble, rather ungracefully, over a large mass lying on the damp ground. The familiar scent of the wolf hits my nostrils and I breathe him in, needing to know my future husband as well as I know the man I’m no longer destined for.

His ears pull back, his eyes narrowing as he snarls in my direction. I let out my own growl, low and warning. He stands, his full height again taking me aback. We circle one another, my prowl graceful, opposed to the slight limp in his gait.

Not wanting to quarrel further, I retreat and sit on my haunches. Although patience isn’t a virtue I possess, I wait for recognition to cross behind those dark, stormy eyes that have tormented me since the day we crossed paths by the river. I angle my face to the side, try to remain passive while keeping a steady gaze on him, observing him as nothing more than my opponent.

His tail drops, pointing straight down as it switches lightly in a wag.

He shudders, his ebony coat trembling with the gesture as his lean muscles constrict. On a yawn, he transforms into human form. Curious, I peer up at him, assess him for the damages I’ve caused, for the strength I sense brewing beneath the surface.

“Well?” He gestures with an impatient wave of his hand. He settles in his form as a human man and I take some pride when he doesn’t shrink away when I stalk around him. “Are you going to change, Lion? Or have you come to admire your future husband?” His mouth bows upward in a tight smirk.

Apparently not shy of his sculptured physique, he splays his large hands on either side of his hips. Veins slope up his arms, the sinewy muscles moving as I admire him as a man. He’s brawny, as well built as the wolf, with wounds still healing from our encounter. Not ready to question him about it, about the reluctance I felt in our brawl, I lick my lips, my eyes darting away from him only to find amusement playing across his face when I look back at him.

“Don’t tell me, my bride is shy?” He laughs.

Narrowing my eyes, I also change. Back in human form, I’m more self-conscious but I hold my posture upright when his stare sweeps over my bare body. My chest heaves, my breasts growing heavy under the weight of his stare. I turn in front of him, a small circle as I let him have his fill, pretending I don’t mind the vulnerability of being naked before him.

“Are we done now?” I question with a melodic lilt to my voice.

“I don’t even know where to start,” he answers, his voice hoarse. “You came to me, Lion. What is it you want at such a late hour?”

“My name’s Liana. You may call me that or my lady. The choice is yours, Noble, but I demand you treat me as your equal.”

Dark, bushy brows shoot to his hairline and the corners of his lips twitch. “Very well then.”

“Very well then, what?” I demand. “Which will it be?”

“If I’m given the option, I’d like to call you Liana in private and my lady in public. So, that I may treat you with the respect you deserve.”

I curtsy, a deep bend of my knees as I bow my head down, showing him the same respect. “My thanks, Your Grace.”

“Your Grace in public,” he corrects. “As your husband, I ask you call me Noble when it is just us two.”

“Very well, then,” I mime.

Humor dances behind his eyes with a glint of mischievousness, mesmerizing me for a moment before I remember what I’m here for.

“You’re to fight my father for my hand,” I say, my voice steady, my nerves quaking. A small tick makes his jaw twitch as his features darken, but I continue. “You’ll lose if you don’t grow more confident. I’m sure from looking at you, strength isn’t against you.”

“And do you fear for my life, Liana?” His lips lift into half a smile that I can’t help but return. “If I remember correctly, it’s you who almost took my life two weeks ago.”

The smile falls, wiping itself from existence as my lips pull down into a frown. “You were spying on me, watching me bathe. When I saw you, you growled at me.” I poke his chest with a firm finger, and must hit a particularly sore spot that makes him flinch slightly. So slightly I might’ve missed it if I weren’t trained to notice these things. “What was I to do? Let some rogue wolf attack me?”

“Don’t do that.” He grabs my wrist, wrapping his fingers tightly around it. “Don’t call me a rogue wolf. I’m a wolf.”

“A wolf that can change when there is no full moon.” I tilt my chin skyward.

His shoulders slump forward, his face growing wary. And then he masks it with an arrogant smirk. He straightens, his expansive chest in full display. “Yes, a wolf that can change when there is no full moon. A wolf that dared to venture outside of his realm. Because I am a royal. And you, Liana, are to be my wife. Be mindful of that and of your words,” he warns me.

“I’ll be no such thing if you can’t defeat my father, and with the way you fight, I’m fairly certain you will only bring more disgrace to your pack.”

“Is that why you’re here, then? To mock me in my own realm? Need I remind you, this is my kingdom and you are trespassing?”

“Shall we fight?” I fold my arms over my chest, the smooth satin of my skin a reminder that I’m arguing with a barbarian who most certainly finds enjoyment in seeing me so exposed. “See who wins?”

“Don’t challenge me, Liana,” he growls. “I may not be able to hold back the next time we battle.”

I inhale a deep breath through clenched teeth, and choke on his words. “You held back?” I whisper. “Why would you hold back? When you fight, Noble, you fight to win. If death is what is warranted, you fight until you are the victor. Until you are drained of your own blood, you fight. Until you expend your last breath, only then can you retreat. You mustn’t hold back. Not ever.”

“We’re done here. Go back to Summer, Liana. Soon enough you’ll have your fill of the cold and wish you hadn’t spoken such careless words.”

Without warning he changes back into wolf form. I study him as he considers me. His penetrating stare digs into me, and I waiver under his silent contemplation. The exquisite black fur feathered together with the deep gray twitches as his long muscles strain beneath the surface of his body. My heart thunders, a loud cadence inside my ears, as sudden passion threatens to explode in lustful craving. He holds me captive and I kneel down in front of him, my knees sinking into the soft ground beneath me. I stroke his massive head and nearly whimper when he nuzzles against it. I stroke the shockingly soft fur, threading my fingers through the strands, our gaze never falling from the others.

I lean into him and whisper, “When you fight my father, don’t hold back, Husband.”

Chapter 11

Noble

Shocking doesn’t cover it. The image is burned into my memory, seared into my eyes, of my future wife, again naked, again fierce, and threatening me. And should I be disgusted? Upset? Challenged and angry? Yes.

But I am none of those things.

As sick as I am, I am more alive than I have ever been. Liana is like a fire in human, well lioness, form.

She doesn’t ask questions without her beautiful face demanding that you answer and answer well. I’ve never met such a creature in all my life. It’s not that she’s a lion. I’ve known many. Bull-headed, and stubborn, and not always quick of wit.

But Liana is none of those things. She is a changeling from her realm, the wit of a wolf matched with the strength of courage the lions are known for. The coldness and calculating woman of my kind, wily creatures, they manipulate at every turn having worked quietly within a pack for rank, for order. Using their cunning, they will maneuver so subtly, that you don’t know they are there until the glowing eyes are right upon you.

The lions, and seeing Liana, I now know, have no such order. True, they have their king and queen, but everything else is left for challenge, and every order is shuffled based on strength. She would be their queen of queens. My mother had already said as much.

And she’s giving that all up and for what? A wounded rogue wolf?

She’s either insane, or pressured into the union.

I’m half tempted to tell them to forget it. That it’s not fair to someone as destined as she, but the thought leaves as soon as it comes. To let go of such a flame after only finding it? Nay, I don’t think I’m nearly strong enough for that. Liana is far too tempting to simply give away.

And she still assumes I will do the lion rituals. Hold true to their way. Liana has said she thinks that I will challenge her father. She tells me to fight her king, her kin, without holding back.

Before, I’d been too cool-headed, far too clear of thought to even imagine such a challenge, but now, seeing her, and hearing her words to not hold back---she’d called me husband--- but little does she know, after seeing her even the first time, after the memory surfaced of her at the pond, I’d fight a thousand lions without holding back. Just to have that tilted chin jut at me in defiance once more, I’d challenge her king for that alone.

My family will never understand, so what I do tonight, I do in secret. They’d already negotiated that there would be no ritual for Liana’s hand, but this is because of Katarina.

If she risked it all for our betrothal, and I failed her, maybe my challenge now will pay it back. Win. Lose. Or draw.

Only there will be no draw.

The king will kill me, or I will have her hand. It is as simple as that.

I dress, careful of my wounds, all the while in a daze at the prospect of a future that is for once not planned perfectly, not laid out before me. Tonight, I leave my realm and everything that’s there, possibly for the last time.

But first, politics. I have to meet with our leaders of the individual packs. I need to assure them that my father, the black wolf, has not lost his mind.

Our southern borders, secure, never infiltrated before, are now being open wide to…lions.

Lions who cry not wolf, but man! Hunters, they say.

Wolves are a suspicious kind of people. None of this will settle lightly, and my father is now away once again in a southern village, handling disputes over missing wolves.

He’s had to help them investigate the truth of this claim.

I cringe to think of my people’s heads in wolf form lining some human’s wall in some hunting lodge. Used to, those were our stories to tell around the camp fire, ghost stories almost, fairy tales, but gruesome ones. A little wolf in red just trying to see her sick grandmother, who’s tricked by a hunter.

But more than humans, there is rivalry that goes ages deep between the wolves and lions. Under my father’s rule and the king lion, we have had peace for nearly a century where once there was great war.

A war that all but ended the bears who live further north.

There might be none left. We’ve not even seen a bear, not truly, in over fifty years. Some say they quietly sank into a word we must never utter: extinction. To think it alone brings a chill to my heart.

But now with Liana, understandably, the wolves are going to be very upset to see our traditions tossed to the side. To see a lion enter our domain and lead, even. It’s more than just an understanding now, it would mean tying ourselves by blood.

It won’t be pretty in there.

I expect Oren, a subline of my lineage, will be the first to comment about my lack of ability to keep a wolf mate alive. That is his go-to in these discussions. Or now, so it seems, he can bring up how I can’t seem to marry one of our kind at all. What a failure I have proved to be.

Then there is the matter of their soon to be king risking his entire line in a fight with the King of Summer, the King of all Realms, the lion king. Suicide, they’ll say.

So, I won’t tell them of my plans to challenge Liana’s father.

We fight as a pack. Die as a pack.

This would never be approved of. They’d lock me in the dungeon before they’d allow it. But they’ve not seen Liana’s expectant glimmer in her eyes. They’ve never even been around a lioness, not like this one.

It has a way of changing a man…wolf.

And besides, they don’t know the real difference here. I’m a rogue.

Maybe it’s time I should embrace the lore. Perhaps my battles were always meant to be won or lost in solitude. That must be my fate.

I finish fixing my cravat and despite the wounds, I stand tall and leave my rooms for the great hall.

There is energy once again in my stride. I face certain doubt within my people, but I can’t seem to feel down about it. No, I actually smile a wolf’s smile, a toothy grin, all the while glowing inside because the flame I’ve found, is one I plan to keep. And if I have my way, it will be that same fire in woman form that warms me on cold winter nights from here on out.

Liana…

Even her name makes every risk make sense, somehow.

I’m not stupid enough to think it love…no, ‘tis lust I feel rushing my blood into the places that are least necessary.

Chapter 12

Liana

Foolish dreams made for a restless night where I fantasized about a certain wolf with eyes as vivacious as they are perfect. They’re like a beacon of smoldering gray that stands out in a sea of the light eyes I’ve seen my whole existence. Noble’s eyes, they shine, they glimmer. They do all those silly things females ramble about.

What draws my attention most though, is the way they change color. One minute they’re gray and the next they’re any icy blue that rivals the clearest of skies. They bore into me, melting me so I’m nothing more than a puddle on the floor. They should be outlawed.

Thumping my head on the cool grass beneath me, I roll my eyes at my suddenly romantic mind that now wants to spew stupid words about beautiful men. It’s so cliché. So juvenile. So unlike me.

But even now at midday, lazing beneath the canopy of my favorite tree, I think about those eyes, the eyes that flickered, perhaps even twinkled at me. Eyes I dreamt about into the long hours of the night. Eyes, so raw and true, that promise an endless possibility away from the alluring oaths I thought I was destined for.

I’m trapped between last night and the lengthy days before I can see him again. Unless he comes to me again in the form of a delicious dream.

It startles me how much I want to see him, if even in my imagination. The dips and curves of his body. The easy smile that shoots static electricity sizzling through the air and zests into me like a flash of lightning.

My betrothal to him is a certain type of hell with redemption only a step in his direction and into his strong arms. My marriage to him is almost like heaven, where I will be free from other wives and able to run wild and fast with the pack that will be my family.

And love? Just as I can’t control the sudden gust of wind, spiraling and whirling around me, I can’t force love to grow between us. But I can hope. Lost in thought, I dip my face upward, listening to the promise behind the low hum of the breeze.

“When did you plan on telling me?” Crede’s tempered voice slices into the silence.

I sit up, leaning against the rough bark of the tree. “I’m to be married, Crede. I no longer have to answer to you.”

“That may be, Liana, but we’re still friends.” His words come out broken, as if it wounded him to even speak them. “I’d have liked to hear it from you that we were no longer betrothed to one another. That you were no longer my beloved.” Hard, he swallows the words down as if it brings him nothing but agony.

My rigid shoulders crumble and on tired legs I stand to hug him. The man I’ve shared my heart and body with. His arms fold around me, his embrace regretful and forgiving.

“I didn’t know how to tell you,” I mumble.

Seeking comfort, I dig my face into his chest and clench my hands into fists around his shirt. Comfort from the pain and uncertainty of losing my destiny. Comfort from the desire I find in my new destiny. Comfort from the brewing passion for the man and the wolf that makes my heart stutter within the confines of its cage.

“It’ll be okay,” he whispers in my ear.

I shiver and although he holds me closer to him, this time the shiver isn’t out of want, but because Crede’s breath on my skin, the intimacy of his embrace makes me anxious.

“I’ll find a way to get you home. I’m not giving up on us.”

Stepping back, I peer into his eyes. Eyes so unlike Noble’s, they rival one another. Crede’s brims with hard confidence, an incomparable golden hue that steels into our pride as if every member were after his throne. Noble’s are softer, more settled, a gift of peace he grants me with each lingering gaze as they tremble with a worry I’m yet to know.

“I’ll come back to you,” I promise him. “In another lifetime. Not this one, Crede.”

He shakes his head, his shoulders resolute in his decision. His hands grip around my wrist, much like Noble did last night and I neither feel the power of his hold or the warmth of his skin on mine. “I’ll challenge your father, our King. When I win…”

“Crede.” I sigh.

“You’ll sit by my side as my queen,” he continues as if I hadn’t spoken.

Taking his face with my hands, I bow him to me and press my lips on his temple. I brush my fingers through his hair. He rumbles a soft sound that once made me weak with need. When he nips my neck, I inch away. He lets me, a dark expression marring his features.

“You are my love for another lifetime,” I reassure him. “My marriage to the wolf will unify our realms, make our pride stronger. Two kingdoms will be better because of this.”

“Then you’ve already decided?” He leans into me, his face inclined as he sniffs me. “I wonder, Liana, if this is a sacrifice for our pride or something you’re willingly being led to.”

I push him away from me, taking several large steps backward to put distance between us. “Does it matter?”

“Yes.” His grave tone hits me like a sledgehammer and I wobble on my feet.

“I have to marry Noble. The king and queen demand it.” Putting a calming hand on his arm, I squeeze and whisper, “My mother and father ask it of me. For the pride.”

“For the pride.” He scoffs, a bitter sound that makes the hair on the nape of my neck rise.

Stepping into me, he invades any distance I wanted to put between us. I take in his scent - ferocity, affection, and possessiveness tangling with the other. It makes my head swim, my senses heighten. He digs his fingers into my long hair and pulls back. Teeth graze over my neck and when he bites, I gasp.

“A mark for the wolf to find.” Crede’s voice pulsates in the air, darkening the space around us.

I turn away from him, my vision blurring with building tears. My body tremors and as I walk away from him, I slant my head to face him.

“I’m not yours to mark, Crede,” I say, my voice stern. “I belong with Noble now. It’s best you remember, lest you want to end a decade of peace between our two realms.”

“Ah.” He nods, a despondent laugh reverberating from his chest. “Spoken like the new heir of the mighty wolves.”

The wind plays and weaves through my hair as it howls in my ear. The unassuming sound reminds me of my wolf. His eyes, a shade of gray like no other. Like the lingering ashes of a dwindling fire. The wind whirls around me, guiding me forward as I leave the man who will rule all of the realms behind without a second glance.

Chapter 13

Noble

“This is an outrage! Noble, you can’t be serious.”

“Hear, hear!” Others join Oren who’s standing across from where I am in the hall, no doubt thinking what he probably always does. If his father’s, father’s great-grandfather, had beaten our line once upon a time, he and I would be in opposite places. We are the same age, the same unmarried status, and the only thing that separates us is the blood-soaked snow where his great-great-great-grandfather lay slain by mine hundreds of years ago.

Neither of us had any stake in that. Yet, it is fresh in our minds every time we are in this room. And some day, hopefully not too soon, he will kneel to me at my throne. And I know just how miserable Oren will be in that moment. He craves my place.

But it is mine.

“I know this is unprecedented,” I try.

“Unprecedented!” Oren shouts, hands raised high. “Unprecedented would be marrying a commoner, Noble, oh prince of the wolves. This is a little more than that.”

The last is said with sarcasm. He pushes further every day.

“You’ve said your piece, Oren. And your place as our ward has served us well.” A small slap on the hand by using his current place as a ward as a reminder, commoner indeed, and I see him wilt. “And yes, unprecedented, but decided,” I say this with bite, my wolf growing inside of me, a thing they would sense in warning.

With care now, the following members of the wolf council begin their questions once again. “But what will she rule? She cannot know our ways. How can she run with the pack?”

Little do they know I rarely run with the pack myself.

Toliver nods his head in agreement and asks, “Isn’t it already hard enough to keep our boundaries as it is, and now with lions come to visit?”

“Visit?” Oren says, “She will live here! Some day as our queen.”

And brought back to that difficult point the entire assembly breaks out into arguments and angry shouts.

“Silence,” I say quietly, and no one pays me mind. I meet eyes with Emilie where she stands just ahead of everyone else, as her right.

She’s watching me, and I see a flicker of something in her eyes. She nods some sort of encouragement.

I frown and wonder, could it be that she is on my side? Perhaps she’s just glad not to be in Liana’s place herself.

She nods again and steps forward, urging me to do something.

“I said silence!” My voice rings through the hall.

I can’t help the inner flinch at the sound. I’ve never yelled at our members before, or anyone else in the great hall for that matter. The yelling is reserved for my father. I’ve never had reason to do more than listen, at times speak over simple things for the assembly, but now I sound…like him. Like the great black wolf.

As if summoned by my thoughts once again, he comes into the back of the hall with a twinkle in his eye, sneaking in unseen.

That he’s returned from the southern borders sets my mind at ease. We share a look of understanding. My father’s eyes speak clear enough saying, “Go ahead, boy. I’ve waited for this moment most of my life.”

Passing the torch to me has always been a dream of his.

Where I’m standing now, that’s where my father has scraped, and fought, and worked to place me. With me going rogue, he’d doubted that dream would ever come true. Never said as much, but I saw it in the worried set of his large shoulders. I, too, thought I’d never see the day.

Is it possible that this marriage will give me that opportunity? Help me to hide my curse that much longer?

Pride grows across the heavy features of the great black wolf, and I see the burden lift. His young wolf cub, a man now, would marry a lioness, a woman who would rule the realms if she was not forced to stand by my side, and is this how he saw it? I suppose he does not mind.

Me taking my place in any sort of way, to him, that’s enough.

“I will marry the lioness,” I say now into the quiet. “I will marry Liana. And she will be treated as one of us, as our queen in the future. She will rule here by my side, and the two of us will forge a thing not seen in a hundred years between our realms. There is doubt among you, but it has been this way before, and there were great times of prosperity when it had. We, as shifting people, have crossed a divide once in our past.”

“Othar,” Tolivar says with a begrudging nod.

“And Ulia,” Emilie adds, and the assembly makes a sound of growing positivity.

“Yes,” I say. “The great bears and tigers of long ago had done as Liana and I will do. They bridged a gap between our realms. And though that has fallen into nothing but history…we wolves…”

I pause because our motto is always what follows.

They call out to me, “Wolves remember the most.”

“The Wardens of Winter!” some call followed by our old motto, “Wards of the realms!”

I smile. “Agreed. We were once the protectors of all the realms. Who hears better than we? Who senses a threat or is able to alert the realms better than we?” I see a few wardens of the borders stand taller. This is their history. This is who they are. “None, but the pack, work together as well as we do. And we should be honored to show the lions once again what we can do. Lions have might. As do bears. But we wolves, we are the ones who have our strength in numbers. Always.”

Some look subdued at my statement. It brings a remembrance of what was lost. The tigers are gone. The bears might as well be. There are none left in the realm such as lion, such as wolf.

“Which brings me to my next point. It has always been taught as famine and plague and war broke out between the realms---a thing we call The Great Time of Darkness---but I tell you now there is another thing we face. I ask you to suspend your disbelief, for me, for your prince.” I look to my father who confirms it. He’s gone to the village and back to see for himself. He nods to me, eyes serious.

It takes my breath away.

So, it’s true.

I steady myself. “Prepare yourselves my wolf brothers and sisters, because I tell you grave news from our southern border. Wolves have been poached and killed.”

“See,” Oren yells. “The lions strike already!

“No, my brother,” I say without warmth. “This was hunters.”

Chapter 14

Noble

It is the middle of the night that I should decide to make my move. I am leaving my realm, and I will not bring the wolves with me. After all, a rogue must embrace himself if he deigns to change an entire tradition. And that’s what this wedding will do. Bring a new union. Pouring over the history after our meeting, looking at a time when hunters must have attacked us before, forcing the realms to band together.

Though it had been hidden from us, the truth that is smothered beneath talk of war and famine for unknown reasons, I am seeing how much stronger we were as a joined realm. All of us marrying outside of our kind. We had all worked together. No borders.

And now we can begin again.

If only our people will let us, we must try. Lions and wolves, like the tigers and bears of the past, can start a new bond that will be a force to be reckoned with.

For selfish reasons, I want her, Liana, to be my warmth and fire in the land of Winter, but for my realm now too, I see potential. An unstoppable front against this new enemy.

But first, there is the matter of securing her hand. And I will not sit idly by and ignore the weakness that it will purvey to her realm if I do not challenge for that hand. I would never have their respect. Or hers.

So, it is with that in mind that I sneak past the guards and wardens as I so often do in wolf form, but only now I am myself. Riding my horse to the southern boundaries, I do not tie him, but rather remove his bridle and send him loose back to home. Just in case I should not return.

I try to ignore the guilt creeping up, the grief my family will be put through, should I fail. My mother would despair, my father would understand more, but equally blame himself. But, it is done already. I am committed to it.

For the betterment of our union, there cannot be any other way.

I risk changing into a wolf I can hardly trust, but I mentally try to impress upon him my purpose, so he will go where I direct for once. Inside my mind, I plead with him to head in the right direction. Because only as a wolf will I be stealthy enough to approach the lions alone.

This time, it’s as if he allows me to see more than usual, lets me into that side. Not for control, but perhaps to share what it is he sees during these ventures.

For the first time, I imagine myself being able to find some balance to this nature of mine. Maybe there is a treaty of my two halves to be had.

In the night, the prairie is nothing like winter. Our wolves prowl unceasingly at the borders. Though nocturnal cats may be, they stay close to their pride for strength in the dark, and they rarely leave it unless there is trouble. They’ve only a few guards miles apart so I make my way easily into their realm.

It troubles me that a hunter, too, could enter the same way. My first instinct, even as a wolf, is to protect Liana better than this. I could offer the king some wolves to help but hopefully without offending.

Also, their ability to sense me would be less than a wolf. Not less keen, perhaps, but more easily masked in this hot climate that would dull the senses with so many bright smells of the plains.

Even now I am bombarded with wet marsh smells, blossoming trees, everything that grows and enjoys the beauty of the sun. It hides devious entry.

The night is warm, and immediately the heat clings to my coat from humidity, a full winter fur so thick that I can lay in the snow without worry. But here, it slows me down. I’m not fully healed yet either. As I trot along the prairies, I feel doubt begin at my grand idea.

I get close to the pride when I sense that I’m being stalked. A large male lion has flashed in the pathway before me only to disappear into the brush once again.

Pretending I hadn’t seen him, I rush through the trap, and he pounces on me, but this time, I am prepared. Being on the road for the castle, no brush to hinder my stride, I take off at a run. Lions are fast, but I am lucky this is a male, heavy, brutish almost, he can’t keep up with the lightning swift pace of a wolf.

I make it to the palace, and I change back into myself at the gate. Naked now, I’ll have to beg clothes before I see the king. I call up to the servants at the tower and tell them who I am.

The male lion catches up finally and changes back as well.

Unworried about our nakedness, he seems unbothered by it in the least. In our realm, we would seek clothes immediately lest we freeze

“You must be Noble,” he says, trying not to seem out of breath.

“I am.”

“Crede,” he says motioning to himself.

When I don’t recognize him, he pushes out his chest. “I am soon to be king of this realm. Of all of the realms. You should recognize your future king of all kings.”

“Is that how we greet our guests, Crede?”

We turn to find Liana there, watching us, arms crossed, that chin stuck out. Her beautiful eyes shift between the two naked men at her gates. Her color is high, so it must not be as easy for her to go around in her skin as it is this male lion.

For some reason that relaxes me. I’d prefer it if every male in this realm has not seen my bride before I had. I have a moment to notice the keen jealousy I already feel for my future mate and enjoy the feel of it. Something about Liana screams “nobody’s” and that instantly pushes me to want to claim her as mine.

Crede, I see, is busy in his own assessment of the princess. This is the lion that has already been wanting to claim Liana as his own. He’d been betrothed to her or will remain so if I fail.

If I lose her, then the two realms will be tense over the attack and possible death of the wolf prince. Peace might only be a memory.

“I am here to see the king,” I say and Liana looks at me, really looks at me, with her narrowed cat eyes. She takes a deep breath, and I don’t see dislike sitting in her gaze. I see quite the opposite.

Crede notices, and he practically shifts back into lion so fast that I don’t see the change. The giant beast stalks into the weeds, but not before making a growl and hissing sounds so loud I feel it rumble through my chest.

“Come with me,” Liana says. “Let’s dress you.” Her mouth twists up into a smirk.

I follow her into the palace. “That might be a good idea.”

She walks ahead of me with her hands linked behind her back. Her hair is long enough to cover her backside. She walks like a princess of great privilege, although I suppose I must do the same. She is not lithe in her movements, more graceful and poised, but she is strong, more than feline, in her stature. There is nothing small about her. Not a thing.

Her lineage, I’d looked it up, is all warriors and warrioresses.

The great hall of theirs is littered with flags of each family line. She points hers out and I stare at it wishing for clothes, but interested in her history first hand rather than through tomes written by strangers. Makes sense that her shields are covered with a lion whose hair turns to flame. I smile and give a small laugh.

“What?” she asks, her eyes stern.

Good. She sees no comedy in her history. I like that she respects it. “I merely think the flame on your crest is…fitting, my lady.”

“Oh,” she replies, her mouth pursing prettily into a circle while her cheeks flare with color. Liana’s eyes wander my form boldly.

“Clothes, my lady?”

She brightens even further and rushes off to find the servants.

I wait in an alcove, hiding from the rest of the staff until they bring me something that fits well enough. Albeit with the stench of lion on each article. And then I am granted access to the king even at this late hour.

We approach the main room and I mutter, “So, it’s true then.”

“What is?” Liana asks.

I motion at the thrones. There are more than one. “You have three queens. How…does that work? It seems…”

Her mouth twists again when I don’t say the word, but she supplies it for me. “Barbaric…?” Liana sighs. “Yes, three queens for every king.” Her words are spoken softly but I feel some reluctance.

“You don’t approve?”

She stiffens. “Of what? It’s how it has always been.”

“But you’d change it, if you could.”

Her eyes shift away then back and stare deeply into mine, weighing my worth of her truths. She decides something from what she finds there. “To be honest, I would.”

Liana’s gold eyes are frank and open. No secrets. No manipulation. None of the wolves’ coy play. She’s a breath of fresh air. How she’ll survive in Winter, however, is another matter.

She goes on, “I’d rather there be one to a…”

“Bed?” I supply, and she cringes.

“Yes. What do you think of it, Noble?”

Is she fishing for more information about me? Does she wonder if I’ll have others in my bed? Seeing the lions, and their comfort with shared…everything, I bet that it’s a question on her mind. Do we take mistresses? Many of the wolf leaders have. Would I? Never. I was raised by a woman who believed in morality just slightly below love.

Deciding something myself as well, I pull Liana back to the alcove and inside. She stiffens in surprise, but then lets me tug her to the wall and speak into her ear. “My lady, if you and I are to be married, then I shall bed with you and you alone. Winter is cold. It is a lonely palace at times. I very much look forward to your sunshine in our court. I will promise you now, even before we are wed, that you and I will warm only each other. Share our bodies together and be one.”

She pulls back from me, her eyes wide.

I stroke her cheek. “Is this so foreign to you, Liana?”

“Why yes,” she whispers. “But you mean it, Noble? Truly?”

She looks so earnest that kissing her is my only answer. It’s a sneaky thing to do while she is so obviously unready. But she is not unwilling, and Liana surprises me by melting into this game as neatly as you’d expect a flame to fold around the very thing that it is burning.

She lets me kiss her, tasting, testing, before she begins to try her own machinations.

I let Liana kiss me how she likes, a challenge is in everything that she does, but I don’t want everything to be war between us, so I let her win while reaping the reward of her fervor.

Her kiss is asking if I am serious about promising myself to her alone, and mine is in answer equally as forceful that my word is my bond. The term ‘sealed with a kiss’ has never made as much sense as it does now. Better than a decree from each of us royals, is this shared passion and exchange of pleasure.

She finally pulls away, breathing hard. Her hair is disheveled, her face is so changed and softened, focus glazed with need, and I almost lose my control.

Liana stares at me. “Your eyes,” she huffs. “Do they do that before you change? I’ve noticed the coloring before. But, I swear, only a moment ago they were different.”

I close them and shake my head hard trying very hard not to change right here in the hall. Who knows what the rogue wolf would do with my emotions so high.

Once I have my thoughts back in order, I ask, “Don’t yours? Change, I mean.”

“Yes.” She smiles. “But not the color. You go from the deepest crystal blue to a storm in seconds. But that’s why I am asking. Stay yourself, Noble, as a man. We must speak with my father.”

She grabs my hands and yanks me from the alcove, and I almost laugh out loud at her excitement. I’m just now learning there is nothing more tempting than a woman who want to marry you and swiftly. Especially when you know the bedding must be on her mind.

But I sober immediately when I see the king on his throne.

He glares at our linked hands and then at Liana, before she drops mine and steps away.

Sinking into a curtsy, she motions at me to do the same.

I bow and swallow hard. What had I been thinking?

He’s a very big man. He looks double the size of any king before him. At least a head taller than most in this realm.

The king has dressed hastily, probably raised from the bed, but he’s alert, and his yellow lion eyes are on me like I’m already the prey.

“What do you want?” he demands.

I stand straight and say clearly, “I challenge you, sire, for the hand of your daughter, Princess Liana.”

Chapter 15

Liana

Tension vibrates in the large court as the king lion and prince wolf stare at one another. Neither cowers, or seems to blink and my respect for Noble grows when my father changes form. The commanding presence of the king in his truest form energizes his court. Our agitated audience grows hungry for blood. Noble’s blood, but Noble remains steady, calm, collected.

He permits my father to prowl around him, but maintains his scrutiny on my father, his opponent, while also asserting a sense of unconcern.

My heart, the demanding little organ, thumps a violent beat and when Noble’s attention darts in my direction I know he senses my growing discord. He quirks a single eyebrow and I press two fingers to my lips to hide my smile.

Mischief glistens in his eyes before he turns back to my father.

“My lord.” His voice beams, the confidence behind it slams into my gut and pride floods into me and spreads like wild fire.

The Noble I’ve come to know, the quiet almost timid wolf, is gone. This man, or wolf, standing before me is royal, majestic even. He’s the kind of man I’d follow, fall to my knees for. And if he’s here for my hand and heeded my advice, he’s also the man I’m to marry.

I suck in a sharp breath, sending a silent prayer to the heavens. It startles me how much I want Noble to win. How much I want to marry and bed a wolf. Not for my pride or for the union of two realms. But for myself. For the pleasure spiking through my system with just a glance in his direction.

Silly female, I chastise myself.

Crede sidles beside me, and I angle my body away from him as I wrap my arms over my chest. He leans in, his nose high as he sniffs the air around me. His face contorts, disgust evident in his ugly sneer. “Seems the court isn’t the only one excited for this fight,” he whispers, his lips inches from my ear.

On my tiptoes, I pivot and, as trained, I glide to my mother on soft feet, leaving Crede to stew in his misery alone. When I glance back at Noble, he nods, his dark hair spilling over his face and covering his eyes that have turned an opaque black. He’s seconds away from shifting, and I drive my tongue into my cheek.

“My Lord,” he repeats, his voice rougher, his posture more rigid. “I’ve come to speak to you of my betrothal to your daughter.”

My father sits on his haunches and tilts his head, letting Noble know he has the king’s attention. My mother slides her hands into the crevice of my arm and squeezes. I cover her hand with mine and we share a look, mine silently telling her how I feel and hers brimming with understanding.

She kisses my cheek. “Love will come, dear one,” she says loud enough for me to hear, but too low for anyone else to notice.

“It has been said in four days’ time, I am to wed your daughter. I am here to challenge you, the King of all the Realms, for my lady’s hand. If it pleases you and the queen,” he bows his head, his gaze falling on my mother and she bows her head in return.

Crede laughs, a dry sound that infuriates me. “Is the idea of marrying Liana so horrible, you wish to die?”

A few members of the court chuckle with Crede but stop when my father growls.

“My king,” Crede says, neither dipping his head nor sinking into a customary bow when addressing my father. “It is my understanding you and the king wolf agreed this pup would not fight you, that you waived our traditions for his sake.” He sneers in my direction while my attention darts between the three commanding men in the room. “Noble, you have been granted a great reprieve. Take it, for your sake and the sake of your future wife. ‘Tis better to forego your pride than wind up dead. Don’t you agree, Liana?”

Confusion wars with anger and the awakening lion quakes in response. Rather than rise to either emotion, I send Noble a reassuring smile. I want him to fight. I want him to earn my hand the way every lioness’ hand has been won from the first generation. Fair or not, I expect it of him.

Again, Noble’s blue eyes darken, the blackness spreading as his body trembles, but he doesn’t turn to Crede when he continues to speak. Instead, his gaze stays on my father, who waits patiently for Noble to reply. “Quite the opposite. I find Liana to be an exquisite creature and woman. One I’ll honor in marriage as my partner and as the future mother to my children, the heirs of Winter.” Finally, he turns to Crede, and levels him with a grave expression. “I find I want to honor my bride and follow her traditions so that when Liana is by my side both realms will recognize I am worthy to be her true mate.”

Pride builds and swells inside me until I can’t feel anything but the growing sentiments I hold for Noble. My Noble. My courageous wolf who will fight for me, for my hand when neither king requires it of him.

With a final squeeze to my arm, my mother leaves me and walks to stand beside my father. I follow half a step behind her. She runs a hand through my father’s mane and he leans his large head into her outstretched palm.

Noble bows again while my mother regards him. From the corner of my eye, I see my mother’s lips twitch and I suppress my own smile. Noble peers up at me, and in front of the king and queen, he winks at me. My teeth dig into my bottom lip and I shake my head.

“I suggest you rest then, Noble,” my mother says. “We’ll send word to your king and queen. The fight will take place before sunrise.”

“My thanks.” His bow deepens.

I step forward and curtsy, with a smile flitting across my face. Reaching to me, he takes my hand and lifts it to his lips. We linger for a few beats and when he drops my hand. I feel naked, far more naked than I did last night when I stood in front of him bare. I’m eager to touch him again, to feel the warmth of his skin on mine, to clasp onto the strength that seems to flow through his veins.

“I’ll show you to your quarters,” I say, casting my eyes down so he doesn’t see what I’m not ready to show him.

My father growls, making us both stop and direct our attention to him. My mother rolls her eyes, rather unroyally, and strokes the top of my father’s head.

“Hush now, my king. They’ll be fine,” she reassures him.

She shoots me a playful look and I rush Noble out of the court before my father changes form and demands we stay apart from one another.

Not that I’d listen. As we walk through the large doors and make our exit, I shoot a quick glance at my parents and from the somber expression on the lion’s face, I know he also understands I wouldn’t listen.

Past long halls and empty rooms, I guide Noble through our castle. His attention swivels in all directions as he takes in the proud history of our pride that we display on the high walls. Wars won. Lives lost. They’re all there.

Every memory we can never forget takes residence among us, because it’s a part of who we are. Embedded into each cub so that when we mature, we grow knowing the souls who risked it all for us. Our pride.

He takes it all in, the pictures, maps and sculptures with a serious demeanor, and I can’t help but feel grateful he doesn’t scoff at my history. We lions are a proud people, and I’d hate to quarrel with my husband the day before he battles my father because he was disrespectful to my lineage.

Outside his bedroom door, I summon up all the remaining courage I can muster, and reach for the knob. He beats me to it and holds the door open for me.

“My lady.” He nods.

I saunter past him, another smile splayed across my face. “I thought you said you’d only call me that in public.”

He throws his head back and laughs and – God almighty – what a sound he makes. It’s joyous, sure. But more than that, it’s exuberant, full of a life I yearn for.

“You’re not quite what I expected,” I say when his laughter dies out.

Creases fold over his forehead as he contemplates my words. “What did you expect?”

“Not this.” I wave my hand at him. “Not what you showed at the court.”

“You told me to fight for your hand.”

“I did.” I touch his face, tracing the sharp planes with a finger. “When I went to you, I didn’t know my father and yours had waived our traditions. I thought you were meant to fight my father.”

“And you wanted me to win?” He smirks.

“I did. I still do. But Noble, why would you race into the night to challenge my father to a fight when you didn’t have to?”

“For you, my lady. You asked me to not hold back. I’m only doing as you wish.”

“Yes,” I agree. “And you not holding back is fascinating. Magnificent, really. I wish you to never hold back, Noble. I want to always see you as you are right now, so unbridled by your restraints.”

“That’s not something I’m certain I can give you. I fear I’d hurt you if I don’t show restraint around you.”

Insulted, I narrow my eyes and he chuckles.

“You’re fierce, my lion princess. I know your fierceness firsthand and I admire it. But,” he scratches the base of his neck, “there are things about me I’d rather keep hidden.”

“Hidden?” I frown, pulling my eyebrows together. “We are to be married. Husband and wife. There must not be secrets between us.” I step into him, placing my hands on his wide shoulders and he shudders. “Show me, Noble. Show me what you hide from the world.”

I let my hands fall to the bottom of his shirt and glide a hand under it. Pressing a hand to his stomach, I let my touch wander as I explore the planes of his stomach and chest. I kiss his chin and when he tilts his head down, we steal a kiss. Soft, sweet. Wanting more, I take charge and slide his shirt off him between the hungry kisses I press to his delicious mouth.

We part, only to suck in desperate breaths, but in the instant that we disconnect, Noble pushes away from me. He crosses the room, quickly retreating from me. With the moonlight peeking through the window shades, the lines of his back muscles dance with every swift gait.

“Do you think me a virgin?” I chortle.

He whips his head back, anger brewing behind his eyes, deepening the creases between the bridge of his nose.

“Of course, there’s nothing wrong with being a virgin,” I coax, slipping the sleeves from my dress off my shoulders as I wiggle free from its constraints. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Noble. If you’re a virgin, I can teach you.”

He turns his full body toward me and I wait with bated breath as he approaches me. Long, elegant strides to me, his prize in this little feud. I leave my dress on the floor and meet him half way. Kneeling in front of me, he presses his warm lips onto my belly, licking and sucking as he moves down, past my navel. I shiver, my body trembling at the gentle contact. Slipping my fingers through his hair, I grab him and tug hard, forcing him to peer up at me.

“Take me,” I command.

He grunts, his eagerness evident in that one syllable. With a swift movement, I’m in his arms, my naked body pressed against his bare chest. He drops me on the bed and strips off his pants. Before I can admire the curvatures of his body, he leans into me and braces himself upright with an outstretched hand by my face. I inch my face toward it, taking in his scent that no longer feels foreign to me.

He lifts my left leg and places it over his shoulder. Then the other. He guides himself to me, the evidence of his arousal rubbing between my legs. My breath stutters and he steals it with a hard kiss. He hovers over me, and glides inside me with a gentleness that surprises me. He’s too gentle. Making it impossible for me to hold onto my sanity. His breath is slow, deliberate, a taunt for provoking him. It falls heavy on my shoulder, my neck, everywhere he presses silky kisses to my skin.

His scent, my scent, our scent grows potent, raw desire taking over with every unfurling heave of his hips. I breathe in his essence, hold it in my lungs and let it permeate into my soul so that one day, I can come to love the man who’s taking me from my home.

A small noise echoes in my ear, a whimper. Mine, definitely mine. It was far too delicate to come from the man claiming me as his.

“Silence,” he demands, his voice gruff.

I obey him, pursing my lips together. He slaps into me and I arch my back to meet him thrust for thrust. Eager, I rake my hands over his back, the need for release growing as he sinks into me over and over again.

He shivers. I know he’s close, so I slam into him, wanting us to reach euphoria together. Through gritted teeth, Noble grunts again and I gasp when he thrusts his erection deeper inside of me.

I scream out his name and he covers my mouth with a large hand. I bite him, making his eyes darken. Like a cyclone, he crashes into me. Each blow sends another spike of desire up my spine. Holding himself with his hands, fisting the fabric of my bed sheets, he strikes a final time, my name falling from his lips on a whisper.

His chest heaves, and he lifts my legs from his arms and place them down gently. Joining me on the bed, he lies beside me, both our breaths coming in rapid successions. I turn my head to him and take his lips with mine, drinking in his taste. He kisses me back, his body now on top of mine, while his hands roam over my figure softly as if he were afraid to leave a trace, some sort of proof that he had ventured there. His lips are warm, tender, sweet. As tender as his love making. When he pulls away, I grip his shoulders. A strong hand grips me, his fingers digging into my waist, showing me just how strong he actually is. He nips my chin and then my mouth. I open for him, our tongues dancing sinfully together. Each sweep of his tongue shows me how he chooses gentleness over the strength his body possesses.

Compassionate and powerful, that is where my future husband’s honor lies.

And there I rest, with Noble above me. I lose myself to him, letting our mutual goals for our realms fade to wispy wishes of love and affection.

Chapter 16

Liana

Night echoes into the early morning. It’s still dark out, a darkness where shadows cannot follow. We wait, my mother by my side with Noble’s parents next to her, anticipating the outcome of a battle not yet birthed. The other wives and my sisters sit behind us.

His parents, who had been summoned by the lion court to witness this battle, look distraught. His mother appears so frail in her uncertainty of Noble’s outcome. It makes me wish I had never asked Noble to fight for me. That I’d never chased him into the prairie after I saw him watching me in the first place. Then he wouldn’t be here, his life in the hands of so much unknown.

From my seat in our large auditorium, I look for my father among the tall grass of our battlefield and sense him before I spot him. Or not him, but the slight, shuffling grass as he stalks forward, hunting his prey. My future husband.

My prince wolf, who urged me out of his room six hours prior to this moment with a lingering kiss on my swollen lips. I twist my hands on my lap as I sit quietly on my throne, not permitting my emotions to cross over my features.

But I worry. Unaccustomed to fighting alone, Noble is at a disadvantage. He’s smaller than my father. He and his pack are patient hunters, sometimes studying their prey for days before they go in for the kill. Unlike the lions who are opportunists and pounce at first chance. The warm weather and our terrain further tip the scale in the king lion’s direction.

A natural born hider, Noble doesn’t see my father slowly approach him across the field. I lean forward, wanting to warn him. My mother nudges me with her elbow and flashes a smile I can’t return.

“Your wolf will make you proud,” she assures me.

She can’t know the pride that already fills me. Him, fighting in a foreign battlefield, against my father, without reservation, just so I can stand by his side as his wife is more than I can ask of any man. Yet, I asked him, and he complied with a ferocity unmatched to any male in my realm.

Noble lowers, his muzzle curling back as he turns his attention to where my father prowls. He takes a few decisive steps back and when my father lunges, he darts through the grass, making my father crash into the hard, unforgiving ground. My father rises quickly, shaking his coat.

Their attention slams into the other, tension rising throughout the auditorium as the two opponents square off. They circle one another, and Noble seems to take in everything. My father’s stride, the angles of his body, and I know from the brief studies of wolves that Noble is assessing my father, looking for weaknesses.

Noble snaps his jaws and lunges forward before changing directions and running past my father. Confused, my father turns in Noble’s direction. I clasp my hands together, my fingers digging into my flesh as realization dawns on me.

Noble doesn’t fight with the brute force of my father. He is, after all, wolf, not lion. I almost giggle at the thought. My future husband is far cleverer than I anticipated and is testing my father. In doing so, he now holds the upper hand and sets the pace for the fight.

Irritated, my father growls as Noble circles him. He darts through the grass, far enough my father can’t pounce on him, but close enough my father can’t regroup and take control. When Noble stops, my father moves to him. Slowly, so slowly he might as well not be moving.

As if not troubled by his large enemy, Noble yawns. My father pounces. I close my eyes. My mother gasps, and I reopen my eyes.

Swiftly, Noble sprints away from my father and when he’s behind him, he jumps on my father’s backside. My father roars, thrashing his body as he inclines his head toward Noble. Noble digs deeper into my father’s flesh. Finally, my father grips Noble with his sharp teeth and shakes him off. Noble falls to the ground with a loud thud that rings in my ears. With calculating eyes, my father stalks to my wounded husband and I stand, wanting Noble to see me so that he knows I’m still on his side.

Even from a distance, I see his eyes. The black shade that’s overtaken his gaze and I know he’s fully changed. Fully wolf, and he no longer knows what he’s fighting for.

Fisting my hand, I press it to my chest and whimper, not knowing if I’m worried for Noble or for my father.

Again, my father lunges, and when he reaches Noble, Noble’s body twists and he jumps so that he again is in on top of my father, his sharp teeth drilling into my father’s neck. My father’s strong jaw closes around Noble’s flesh as they wrestle for position, neither showing any sign of retreating.

I turn, unable to watch any further and face my mother. “Stop this,” I urge her.

She shakes her head, her eyes shining with the same worry that possesses me. “I cannot,” she says, her voice strong. “It is up to them to stop.”

“They won’t,” I whisper. “The king’s pride won’t let him. And Noble…” I drift off, turning my attention to his parents and they understand my unspoken plea.

Their son is rogue. There is nothing human left in the wolf.

My father roars again and I spin on my heels to face them. Resolute, I square my shoulders and prepare myself to witness death.

Death of my father or death of the man I thought I could love.

Lion and wolf tumble across the battlefield, the sounds of war thundering through the auditorium. Although smaller than my father, Noble’s strategy has tired the great king who’s barely able to stand. Poised for the final strike, Noble rushes to my father, who closes his eyes in defeat.

“Noble,” I whisper, my voice breaking as my eyes fill with tears.

He stops, and after a few beats the wolf glances up at me. Trembling fingers cover my mouth as we look at one another. Still staring at me, he shudders once, his beautiful black fur trembling with the gesture, before he changes into human form. Cuts and bites mar his body as blood spills, painting his skin a crimson red. I take in a desperate breath and bow my head to him, my gaze never falling from his.

“We’re done,” he announces and looks down at my father. “I’ve won your daughter’s hand in marriage.”

Chapter 17

Liana

“Liana,” my mother’s voice echoing through the long hallway stops me.

I pivot in her direction and curtsy. Noble’s mom follows suit as his father bows his head. My mother is the only one to remain upright. A small, but satisfied smile spreads, across her regal face. I turn my head in the direction I was going, my eyes darting to the room only a few steps away where my wolf awaits me.

“It is not your duty to tend to your husband’s wounds,” my mother says, arching a single eyebrow, daring me to counter her assumption.

“It may not be my duty, but it is an honor.” I tilt my face to address the king and queen wolf, who I find smiling kindly at me. “He fought well,” I say to them. “When the day comes, I will be proud to call him my husband. As his wife, I will care for him and remain loyally by his side. It is my hope to also make him proud.”

His father reaches for me and I extend my hand to him in return. He cups my hand, rubbing his calloused fingers over the soft surface of my skin. It’s neither displeasing or welcome, but a sign of our union.

A house servant approaches us and curtsies before she speaks with her head bowed and her eyes downcast. “My lady,” she says to my mother. “His grace would like a word with you.”

My mother nods and the servant rushes away. Placing a hand on my arm, my mother leans into me to kiss my cheek. “A queen waits to be summoned after battle,” she whispers.

I tip my head down, hiding the exasperated expression that must be evident on my face. Because, my mother knows my destiny as queen no longer exists. I am to remain a princess. My children will be king or queen. Not me and as much as it shocks me, I’m also quite elated to find I no longer care.

Noble’s father coughs, drawing my attention. “Already, you have made him proud. And us, Liana, you have made us proud. We welcome you to our pack, and trust you will find happiness there.”

“I will.”

His mother palms my cheek with two hands and I incline my head, so she may press a kiss to my temple. “We thank you, Liana. I don’t know how you did it, but thank you.”

I retreat a step. “I don’t understand what you’re thanking me for, my lady.”

Her hands find mine and she squeezes. “You do,” she insists. “You know Noble’s true nature and not only were you able to call him back into human form, you are also willing to marry him despite it.”

Hissing, I place a hand on my waist. “Noble brought himself back, and it is his true nature I wish to marry, not in spite of it.”

Spinning on my heels, I leave my future king and queen with their mouths agape and enter Noble’s room without knocking or invitation. My hackles further rise when I find him lying on his bed naked with my sister, Lia, touching him.

Mine, my brain growls.

I pull back my lips, bearing my teeth to my sister. She cowers, a small yelp spilling from her lips when I snatch the cloth she’d been using to clean Noble’s wounds.

“You may leave,” I dismiss her.

Lia scurries away, her departing back fleeing through the double doors before I have time to turn back to Noble. But when I do face him, I find him still lying on the bed, but now a ridiculous grin spreads across his beautiful face.

“Jealous?” he asks.

I place the cloth into a nearby bowl of water and wring it before I begin to tend to Noble.

“Yes,” I answer.

“Your honesty is humbling. Always be honest with me, Liana. I’m tired of games and manipulations.”

“You’ll always have my honesty, even when you don’t want it,” I promise. “Now lie still, my brave Noble, so I may clean you.” Kneeling beside him, I place the warm cloth on his chest and trail gentle kisses as I sweep over his battered body. His body shudders.

“Thank you for showing mercy to my father. I am forever in your debt.”

Caressing my face with his outstretched hand, he traces small circles on my cheek with his thumb. I take his hand with mine and kiss his palm. He sighs, a heavy breath that sounds a lot like relief.

“It is I, who is indebted to you.” Long fingers brush over my mouth and I part my lips. “The wolf heard you whisper my name. Your father is alive because of you.”

I nod my head as if I understand, but truly I don’t. He hasn’t come out and said it, but he and his parents have skirted around what I thought may be true.

“Will you be honest with me, Noble? If I ask you something important, will you tell me the truth?”

Taking the cooling cloth, I dip it back into the warm water and squeeze it before I trail it over his chest. He quivers, his eyes darken, and he closes his lids, his hands falling to his side. His tongue sweeps his lips in a quick dash of motion but when he opens his eyes, they’re clear.

“Ask me anything, my princess.” His words come out as a rasp. “But be careful what you ask. Some truths aren’t worth knowing.”

“Your truth is worth knowing.”

For now, I drop the cloth back into the bowl of water and edge closer to him. I run my fingers through his hair and across his face. His throat bobs, the prominent veins on his neck dancing when he swallows.

“That day I saw you in Summer, you were off your mark. You weren’t with your pack. And when I went to Winter to talk to you, it wasn’t yet a full moon, but you were in wolf form, again without your pack. And now,” I bend down to kiss the creases lining his forehead, “you said the wolf heard me. Are you and the wolf not one?”

His face crumbles, resignation settles across his dark features. “Do you know what you’re asking me?”

“I do.” I take his hand in mine and bring his fingers to my lips. “Will you tell me?”

As if the idea pains him, he turns from me, slipping his hands from my grasp. I let him, because I know what I’m asking isn’t easy. It’s admitting a fault to a lineage I’m supposed to marry into. A fault that could break our betrothal despite him winning my hand.

Needing him to know I’m still with him, that whatever he tells me is of no consequence to our future, I lay my hand on his chest and rest it over his heart.

“The wolf and I co-exist, but the wolf has more control than I do.”

Like a stampede, his heart pounds through its confines and against my palm. The thunderous commotion incites war as much as it calls to me to protect him. Both man and beast.

“So, when you turn into a wolf…” I trail off.

“I’m no longer man. I’m rogue, Liana. Do you know what that means?”

“Yes,” I murmur. His lack of command over the wolf is frightening. And exciting. “But the wolf recognizes me?”

“As much as the man does.”

“Then it’s a good thing the wolf is as beautiful as the man.”

“You tease?” An incredulous laugh rumbles from his chest and he reaches for me. I let him, absorbing the warmth of his hands when he touches me. “I tell you I’m rogue, that I’m flawed, and you make jokes.”

“Flawed?” I snort, distaste for the word evident in the way I contort my face.

“You know this makes me flawed, Liana. Do not play the fool. I’m flawed and weak. If your parents, the king and queen, knew of this they wouldn’t permit you to marry me. You shouldn’t want to marry me.”

“It is you who is the fool here, my wolf. I would never marry a flawed or weak man. Yet, here I am. I want to marry you, Noble.”

Swiftly, he sits up, and pulls my face to him. He kisses me. His lips move against mine, soft and tender. When his lips part, mine separate with him and our tongues dance and coax. Fingers, just as tender, hold onto me, massaging the base of my neck, yielding me to him.

Even when my lungs burn for air, we continue to kiss, his lips moving as if he were composing a sonnet I hope will never end. In his arms, I send out a silent prayer that both man and wolf can one day love me the way I wish to love him.

When we break apart, Noble rests his forehead against mine. His fingers dig into my neck and he presses another quick kiss onto my lips and then my cheek. “You are a wonder.”

“As if a royal would marry anything less than a wonder.” I tsk. “Now let me finish tending to your wounds. When I finish,” I add, brushing my lips over his ear, “if you’ve been a good wolf, I’ll ride you soft and slow.”

Chapter 18

Noble

Liana is as beautiful as I knew she’d be in her white dress. Today is the day, and though I’d wished it would come more swiftly, now I’m as nervous as a cub in his first run with the pack.

“You’re not supposed to be in here,” I say, not meaning a word. I’m transfixed with my bride to be.

“Then who will fix this terrible job you’ve done on your cravat?” Soft hands brush mine away, fix things unnecessarily, and then linger at my throat.

“Do you like it?” I ask, meaning my suit. “It’s quite dated, I know.”

She smiles. “I’m the one that’s supposed to ask that.”

I smile back.

“You’re not the one in her mother’s dress that’s got more frills than any woman needs. If I fell in a puddle, I’d drown.” Liana sighs, glances down with a cute bit of doubt making frown lines on her lovely face.

“Liana,” I say, taking her hands and kissing each before squeezing them with reassurance. “This dress is perfect. You are perfect. This day is perfect. Nothing will ruin our wedding. I won’t let it. This is my kingdom and I command it.”

That makes her smile again, brilliantly. Her pointy teeth on the edges are just sharp enough to remind me that I marry no normal girl, no Spring prey, but a lion.

Liana must see what I do, for I know how my own teeth are getting longer nearing to the full moon. And I shall have a bride to see me off for that special night as well. A woman to send me into the pack as is tradition.

“Noble, I have to ask you. Are your people… are they okay with this?” She knows that they are not. She’s seen the side glances and she’s braved the sneers.

“They will be,” I say.

“Are you certain?”

Doubt fills her golden eyes and I feel guilty for something I have no control over. For a future that is not at all what Liana must have hoped for. For a moment, I almost change my mind. What if the pack never surrenders to this idea? And Liana will be what? An outcast.

I try to let go of her hands and do the right thing. I will myself to send her home. I do. But the rogue in me is a lonely selfish beast who wants a mate. Even if that means she joins him in exile.

“I won’t lie to you, Liana. The wolves are a pack. They see you as a threat. Lions and the wolves have not always gotten along. We’ve shed blood and so have your kind, but we will show them what unity can look like, alright? We must teach them.”

“I wish I had your positivity. I keep thinking one minute that this is where I belong. But since arriving…I’ve noticed things are so different than my home. I wish I could see it how you do, Noble.”

“I’m not the one facing a whole realm of doubters. That you have not run out of here and away from us already is a miracle. If someone has slighted you. Just give me their name.” Her eyes widen, and I know I must look ready to change. The wolf is angered at the very thought.

“The women came to get me,” she says. “They weren’t rude, but they were…”

“Trying to force you outside?”

“Yes. Why?”

I laugh and wipe my face. “Tradition, my lady. Tradition.”

She crosses her arms and raises a brow. “Do go on.”

I sigh. “There are a few of them for joining two people together in wedded bliss. For one, we hide the ring. My scent is on it. Don’t ask. And if you find it, Liana, you get to keep the prize.”

“And what prize might that be, my lord?”

I laugh at her curious cat nature. “Me.”

“Well then, I best be on my way.”

I grow serious. “You’d do it? You’ll do the traditions? All of them?”

Liana frowns. “All?”

“There are more than one, a few… But I’ve told them the dead fish in our bed is not going to happen.”

“I don’t think I want to know.”

I laugh. My heart lighter than it’s been well, ever. “You don’t. But the ceremony itself is normal. It’s the before and after that’s a tad…strange. The ring finding. Then um…they shoot you with arrows.” I look away, worrying my cravat. “They aren’t sharp. And then I come and break them all. To prove how manly I am.” I hide my smile. “Want me to tell them no?”

“They shoot the bride?” She looks horrified and intrigued which makes me love her all the more. “That’s terrible!”

“I know. It is quite old. It doesn’t hurt.”

Liana sighs. “No fish, Noble. The arrows are enough.”

“They barely shoot them…”

She shakes her head before a servant peeks inside the room. “You ready, milady?”

“I don’t know.” Liana gives me a mock glare. “Am I? Will they truss me up like a chicken after?”

Chapter 19

Noble

“Did you find the ring?” I whisper, and she giggles and nods beneath her veil.

The priest gives me his most chastising glare, and then continues in the ancient language of the realms. I roll my eyes at him when he’s not looking and feel Liana’s body shake next to mine with mirth.

The priest motions for another to come forward, pausing in his droning. “Sire, before you lift the veil, the arrows.”

They bring them to me, they’ve already shot them gently at Liana. She’d accepted the custom regally. And her lips had quivered with mirth. And now I am supposed to say, “I promise to protect you.” and break them. Instead, I take them and lift her veil before my time. Handing Liana some of the arrows, I say, “We shall protect each other.”

The crowd is silent, no doubt some are giving my backside glares over lack of decorum.

I break the arrows in half. Liana watches me with shining eyes, then breaks hers and says with a gentle nobility that rings fair and true, “We shall protect each other.”

To see how thankful she is for the offering, it makes it worth the judgment of the people in attendance.

We turn during the final portion after admitting death do us part, to face the crowd of gathered people from both of our realms. The lions have shown in full regalia. One side of the gathering is darker heads of wolves, and the other, the golden fairer lions.

Tensions are high, but I’d made sure the kitchen had the best drink flowing before the ceremony even began. Cook had guffawed at my offer, saying it wasn’t even noon, but I’d told him pour it all down their gullets and keep it coming.

The only chink in the perfect day has been the absence of my father. With more trouble in the village, he’d ridden out early in the morning to aid them in their plight, but not before stopping to see me on my wedding day. The big black wolf had told me that on his own nuptials, he’d been shaking so hard he’d dropped the arrows…twice. My father had then hugged me in a rare show of affection, called me son, and said, “With any luck I’ll be back before the party is over.”

He’d beamed with pride. Told me to look over the Kingdom while he was gone.

My father. The black wolf. Proud of his son for the first in a long, long time.

“You may now kiss your bride,” the priest says.

And with a flare, I do. As hard as I dare. And the best part is, she kisses me back.

The crowd cheers. Some are overly excited for such an occasion as this one. And I wink at the cook who lifts a decanter full of more drink before filling the glasses of our council members. Spirits are pouring, spirits are high. “My lord,” he says, bowing as I pass his place.

“That dagger,” I whisper. “The one in the great hall that you’ve been eyeing since we were pups?”

“Aye, my lord?”

“It’s yours.”

He practically leaps into the air. He can retire on the handle alone, but I know Cook will probably sleep with it under his pillow. He greatly values our history. Cook bellows, “My fellow lion lords, ladies, and wolves, please follow me into the banquet hall for food and more drink!”

They cheer again, and everyone staggers after me and my bride, who is chuckling beneath her breath. “Getting my parents drunk are you, Noble?”

I steal a cup on the way and pass it to Liana. “And my wife.”

We both lock eyes over the first utterance of our union proclaimed. I feel her arm tighten its grip. Liana takes a good long drink and my eyes widen.

She laughs after finishing the cup. “If you can keep up I’ll be surprised…husband. My family will drink you poor, my lord.”

I feel heat strike me at the sight of wine drops on her lips, and more, to her tasting of them one by one.

Her pink tongue then does a sweep over her lips, just in case.

“Noted,” I say with a choked voice.

Liana seems pleased. She practically purrs close to my ear as we walk, “My lord,” she whispers. “You are stalking me like a wolf and everyone is watching you.”

“Let them,” I say with an unreasonable need to howl at the moon.

Liana smiles at me but to my frustration, gets pulled away by her women who flock to her side. I can hear them giggling and asking about the arrows, and if they’d hurt when they’d struck.

My new wife winks at me but answers them, “Not at all. In fact, it was very fun to watch the men try to hit me but not hurt me. They will learn soon enough; we lions are not made of such thin skin.”

With the winter cold, Liana and her people, their noses and cheeks are rosy. With the color high in the lions’ tan faces, I’ve caught no less than a few wolves staring.

Right now, the female pride is guffawing over Liana’s ring. It had been my mother’s.

“She’s fitting in well enough,” my mother says, coming to stand next to me.

“Thank you,” I say to her now as we watch Liana hold up her ring, “for trusting her with such an heirloom. I think it will prove to the pack that this is not a sham.”

“I can see that. Anyone with eyes can see that. The way you two go about, if you haven’t bed her yet, it’s a miracle.”

“Mother!”

“It’s true. I used to be fun once upon a time, Noble.” My mother smiles.

But it’s strained. This is not what she’d wanted for me. I watch her eyes stray to Emilie. If it were her choice, I’d be filling the halls with pure wolves from a girl who’d saved her own village, and a wolf who was destined for greatness. You only have to meet the girl to know, she is fit to be a wolf queen.

Looking between her and Liana, the difference is as night from day.

My mother gave me the ring without question, though. She wants me to be happy and she’d realized that somehow the lion who attacked her son is suddenly his passion.

I’d felt joy and trepidation staring at the plain silver circle of a wolf eating its tail, but with the opposite of plain ruby the size of a robin’s egg in the middle. It could feed a village for a decade such a rare gem that it is. But it hadn’t been Emilie or even Katarina, it had been Liana who’d placed it upon her slender finger.

Thinking of that night in the cold when I was but a child, losing Kat, I swallow and feel my mood change swiftly.

Liana’s head swivels and she meets my gaze. With grace, she brushes off her ladies, and is immediately at my side. Where she belongs.

When I say nothing, she frowns. “I want you to share with me whatever it is that bothers you so,” Liana says.

I pat her hand. “In time,” I reply. “Today, let’s celebrate.”

The music begins as if on cue, and we move to the hall to find our seats at the front of the table decorated with rose petals from Spring.

I spin around and eagerly search the room until I see her. Winnie has arrived, late, but she’s here, and she practically bounces like the bunny she is through the room to grab me tightly into her arms. I lift my childhood friend while she lets out a squeal of excitement.

“How I have missed you!” I say.

“It seems like ages, Noble,” she replies wistfully.

I set her down, squeezing her shoulders to steady her. “I thought this day would never come,” I murmur for her ears alone, and she nods, her smile an elated show of teeth. Winnie’s eyes glistening with unshed tears such is her joy.

I turn, and my gaze meets two very golden, very unhappy eyes watching me from over the head of Winnie.

My mouth drops open, and I stutter over an explanation. “This is…Winnie…” I say, as if that is enough.

My mother, wiser than us all, merely snatches Winnie’s hand and tows her away, asking questions about the best treatment of the new royal garden.

Liana crosses her arms, eyebrow raised, but then we both hungrily take in our place settings. Food is in abundance, spilling across the royal blue table cloth.

I ask her, “Are you hungry?”

“Famished!” Liana says, pulling a leg off a nearby turkey. My wife is distracted by food. Such a godsend.

We are not going to pick at small snacks, my lady and I eat our fill because, “You’ll need your strength,” she says, pushing a plate of ham towards my side, making me grin from ear to ear.

My men are wary of the union, but I catch them eyeing the bright golden ladies of the lion pride. They do draw the eye, there is no denying it. The pale skin of the wolves and dark hair does have its exquisiteness, but these hardy and bright creatures are something new to our realm, and a few wives have had to elbow their husbands.

My lady is the prettiest of them all. That is no contest. As the gifts come in, piling up above our heads, Liana is as gracious as she is regal.

Obviously raised in court, she spends ample time thanking each giver individually, asking their name, their position, and mentioning something that shows interest before welcoming them again with heartfelt meaning. I see her taking note of each who bring us well wishes, and equally, my lady takes note of those who do not.

I interrupt her and the gifts to ask, “Shall we dance, wife?’

Her eyes widen and her lips purse, “Of course, husband.”

She takes my hand. As we approach the dancing area, and the music changes to a moving piece the wolves will recognize, my heart fills to its limit with a flood of new happiness.

A saying the wolves have now makes all the more sense to me. Its ancient wording translates into: My soul is well.

“What?” Liana asks me, and I smile.

“Nothing. My soul is well.”

She grins and lets me lead her into our first dance as a married couple. The music, it is a song that all first wives and husbands will dance to in our realm. The significance is equal to the first run with the pack. Another big moment.

The melody brings a nostalgia my younger self would not feel. Because now, it means something. Liana is in my arms, learning our ways, our history, even in just a song. Taking in stride, what would be too absurd to another.

I pull her close, and feel the world shrink away. I’m free momentarily from responsibilities and everything else but this one thing as I tether myself to Liana.

We lean into one another, her hair tickling my chin, and I close my eyes soaking in the feeling of two people propping each other up against a realm that is ready to tear them apart.

“Noble,” Liana says softly.

“Hmmm-mm?”

“The music has stopped.”

I open my eyes and halt our spin. Liana stares up at me with knowing eyes, and the attendees begin to clap. We bow, and the rest join us in the next dance.

Liana tugs my hand, leading us back toward our seats.

“Tired?” I ask.

“Not at all,” she says, passing our place at the table, and pulling me into the hall instead.

Empty at the moment, we are alone together at last. She toys with my jacket, hands finding their way beneath, and then she kisses me on the chin, before moving my cravat aside in an eager jerk and tug.

Liana presses smooth lips to my neck, and I groan.

I let her explore as long as I can before I spin her around, and press my prize against the wall with a growl.

“Husband,” she breathes.

“Wife,” I say, each of us running our mouths over every bit of skin we can find, and I’ve stumbled upon a wealth of it just above her dress line. Liana makes lovely noises when I nip at tender hollows and divots of flesh.

Never has the making of a person been more fascinating to me. I want to toy with every part of her, see what makes it work, and what makes her cry out in passion.

“To bed?” she asks.

I lean back and growl.

“We should stay longer,” Liana chides.

I laugh. “You’re being a tease.”

“I hear wolves like to chase their prey.”

I drop my gaze to hers in warning. “They do.”

She pushes away and walks toward the dining hall, her eyes beguiling me over her shoulder, her hips swaying with menace, and I scrub my hands over my face to wipe away the dumb look I must be giving.

“Let the chase begin,” I say, ripping my cravat the rest of the way from my neck.

My fellow wolves pat me on the back when I return, followed by good natured jeering about us trying to escape all too soon from the party. Everyone is enjoying this moment as the toasts begin. Well wishes are given to me and my lion wife who watches me across the room without ceasing. The doors open, and the noise dies like a fire snuffed out. A councilman stops mid-speech when we hear a commotion before a gasp and yelp of alarm.

After, a hush falls over the hall.

I see Oren, tall above party-goers, striding my way, still in his battle armor. Behind him more of our men have arrived, and they carry a burden.

I hear glass shatter as a plate is dropped. A keening moan begins of pure devastation that echoes in my head, rattling me to the core. Everyone’s eyes turn as one toward me, and before I even understand what my heart already seems to know, a dread takes hold at my core.

The burden they carry is my father.

Chapter 20

Noble

Oren rushes forward, bows to a knee. “My lord,” he says with a somber tone Oren has never used before, not to me.

With a bent neck, he has never given anyone but my father, he delivers the blow. “The great black wolf has died, sire. He fell in battle. We were attacked. I’m so sorry.”

It doesn’t register. “My mother, where is my mother?”

And then I remember that sound I’d heard. Women wolves cluster around someone, and I spot her between them. She’s on her knees, crying in a puddle of disbelief.

Her pale face turns upward, begging, “Whywhywhywhy?”

Pale and stricken, my mother falls to the side and Emilie catches her. I close my eyes as a terrible scream bursts from my mother’s mouth, the only sound in the hall.

I sway on my feet, the world spinning, and it forces me to open my eyes and watch as they bring my father’s body into the center of the hall. They won’t lay him down, they will hold him high. The king must not touch the ground again until he is buried.

On feet I cannot feel, I stride forward, steadier than I should be. It’s as if disbelief aids me in my motion.

“Attacked by men?” I ask.

I touch the cape that covers my father’s body, all except his slack face, as if he is sleeping.

Pushing at the fabric, I mean to remove it, but Oren leaps forward and tries to stop me. “You mustn’t, milord.”

I stay Oren with a hand and throw the cloak back.

The crowd gasps, and several of the nearest women fall into a dead faint. Oren rushes to cover my father’s body as I back away, and bite my fist to keep from crying out.

Oren pauses, and I nod. “Cover him.”

He throws the cloak back in place. I now see how soaked in blood it is. How it’s not the color red originally, but had been some other lighter color before. My father’s life-blood has turned it crimson.

Everyone is watching me, expecting me to crumble. It’s hard not to be the son I’ve always been. Not to be the three-year-old Noble wanting to ride on my father’s knee, or teenager Noble finding out he was rogue but knowing the black wolf would never disown his son. He’d taken care of everything, even when I’d killed my own betrothed as a child.

There is---was -- nothing he couldn’t do.

My mother is crying and staring at me, and waiting with the entirety of Winter to see what I shall do.

I glance at Liana. My wife’s eyes are sad, and she’s lost her tan to a white sheen of shock. She’s holding her own mother’s hand tightly and waiting as well.

Oren also glances at the lions, and his jaw firms when he looks back at me.

“Who was it?” I demand, knowing the marks across my father’s chest had been no hunter.

There had been no arrows.

Oren confirms what I’ve already guessed. “It was a lion, milord.”

Chapter 21

Noble

“Out. I want everyone out, right now,” I bellow, pushing my way to my mother.

I rush to her side, and she grips me tightly, rising to her feet, but she’s weak and I have to let her lean on me to stand. “See that she gets to her rooms, Emilie.”

“No,” my mother argues. “Please. I want to stay, Noble.”

“Mother,” I whisper seeing the pleading look she gives that threatens to undo me. “Let them wash him first.” I touch her face. “Let me deal with this. With justice. For him.”

Her eyes harden. “Son, you will not let this beast get away with this. Please, we mustn’t let this go unpunished. Noble…” She pauses, a realization in her eyes. My mother stands tall. “King Noble.” Her voice rings through the quiet hall.

I frown at her, and when I turn toward the others, my men take a knee. Even Oren sinks down low, head bent, and the rest follow. Everyone but the lions have bowed to the ground, and I search for Liana who is standing with a detached expression of confusion. It’s understandable. She’d married a prince just hours ago.

And now he’s king.

I feel as she does. Confused.

My own mother is stronger in this moment than I ever thought possible. Chin raised, she shouts, “Long live King Noble!” And everyone replies the same.

Oren rises, “My king, you must take the throne. It is tradition.”

“Not now,” I say but my mother grips my arm and shakes her head subtly.

Lip quivering, eyes holding an ocean of tears, she whispers, “He’s right. If you don’t, anyone who sits on it before you, may challenge. If your father were here… You must go now, Noble.”

Oren would be the first to challenge me, or so I’d thought, but I see nothing in his gaze other than sadness, and grudging respect.

My father is not even dead to me mere minutes and I cannot stay. I cannot even be there for my mother, and I cannot even enjoy my wife. It is my duty to sit on that throne, and it’s as if the black wolf’s spirit urges me to do so. This is what he would want more than anything. No doubt it would even have been his dying wish could he have uttered one.

I move to leave, and startle when Liana touches my arm. I think she means to ask me to stay, but she only says, “You won’t kill the lion without a trial. Noble, tell me you’ll listen to his side, at least.”

In front of everyone, I glare at her, moving away. Before the entire realm, my queen, not seconds ago made queen, is already questioning her king, who has not even sat upon his throne.

I know my voice is filled with disgust as I call, “Bring the lion!”

And I leave her and the rest for the main room. For the throne.

I approach the intricately carved wooden chair like a live thing ready to grab me. It is painted gold, roses carved in a weave around the arms, and a giant wolf head resides above the cushioning. It is a throne for a king, and even as old as it is, it still seems new to me every time I see it.

This seat---this is what’s killed my father. I know it with every fiber of my being. When has a king of any realm died of old age? Most have been challenged and fallen, or died of suspicious causes, and now it’s my turn to take that risk for the wolves.

The seat next to it is slightly lower. The queen’s throne, which Liana may not sit until she has a coronation, and now it dawns on me with a pain, it is no longer my mother’s to behold.

It’s all happening so swiftly, and terribly. I want to mourn my father. I want more than anything to be alone. But I can hear the black wolf’s voice in my ear already: And that is what makes a king, Noble, what sets us apart. We cannot do what we want, we must do what is needed for the realm.

The throne is for the taking. I could let someone else sit in my place. Now is the time if I wanted to give it all up, perhaps I’d be happier. But then my father’s work to protect my secret would be all for nothing.

Every part of his life was to pave the way for me to do this exact thing right now. Can I just dishonor him when it is time? No, the throne is mine for the taking. That is how it’s always done in the Winter realm.

Before I can think more, in a swift movement, I sit upon my throne.

Hands rubbing the ridge of the roses, no doubt last touched by my father’s hands---it still feels warm, even. I watch as my people filter in behind me.

“Oren,” I say, and he comes forward. “Tell me what you can recall.”

He bows again, and I’m still unused to the sight. “Yes, sire,” he says. “It was during a fight. Men attacked the village, hunters, and we were so surprised to see them, that it was not a fairytale, that we stalled. It was my fault, sire. We hesitated and chaos, panic ensued. I was separated from your father. He was with the lions. They fought as well, and we beat back the hunters. I thought he’d been harmed by a man, but when we found him, in the end, it was a lion warden who killed him. Of that, I am certain.”

“And was he caught?”

“Yes, sire. We have him.”

My teeth snap together. An anger fills me like I’ve never felt before. “Bring him to me.”

Liana has pressed to the front of the crowd, her lionesses directly behind. She will demand punishment. She will require what I require. There can be no other way.

I rub my top lip feeling the strain of the day heavy on my shoulders, and a new duty for my people tightening around my throat. My emotions are rocking like a ship on a stormy sea. One moment I want to weep, the next I want revenge.

I finally risk a glance at Liana, but she is not looking at me, she is looking at her father who has come to the front of the gathering as well. He is nodding to her, prodding her, and she approaches me, head held high. “We should hear what he has to say first, Noble---, King Noble.”

The gasp from the crowd can’t deafen my own booming voice. “It is for me to decide.”

A rush of protectiveness for my people against hers is so thick I can taste it. We may be married but her kin has murdered mine. She must see that I will do what I must. Without the black wolf who will stop this tide of men and lions?

I am the one to do that now.

My people, who were jovial and celebrating, are now tight faced, shocked, angry, and weary at the sight of me on this throne. Not because they will not obey me. They will, even to death. But because they should have had many more years with my father, same as my mother and me.

The soul threatens to take over, to bring me to my knees, to make me rage and pour out tears at the injustice, but the black wolf has taught me well. I sit, like a king, stiff and proper, and I do not show one thread of emotion. I send my strength to my pack and they absorb it visibly.

Wolf wardens drag a tall blond man into the main room. He’s in shackles. Everything about him says lion, Summer realm, and he’s of noble blood, you can tell.

But all I can see before me is a murderer.

They force the killer to his knees before the throne.

Oren stands to his right. “This is the man who murdered our king. He should be brought to justice and swiftly. The old way.”

The crowd yells in agreement, fists shaking. “The old way!”

Some are dabbing at their eyes with tears flowing that I cannot allow for myself.

I sense that Liana will try and speak so I say, “Prisoner, did you murder a black wolf?”

“Yes.”

My hands shake with anger, so I fist them tightly. “Did you know who the black wolf was in human form?”

He glances swiftly at the lions and says, “Yes, sire.”

“Did anyone see him do it, Oren?”

“Many, sire.”

“You admit to the crime, then?” I ask, slightly surprised.

He nods his golden head tightly, just once.

Oren shouts amidst the chatter that ensues. “He doesn’t even deny it! He must pay! The Old Way, it’s tradition!”

“Tradition!” people begin to shout.

The wolves grow louder, and the lions move forward. Their king looks ready to argue, but it is Liana who steps in front of him. A lion. My wife. “There must be a trial.”

Oren sneers at her. “We wolves have no trial. If the pack says he dies, he dies. He admitted to cold blooded murder!”

The pack yells in unanimous reply, “Murderer!”

“Quiet,” I say, rising.

“Noble,” Liana says, her jaw firm, her eyes pleading. “He could have been coerced. Forced even! We need more information.”

“You will call him king,” Oren demands. “King Noble!”

The wolves shout agreement.

“I have not sworn fealty to any wolf king,” Liana says quietly, but then adds, “But Noble is my king, be he a fair king. There must be a trial. A legitimate hearing. That is our tradition.”

The hall erupts with lions and wolves arguing. The tension is high enough that someone is bound to change, and it would mean more bloodshed.

“Silence,” I snap, and Liana stiffens when I make sure she knows I mean her, too.

My anger threatens to undo me, and hearing her so…rational, it’s too much. I bend to it, to her, but the pack needs a firm leader, especially now.

I see my father’s body all over again from when I’d unveiled the wounds. His chest ripped open. The lion had not been merciful.

“Sire,” Oren prods.

“Bring me my sword!”

Liana rushes forward as the wolves loudly agree with my decision.

My wife latches onto my arm. “You mustn’t!” she cries. “He could have been in the heat of battle. Please, do this properly. We risk the peace, the lions demand trial. It could ruin all that we have planned. Noble, husband, we must hear his side.”

I shake her off roughly, and yank my sword from the sheath that Oren carries. Stalking toward the lion, I do not hesitate for fear that Liana is right, and for fear that I will weaken to her womanly thoughts and the lion’s traditions over my own.

“Blood for blood,” I call. “That is the wolf way!”

“Wait!” Liana cries.

I turn around, sword in hand, and point it at my wife.

Liana’s so surprised at the violent move, she backs away from the blade, eyes wide.

Her father lunges, the wolves press forward.

The room is mere moments away from pandemonium, but I cannot stop the anger, the rogue that demands that no one, not even Liana, will stand between me and my duty. What is owed to my flesh and blood.

Right is right.

Eye for eye.

Lion for wolf.

My voice shakes with rage, as does the sword in my hand that is still between me and what I promised to defend only hours ago. “My father was the one who decided we should marry. That there should be a union against the humans between wolves and lions to save the realms. And what did he get for that? Huh?” I motion with the sword at her, at all of the lions. “Your people murdered him!”

I glare at the king of the lions who is wise enough to see that his choice now may cause all-out war between us both.

Chapter 22

Liana

Stuck, neither of us willing to bend for the other. Stubborn hearts anchor us to our own cause.

Noble, my fierce Noble, is visibly broken by his father’s sudden death. Rage and disappointment roll off him in waves that slam into me. Guilt rises in me, knowing one of my own did this to him and his pack, but I smother it down, unable to give into such weakness, when my pride needs me. Both my pride and Noble’s pack need to see that Noble and I can rule together justly, that we can compromise our traditions as we did in our wedding ceremony.

Only the wedding is over. The perfect day ruined by the unforeseen death of the king wolf. Now, we must prepare for a funeral, and a trial if I have my way.

My chest tightens, my ribs seeming to collapse around my heart, and I fight back the onslaught of foreboding tears. Because I must remain strong and have my way – the lion’s way. There must be a trial so that true justice may be served.

Long seconds pass with Noble pointing his sword at me while I quietly dare him to act on his silent threat. I tip my chin, watching the rise and fall of his expansive chest behind his tailored suit. He’s dangerous and wild, and yes, still beautiful.

When Noble neither speaks nor acts, I walk away from him, careful in maintaining a strong appearance for my pride, and stop when I stand before the accused murderer, my cubhood friend Arlo, and place a firm hand on his shoulder. Brown eyes peek up at me from behind the messy mop of blond hair that sits across his face. Blood cakes his tan skin, the scent of his blood mixes with the great wolf’s blood and I can’t stop the aching in my chest from growing.

My husband, now the King of Winter, pounds his feet into the ceramic floor as he makes his way to us, his hold on the sword so strong his knuckles have grown an ashen white. Sadness and desperation war against one another, neither taking control nor letting go of the firm grip they have around my poor husband’s broken heart. I want to sooth him, to let him know he doesn’t have to face this alone, but I hold my ground, unwavering in my need to protect Arlo, who may very well deserve Noble’s wrath.

“There is a right way to do this, Noble,” I insist.

His body tenses and shakes in anger. The lines on his face contort and he opens his mouth, no doubt to bellow in my direction, but I cut him off.

“Rise,” I tell Arlo, giving Noble my back.

Noble’s pack mutter their displeasure at my defiance while my pride watches me with the respect I long ago earned. Already, I know I’m in the wrong, but I can’t seem to will myself to stop. Knowing if the roles were reversed, if wolves had killed my father, blood would have already been spilled, knowing Noble and his pack have shown far more restraint than my pride is capable of, doesn’t stop me. It only fuels me and my need to get my pride to safety and away from a pack that will surely never accept me as their queen.

“You will not rise. You will remain kneeled before me.” Noble’s voice booms and I tremble at the power and anger behind it.

Loyal to his pride and to me, Arlo keeps his head bowed and eyes downcast as he follows my command.

“My lady,” he says and then turns his face to Noble. “You are not my king,” he hisses, his lips pulled back as he bares his teeth. “You do not command my obedience.”

“Arlo.” My throat convulses when I try to swallow, but I keep my eyes steady, my voice strong. “You admit to killing the king wolf.”

He bows his head when he answers me. “I do.”

I cup his cheek, trailing my thumb over stubble on his chin. He turns into it and presses his face against my hand. “Of your own accord?”

“Yes, my lady.”

Noble growls and shoves Arlo back down. “Enough!” His voice ricochets off the walls and echoes in my hollow chest. I brace a hand against the drumming of my heart and reach for Noble, who steps away before I can touch him. With his sword still in hand he turns to his weeping mother and brings her to him for a tight one-arm embrace.

I move back to Arlo and too low for anyone else to hear me, I whisper, “Why?”

Familiar light eyes meet mine. “It was the only way. You’ll be queen now, my lady. As you should be.”

A slow smirk builds on his mouth and shaking my head, eyes wide I back away from him, away from my kin and collide into Noble’s hard chest. He grips my elbows, steadying me, but quickly lets me go as if the thought of touching me repulses him, as if the feel of my skin on his burns him.

Face pale, hands trembling, Noble lifts his sword, and I understand this moment for what it is. It’s archaic and medieval but it’s just and swift.

“Do what you must, my king,” I say, addressing Noble.

Dark, almost black eyes, dig into me. I fall to my knees and bow my head.

“Justice is yours to serve as you deem fit. But I ask you, my lord, please permit me to stay here as a witness to Arlo’s life and to his death.”

Strong hands grip me and force me to my feet. Noble’s face is no longer smooth but lined and reddened with anger.

“Did your murderous pride member grant anyone in my father’s pack the honor of witnessing my father’s death? Did he show any mercy when he spilled my father’s blood?”

“No.” My face tips down further.

“Then tell me, wife,” he sputters out, hatred warping the title into something vile. “Why should I grant this creature anything?”

I look up at him, my expression void of any emotion. “Because you are better than him. Because you are king.”

His grip on my arm tightens and I flinch in pain but stand firm in front of him. Toe to toe, we stare off, and I resist the urge to pull away from his hurtful fingers.

My father takes a stand beside me and puts a strong hand on Noble’s shoulder. I look back at him, my eyes narrowed in warning, but he only regards Noble. The wolf he betrothed me to.

“Your anger is understandable,” my father says to him, his voice booming over the commotion of the agitated crowd. "We, the lions, grieve with you, but Noble,” he dips his head slightly in recognition of Noble’s new title, “reign in your temper and act in a manner that serves your pack and not your dignity.”

“My dignity?” Noble scoffs, his grip on my arm intensifying. “This has nothing to do with dignity, but with your desire to save a murderous lion. I won’t have it.”

Crede steps away from our pride and when he turns to us, his eyes collide with Noble’s. Never breaking his focus on Noble, he pries Noble’s fingers from their grasp. I rub my arm, taking in the angry red marks left by my husband.

“Touch her again,” Crede growls and Noble stands so close to me I feel the heat of his body on my own, “and your father’s death will look merciful compared to what I’ll do to you.”

“Get out!” Noble yells, spit flying from his mouth and onto my face.

Two guards take hold of me, each on either of my side. I shrug away from their grasp and glare at Noble and at Crede.

None of us are wrong, but none of us are right either.

“We are given choices in this world. Choose wisely, husband,” I say with a finality I don’t feel, tasting the bitterness of our new relationship begin to end.

I’m guided out of the room of thrones, carted away like a prisoner. I hold my head high, my eyes meeting anyone who gazes in my direction.

Words of betrayal, of murder and conspiracies spread around me as I’m led to my room and I find it hard to keep panic at bay. Because they’re not completely wrong. It just wasn’t my betrayal that killed their king.

A knot twists in my gut. An onslaught of remorse and fear and a glimmer of affection Noble and I had begun to feel for one another. And sadness. A desperate kind of sadness for the loss of a great king that affects us all.

Maybe me more than even Noble or his mother, because his death is on my hands. I didn’t ask for the king’s death, but it was given to me like a gift on my wedding day. Now I’m to be queen of a realm that rightfully cannot trust me, beside a husband who surely hates me.

Tired bones carry me over the threshold of my bedroom door. Defeated, I slump my shoulders forward and rest my face on my trembling hands.

“Remove your dress,” one of the guards instructs me.

“I will undress when I’m ready.”

The second guard stalks to me and before I can react, he grabs the top of my dress and tugs it hard enough to rip the fine fabric. I gasp, covering my exposed breasts with a hand while I ball my other one into tight fists. The other guard rounds behind me and tears into the back, the soft sound of my wedding dress being destroyed slashes at my gaping heart and I feel my body tremble in response.

A hard kick to my legs knocks me to the ground. On my hands and knees, I heave in deep breaths as I slowly give myself to the lion, letting the lion’s senses take everything in before I transition for the fight.

“Change and we’ll kill you,” one of the guards grumbles in my ear. “Then your husband will have two funerals to plan.”

The other man snorts. “At least we’d be celebrating one death.”

They both chuckle at their joke as I crawl away from them. As my father has taught me, I control my emotions. And I surrender. I can’t fight them, not without inciting a war between our realms so I keep the lion closed inside of me and hope these men have their fill of violence soon. Fingers dig into my hair and one of the guards pulls me back while his counterpart kicks me in the stomach.

Bile rises, and I taste blood when the back of my head slams onto the hard floor. Groaning, I bring my knees to my chest and hold myself while these men abuse my wasted body.

When one of them reaches for my hand, I press my nails into my palm, not wanting to give them the last remaining bit of my hope for Noble and me. Whether they’re stronger than me or if my will to fight has simply vanished, they open my hand without much struggle. Far too easily, they take my exquisite wedding ring from me.

Chapter 23

Liana

Hours have passed since I was taken to my room. I know nothing of my pride and how they fared out of Winter nor do I know if Noble’s blade shed the last bit of Arlo’s blood from his body.

All I’ve heard are the jeers from the pack members who have stopped by my room to throw their hatred in my direction. I’ve been stripped of my wedding dress, my body pushed and shoved, kicked and punched. And when the two guards left, they left me with nothing but the sheets on my bed to cover me. While food was sent to my room, and dropped haphazardly by my bedside, it remains uneaten. I don’t know if it’s the stale scent of the meal or simply my stomach that protests, but I can’t fathom the idea of eating.

A quiet knock jolts me and I sit upright on the bed, holding the covers to my chest. Fear digs into me so deep, it tinges my soul a wretched black. I square my shoulders and calm my breathing.

“Come in,” I say loudly, proud I can still portray a self-confidence I no longer feel.

The door edges forward and I squeeze my fingers tighter around the sheets. When a small woman enters, her head peeking in before she comes in fully, I feel my body relax. Slowly, limb by limb.

She curtsies, and her lips kick up into a small smile. “I’m Winnie,” she says. “May I come in?”

“Yes, of course, I remember you.” With easy movements, I smooth out the corner of my bed, but keep a strong hold on my sheets so I don’t expose myself. “Here, Winnie, have a seat.”

Her bottom hits the edge of my bed and she scrunches up her nose. “What’s that awful smell?”

“Oh,” I breathe out. “That’s my supper.”

Embarrassment mars her face and she holds a finger to her mouth. “I didn’t mean to say… did you bring that from Summer? It smells…” she trails off in search of a word that probably doesn’t exist.

I giggle, but press my lips together forming a thin line when I realize how wrong it is to laugh under the dire circumstances I’m in the midst of. “One of the wolves brought it to me.”

“Liana, my lady,” she stutters as her face flushes.

“Liana,” I say. “Please, call me Liana.”

She smiles again. “Don’t eat that, Liana. I’ll bring you something else. Something that won’t give you food poisoning.”

“Thank you.”

“And I’ll speak to Noble. I know it’s been an awful day for him, but he must be made aware that his wife is not being fed properly. You are his wife and mustn’t be mistreated like this by his pack.” Her face reddens, and she rises. “Your pack,” she corrects.

“No.” I drop my blankets in my attempt to reach her. “Don’t say anything to Noble. He has enough to deal with.”

Her eyes widen as she takes the sheet covering my body and pulls it off me. She assesses my naked body and the various bruises lining it.

“Did Noble…?” She stops to draw in a deep breath. “He wouldn’t,” she determines, and I nod in agreement. Noble didn’t do this to me. “Who did this to you?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I reply. “I just need food, water, and some clothes.”

“It does matter,” she squeaks out before another gasp from her fills my desolate room. “Why aren’t you wearing your wedding ring?”

“It was taken from me.”

“Who would…”

“It doesn’t matter, Winnie.” Except it does. I know it and so does she.

“Noble must know about this.”

“Please.” I don’t bother hiding the plea or shame in my voice. “Please don’t say anything to him. I’m sure the ring is already back with his mother, the rightful owner.”

“Liana…”

“I could really use a friend right now,” I interrupt. “I’m surrounded by people who hate me, who mistrust me, who want to see me gone. I’d really like to have someone in my corner, someone I can confide in.”

She searches my face and when my bottom lip quivers, she takes my hand in hers and squeezes. “I can be your friend.” She gifts me with another one of her easy smiles. “First thing you should know about me is I’m not a wolf.”

“But you’re friends with the wolves?”

“Noble and I are friends. He’s a good man, Liana. He wouldn’t stand for how you’re being treated in his own kingdom under his own roof.”

Not wanting to be on full display, I cover my battered body with my sheets. “I’m afraid you’re wrong, Winnie. I don’t think Noble cares, at all.”

“He does, my lady,” she insists.

“I do care though. So much it makes my heart hurt.”

“I know. I saw it. The way you two looked at each other during the ceremony. Anyone can see how much you love each other.”

Love? I almost snort at the absurdity of Noble loving me.

“It’s why I need to make this right, Winnie. Will you help me? Please,” I add, dabbing under my eye to rid myself of the tears that fought their way out.

“Of course. Whatever I can do.”

“Can you bring me pen and paper? I need to write to my pride and find out if anyone else was behind the king’s death today.”

“Oh, Liana.” She stands from the foot of my bed and paces in front of me. “I don’t know.” Worrying her bottom lip, she looks out my bedroom window.

“I have to know. For Noble, so he doesn’t suffer from the hands of my pride again.”

Chapter 24

Liana

Black clouds roll in and the sky only opens up to weep along with the wolves. From my window, I watch the procession of mourning wolves carry Noble’s father to his final resting place. My heated breath falls onto the cold window and fogs it. I trace a finger over it, leaving a small mark in a world I don’t belong.

It’s been three days since my wedding day. Three days since the death of Noble’s father. Three days since Noble became king, thereby making me the future queen after my coronation. Three days since I’ve seen my husband.

Three days since I wrote my letter to Crede that Winnie delivered.

Winnie has kept true to her word and she has become my only friend in this lonely realm. She’s visited me every day and keeps me company when everyone else in Winter keeps their distance.

I haven’t had word from my family back in Summer, but after Winnie visited briefly with Crede she was able to reassure me they’re well. They’re worried about me, but otherwise fine. I have no other choice but to trust her, so I do. She hasn’t given me any reason to believe she has ulterior motives and maybe it’s naïve of me to have faith in her after such a short while, but I trust her. More, I need to trust her, to trust someone.

From my vantage point, I have a clear view of Noble. The dark shadows beneath his eyes, the lines that mar his face, the rigidity of his posture. He speaks to someone and when a female stands beside him and takes his hand, interlacing their fingers, I freeze. Unable to move, to breathe.

As if he senses me, he turns in my direction and when he brings the female’s fingers to his lips, I force myself to look away. I cling onto the window drapes and hold myself together, so I don’t fall apart where he can see me.

Even dressed in the clothes Winnie brought me, I’m cold. Never had I imagined just how frigid Winter could actually be.

“That was quite the display,” Winnie says, breaking me from my trance and I jerk in her direction. “Even grief does not give him an excuse to act in such a foolish manner. Stupid wolf.”

I shudder. “When did you get here?”

“Not long.” She shrugs. “Long enough to know you need to go outdoors.”

“You Spring animals are sneaky,” I say, trying to deter the conversation.

“We need to be sneaky around you predatory-types.” She grins, exposing two large front teeth.

“As if I’d eat a cute little bunny like yourself.”

Her eyes roll skyward, and she crosses her arms over her chest. “I have a letter for you. From Crede.”

My body stills, all the nervous energy I’ve garnered in the past three days suddenly gone, leaving me exhausted.

“Can I have it?” I ask, my voice shaking along with my limbs.

Blackness ebbs, the room tilting on its axis and I sink to the floor. I rest my head against the wall and clutch a hand to my churning stomach. Winnie sits beside me and places a small hand on my knee.

“I’ve already read it,” she whispers.

I close my eyes, already knowing I’ll hate her response. “And?”

“It isn’t good. If Noble were to know about this.” From beside me, I feel her shake her head. “We can’t tell him about this letter. And you can’t write back to Crede.”

Blood drains from my face and I swallow hard. “Can I have the letter, Winnie?”

She sighs and hands it to me. My fingers quake as I unfold the paper. Immediately I recognize Crede’s elegant handwriting.

My dearest Liana, I do not know the answer to your question. I don’t know if anyone else had a part in the king wolf’s death. As you requested, I’ve asked discreetly, but if anyone knows anything, my lady, they are not speaking. But neither are we grieving for a king we had no allegiance to. We do grieve for you, though. Your fierceness is missed, and I promise you, I am doing everything to bring you back home. Yours faithfully, Crede

The weight of his words falls heavy on my soul and I crumble the paper. Unappeased, I tear into it, spearing through his words, through the scent of our pride’s sins on the small piece of paper. He doesn’t care about a wolf’s death, and he doesn’t care if others in our pride conspired for it.

Remorse smears over my skin and I rub my arms with harsh strokes of my hands to warm my frozen body. Still I can’t scrub away the ugliness, the disease that flows through my veins, because my pride – we did this. If not in execution, then in our disinterest.

Winnie takes the torn piece of paper from my grasp, wads it into a tight ball and tosses it toward the trash bin, missing by at least a foot. “Outside,” she demands, pulling me to my feet. “They’ll be gone for a few hours. You need to stretch your legs.”

“Shall we change form?” I try to joke to lighten my mood, but it falls deafly to my own ears. “You can scurry away in your little bunny self while I chase after you.”

“Ha ha,” she says dryly.

Walking to my closet, she takes out a coat that she helps me into. She clasps her hand around my arm, which is still tender from when Noble grabbed me, and guides me to the door. Although I know I should put up more of a fight, I follow because Winnie’s right. I need some fresh air. I need to not be holed up between the four walls of my self-made prison. I need to be free of my thoughts and the inner turmoil Crede’s message brings me.

I need to find the desire and the courage to face my husband, my king, and come clean of the guilt that’s been eating at me. Not knowing what my fate will be after I tell him Arlo killed his father on my behalf, makes me hold my tongue. But what’s right has to come above self-preservation. At least if I were to die, I’d die with a clean conscience. And if he were to send me back to Summer, I’d go back to a pride that still respects me.

Keeping my head bowed, I follow Winnie through the castle that was to be my home. A castle I’ve yet to explore or know any part of aside from my bedroom and bathroom. Next to me, Winnie chatters away, but I’m far too lost in thought to listen. Either way, I don’t think she minds.

Once outside, the unforgiving cold of Winter slaps against my face as snow falls on us. I brace myself, arms clutched to my chest as I take in the bitter cold and try to summon the warmth from the dimming sun.

Winnie leans into me, giving my hand a quick squeeze. “Change, Liana. Take your few moments of freedom and let yourself be.”

I send her a grateful glance and shrug out of my coat. She holds onto it, pressing it against her chest as I discard the rest of my clothes. She picks up after me as I change into my true nature. I stretch my legs back and when Winnie runs her fingers through my mane I press my head into her palm.

“You’re soft,” she says.

I open my mouth and do my best to grin at her.

“And yep, huge sharp teeth. Close your mouth, Liana.”

Humor rumbles from deep inside my chest and Winnie throws her head back in laughter. Lighter than I’ve felt in days, together we walk the grounds. My large paws leaving prints in the fresh snow as she leaves dainty little footprints. Not caring that I can’t respond, Winnie continues to talk while I assess my new backyard.

While it’s cold here, the kind of cold that infiltrates your bones, it isn’t altogether bad. The clamor of children playing not too far from us fills me with hope for a brighter future. A future where Noble’s and my children can play in the snow. Little wolves and lions frolicking carelessly while we watch with the doting kind of love I always received from both my parents, but mostly my mother.

Behind us, a man snorts and I turn my body to the sound, standing in front of Winnie so I can protect her in case whoever it is means us harm.

“You’re off your mark, lion.” The man sneers.

“She is your queen,” Winnie says, her tone confident.

The man moves closer, so I align my body to better shield Winnie.

“She’s no queen of mine. There hasn’t been a coronation. And haven’t you heard?” He angles his face and laughs a humorless laugh. “Your marriage is to be annulled.”

I stammer back a few steps and knock into Winnie, who rests a hand on my head. The man chuckles again when I hiss at him. With long even strides, he moves toward us and when his eyes darken, I send Winnie a warning look. But her focus is on the man who quickly changes form into a light gray wolf. I stalk in front of her and pull back my muzzle to bare my teeth. The wolf growls, his hackles rising. He snaps his jaw in our direction and for the first time ever, I cower.

Bracing myself for the cold, I change back into human form.

“Go,” I tell Winnie.

She shakes her head and with her fists raised she prepares herself to fight.

“Go!” I bellow.

The wolf leaps at us, and I shove Winnie to the ground. Knowing I deserve this, I don’t brace myself when the wolf lands on top of me. He pins me to the ground, saliva falling from his open mouth and I stare into his murky eyes.

“Do what you must,” I say, “but this war between lions and wolves ends here.”

He digs his teeth into my shoulder. Winnie screams, but I know help will not come. Not for me.

I turn my head to look at her. Our eyes meet. Hers wide with shock and fear, mine calm and confident.

“Run!” I yell at her. “Run!”

Thankfully, she listens and after a few missteps, she runs back in the direction of the castle. The wolf bites and mauls my body and I shudder in response. Instinctively, I want to change, to let the lion take control and save us both. Through clenched teeth, I hold back, knowing this is better for Noble.

My death will be the vengeance he deserves. And maybe it’ll prevent the brewing war between our two realms.

A tear spills from my eye as I bite my bottom lip in agony. Fire burns my body with every bite and I hope unconsciousness takes me soon.

Dazed, I hear an angry snarl and when I turn to face the noise, I find familiar black eyes peeking through the bushes. I smile, happy to see him one last time.

“My Noble,” I whisper, another small tear paving a path of our destruction down my cheek.

The black wolf leaps from the shadows and the two wolves tumble over the crisp snow. Growls and snarls echo in my head, but I fight off the ensuing darkness as I trek their fight. Only when I hear my beautiful black wolf’s howl do I let myself succumb to the perilous gloom swimming around my periphery. Because I know that he has won. That he is okay.

A cool cloth presses against my throbbing head. My lids flutter open, but I shut my eyes when the brightness of the room proves to be too much.

“Liana.” My name reverberates in my chest and I open my eyes to see my husband.

Memories swarm me, good and bad, but the one that stands out the most is the sight of my brave wolf coming to save me.

“Noble,” I rasp out.

He sits on a chair beside me, his eyes red and swollen, the dark circles more pronounced than I remember.

“How long?” I cough. He hands me a glass of water and I take it. My fingers brush over his hand and he pulls away. I drink most of the cool liquid in one gulp. “Thank you. How long have I been sleeping?”

“Two days,” he barks.

I flinch at his harsh tone. When I reach for his hand resting on his lap, he jerks from my touch. Blinking back tears, I stare out the window across from my room.

“You told me to fight without restraint. To never cower. Yet you cowered, you didn’t fight,” he accuses. “Instead, I had to leave my father’s funeral, a funeral brought on by your people, to save you.”

I try to swallow past the knot lodged in my throat, but it stays there despite my best efforts.

“I didn’t fight,” I agree. “I didn’t think you’d hear me or come for me. I never wanted you to leave your father’s funeral to save me, your grace, but I’m grateful all the same.”

“You didn’t think I’d come for you?” His voice echoes in the large room. “You think I’d let my wife die by the hands of one of my own?” He stands, clutching his hands by his side. “And then I hear from our healer that you have bruises that are days old. Bruises, Liana, that I knew nothing about! My pack has disgraced and mistreated my wife and rather than hear it from you, I hear about it from a healer after you cave into a fight you could’ve won without even trying.”

Another tear spills and I wretch my fingers around my sheets as I pull them closer to my chin. “I didn’t tell you about the bruises to protect you.”

“To protect me?” he shouts. His bushy brows shoot to his hairline and red tinges his face and neck.

“Yes, Noble, to protect you. On our wedding day, I promised to protect you as you promised to protect me. If I told you what your guards did to me, what would you have done?”

“I’d have dealt with them accordingly.”

“Exactly,” I agree. “You’d have fought or done whatever you wolves do when another mistreats your wife. A wife your pack despises, especially after your father’s death. If you’d taken up for me, your pack would’ve been outraged and right now, they need you more than I do.”

“And this?” He throws a ripped, crumpled piece of paper at me and my heart stalls for a few beats before it begins an erratic thumping behind my chest. “Was this to protect me, too?”

I fist Crede’s letter in my hand and will back the remaining tears. “Yes, my lord. Whether you see it or not, everything I’ve done is to protect you and our fragile relationship.”

“I’ve news for you, my lady.” He sneers. “You will not be going back to Summer. There will be no annulment. You are my wife and you belong here, not with Crede.”

Tipping my chin, I meet his tempered gaze. “Then, my king, I expect my coronation to take place soon.”

Chapter 25

Noble

How many nights has my father paced this carpet by the fire? How many times had I walked in to find him leaning against the edge of the fireplace, dark head bent, eyes locked onto the flames?

And it would have been Oren’s father who would have also joined my own, but tonight, it is me that leans against the mantle, and it is Oren who’s boots click across the stones until he is at my side.

The carpet at my feet is worn with the black wolf’s worries, and now it is mine that wears what’s left of the thread.

“You asked to see me, my king.”

I turn, wondering if it’s the right thing, guessing that my father had most likely often wondered the very same. “Do you have it?” I can barely force the words out, such is my anger.

“Yes, my lord.” Oren’s hand opens and there is my mother’s ring.

I take it from him, looking the jewel over in the firelight.

“Was this your order?” I ask, and he takes a step back in surprise.

“My lord?”

“Did you tell your men,” I pause to swallow, closing the ring tightly in my fist. “Did you tell your men to accost my wife? To steal this ring…my mother’s ring that I placed on her finger?”

Oren seems truly horrified by the idea. “No, your grace. Never, your grace. Unless you had commanded it, I would never abuse your wife, or had I known it was going on, I would have intervened.”

I breathe steadily through my nose long moments until I am satisfied that what he says is true. Releasing that burden, I relax slightly. “Can I trust you?” I ask.

I stare deeply into eyes that have always been judgmental of my every move. Oren would not have killed Katarina, of that I am certain. He would not have married a lion. He would not have allowed his own wife to be abused under his own roof. He would not have torn his kingdom in two the very same day he became king.

But Oren is not king.

I am.

“Of course, sire.”

I narrow my gaze. “I do not mean in the wolf way. The pack. I mean can I trust you with everything, Oren? Will you be the man that my father hoped you’d be? Your father was his first in command, his first line of defense, his everything. Now, after the battle, he has resigned and offered his position to you. I would give it to you freely and have no regrets, if only I could know, truly, how much I can trust you.”

“With your life,” he says, fist at his heart.

I smile, but it holds no humor. Looking at my mother’s ring again, I say, “Then it is not mine I ask for.”

His face changes. Oren knows what I mean. “The queen,” he says.

“The queen. And she will remain as such despite the rumors.”

“You can’t be serious.”

I turn to find who had spoken. Emilie is there in the shadows. Her eyes have the glint of a wolf ready to change. She stalks forward, and at first, I think she means to argue, but instead she bows. “I mean, your grace. You can’t be serious.”

I breathe deeply. “The lions killed my father. That is true. And we don’t know who had a hand in it, but neither do they. I have read a letter from Crede, and he’s no reason to lie to Liana. They were unaware.”

“But still---” I give Emilie a look that wilts her where she stands.

“I have already tasked you both with finding the truth of my father’s death. And I believe you will. But that does not mean I will accept a questioning of my command. I cannot.”

“Oren,” I say, turning toward him. “Can I trust you to protect her? With your life if need be.”

“I…I…” his shoulders slump in defeat.

“My father wanted this, Oren. If not for me, for him. Would you let the great black wolf down?”

His eyes fill. “I will protect her, sire. If you ask.”

Tension leaves my body. The thought of Liana’s bruises, her attack, it had rocked me to my core. Imagining her not recovered, but rather cold and dead alongside my father had been too much to bear.

I know her speech about protecting me is only half right. She feels guilt, and rightly so, because her pride would, of course, feel nothing for the loss of a lowly wolf king. Liana, only days ago, would have been just as indifferent to our plight. As long as the memory and coldness of the wolves have been, the brutality and ambitions of the lions have met them with the same amount of stubborn and willful fatalisms. Unwillingness to heal our realms of the lines drawn in ancient times has cost us both dearly, but we’ve never sought a way to ease such pains.

Until now.

But we, the wolves, are in more pain now than ever, and Liana must know it. It’s not right, but it’s not wrong. But her abuse…I’ve raged silently inside since learning of it.

And now our guilt is shared. Cuffed together in more than simple vows, Liana and I now have pain in common. And I sense that this is only the beginning.

Chapter 26

Noble

“I have left Oren here to keep you safe.”

“Where are you going?” Liana tries to rise but I stay her with a hand.

I want to be gentle with my new wife. I long to reach for her. But instead, the full moon is upon us and she cannot join our pack weakened as she is. Or perhaps…ever.

“I feel much better, Noble,” she says pushing up, letting the sheets fall, and again I am reminded that my wife, while modest by lion standards, is unfitting here in our cold palace where women button up to their chin.

To them, and me, she is a harlot among prudes. And never had I been more thankful for that then when we’d first agreed to marry. But now, things have changed. Distance, modesty, it’s what’s best.

Liana seems to notice my discomfort and she lifts her chin, daring me to comment. She’s showing me everything these last days of despair has bought and paid for. A wife by my side that is not only willing to throw herself to the wolves, quite literally for me, but one who’s brash boldness is making my skin heat even this moment.

Then I feel guilt slap me across my face for the very thought.

Liana is not even healed fully, and here I am ogling her, after being the one who’d left her to such abuse. By his own people.

“I have something,” I say.

Reaching only as far as I need to, I hand her the ring. Liana’s eyes barely glance at the jewel before she places it on her finger, and she searches my features.

So much hope rests in her golden gaze, that I rise, forcefully and mean to leave.

“Noble, wait!”

I turn, and Liana motions to the fire. “Could you please throw in some more logs? I’ll never get used to this frigid weather.”

I do as she asks, then I use the poker to stoke the flames, remembering that Oren is right outside her door. He’s promised to keep her safe while I run. I can trust him.

“Do you have to go?” she asks.

We two are done with politics for now. We have stuck with silence, and quiet comments, me offering her protection, her graciously accepting such things as if I am her jailer.

My teeth grow in my mouth by the second, and I wipe a hand across my lips.

“Yes,” I say. “I’m already changing. It’s just for the night.”

“The whole night?” she asks, her eyes round, the gold in them catching the light of the fire.

Is there an offer inside of that enchanting gaze? Is she beckoning me still even after all that I’ve done?

Instead of being pleased, I find myself growing angry with her all over again. I’m saddled with a wife who is too beautiful to even protect myself from should I need it. And everyone in my kingdom must see the weakness. They must say to themselves, “Oh there goes Noble to his death. Too stupid to see what’s right in front of him because of a good pair of…”

Emilie is ever reminding me that Liana could have been a part of the plot to kill my father. That this entire goal for marriage could have been so our defenses were down to the lions. They could swoop in, and I’m buried in Liana’s soft flesh, forgetting my duty.

They’ve already struck. Could be: First the great black wolf, then me. After we bear children, she’d rule through our son.

Liana has a sense of my thoughts it seems. Her gaze steels. “Will she be with you, Noble? Tonight. The one who seems to always be by your side?”

Liana bites off the end of her words. She pulls the blankets to the side and means to stand.

“Stay seated,” I snap.

Not for her wellbeing, but for mine. She’s naked and I’m here thinking about children already, even if it means she’ll cut my throat afterward, I’m teetering on the edge of insanity.

Go ahead, Liana, I think. As long as I die in your arms while I change and howl at the moon, you can end me once and for all.

She stays seated, but lets the sheets pool in her lap, uncovering more, knowing exactly my reaction.

Liana half naked is enough to change a man’s mind about death. She’s been sent here by the gods of the realms to tempt me. Indeed, she must have. Beckoning men like me to our doom without even trying. Women will rule the realm if they all look and act like her.

“I have to go,” I say, hoarsely, but strong enough, that while I’m losing myself every step towards the door, I am still managing to take them somehow.

I’m changing too swiftly. It’s too soon. I barely make it out before lifting the bar and crossing it in front of her door, half me, and half animal.

“Don’t let anyone in there tonight.”

Oren nods his head, “Yes, sire.” His eyes are wide.

My face is slowly transforming. Most can’t do that. They either change or don’t, but my lineage is so old, it is said that the wolves once lived as half and half.

“Not a soul gets into her room,” I growl.

I check the bar and lock. Twice. Then I run through the castle until I am on the steps. I’m almost free, free to run away from all that troubles me, but Winnie is there waiting on the landing.

Despite how terrifying I must look, her face is thunder, and all of her sweet bunny features are tight with anger. “What is the meaning of this, Noble?”

I grab her by the shoulders, meaning to move her---hide her. I frantically search the courtyard with a sweeping glance and hiss, “What are you still doing here! It’s the full moon, Winifred. The wolves are out! They are running.”

She shrugs me off roughly. “Don’t you Winifred me, Noble.”

“I am king. King Noble now.”

She points a finger in my face and the wolf growls at the appendage until it disappears. “For all of a few days! I’ve known you your entire life. This isn’t you. Liana is being abused, accosted in your own palace.”

“You think I don’t know that? I’ve taken care of it.”

She crosses her arms, sighs, and Winnie looks close to tears.

My own eyes burn in answer, and her gaze softens to notice my desperation. “Noble,” she says softly. “I know you’ve lost your father, but you have to remember how many times we discussed this very thing. A change for the realm. Remember? You promised.”

“I don’t have time for this, Winnie. And you’d better get out of sight before the pack sees you.”

She nods. “Fine. But we will talk. Later.”

My body shudders and the change begins without warning. I’m me, but suddenly, not me at the same time.

Winnie backs away. “Noble? Noble!” She trips on her feet and I stalk forward, half me, half rogue. “What should I do!?” she screeches.

“Hide,” I say with a strange mixture of animal and man vocal chords. Snapping my jaws, Winnie spins and springs up the steps for the castle before I completely lose myself.

Forcing the final amount of control I do have, I flee, running toward the woods, tearing off my clothes. I fly past the gardens, through branches that cut neatly into my skin, eyes blurring with the wind when I’m finished.

Now, my paws take up the ground. At first, I head toward the others, I can hear them. The pack is strong together. They are formidable and perfectly working as one.

But not one wolf is as fast as I am.

At the last second before I am out of sight of the castle, I spin and glance up at the tower to Liana’s rooms. Like I knew, she is there, hair flying in the wind, eyes finding me with ease. A cat can see in the night as well as any of us. We are all nocturnal beasts. At least she and I have that sole common thing to build on.

And build we must, lest they tear us to pieces.

It is only now that I realize I am me inside of this wolf skin. I can control it somehow when never could I before. I’m unable to think about the surprise of that because Liana stands at the window, bare chested, and as if she notices my sudden hesitation, she finally pulls her robes closed.

Even covered, she sends me a look of such challenge that I shake my fur in reaction to the piercing gaze. Bruised, battered, but never conquered, my wife may be in a strange realm, but already she is not only Queen of Winter, Liana has become queen of my heart.

Chapter 27

Noble

Returned to the castle after hardly any time has passed, I dress in my rooms, confused by the fact that the wolf had finished hunting so swiftly.

The night is young. The wolf had hunted, yes, but strangely enough, he’d not strayed far from the castle.

I stalk through the halls, uncertain of what I’ll do when I arrive, but my feet take me to Liana’s room as if they have a mind of their own.

Oren’s there, he’s standing in my way.

“You said no one could enter, sire.”

“Careful, Oren,” I mutter.

His raised brow is my only reply, but he steps aside. “Perhaps I could run with the pack, the night is still young.”

“Yes,” I say, realizing just now he’s withstood his own change all this time.

Oren looks weary from the fight. He rushes away, almost as swiftly as I had before.

When I open the door, I’m greeted by an angry, gigantic ball of fur. Despite my very manly self, I yelp and barely catch the teeth and claws before they can decapitate me. The lioness stops attacking me, and my wife rises from her paws to her feet, changing so swiftly, that I am still trying to fend off myself from the assault.

“I’m sorry!” she shouts.

“What in all of the realms, Liana!”

“I thought it was your guard! I thought to escape and go after you.” She glares at me, breathing hard. “I should be with you, Noble. By your side. Not trapped here like a prisoner.”

“Prisoner…?”

“Yes.” She flings a hand at the door. “I’ve checked. It’s barred, locked tight.”

“For your protection.”

She motions to the bruising that is fading, but still visible on her beautiful skin.

I realize in the moment, I am arguing with a very naked and angry wife. It’s not entirely terrible.

“No one will harm you ever again, Liana.” I take two large steps forward, and she stands her ground.

I cup her chin in my hand. “Never again. I swear it.”

Her golden eyes show hesitation. Not fear, but something else…distrust.

I glance around. I don’t have a sword, but I have a knife. Pulling this, I slice it across my hand, then bow to a knee and offer her the blade. “On my honor, on my life, I swear it by this blade, Liana, Princess of Lions, Queen of Wolves, that if anyone should harm you again under my roof, that you may then press this blade between my ribs and put the cold point into my heart.”

I sense her reluctance, but Liana takes the knife. “It’s a beautiful blade,” she says, her eyes turning mischievous.

“Do you accept, my lady?”

Swift as a snake, she presses the point of the blade under my chin, forcing my gaze to meet her eyes. Measuredly and with meaning she says, “And you will never again point your sword in my direction as well, King Noble.”

“Yes,” I whisper, entranced by the fire in her eyes, “I swear.”

She could cut my throat right now, and the sight I should die by is one of a goddess of the realms taking what she deems is owed. Long seconds pass, and I sense the change before I see it.

“Then yes, Noble,” she whispers, touching my cheek, dropping the knife, “I accept.”

Something passes between us until I am on my feet, and in one smooth motion lifting the queen off of hers. I carry her not to the bed, but to the window where I throw aside the curtains, then push open the glass, letting in the cold rush of winter.

“Noble!”

“The moonlight,” I say, feeling it strike me at my core.

Liana in my arms, the blue glow reflecting off her skin, it does something to me.

Her fingers stroke the base of my neck. “Is this some sort of wolf tradition?” she asks, her breath brought short as I sit her on the edge of the window, naked.

With the chill at her back, I’m working at my clothes until I can bring our warm bodies together.

“It’s part of my promise to you,” I say.

“Is it?” Her eyes are wide with surprise, but the light inside of them is dancing.

I don’t answer. I kiss her collar bone, and move her hair to the side and busy myself with more available goosebumps. Holding her with one arm around her back, lest she fall out into the open air, my body is now demanding that Liana and I do what we should have been doing the entire of our wedding night.

“Your promise?” she prods.

“Oh yes,” I gasp, because she has bitten the stubble along my jaw, and her claws have found my back from nape to rump.

“I promised you protection,” I say, pushing her legs wider, “to keep you safe.” I press myself between them more firmly.

Liana is the gasping one now. “You can’t always.”

“I can’t always.”

She wraps her legs around my waist when there is nothing between us but fast breathing, the cold making our desperation visible in wisps of fog.

This is not the quick and heated cheat before our wedding, a swift romp in the bed, no, this is our vows made true in the flesh. Even with all the frustrations, mistrusts, and misdeeds between us, we push and pull, kiss and tug, and make sure the other knows that it is merely a truce struck because we cannot seem to be apart from one another.

Not in the physical way, at least.

“I cannot always protect you, but I promise to lick your wounds,” I murmur as I kiss her bruise on her breast, and Liana hisses, cat eyes narrowed. “And I will…”

She pays me back from deep inside and I stifle a moan. “You will what, Noble?”

“Forget… I forget…” And I do forget everything but this woman in my arms.

“Liana,” I say, as a swear word, in worship, in desperation. “Forgive me. Forget with me.”

Beyond her is the forest, the moon, and the wolves are there---all of my priorities in that order.

Her eyes close. “Yes, my king,” she whispers taken by the same flood that rises in my ears. “Yes…Noble.”

Whatever sounds we make…they are echoed in the woods by the howling of wolves.

Chapter 28

Noble

I work at my cravat on purpose until she fixes it for me. I kiss her fingers and her eyes meet mine but then they move away.

The sun has risen, and though we are sweet, it is with a careful---careful wariness that proves the past cannot be completely forgotten, but perhaps, forgiven…for now.

“Noble, you said that I am not a prisoner.”

Waiting until she meets my gaze, I touch her cheek. “You are not. Soon, there will be a coronation. One big enough that even lions will envy it.”

Liana steps out of my embrace and I frown.

“That’s not what I meant,” she says. “Either I am free to leave or not.”

The tension has returned. The threat of the day is stealing too swiftly what was easy at night: Trust. I find myself frantically trying to grab it even as frustration floods into a space where only fondness had been moments before.

“Of course, you can leave,” I say, buttoning my jacket with jerky, angry movements. “If that is what you wish.” I don’t want to be cold, I want to stay warm, in bed, with her, but my mouth gives away the heart of fear drumming beneath my ribs, and I add, “No one is keeping you here, Liana.”

With long, furious strides, I head for the door. When I reach it, I throw over my shoulder, “I’d prefer you tell me such things before I spend the night in your bed again.”

I stiffen when she reaches my side. When she tries to touch my hand, I snap, “Get dressed.”

I can’t think with a naked Liana moving about the room.

Indignant now, she grabs her robe, her frustrated movements make everything shake with an unseemly flow of flesh.

“Have you no real clothes?” I practically shout.

“What’s wrong with this? Does it bother you?” she taunts. “I thought I’d take a walk in it later, it’s refreshingly light compared to the winter clothing.”

The robe is open from neck to belly almost.

I’m slowly coming unhinged at the thought of her leaving this room half undressed. It has me so angry, I’m seeing red. I breathe through my nose. “We were speaking of you leaving.”

Liana sighs. “I only meant. Well, it’s Crede.”

I bite down on my back teeth half poised to flee from this sudden turn of discussion, half ready to grab her by her arm and throw her back into bed. And more than half willing to keep her locked up like the prisoner she feels that she is.

Liana continues, unaware of the caged animal she’s married to. “He’s being made king in ceremony as well. Since we were---are friends, I think it would be good for the kingdom to see us there. Don’t you? For solidarity. If we mean to heal the rift between our realms.”

I’m trying to see it for what it is. A political move, a diplomatic gesture, and one a great queen thinks about before breakfast, while I, the King, have been merely sated in a haze of lust and forgetfulness.

But the jealous part of me is yelling through my every cell that my queen---mine, will never see that lion again. That he’d have been her husband instead of me, if it was his choice, and that’s all I’ll ever see whenever I look at his handsome golden face. A man waiting to steal what is mine.

“Noble,” Liana says, frowning, her eyes steeling, her body straightening, ready for a fight. “Husband. You said I wasn’t a prisoner. I don’t have to ask permission if that is the case.”

“Fine,” I grind out as if there are rocks in my throat. “As you wish, Liana. Wife. We shall return to the Summer realm for his crowning together.”

With that, I stalk out of the room.

Chapter 29

Liana

Turning points. Crossroads.

Obvious yet unavoidable.

They’re there, all of them, deterring us from what we really want. What our hearts and souls sing for. They draw closer and closer so that it’s impossible to ignore them. They hold us up, slow us down, when we should wing straight through them. Slice across the deviation and hold fast to what we truly desire.

I know this. I think Noble knows this, too. Still, we stumble left, when we should sprint right. Because dignity somehow means more than our vows. Our promises to protect each other withers and turns to ash every time we choose ourselves over the other. We’re husband and wife, mates chosen by the stars themselves.

Strangers with small moments of intimacy, little glimpses of what our love could become should we let it flourish.

My body yearns for my beautiful wolf. My heart cries for my husband. All while my brain remains wary of my new king.

Emotions warring against emotions litter my bloodstream, obscuring my senses so I doubt every attempt Noble or I make so that our union may work. He harbors his own suspicions about me and I feel his mistrust grow when we arrive at Summer for Crede’s coronation. Without his mother, only his faithful lapdog, Oren, has come with us, but he changed into wolf form before we made it to Summer, so he could slink away from the lions he despises without being noticed.

I, on the other hand, become more at ease as the sun kisses warmth back into my cold bones. With eager fingers, I unfasten my coat and let it fall to the ground in a rumpled mess by my feet. Feeling freer in only my light summer dress, I turn my face skyward. I drink in the sun, let the heat splatter and spread against my skin.

While I notice the absence of my pride welcoming us to Summer, I don’t let it steal the calm that returning to Summer brings me. It’s mine to cherish, to hold onto when the cold seeps back into my body when we return to Winter.

I spoke to Noble about wanting to heal the rift between our two realms, but what I truly want is to heal us. For us to make peace so we may have a future. So that I can have my warmth in Winter where he will not refrain from draping his strong arms around me every night.

Noble stands beside me, a curious look on his face as his blue eyes darken to a shade of gray, seeming to drink me in the same way I took in the sun. I smile at him with a shy lift of my lips. He brushes his knuckles over my cheek and I shut my lids, so I can remember his touch when the moment passes. And it will pass, with an abruptness that leaves me hollow.

“You look magnificent basking in the heat of the sun,” he says.

He peers down at me, his eyes questioning me. I answer him the only way I know he’ll accept. Leaning into him, I press my lips to his, cupping my palm against the light stubble on his cheek. When I step away, he tugs me back to him, and his mouth covers mine. Noble steals my breath but I don’t mind. I part my lips, welcoming his wild yet faultless taste as his tongue sweeps and slides against mine.

It’s as if he’s never touched me, and I’m desperate to feel the heat of his skin on my fingers so I glide my hands beneath his shirt and drag them over his expansive back. His muscles coil beneath my touch and he grips me by the waist, dragging me closer to him.

He growls my name and I lose my senses, needing so much more than stolen kisses and frenzied touches.

Eyes unfocused, mind in utter chaos, I step away from him. My chest lifts and falls as I heave in frantic breaths. Noble buries his fingers into his hair and drags in his own breath of air.

It isn’t enough. With us, I don’t think anything will ever be enough.

He takes two steps away from me and shakes his head, but I know the fog between us will never clear. There’s too much at stake for either of us to let our guards down again.

I go to him and take his hand. He turns his face to look at me, his expression mapped with confusion and the same disquiet I feel. “We are united. Always, in front of my old pride or your - our pack, we must be viewed as one.” My voice is low, my heart adorned in bleak sadness. “When we are alone, you may treat me as the estranged nobody you both desire and despise.”

“Liana.” His tone is stern, while his telling eyes plead behind the torment. Fingers that have both caressed and bruised my skin tighten around my own while he fists his other hand by his side. “It isn’t like that.”

“Isn’t it?” I arch an eyebrow in his direction while a sad smile plays across my face. “One minute you can’t keep your hands off me, the next you recoil from my touch. You don’t trust me, Noble. You blame me for your father’s death. Your mother can’t be in my presence without bursting into tears. Your pack hates me, and there are too many days I wonder if you feel the same.”

“I don’t hate you.”

Although the sky is clear, thunder claps in my ears and I drop my smile. “You don’t love me either.”

“And you, Liana, Princess of the Lions, Queen of the Wolves, do you love me?”

More emotions swim inside me, making my head light and my heart feel like lead.

“Do not pretend as if our marriage were anything more than politics. My father,” he swallows hard, “my father and your father wanted us married to unite our realms so that we may fight against the human hunters preying against our kind. There is no room for love when all that surrounds us is war and violence.”

“Of course, husband.” I bow my head, hiding the hurt from my expression, and curtsy. “You are correct.”

Sensing Crede’s hasty approach, I square my shoulders and tip my chin. Where I once thought Crede’s stride was powerful and elegant, I now notice the sloppy impatience in every urgent step and I can’t help but wonder if it was always there. If I had been so blind to nothing but the throne that I never saw him as the flawed man that rushes to my side.

Without greeting Noble, he takes me in his arms. His embrace is strong and intimate while I keep my hands slack on either side of me. For Noble, I don’t return my oldest friend’s hug, but instead I push away from his hold. The lines on his forehead fold when I wrap an arm across Noble’s back and he slings a possessive arm over my shoulders.

The two men glare at each, both beasts ready to strike.

“Crede.” My skin twitches at the formality in my voice, but I keep myself steady. “It’s good to see you. We have come a long way to bear witness of your coronation.” This time I can’t fight the giddy smile that takes over my face. “You always said you’d be king.”

“I said I’d be king with you as queen by my side,” Crede replies, his voice hoarse.

I blanch. “Yes, well…”

“She is to be Queen of Winter,” Noble interrupts.

“So you say, but I’ve heard no word of her own coronation.”

“You are not yet king, Crede, but even if you were, you rule your realm. Not mine. You’ve had no word, because I do not answer to you, nor do you answer to me.”

I dig my toe into the ground, not wanting to correct my husband in front of Crede. Because the three of us know the truth. Crede will not only rule Summer, but all the realms, including Winter. That is the way of the lions.

Crede’s inquisitive eyes flash toward me and a hint of guilt crashes into me. “Noble and I have spoken of my coronation but have not yet set a date. I thought it was best to first concentrate on yours, before we focused on mine,” I explain. “My father and Noble’s father,” my attention darts to Noble in time to see the flash of hurt that darkens his features, “wanted us to unite our realms, and that is what we must do. You are to rule Summer, Crede, and by now you must know the stories of men are real. We are stronger if we fight together. It’s the best chance we have against this enemy. So, we must come together. You are to be crowned today and my coronation will take place soon thereafter. I hope you and Lia will attend my ceremony as Noble and I have attended yours.”

Crede puffs his chest out, arrogance spills from his body and the scent turns my stomach.

“Lions will not form a treaty with wolves who disrespect us,” Crede spits. “Who can’t uphold our tradition when we are the ones affected by their decisions. Arlo deserved more than what you’ve given him.”

“Do not stand there and tell me what that murderous lion deserved when he killed my father, who trusted him in the battlefield.”

“Listen to your own words, wolf. In the battlefield,” Crede says, his demeanor suddenly calm. “Your father died in the battlefield, as a soldier. What of Arlo? We assume him to be dead, but no body has been brought to us so that we can honor and mourn him.”

“Your pride may mourn him however you see fit, but you will not honor him.”

I gasp and place two trembling fingers against my lips. “Noble,” I take in a shaky breath, “give my pride Arlo’s body. Please, my king. You have no use for it. Let his parents bury their son.”

“Your pride?” he snarls.

“Crede’s pride,” I amend.

“What is this, Liana?” Disgust taints Crede’s voice. “Since when do you bend for anyone?”

My eyes narrow as heat travels over my neck and to my cheeks. Not from shame because there is no shame in how I feel about Noble, as twisted and varied as the emotions are, but from anger. “This is marriage. It’s a give and take of two people who want to make their relationship work. It isn’t always pretty but,” my gaze shifts to Noble, who studies me, “uniting our realms, bringing peace to our people is worth it.” I swallow my words, because what I really wanted to say was Noble was worth was it, only I no longer know if it’s true.

Crede shakes his head and scoffs. “The Liana I grew up with, the Liana I know and recognize as mine, knows she’s the only one worth fighting for. You can give it up, my lady. I told you I’d find a way to bring you back to Summer so you can rule by my side and I have.” He turns to address Noble, whose stance is so rigid I’m afraid he’ll break. “I’ve spoken to your mother, Noble, and we have decided it is in your pack’s best interest if you annulled the sham that is your marriage so that Liana can indefinitely return to Summer, to her home, and take her place by my side.”

Eyes wide, hands and legs trembling, I look from Noble to Crede. Unable to speak, I stand there, mute, and wait for Noble to decide my fate. He looks over me, assessing me entirely and I wonder if once again I fall short of his expectations. A derisive snort rushes through his nose and I wrap my arms over my chest, holding myself together.

“Noble,” I finally whisper, but his attention is on Crede.

“You cannot have her,” Noble decides.

His words make me sound like a piece of property, rather than a beloved wife. But I was never beloved by my husband. Crede was right in calling my marriage a sham, yet it’s a sham I’m not ready to give up on, because my heart… it belongs to Noble.

I didn’t realize it until now, until Noble had yet another chance to cast me aside. But my heart, it beats and trembles, cries and rejoices for Noble.

Pathetic as it may be, I’m grateful my husband still wants me, even if it’s to scorn Crede. While Noble stares straight ahead, Crede takes in my relief and with a repulsed nod, he turns away from us. The same impatient steps I witnessed before, carry him back to the castle that I once lived in.

“You best make good on your word, my lord,” I say, my tone as steely as my gaze.

Noble’s attention snaps to me, but he remains quiet. A quiet that fills my heart with dread.

Dignity and pride, that is all I have left. “My coronation,” I answer his unspoken question. “As soon as we get back to Winter, I will be made queen, so our marriage can no longer be called into question.”

Chapter 30

Liana

Crede’s coronation goes by in a foggy blur. Words are spoken, promises made, and the new King of Summer is crowned. My gut twists and a slight pang of jealousy slams into me. Because even when I’m queen, I will never truly have a home again. My people - Noble’s pack, will never be mine and they will never honor me the way the lions respect Crede.

The day of my ceremony teases closer now that Crede rules Summer, and I know on my day I will stand before a pack that loathes me, beside a husband that is suspicious of me. He’s remained true to his word and has kept me safe, with Oren keeping my shadow company.

I know it’s meant to reassure me, to make me feel secure in my surroundings, but all it serves is a constant reminder that I do not belong. That actualization drills further into my brain the longer I stay in Summer, where once I stepped into the courtyard, I am not only welcome by my old pride, but celebrated as some sort of hero.

“We should go,” I say to Noble.

He tenses, and the separation between us seems to grow tenfold. “Aren’t you having fun? Your ladies seem quite happy to serve you, and your people do nothing but praise your presence.”

The sarcasm in his tone isn’t lost on me, but still I reach for kindness. And hope.

“They’re not my ladies or my people. Please, Noble, take me back home.” Loneliness drapes its familiar arms around my body, reminding me once again I don’t have a home.

“Crede wishes to have a final word with me before I go.” His bushy brows furrow and I rub a thumb over the bridge of his nose, smoothing out the creases. He takes my hand and kisses my finger. I melt into him the way I always do when he’s intimate with me.

“You don’t have to entertain him, my king. We’ve done our part in coming here. He treated us with disrespect when we first arrived, but despite that we stayed. There is nothing else required of us.”

He draws back, and his face hardens as he builds up his shield against me, his wife, again. “So eager to go back to your self-proclaimed prison, Liana?” he scoffs.

I sigh. “I’m eager to get back to our lives. Maybe then you’ll realize I’m not your enemy.”

He towers over me, with his face so close his breath falls on my face. I put a hand to his chest where I feel the erratic beat of his heart. He leans into me further, his arms go around me, caging me in. The knot in my gut twists tighter as the rest of me comes undone.

He means to intimidate me but when I jut out my chin, he unravels. His lips brush over mine, tasting and teasing and stirring up the passion and affection I harbor for only him.

My Noble.

It should terrify me how easy it is to lose myself, lose my resolve when Noble touches me. How easily I’d give in just to be in his arms.

Crede wasn’t wrong when he said he no longer recognized me. This woman who’d give everything up for a man as intolerable as he is good. I don’t know who I’ve become or how I got here, but I’m not ashamed of myself, either. Although Crede and my mother would disagree, I know I’m not weak, but stronger because of the chaotic feelings Noble stirs within me. And because of the chaotic feelings I stir in Noble.

If we could only come together in more ways than just lust…

“You are my wife,” he says on a growl against my lips. “I’m doing what’s right for you, so I’ll let Crede have his say and then we’ll be on our way.”

I run my hands over his back and through the fabric of his clothes I feel his muscles twitch in response. “And when we get back home, will you take me to bed?”

His lips dance and spread into a brilliant smile. “If that is what my wife wishes.”

“It is,” I purr.

“Our vows.” He rushes the words on a single breath. “Our marriage, I mean. You want to make that work?”

“Yes.” I sigh, hope flittering behind my ribcage. “More than anything, I want us to be more than husband and wife on paper. I want it in here.” I press my palm against his chest. “I want to know what it’s like to be loved by you, Noble, and I want you to know what it’s like to be loved unconditionally, in every way that I can.”

The smile that crosses over his face and spreads to his ashen eyes makes my heart stutter. Again, he presses his lips to mine and then trails kisses over my face and eyes. A few ladies beside us giggle at the show of emotion, but that doesn’t stop either of us.

“There will be no more secrets between us,” he says but it comes out sounding like a question. A lone, slender finger grazes over the wedding ring he returned to me and I capture his hand with mine to press it over my heart.

“No more, I swear it.”

He smiles and my heart soars. “When we get home,” he promises between kisses, “I’ll show you how loved and cherished you are. Every day, Liana.”

“Every day, Noble, until my heart beats no more.”

He kisses me again and when he spins on his heels to find Crede, I touch everywhere his lips had caressed. Hope grows stronger and I bite my bottom lip to keep the smile from taking over my face.

As Noble stalks off to speak to Crede, my mother clasps a hand over my arm while my father stands behind her. I go into my mother’s open arms and breathe in the familiar scent of cedar that clings to her like expensive perfume. For the first time since my wedding day, I turn to my father and am taken aback when tumultuous eyes greet me.

“What is it?” I ask.

My mother frowns and flips a nonchalant hand in my father’s direction. “Your father is being dramatic. Shall we go to my room and talk?” She smiles, a calculated lift that I know from childhood.

I nod and extend a hand to my father, who immediately clings on to my fingers. His hands are sweaty and shaky while he tries to keep an impassive expression on his face. And it is the calm he tries to summon that scares me most.

We leave the great room before I have time to make eye contact with Noble to let him know I’m stepping out, and walk briskly through the hallways. The sound of my mother’s heels clacking on the hardwood floor follows us until we arrive at their bedroom door.

Looking to the side, my father opens the door for us and ushers me inside with a press of his hand to my back. I shoot him a confused look, but he simply shakes his head, and resigned he sits on the couch furthest from us.

My mother guides me to her bed where we both sit. She brushes stray strands of hair from my face.

“My Liana.” She hugs me. “I’ve missed you so.”

“I’ve missed you too, my lady,” I reply with a soft kiss to her cheek. “But Father is making me nervous. Can you please tell me what’s wrong?”

My mother sends him an annoyed sideways glance. “Nothing you need to fret about, dear one. Everything is being taken care of.”

Anxiety grips my throat and I do my best to swallow past it. “What is being taken care of?”

She pats my cheek, her eyes alight with whatever secret she means to keep from me. So many secrets. All of them ending poorly.

“Tell her.” My father’s voice slices through the room.

My mother, still a queen in her own right, sends him a chilly look. “My lord,” she argues with a bow of her head.

“Tell your daughter what you’ve done!”

I shudder in a breath, my vision dancing from my mother to my father. On wobbly legs, I stand and walk to the base of the bed. I grip the bedframe until my knuckles whiten, and I close my eyes, trying to focus on noise just outside their open window. It’s a nonsensical task, one that does nothing to calm me.

“It was you.” I open my lids, fighting back the threatening tears. “You killed the king wolf, Noble’s father. You had him murdered, for me?” I question, unable to stop the trembling in my voice.

“For you, my daughter. For you, I’d kill a hundred kings to see you take your rightful place on the throne.”

She takes my hand in hers and I throw her grip off me. Clutching my aching heart, I take a few steps back. “I didn’t ask it of you,” I say. “I never wanted…”

“You’d have settled to be Princess of Wolves.” A humorless laugh spills from her lips and I taste her disappointment. “You must know I couldn’t have that, Liana.”

“It wasn’t your decision to make, Mother! You and Father asked me to marry a wolf for the better of our pride and I did. How was killing the king wolf better for our pride? You’ve brought on a war between two realms my father wished to unite so we could fight the human hunters.”

“We will be united. You are still our gateway to peace. As we speak, Crede is imprisoning Noble for attacking him and his guards.”

Her confession steals the electricity in the air.

“Attacking? Noble wouldn’t attack Crede without justification. I want to see him. I want to see my husband,” I demand.

“I’m afraid that’s not possible.” My mother stands, elegant and stoic with every movement she makes. “Your husband is being charged for high treason. It would be wise of you to remember that, Liana, so that when you and Crede go back to Winter as the new king and queen of both realms…”

“King and queen?” I interrupt.

A small smile flits across her face. “Yes, Liana. You shall be wedded to Crede immediately. Your coronation will take place soon thereafter. Then, you will ride to Winter and let the people know they are now under your ruling. We,” she looks to my father with a satisfied gleam behind her light eyes, “are one, just as your father wished us to be.”

“No.” I back away further from my mother, a stranger I know too well. “You can’t do this. Don’t do this to me, Mother. Noble is…”

“Is a wolf that you should never have married,” she cuts me off with an abruptness that makes my insides shake. “You were born into royalty. It is high time you acted like the queen I raised you to be instead of the foolish child standing before me.”

I straighten my shoulders, making my back a rigid line while I face off with my mother, the woman I’ve looked up to my whole life. And I send a quiet prayer to the gods that Oren isn’t too far and maybe – maybe he can help us.

“I am acting as the future Queen of Winter and demand you release my husband, the rightful king of my realm.”

My father rises from the couch and with three long strides he stands before me. He braces me with his large hands on my shoulders. “Your mother has started this and Crede has followed her orders. We must see it through.” His tone is apologetic, his eyes encompassing all the sadness and deception I also feel. “If we release Noble and let you go back to Winter with him, you will be in grave danger. Your life is at stake, Liana. The only way out of this mess is to permit your mother to see this through.”

The door behind us opens and I spin to face it, to run through the hallways until I find Noble, but my father’s grip on me tightens. Crede saunters into the room, wiping his hands on a white towel smeared in blood.

I blink at him, and then blink again. “Whose blood is that?”

“This?” He grins, holding the towel out so I can examine it. “That’s your husband’s blood. I’m sure your mother,” he tips his head at her, “told you all about him attacking me.”

“Yet, you don’t have a scratch on you. Perhaps I should rectify that?”

“There’s my lioness. I knew Noble hadn’t tamed her out of you.” He steps into me and I look away.

Without thought, I slap him, digging my nails across his cheek. He growls, his eyes darkening as he trails a finger over the small trickle of blood on his face. With poised movements, I grip his wrist, noting the scrapes on his hand and put his finger in my mouth. I swirl my tongue across the tip and he moans. I drop his hand and move a step closer to him, so our faces barely touch.

“I never loved you,” I tell him, my voice devoid of all emotions. “I loved the idea of you, the idea of ruling with you, but never you. Now,” my tongue sneaks out, “I know why. You taste like everything I hate. You taste like the prison I was freed from when my father betrothed me to Noble. He was my salvation.” I press closer to him so that my chest rests on his. “How does it feel to know you were nothing more than a pawn? That I used you to get what I thought I wanted? And left you without a second thought? How tragic it must be to be you, Crede, King of the Lions, Ruler of all the Realms. You have nothing but a title you don’t deserve and will be wed to women who seek nothing but the throne.”

Crede rests his thumb on my lifted chin and gives me a small smile. “What do you have? You have less than me, Liana.”

On a scream I hardly recognize as my own, I twist his fingers from my chin and leap away from him so that we can no longer occupy the same space. Our eyes crash, anger pulses between us. A muscle on his jaw ticks, making the claw marks on his face dance. A rush of air passes through his nose and I feel it – the enormity of what he’s done, of what my mother has done, of what my father is asking me to accept.

I lean toward Crede and as if by instinct he also inches toward me. His scent, the scent I once recognized as love and devotion, invades my nostrils. I hate it, almost as much as I hate him. Through narrow eyes, I curve in closer and spit on his face.

With an ugly sneer on his pained face, Crede takes out a white handkerchief from the front pocket of his suit and cleans the spittle from his cheek. He then throws it at me and I watch it fall and land at my feet.

“Guards!” he shouts, his eyes never leaving my face.

Two men run into the room and take us in and I wonder if they can sense all the hatred boiling between us. Crede lifts his chin in my direction and they both rush toward me, each on either side, and hold me with both my hands wound behind my back.

“Am I your prisoner now, too, Crede?”

“Silence!” His voice booms in the quiet room. “You will obey me. You will obey your mother and father.”

“Liana,” my father pleads. His voice, the helpless surrender in his tone breaks me. His face has lost all its color and I feel my own blood drain from my face.

Spent, my shoulders slump forward and the guards release me.

Defeated, I put my face in my hands and fight the unbearable pain that thrums behind my chest. My heart, that poor organ, that weeps every time I think of Noble locked away, unable to be free. Surely, he can’t keep the wolf at bay, and soon Crede will know what lies behind the façade Noble and his parents have carefully built to hide away his secret.

Everyone but me. His wife, who he entrusted with his deepest secret. His wife, who he turned away from when things got difficult. His wife, who no matter the circumstances, he seems to always circle back to.

It was me that was able to speak to the wolf and bring back the man when he battled my father. And it is me that will save Noble from the clutches of the very people I thought I could trust.

I turn and walk to the window, drawing the shades open. A warm breeze flows through the open window and I breathe in Summer, the only home I’ve ever known. The same home I need to flee from. A small rustle from the bushes below draws my attention as I try to drone out the voices of the very people I’ve always turned to. I search the bushes for a solution I can’t find and swallow a gasp when I find a pair of familiar red eyes peering back at me.

Oren, the shadow I’ve begrudged since Noble demanded he look after me, watches me in his wolf form. Anger brims from his eyes and I can only hope he’s heard enough to know Noble’s in danger.

Help Noble, I mouth, and he vanishes from sight.

“No.” I turn, facing Crede and my parents. “I will not stay, I will not be your wife or queen. I am already married to a man I honor. It was your decision to marry me to a wolf for our pride,” I say to my mother. “And it is my decision to stay with him. You’ve not only jeopardized my life by having Noble’s father killed, but jeopardized the life of every soul in our realm. It is now my duty to bring peace between the two realms. You will release Noble.”

“No.” With jerky strides, Crede comes to me, digging his fingers into my arm. “Have you not listened to a word your mother has spoken? If we release Noble and his pack finds out your mother…”

“You will release Noble!” I shout. “And I will tell them myself the treachery that has fallen onto his family by my family.”

“Are you mad? Have you lost all your senses?”

“No, but you have.” I turn from Crede and address my father. “Please,” I plead with him, hoping I can still reach him, “do something.”

“I’m sorry, Liana, but I don’t know what I can do after what your mother and Crede have done. If we release Noble, there will be a war among our two realms.”

“If you don’t release him, there will be a war! Or do you think there will be no retaliation for his unprecedented imprisonment?”

“That is where you come in, my Liana.” Crede caresses my face. When I growl at him, he chuckles. “You will go along with our plan and Noble’s life will be saved.”

“Saved?” I laugh. “Saved to live out his life in a prison cell? How is that any life for a wolf?”

“We are not negotiating terms. Either you agree and help us unite the two realms, or you don’t.”

“And if I disagree?”

My mother inhales a deep breath as worry lines map over her sullen face. The two guards melt into the background, molding their bodies against the walls of my mother’s room.

“Then you are against us,” Crede says.

“I am against you, then. I will not take any part in you bringing down my husband or our pack. Take me to Noble.” I turn from them and when my mother’s cold fingers reach to touch my face, I grip her wrist. “Take me to Noble. Now.”

“Take her.” She waves me away, directing her attention to the two guards. “Torture her wolf until she changes her mind.”

Sorrow strangles me, and my father holds his arms out expecting me to crumble. Instead, I keep myself upright, feeling my soul grow cold. Unsure of everything, but my desire to save Noble, my fight dies as the beginnings of a feeble plan forms. I know how I can save Noble, but it all depends on Oren. On whether he’s able to rescue Noble on his own, or if not, if he’s able to trust me.

Hope. That’s all I seem to have these days. An endless sea of fallible hope.

The web of lies continue to grow and spread on this new foundation I set my feet on.

“That will not be necessary,” I say, setting my plan in motion, hoping it’ll stick. “Let me see Noble one final time. Then I will ride to Winter and demand my coronation. I must be made their queen first. Only then, will your plan to take over Winter work.”

“How do you expect to make the wolves listen to your demands when they hardly tolerate you?”

I stare at him through slit eyes. “I am Liana, destined to be queen of all the realms,” I say.

My mom’s face breaks into a smile that would normally fill me with joy. But today… today, I am numb to everything but my need to save Noble.

Chapter 31

Noble

It’s all my fault.

Blood runs in long strands from my mouth where I hang chained to the wall.

My face is so swollen I can barely move my jaw, and the two men watching me, have been ordered to kill me should I change, and I’ve been warned that should I do that, it won’t end with my death. Liana…she too would pay for my attempt to fight back or leave.

At first, I felt it was empty threats, but as the truth spilled from the lips of Crede, crown barely put upon his head moments before---he’d had his guards jump me, bind me, and then he’d personally spent time, carefully abusing every bit of my body that he could---he’d filled me in on the treachery of the entire Summer Court.

“We killed your father, little dog,” Crede says.

“You will pay for this. As if the wolves won’t come raining down onto your pride,” I spit at him hoping my blood will smear more of his coronation robes. “We outnumber the pride one hundred to one! Enough teeth to tear into your precious Summer until naught but bones are left!”

I pull at my chains and snap my teeth fighting the rogue for control. “Where is she! Let me see Liana!”

Crede smiles. He paces in front of me, knuckles bruised, cut, and bleeding from hammering my face with them until he’d tired.

He slants a look with a faux thoughtful expression. “She is a true mate, yes? In bed, I mean. A real test of a man’s control. I still dream about her, you know? I think about her when I’m with her sisters.”

I growl, lips peeling back from my teeth that are longer. “If you touch her, I will end you, Crede. I will end your line. Any son you might have bred out of your wives. Every family member of yours will pay for this. Wolves of every lineage will hunt your line to extinction. Mark my words, King of Summer. The end is near for you and yours.”

Crede swiftly grabs me by the throat, his face inches from mine, a mask of hatred so pure, I wonder how I’d not seen it coming. “She will be mine. Liana, Winter, your silly little wolves, all of it will be mine. I will marry her, as I should have, and I will put a child in your queen before the next full moon, and then what? Who will stop my line then, Noble?”

I hate him for helping to murder my father, but now, I hate him even more for the fact that fear bleeds into my very core. A fear of losing everything. A fear of losing Liana, most of all, runs rampant through me and I know he sees it, and I know his grin is in reaction to the pain and impotent rage and fear that shows across my features.

“No, Noble. I won’t kill you if that is what you wonder. I’m not stupid. Keep you here, locked away, and I’ll punish you at my leisure, but to kill you would make war. If there is hope, then the idiot wolves will try for a treaty. Hope will be their enemy more than the lion kingdom shall.”

With that, he steps away, straightening his robe, replacing his crown on his head.

“If he tries anything,” Crede says to the guards. “Beat him until he loses consciousness.”

While it had been Liana’s mother who’d decided it for her, and my wife may or may not have been aware of the plot to kill my father, the entire realm of Summer was culpable, since most had to have pieced it together by now.

And Liana, my wife, my love, she’d be torn to pieces by her own pride if she stood against such a tide.

It’s all my fault in the end. I’ve had time to think of it while hanging here, thinking of my stupidity from start to finish.

Katarina.

Her death had changed fate itself. And it was the start of my debts. If I’d not been a rogue and left her, and then later as a man, if I’d not wandered into lion territory and been attacked by Liana for stalking her at the pond, none of this would ever have happened.

We’d be free in our own realms. My father would still be alive. And my mother wouldn’t wind up a widow as well as the parent of a dead or imprisoned son.

Liana and I should have rebelled and not entered into a marriage that was doomed to fail.

And we should have never fallen into each other’s arms thinking the realms would wait or understand.

Because they won’t. Ever. I see that now.

What a fool I’ve been---we’ve been.

At every turn, Liana and I had been warned: love is not enough. If it was, then love stories wouldn’t so commonly end with tragedy.

No, Liana and I should have hardened our hearts, and I should have married a wolf, and she a lion, and we should have gone on to rule our own places as has been done for a hundred years.

The door to my cell swings open and a cloaked figure strides in.

In the small light, Liana pulls back her hood to reveal a fearful grimace. “I only have a moment,” she says, choking, hands shaking, as she reaches for my ruined face. “Oh, Noble. What have they done to you?”

I watch for even the slightest of hesitations. For a hint of motive. But my wife gives none. She bears my abuse like a living thing that moves across her face, feeling each blow, her features tight, her eyes watering, and her hands petting the very small patches to be found that don’t hurt.

“Tell me what to do, Noble. Please, my king and husband, I cannot free you, but tell me what to do?”

The guards exchange glances.

I gaze at Liana sadly. There is no rescuing me. “Will they let you return?” I pause to spit up blood. “To Winter? To home?” My voice is a croak of pain.

She leans in to whisper. “Yes, I believe so. To rule there. For them.”

“Oren,” I whisper, and she nods. “Arlo.”

“Arlo?” she whispers back.

The guards are moving toward us. “That’s enough!” one of them says.

“What about him?” Liana asks.

“Still alive,” I say, head sagging. My energy is leaving me. I don’t have much hold on my consciousness.

“Arlo is alive?” Liana gasps. “You mean…a trade?” she asks. “Between Arlo and yourself?”

I nod. My vision fades. “Go,” I say. “Go.”

I don’t want her here anymore. I want Liana away. With the wolves.

Where she belongs.

To be continued……..

A Note from the Authors

Dear Reader,

Thank you for taking this journey into the Game of Realms and we hope you will return for Liana and Noble's continued story in early 2018. We'd love a review on either Amazon or Goodreads or both, and please visit us at the following links to keep up to date on releases for this series and maybe check out our other books. We appreciate you!

Yessi Smith’s books: CLICK HERE

She also has a facebook group, and wants to invite you personally to join: CLICK HERE

Logan Keys’ books can be found RIGHT HERE