“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?”