“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 na?ve. 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.