Her Royal Wolf: A Rejected Mates Romance (Fall Mountain Shifters Book 3) Page 4

  “Thank you for coming to see me privately, Mai,” she says, resting her hands together in front of herself. “How do you like Darkland Castle so far?”

  “Unlike anything I’ve seen before,” I truthfully say. “But I doubt the castle is why you asked me to see you alone.”

  “You’re in love with them.”

  The statement lingers in the air between us, and for a moment, we simply watch each other.

  “Why else would I enter The Rite of Wolves?”

  She nods and walks away from me, to one of the doors under the veranda to the left, waving her hand for me to follow. “For power? Many of the females I fought never wanted my mate, but they wanted to be alpha female.”

  “You fought in the rite?” I question, following her into a small room. There are two cosy chairs in front of a large desk. The desk has four jewellery boxes, each of them a different type of wood, but each has the symbol of Fall Mountain on top. Alpha Reine waves her hand at one of the seats, and I sit down as she walks along the wall. She pushes into the wall, and a panel slides to the left, revealing a lit-up section. Inside are five crowns and an empty cushion. All the crowns are exactly the same: a wolf baring its teeth and holding a diamond inside its mouth at the front, and the rest is twisted silver vines to make the crown. Alpha Reine picks one up, and the panel slides back as she returns to me and sits down, resting the crown in her lap. All I can think of is the crown I promised Persephone I would find, the one I’m on a deadline to find. I doubt it is the crown in front of me, it just doesn’t feel right.

  “When the children were young, I met a stray wolf in the forest outside our French home. You have been told about where you grew up, yes?”

  I nod and she carries on. “Soren never told me who he was, or about this city, because he was bound not to, but I knew he was an alpha, even as he tried to hide that side of himself from the world. He ran away from here when his parents were killed, and never looked back. Soren fell into our lives, into the space left by my sons’ father, and is a great man. We were happy, even though the secret he hid was a ticking time bomb between us.”

  I know that feeling well, I thought before she continued. “When the pack fell and the world became chaos, Soren had no choice and brought us here. I fought to be alpha female, and when I won, I let our heirs go to search for you.”

  Reine pauses, seemingly lost in thought for a moment.

  “I killed in the rite, and it changed my soul. Even now, the weight of what I did to secure my family’s future and to be with the wolf I was in love with...it haunts me.”

  “Being haunted by the darkness in your past is...” I know I don’t have to tell her what it feels like, what it is. I’m sure she has killed more than I have done, and I feel like our past is mixing as one in certain points. My alphas never wanted to bring me here, to the rite, because it could split us apart. I can’t even think about that outcome.

  “My sons have told me you do not remember us and you were brutally brought up in the Ravensword Pack. For that, I am sorry,” she states. “Your mother...well, I’m sure she is watching us as we talk now and sending you luck in your trials ahead.”

  “My alphas told me the pack I was brought up in, including my mother, tried to protect me from someone. Who is this person?”

  Her eyes tighten. “One of you, the babies, a god-bound wolf, but...he twisted what it meant to be bound to a god. The boy was the only one of you that was half-angel, and whatever is in his soul, his blood, turned him into a monster. The world paid for his greed, his obsession with power and you.”

  Half-wolf, half-angel. Total monster. King of the rest of the world.

  “Me?” I quietly ask, paling.

  “Yes,” she replies. “I know it pains my boys to speak of him, and if you remembered, it would hurt you as well. He was in love with you, as much as my sons were as children, but I don’t believe you ever felt the same way. Your connection to my boys was there from infancy. You all grew up together, and you drew them in like bees to a flower.”

  “What is his name?” I demand.

  “We don’t speak his name, Mai. In fact, we don’t speak of him at all,” she tells me, “like we speak the names of none who betray our pack. He is the king of the angels, let that be his name, and he will fall by our claws and be buried in the ash of his stolen lands.”

  “So war is your plan?” I ask.

  She smiles and places the crown on her head. “Only alphas discuss the future of the pack, Mai, and right now you are only a wolf.”

  “And bound to a goddess,” I add in. “My mother is gone, and I can’t ask her, but what happened when you were pregnant? How did the binding happen?”

  She tenses, just a little bit, her eyes watching mine. “Our memories were wiped, and the only one who knows is the angel commander, Oisean.”

  “I’ll make a note to ask him...before I kill him,” I say, holding my head high. “I want my friends let out. Breelyn and Callahan.”

  Her eyes narrow. “We have a system for judging who stays in the pack lands if they are not sworn to the alphas. They are safe, you have my word as alpha.”

  “Fine,” I growl. “Can I see them?”

  “I don’t see why not,” she replies. “I’m glad we had this time together, I feel like I understand who you are a little better, Mai.”

  “I didn’t come to this pack for a fight, but I know what is mine and what is not. I know what I want. My life hasn’t been good or even worth remembering until I met them, your sons, and they saved me. They fought for me, dragged me back from the darkness, and reminded me why I should be alive. Why I should fight every goddamn day for my life and what I want for my future. I choose to fight for them. The rite is my test, not only for them, but to prove I will make a good alpha female, and then we will discuss the war, Alpha Reine. That is who I am.”

  She tilts her head to the side, standing up. “I see why they chose you. Even as a child, you were stronger in your mind than even me.”

  I smile, wishing I could remember that girl before I bow my head in respect. “It was an honour spending time with you, Alpha Reine.”

  “And you, Mai Fall,” she replies. “The next few weeks will be interesting.”

  As I walk away, feeling her eyes on my back, I almost believe I made a good impression.

  “Would you like an escort to the meal?” Valentine asks as I step out of the double doors from Alpha Reine’s rooms, startling me.

  I look up at him and pause, desire shocking me still. Valentine is wearing a tux. A crisp white shirt presses against his muscular body, stretching the material. His thick thighs fill his dark trousers, and his shiny shoes reflect the lights. Valentine’s hair is a little long, chocolate brown locks falling into his iridescent eyes and reminding me a tad of the more rugged alpha I met in a house on a beach. Even then, he took my breath away. And now it’s just more. I want more of him, more moments like this, more desire filling the air and changing our scents so easily when we are around each other.

  I could definitely try to convince Valentine to wear tuxes more often. I’m literally speechless.

  Footsteps make me turn to see Ragnar walking out of the shadows, through a door, and coming towards us. Ragnar has a similar tux on, his face clean and smooth at the edges, and the five o’clock shadow he was growing has been shaved away, his face cleanly shaven like Valentine’s. Ragnar pauses at Valentine’s side, his hands in his pockets, his eyes slowly looking at me from the tips of my feet to the top of my head. I do the same, eating up how extraordinary he looks, how both of their scents wrap around me in a comforting woodsy and vanilla scent.

  “You smell like watermelon,” Ragnar comments, his voice full of gruff, unspoken desire. “Fuck, I love watermelons.”

  “It’s the shampoo,” I reply, my throat dry. I turn to Valentine. “I’d love an escort because I have no idea where I’m going in this castle.”

  “We would be honoured to escort you,” Valentine replies, his voice ragged
and coated with desire. He clears his throat. “Mai, you look as exquisite as all the stars in the sky.”

  Ragnar knocks his shoulder. “Val, always right and always so poetic, it makes us all look bad. Shall we get going?”

  I chuckle and nod. “I’m so happy you both came for me. I don’t remember how I got here from my room, and I’d have to ask the guards to help me.”

  “Before we came looking for you, we spent a year or so here, and we always got lost,” Valentine says. “But the house has a strange way of guiding you around.”

  “How?” I question.

  “It’s unexplainable,” Valentine says. “When you’re lost, you will see.”

  I look at the walls as we pass. “Maybe it’s ghosts.”

  “Do you believe in ghosts?” Ragnar questions.

  “Yes and no. I believe we have souls, and it’s not unbelievable that part of our souls can stay attached to things or other people,” I reply. “Well, to me.”

  “Like Hades’s soul and Persephone’s, and the others,” Ragnar agrees. I sometimes wonder what part of me is Persephone and what part is me and how closely we mix together. The souls we are bonded to are to be lovers, mated and married in every sense of the word, together. That connection must stretch into the world, and I doubt even death parted them. I want that kind of love, the love I’d die for, the love that would continue long after I’ve left the world. I wonder the same about my alphas, how much of them is Hades and his obsession with me, and how much of their feelings is their own.

  We walk in silence through four doors and three more empty corridors, totally confusing me on the layout of this place.

  “Did the children get off the train okay? I haven’t had a chance to see you and ask,” I question Ragnar.

  “Yeah, Henderson and I sorted them out,” he replies, placing his hand on my lower back. “They seem to be easily bribed with the promise of sweets and warm beds by the people in this pack.”

  “I’m honestly not going to miss the constant baby crying,” I admit. “I like children, but a train full of them has made me realise I don’t want children for a long time.”

  “You’re not the only one,” Valentine says, scrunching up his face.

  “You really don’t like children, do you?” I comment.

  “I’d like my own,” he honestly responds, and my cheeks warm as I get the impression he means kids with me. For a second, I imagine that child. My blonde hair, his green eyes and golden skin. “And Trey is alright.”

  “Trey is amazing,” I chuckle, thankful when he looks away to hold a door open for us. We end up going just around the corner before Ragnar leans down to my ear. “Ready for the meal?”

  “Not exactly,” I say. A room full of strangers is not something I’m looking forward to, but I hold my head high nonetheless, refusing to be intimidated by the room. It’s not they who are intimidated, it is I, and I can control my own emotions and reactions. I will show them who I am, the real me, and that isn’t a scared female. I was never born to be the fear-filled female the Ravensword alpha tried to force me to become.

  At the end of the passageway, there’s a stained glass door just like the ones that lead to the alpha female’s bedroom. But this time, it’s a tree designed into the glass, the roots all exposed, and the tree changes into stone at the top to make it almost look like the tree is holding up the walls. Four guards stand in front the doors, and two of them open the doors, the others walking away to make space.

  The minute that the door opens, a flood of music fills my ears, and I look forward into the room to see it’s hidden behind a massive curtain. A large thick red curtain blocks our view of the room completely, and a man in a white suit waits in front of the curtain. I can hear the room behind the curtain, sense and smell all of the different things that are coming through. It sounds like an orchestra is softly playing the music, people are talking loudly, and glasses occasionally clink. There are so many different scents that I can’t even count them out as they mix together. The overall scent is pure wolf and flowery perfume.

  “Where are Silas and Henderson? I can’t find their scents in the room,” I ask, still searching, but they would stand out to me.

  “They are running a bit late,” Ragnar says, “but they will be here.”

  A part of me is relieved, even if I wish they were here right now at my side. They give me strength, even being close.

  “How many people are going to be at this meal?” I ask the next important question.

  “Only the important people in the pack,” Ragnar says. “So about forty people, all the leaders of the different plazas, and anyone of importance like the betas.”

  “Does the alpha female have an omega?”

  Valentine’s eyes soften. “The only person Alpha Reine would have accepted as an omega would have been your mother.”

  My chest tightens. I wish she were here; I wish I could remember her.

  “Anything else I need to know about this meal before we go in there?” I ask.

  “We’re expected to present ourselves in front of the city, and I’ve demanded you will be present at our side,” Valentine states. “It’s usually only for the alphas.”

  “I shouldn’t be there then,” I say. “I don’t want to piss off the city I’m trying to win over.”

  “You have earnt your right to be there the second you said you’d fight in the rite for us,” he growls at me.

  “I did that because—” I pause.

  He steps closer. “Because?”

  “You damn well know why!” I protest, my cheeks burning.

  “I still want to hear it,” he smoothly replies, and I walk away from him, pausing near the man by the curtains.

  Ragnar chuckles as he walks over, whispering something to Valentine that I don’t hear.

  “I will talk with him,” Ragnar tells Valentine and me.

  Ragnar goes over and talks to the man standing by the rope, and I smooth down my dress, fiddling to make sure I get it right. I have to look fine.

  Valentine catches my hands, stepping in front of me, and I glance up at him. I pause as he moves closer, so close I suck in a deep breath as his hands softly drift up my arms, leaving goose bumps in their wake. My body feels on fire everywhere he touches. Everything feels so much more intense as he takes one step closer, our bodies flush, and I arch my head to keep my eyes locked onto his. Wordlessly, because nothing needs to be said between us, he surprises me by kissing me.

  Our first kiss. I take about a tenth of a second to decide the kiss is absolutely perfect, a million times better than I ever imagined. His lips move over mine almost gracefully, softly, pushing my lips apart, pushing himself into my mouth deeper. Every movement of his lips feels like he completely owns me, and I am his without a doubt. All the built-up tension pours out of us into the kiss, making the desire thicker in the air, and my entire being swims with pleasure. My body leans into his, wanting more, feeling his hard length pressing into my stomach, remembering that night on the train. I barely get to thread my fingers into his hair, his hands clutching my waist, before Ragnar coughs deliberately.

  Valentine breaks away, looking pained to do so, and I feel that right down to my toes.

  I stare at him, trying to catch my breath, and he tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear. “I promised myself I would not kiss you until we were in our home. It killed me to wait.”

  All I want is for us to be alone so I can kiss him more, so I can search his body with my hands and—

  “Val...,” I whisper, my heart pounding with emotion. If he wanted me to fall any more in love with him, he is definitely accomplishing that. “Val, I—”

  “We are about to enter a room full of wolves who can scent an inch of desire a mile off,” Ragnar reminds us. “So how about you both calm down?”

  “Jealousy doesn’t suit you, brother,” Valentine replies, straightening his tie as he steps back. Ragnar is right. Tonight is about first impressions, but not one part of me will ever regre
t that kiss.

  “Are you ready?” Ragnar asks me, his voice...off.

  I barely get to answer before he is walking towards the curtain. “Yes.”

  Valentine and I walk to his side, and I search Ragnar’s face, his body language, sensing that he looks like he wants to be anywhere else. The man pulls the rope, which slowly opens the curtains, peeling back to reveal the grand throne room.

  “Alpha Heir Ragnar Fall, Alpha Heir Valentine Fall and Mairin Elysia Astra Fall,” the man shouts out, introducing us. The room goes silent, and I feel the eyes of so many on us from below, but I’m too frightened to look down, to see what is waiting for us.

  I reach across and touch Ragnar’s hand for comfort, but he sharply pulls his hand away from me. “Sorry,” I whisper to him.

  “About Valentine and you kissing in front of me? Like I’m not here?” he demands, a bitter tone to his voice I’ve never heard before from him. It makes me jolt, and Valentine wraps his arm around my waist, not missing a beat. Until this moment, I always thought we were on the same page when it came to us all. They told me they shared females before, and they never once said it was a competition, that there was jealousy between them all over me. I never want to come between them, or ruin their family unit, and jealousy like this could do that.

  “I’m not sorry for kissing Valentine, Ragnar. Honestly, after what happened on the train...I didn’t think—”

  “No, you didn’t,” he replies. “How do you think you’d feel seeing me kissing someone like Adira?”

  Burning jealousy knots in my stomach.

  “Enough, brother,” Valentine growls. “What the fuck is wrong with you tonight?”

  Ragnar smirks. “Or what?”

  Valentine tilts his head to the side, his eyes bleeding to red, glowing unnaturally, his voice deepening. “I’m going to fucking punch you and ruin that pretty suit of yours if you don’t shut up.”

  “Try it, brother,” Ragnar growls back.

  My head feels fuzzy, and my heart feels torn as I stand between them. “Please stop.”

  They both look away, but Valentine keeps his arm around my waist. “Look at the throne room, Mai. I thought you might like it here.”