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Bronze caged his hands around hers, securing them to his chest while stalling out the rubbing movements and increasing the warmth between them tenfold. “Do not, for one iota of a second, ever think I haven’t seen just how strong you are. I’ve known full-blooded Empyrean seraphim warriors who wouldn’t have had the courage to put themselves at the mercy of the unknown the way you did.”
“I was desperate.”
“You were fucking ferocious,” he stressed. “Not fearless, perhaps, which is wise. We all need to fear something, but to get past it to do what needs doing is . . .” His throat swallowed around words he seemed to struggle with. The lack of composure and poise was a rare moment, even in the short time she’d known him, and she imagined it wasn’t something the angel let others see often.
Clara tucked that thought away and gave him two swift soft pats of thanks against his chest. “Then, as you said, let me do what needs doing.”
Bronze held her gaze until the door closed behind her, breaking the connection. Inside, the emerald and eggplant brocade tapestries featuring the family crest hung from the walls with the weight of the monarchy bearing down on the stones. Strange. She’d never noticed it before, but everything in her father’s study took on such an air of heaviness she wondered how the foundation of the keep didn’t collapse altogether. The black walnut desk cluttered high with documents. The mantle above the stone hearth supporting far more family history than the ancestral chalices and trinkets above it. Was it the burden of the monarchy that made even her shoulders sag slightly, or was it something more?
Fortunately for her, she never had to pay it further consideration as the weight of the past was soon lifted, or more accurately, diverted. Once she closed the door behind her, the king wasted no time expressing his thoughts on the significance of that past and how her act of defiance would go over in the future.
Her father hadn’t even bothered to rise from his seat, so accustomed was he to having his words carry throughout the room regardless. “I could ask you why you made the choices you did, but I wouldn’t be the ruler I am without the ability to glean information and form my own conclusions.”
“And what would those conclusions be?”
A wry smirk twisted his mouth. “Well, given your unusual and quick attachment to the first male I’ve known you to ever show any interest in, my first guess would be that you let him fuck you and have all too late figured out what those consequences might look like.”
“Father!”
He cut off her cry with a swipe of his hand. “But then I got to thinking, how would you even know of such an option as the Betrothal Games? As Pascal pointed out, it’s not a more well-known part of our legacy. And then I realized you wouldn’t know about it,” he said flatly, any amusement he felt from drawing his own conclusions dissolving into the air. “Not unless you had spent considerable amounts of time researching the subject, preparing for exactly that event, and planning for the perfect circumstances to converge at just the right time. Which brings me back around to why.”
Icy fingers of nerves sent stabbing prods throughout Clara’s stomach, and her wolf growled against the pain of it. But so much had happened to her, because of her, in the last day or so that the chill of her father’s attention no longer stung the way it once had. After all, if a river could not drown her and wild predators could not challenge her, then how terrifying could a simple conversation with this male truly be?
For it would only be a conversation. Despite her assurances to Bronze that she could handle her father, she dared not risk spreading the angel’s trust too thinly. He was still injured, after all, and she would not put herself in a circumstance that would incite him to possibly act on her behalf, especially beyond what his body could safely perform.
But yes, she had prepared. She had planned. It was why, despite the terror threatening to grip her spine and shake her flesh free, she rode above the avalanche with skis firmly fastened to her feet. Clara held on to that kernel and the unique brand of strength it provided her.
By the Moon Mother, she would need it.
Clara lifted her chin higher and shot a warning look of challenge into her father’s gray gaze. “I know our conversations have been few and far between over the years, so you may be unaccustomed to my preference for not repeating myself. I’ll forgive you the discretion.”
His hooded stare darkened.
“Yes, I have had little reason to say much in your presence, because you’ve always seemed pleased to hoard the wolf’s share of the conversation, so this will be an adjustment for both of us.”
The king’s rising fury flared his nostrils so wide, it caused the overgrown graying hairs of his mustache to curl around his scowl, further accentuating the creases and craters that had been carved over centuries.
The male wasn’t just old but ancient by lycan standards. The sum of that imagery and her awareness of it tipped over into a hopeful pounding in Clara’s chest that had begun to chip away at the frozen shards he’d not only wrought over the long years but weaponized.
“The games will go on because there is no law that currently prevents them. Ignorance of your own people’s laws is no excuse,” she declared.
“Neither is treason, daughter. Do I smell an uprising? Is that it?” He spread his arms wide. “Is this all a simple bid for a throne you have no hope of inheriting anyway?” That statement caught her off guard but only momentarily.
No, she’d done everything by the book. By definition, there was nothing treasonous in following the law. She had been careful of it and had taken great risks to ensure she played by the rules. It had been the only way to make it all work. Her father had always been so focused on manipulation and gaining ground his way. Therefore, to get anything past him, Clara needed to do so by the book. Regulations created by others, especially those enacted long ago, were never areas of concern for him, now to his great detriment. He’d always preferred to make his own rules.
“I am not interested in what you smell, Father. It has no bearing on the laws that have governed us for centuries.” Her voice was small, but her words were clear and succinct. They were sturdy, if slight. “As I said earlier, I have taken actions to enact the games. Those actions cannot be undone. I have chosen my champion, and as the monarch, you are entitled to choose the other two who may compete for my hand. I’ve already spoken to Pascal. He’s taking care of the formalities as we speak and drafting the official notices. In three days, the games will commence.”
The king pressed his knuckles into the desk and slowly rose, his eyes searching hers. She knew the look well and braced for the change of tactic he was preparing to engage.
“Where did this viper come from, I wonder? I can empathize with not wanting to marry a male you’ve never met before, but I am your father. You should trust that I would not match you with one who would not be suitable. Lord Raff is beyond wealthy, so he shall keep you in comfort. He is the warlord of the western and northwestern territories. It is a fine match.”
“For you.”
“For our people.”
“You cannot ignore the humans. You cannot continue to govern with the mindset that one race must fall for the other to rise. We are all creatures living among the same land, vying for the same resources.” Clara clenched her fists. “Yes, Father, even the vipers. For more clarification on that point, I would direct your attention to the face that stares back at you each morning. So no, I do not believe it is a fine match for me, because I no longer wish to be blindfolded, then pointed in a direction of another’s choosing and told to march. And it may be that I end up in the same place as when all this started, holding the hand of a male you chose who only wants to drag me along for the sake of what resources are attached to me. It may be that your alliances stay intact, and I’ll have to bear the consequences for finally speaking what my heart needed to say, but at least I’ll have tried, and our people will have seen me do so.”
She was trembling. A full-blown attack of the nerves. Never, in the history of ever, had she spoken to another living soul like that, let alone her king and monarch. The toll it was taking, not just on her body but on her soul and her she-wolf, was more than she ever anticipated. But oh, it was worth it. To see her father standing before her, face red and fangs bared, stirred up to the point of near violence knowing he couldn’t touch her lest he lose any chance for the future holdings and expansion he’d worked so hard for, was enough to make her run away a thousand times. To take a thousand leaps into a frigid river.
