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Clara peeled away one of his hands and placed a tender kiss on his palm. “It’s not over yet. There is still one more game. And you’re wrong. We’ve both worked so hard for this. Whatever happens, it’s something we’ll face together.”
Damn, he didn’t deserve this. Not this soft and warm female who had just flung her arms around him, not the way his body curled around hers protectively as if trying on the part of mate for size.
None of it was his. None of it was real. But like he fucking cared at that point? If life had taught him anything, it was that second chances were not guaranteed. Sometimes the mages robbed you of the life you knew in order for many others to live theirs. Sometimes fate would strip your powers in order for you to prove your strength.
And sometimes a celestial goddess would break all the rules, claiming aces wild, and send exactly what you needed upriver.
“This feels right to me,” he whispered against her hair.
“It does. It really does.”
The rumble of his stomach was a fucking bullhorn of a moment killer. “Shit, sorry.”
“None of that. I’d like to be finished with the apologies for at least five minutes. Let me go bring you some food.”
For once in Bronze’s life, he didn’t argue and was more than content to let Clara walk away knowing she was just as eager to get right back in his arms.
Clara was debating between the apricot and the raspberry jam for Bronze’s hunk of bread. The kitchens had cleared out from the breakfast rush, and the staff was enjoying the brief lull before the lunch prep, so she blessedly had the place to herself.
And also, quite fortunately, leftovers. She heaped the platter high with half a loaf of grainy bread, a wedge of hard cheese, two apples, and—oh, what the hell—two ramekins of both jams, grabbed the small coffee urn, and floated toward the door.
“Late breakfast, I see.”
“Father!” Clara skidded to a halt and raised the platter high overhead, floating it above like a peacock feather on her fingertip. Once the items had stilled and the platter no longer swayed from side to side with the waves of the coffee, she brought it back to waist height and placed it on the counter.
The king jutted his chin toward the tray. “Is that for him?”
“For my champion, yes. He was injured, as I’m sure you recall. Lord Raff dealt him a difficult blow. I am helping him to heal and ensuring he is nourished in the interim.”
“Does that require riding his cock as well?”
All the available air rushed from her lungs. “What?”
Her father moved into the kitchen, taking in the space as one would assess a recently inherited estate they had no interest in or use for. “Naivete does not become you, daughter. For once in your life, do act like you are a part of this family. You are many things, but ignorant is not one of them. Now tell me, has he gotten you with pup yet? Or is it too early to tell?”
The raging heat coursing through her veins aggravated her wolf to the point of nearly shifting. “How can you say such things?”
“Because I am the king,” he snarled at her, bracing his hands on the counter. “A king who has made an arrangement with a foreign leader for your hand in marriage and, thus, an alliance to unite our kingdoms in a mutually beneficial arrangement. Raff brings the muscle and might, I bring the currency and your warm cunt. Did you really think you’d be able to outwit me with your little games and the demigod or whatever the fuck he is that you found like some lost plaything in the human lands?”
“Do not speak of him that way. He is more powerful than you can imagine.”
“Powerful enough to dispatch the dozen guards I’ve ordered to stand sentinel outside his patient room after you left? He can’t even manage to get rid of one lycan. How the fuck do you figure he can manage twelve and while injured no less?”
The dark stone of the kitchen walls began to creep toward her in painfully heavy increments. Even her wolf was pacing and circling through her mind at the claustrophobia of it all, her tail lowered and her whimpers pummeling Clara’s nerves with a new sort of fear.
No, this can’t be happening.
“I’ll make this quick, as I haven’t got all day. Unfortunately, due to your little show of independence,” he sneered, “our subjects are expecting the Betrothal Games to finish in their entirety. However, if you wish for your champion to live to see the sunrise, you will agree to mate with Lord Raff, and the final game shall commence in such a way that the outcome will be secured in our favor. Oh, yes, daughter, I’m well aware you’ve caught on to my arrangements. But you are my blood, after all. So, rather than dispelling my tactics entirely, I rather thought this would present a good opportunity to bring you into the fold, so to speak. Give you a look at the family business, internal operations and all that.”
It was all happening too fast. One moment, she was debating which jam she’d secretly been most eager to taste on her champion’s lips, and the next, she was bartering for his life. Though, it wasn’t really a barter, was it? No. This was pure unadulterated blackmail at its finest, from the male who should have been protecting her from the very beasts he was now subjecting her to.
But Bronze. Oh, Bronze! He’d never asked for any of this. All he’d done was save the life of a female who had begged him to do the impossible, and he’d followed her willingly for no other reason than altruism, a bit of responsibility maybe, and perhaps a small growing fondness between them.
Though it wasn’t small on her part. That had never been truer than when she’d seen him fly through the air, bobbing on fence posts, to claim a relic in her name.
And now he would be killed for it.
“What is your answer, Clara? I have other business to attend to, and my guards are waiting. They have instructions that if they do not receive word from me by half past the hour, they are to breach his patient door and destroy him on sight.”
