Reign: A Royal Military Romance (43 page)

N
athan revved
his bike’s engine, sitting at one of three stoplights in town. He knew it was probably pissing off the shopkeepers of Fjords, Alaska, but he reveled in the sound echoing off their brick-and-glass storefronts.

If he had to attend this engagement party, then he could make them listen to his racket. He already knew that Violet, his alpha’s mate, was probably going to murder him when he showed up on his motorcycle, but he didn’t particularly care. She couldn’t actually
do
anything to him, and this terrible party wouldn’t even have alcohol.

What kind of party was a dry party, anyway?

The light turned green and he roared forward, shooting ahead of the cars at the same intersection. For a moment, he considered not going to the party, just taking the bike up the mountain and driving around for a few hours.

But then Brock, his alpha, would be pissed, and his opinion actually
did
matter. Nathan’s job was security, though he didn’t know how much he’d have to do at a party with no booze. He sighed again and gunned his motorcycle into the gravel parking lot of the Fjords Room, his town’s most upscale event space.

That wasn’t really saying much.

“I thought you were going to wear a tie,” said Violet when he walked up to the door. She and Brock stood outside, greeting all the North Star clan members as they made their way inside.

He could hear the acid in her voice, but he didn’t really care what Violet thought.

Nathan shrugged, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket.

“I don’t have one,” he said, meeting her steady blue gaze.

He clenched his jaw, determined not to be the first one to look away, and he wasn’t. Instead, her eyes took a long, steady trip down his body, disapproval practically dripping from her face.

“No jacket, either?”

“Nope,” said Nathan.

Brock, the North Star clan’s alpha, wasn’t paying attention to them. Instead he was looking over the men and women trickling into the building, and Nathan could tell that he was mentally ticking off who was there and who was late.

“Well, we were hoping to impress our visitors,” Violet said, pursing her lips. She looked up at Brock as she did, seeking backup.

“It’s fine,” he said distantly, his eyes still roaming over the mostly-gray landscape, looking for people in the parking lot. “You know the Yukon City clan is somewhere between religious fanatics and rednecks.”

Nathan’s eyebrows shot up, and Violet looked around quickly, to make sure that no one had heard him. Brock had been trying to get the Yukon clan to agree to this betrothal for weeks.

“No one heard me,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. He, of course, wore a dark gray suit, tailored to perfection.

Finally, he looked Nathan in the eyes, coming back to earth.

“You’re at the front table, on security.”

Nathan nodded. He was always on security. It was, after all, his role in the clan. The enforcer.

“You expecting anything?”

Brock shook his head. “No. They seem like they ought to know how to behave, but there are some cousins of the bride’s coming from pretty deep into the country. I don’t get the impression they spend a whole lot of time as humans.”

Inwardly, Nathan groaned.

It was true that being a bear was in their nature — it was in his nature, too — but there was such a thing as too much bear time. If you didn’t shift back into human form at least sometimes, you tended to go feral. Your social graces and manners went to shit. You roared and tried to claw other people at the smallest slight. You might start throwing your wine glass around, just because someone said the wrong thing.

In short, they were a lot harder to control.

“I expect Jonah’s got them on their best behavior, though,” Brock said, going back to scanning the parking lot. “He does have an impressive level of control over that clan.”

The words sent a slight shiver down Nathan’s spine. Was a level of control like that what Brock wanted, as the North Star clan’s alpha? It sure seemed like he already had a hold over them.

“I’ll head in now,” Nathan said, nodding his head at the alpha mates. They nodded back, and he bounded up the steps to the Fjords Room.

In some past life, the Fjords Room had been a fishery, perched perfectly on the rocky edge of the water, leaning over the sea on enormous columns. Then, sometimes in the past fifty years, the fishing business had changed, moving further out into the ocean. Now, fisherman mostly processed fish on their own boats, making buildings like this one obsolete.

All the others had been torn down, but the town had managed to save this one, completely remodeling it into a big room with a kitchen. The sort of place where people held weddings or big parties.

Or, in this case, a betrothal, whatever the hell
that
was. Not that it really mattered to Nathan, since he’d understood for years that he’d never get married or have a mate.

Opening the big wooden door, Nathan scanned the room quickly, but nothing really stuck out to him. Boring, nicely dressed people milled around tables, drinking water and coffee. No one would quite make eye contact with him, and when they did, they looked at him and then at the floor, almost as if they were slightly afraid of him.

Nathan knew he had a reputation, and tried not to let it bother him. Enforce the rules of an alpha as rigid as Brock and you got one after a while, he thought. It didn’t really matter.

He wished again that he were somewhere else, doing something that interested him even a little.

I can’t believe this is a dry party
, he thought again.

Instead, he sauntered over to a side table, where there were a dozen platters full of cookies, pastries, and other sweets, all covered in a thin layer of plastic wrap. The sight of them made his mouth water, and he wondered when the last time he’d eaten had been.

Well. It had been lunch, two hours ago. That didn’t make the desserts any less appetizing, though.

Not even bothering to be sneaky, he lifted the wrap on an incredible-looking platter of some kind of chocolate-filled tart and grabbed one from the edge. He replaced the wrap messily, and then lifted the confection to his mouth and bit in.

The crust offered just a little resistance and then his teeth sank into the chocolate center, soft but firm at the same time. It practically melted on his tongue, and it tasted absolutely divine, like the fanciest chocolate he’d ever tasted, but
fancier
.

He groaned, deep in his chest, very quietly.

Just as he was taking another bite, the kitchen door swung open and someone came out, carrying a huge cake on a cake stand.

Then she stopped short, just in front of him.

“Are you eating the mousse tarts?” a female voice asked, accusingly.

Nathan had just sunk his teeth into another bite, and his mouth was full as he looked down to see who’d just accosted him.

He forgot to chew.

She had curly red hair, pulled back, and bright blue eyes. Freckles smattered across her nose and cheeks, with high cheekbones, a strong chin, and perfectly plush lips. The kind of lips that Nathan could just imagine pressing his own against, or even better, the kind of lips he could just imagine wrapped around his cock, pumping up and down...

She was still staring at him, eyes flashing with irritation, and she put the huge cake down in the spot reserved for it, then wiped her hands on the apron she wore.

“They’re wrapped up for a reason,” she snapped, glaring at him. Then she pushed past him to the platter he’d disturbed, wrapping the plastic tightly again.

When she was close to him, Nathan felt almost high. She smelled
wonderful
, a combination of flowers and lemon, plus another, dizzying aroma underneath it all.
Her
scent.

As she bent over the table, just a little, Nathan suddenly noticed her body. She was tall, though not as tall as him, with a generous bosom, a little waist, and ample hips. Her ass alone was incredible, and Nathan had to force himself not to reach out and squeeze it — or, worse, to press her against the table, lift her skirt, and just take her right there in front of everyone.

Deep inside, his bear roared and he had to force it down.

She stood up again and gave him a withering glare, then snatched the rest of the tart from his hand, brushing her fingers against his for half a second.

Nathan felt like a bolt of electricity had gone through him.

“This is for
after
the ceremony,” she said, as though she were scolding a child.

Then she turned and walked back into the kitchen.

“Sorry,” Nathan called to the now-closed door. It was all he could think to say.

He almost felt as if he’d had the air knocked from him, but she hadn’t
done
anything but look annoyed and take away his treat. It was just
her
, the way she smelled, dear God, the way she
looked
. Nathan stood rooted to that spot for a few more moments, trying to process what had just happened.

I saw a goddess
, he thought.

Then he thought,
Is this how people feel when they meet their mates?

That gave him the kick he needed to move again.

Of course she wasn’t his mate. He didn’t
have
a mate, and he never would. That was ludicrous.

She was just some really hot lady who smelled really good was all.

It’s been over a week
, Nathan thought, finally turning around and heading into the main part of the room.
I’ll head down to Seward tonight and get some cruise ship tail. That should fix me right up
.

Even as he smiled at the thought, there was a tiny itch of doubt, deep down inside.

L
eah shut
the door to the kitchen and then stood right inside it, holding half a tart in her hand. She’d just snatched it from some stranger who’d had the nerve to try to eat it before her betrothal ceremony.

What an asshole
, she thought to herself, but the thought didn’t have any teeth.

Instead, when she’d first seen him, she’d felt a sudden shock, and for a split second, she thought she knew him already, that maybe he was some long-lost relative or Yukon clan member that she hadn’t seen since she was a girl.

Then, a moment later, once she’d given him a good, long look up and down, she realized she didn’t know him at all — it was a different kind of recognition that she’d felt.

It was the kind of recognition that people in fairy tales and legends felt. Soul recognition, like two halves of the same spirit coming back together.

In the stories, it was how people knew when they’d met their mate.

Leah shook her head and lifted the half-finished tart to her lips.

Betrothal jitters
, she told herself firmly.
Ian’s your mate. Of course Ian’s your mate. Daddy wouldn’t mislead you
.

Still, for another moment, she thought of the mystery man’s huge frame, his muscles bulging against his dress shirt that he obviously wasn’t used to wearing.

He’d look much better in nothing at all
, she half-thought to herself, something warm and molten beginning to pool between her legs.

Stop it
, she thought, and lifted the half-finished tart to her lips and took a bite. For a split second, her tongue felt the ridges that his teeth had left in the chocolate, skipping over them, and she thought of him kissing her, his tongue invading her mouth and wrestling with hers...

Then Leah shook her head, hard, and proceeded into the kitchen, giving everything one final glance before she went to get changed. The desserts were all out, the cake finished, and her two sisters were finishing pouring sparkling apple juice into about two hundred champagne flutes for the end of the ceremony.

“Go!” shouted Rebecca, her next-oldest sister.

“Don’t be such a control freak,” agreed Abigail, lovingly.

“I’m not a control freak, I just want to make sure you’re doing it right,” Leah said, peeking over their shoulders.

“We can pour apple juice,” said Emily, her youngest sister, who was only twenty. “Go get betrothed already.”

“You deserve this,” confirmed Rebecca.

“Okay, okay,” said Leah.

One last peek, and she was out, rushing to the tiny back room she’d put aside to get changed in.

It wasn’t like this was her wedding or anything, except, well, it kind of was. For as long as anyone could remember, the Whitehorse clan had celebrated betrothals about a week before they’d celebrated weddings, in the interest of giving the two engaged people time to get to know each other at least a little before mating for life.

Yukon City was so small that nearly everyone Leah had ever known was family, so they had a long tradition of arranged marriages with the other bear clans in the north.

Now, at least, it was Leah’s turn, and god knew she’d waited for long enough: two of her younger sisters, Rebecca and Abigail, were already married. It had been hard to watch them make good matches long before her father had even tried with her, even though he constantly assured her that he was looking for someone for her to marry.

She’d always wondered if it was the way she looked. Her sisters weren’t skinny, but she had a good fifty pounds on them, a body that never seemed to follow her orders. When she was eleven, her breasts had grown four cup sizes in a month, and she still had stretch marks across her hips and thighs. It didn’t seem to matter that she had an hourglass figure — bear men just weren’t interested in
bigger
girls like her.

Now she was thirty-two, and until her father matched her with Ian, she’d been afraid of being alone forever.

Quickly, she shimmied out of her dress, hung it on a hanger, and then donned a three-quarter-sleeve blue dress. Her mother had made it, and it was simple but flattering, hugging her in exactly all the right places, covering her elbows and knees, as was proper.

There was a knock on the door.

“Leah, it’s me,” said her mother’s voice.

She opened the door and her mother walked in, a solid woman in her fifties, eyes still bright and one streak of gray hair on each temple.

“Turn around,” her mother said.

Leah obeyed, and her mother zipped the dress up, then spun her daughter back around.

“Perfect,” her mother said, and for just a moment, her face softened. “I’m so proud of you,” she said.

“Thanks,” said Leah, slightly puzzled. She hadn’t really
done
anything.

“You hung in there, even when everyone else was getting married,” the other woman said, as though she could read Leah’s thoughts. “I know it was hard. You wanted to get your life started already, but I think we’ve made you a wonderful match, sweetie.”

Leah had one fleeting thought of the man who’d been eating the tart a few minutes earlier. The one who’d sent a shudder through her whole body when their fingers touched for a split second.

“I’m really happy, mom,” she said, making herself smile.

“You look beautiful,” her mother said, kissing her forehead.

Deep down, Leah felt another tiny twinge of doubt. If Ian was her mate, what had just happened to her?

She forced herself to brush her worries aside and stood up tall.

“Let’s go get me betrothed,” she said to her mom, who smiled.

* * *

I
n front
of the Fjords Room, there was a very small stage. Leah peeked from a door, off to the side, her heart nearly beating out of her chest.

The thing was, technically, she’d never met Ian. They’d written a few letters, of course, and spoken on the phone, but they hadn’t
met
.

Then, just as the ceremony was about to start, a man with graying hair in a three-piece suit walked to the front of the room and stood behind her father as he took his place at the podium.

The entire room hushed.

Leah thought that her heart might beat right out of her chest.

That was him! That was Ian, her mate.

She waited for the rush of recognition she’d felt earlier, with the mystery man, but it didn’t come. There was no sensation that she’d somehow known him all her life, or that she’d seen him once a long time ago and couldn’t remember his name.

There was nothing wrong with Ian. He was handsome enough, and he looked good enough in his suit. But she didn’t feel almost dizzy looking at him.

Suddenly, hands were pushing her forward, out the door, towards the podium and toward Ian. He offered a huge smile and held out both his hands.

As she walked, forcing herself to smile, Leah scanned the crowd quickly.

There he was. The mystery man.

Sitting at the table in the front —
her
table — between one of her sisters and a cousin, looking straight at her.

For just a second, their eyes locked, and Leah felt that strange sensation again, the feeling that she knew this man already, that she’d already known him for a long, long time.

Then her hands met Ian’s, and she tore her gaze away.

She looked up at her betrothed mate, smiling down at her, and her father began the rite.

You’re doing the right thing
, Leah told herself.
Just ignore that other guy, and you’ll be fine
.