Reign: A Royal Military Romance (59 page)

T
hree days later
, Nathan sat on the couch, waiting for Leah to come out of the bedroom again, though this time they were late to their own wedding reception.

She could come out in lingerie again
, Nathan thought.
I sure wouldn’t complain
.

He was beginning to understand what men talked about when they said their wives took too long to get ready.

At last, the door to the bedroom opened, and Leah came out. She was wearing a summer dress, one that nipped in at the waist and then flared back out, ending at her knees. It showed her figure off fabulously.

“We could just stay in,” Nathan said, savoring her curves with his eyes.

She bent over to kiss him.

“Later,” she said.

* * *

T
he party was
at the same place that Leah’s betrothal had been, the Fjords Room. As Nathan drove there in his tiny car, he marveled that it had only been a week ago that he’d watched her get engaged to another man.

Now she was his, of course, and he moved his hand to her leg, squeezing it as they pulled into the parking lot.

“I can’t believe I was here a week ago, watching you get betrothed.”

“I can’t believe I was ever betrothed to anyone else.”

She kissed him on the cheek, once, quickly, and then they got out of the car and walked into the room.

Beside him, Leah gasped.

Every table had a huge bouquet on it, each in a slightly different large vase. The bouquets were rustic, mostly ivy and pine branches with the pine cones on, a couple big white flowers in the middle. Small white Christmas lights were strung up overhead and the lights were down, making it almost feel like the reception was taking place in the forest, under the stars.

Out the big glass windows, Nathan could see the bay and the glaciers beyond that, the only home he’d ever known.

Leah made a funny noise, and when he looked down, she was crying, her three sisters rushing over and practically tackling her before he could do anything.

“How did you guys do this?” she said, wiping away tears.

“Don’t cry!” said one sister, either Rebecca or Abigail.

“Come on, Leah, it’s your wedding!” said the other.

Emily said nothing, but the three of them wrapped her in a hug. Nathan put his hands in his pockets, feeling slightly extraneous.

“But how did you guys afford all this?” she said, still flabbergasted. “Oh my gosh, look at all that food!”

Nathan turned his head to see the food table and raised his eyebrows. Even by shifter standards, there was a lot — appetizers piled high, grilled veggies, salad, fried chicken, and at least three huge hunks of meat. That wasn’t even
counting
the dessert table.

The reception was a whirlwind. Nathan barely managed to eat, because people from his clan — people who he’d thought were too afraid of him to ever speak to him again — kept coming up and congratulating them. Even odder, they sounded sincere.

Finally, toward the end of the event as the sun went down over the water, Nathan grabbed a piece of cake and sneaked outside for a moment as Leah was talking to some distant cousins of hers. He walked to the edge of the rocky cliffs towering over the bay, took a bite of the cake, and couldn’t believe his luck in life.

The sunset turned the sky orange and then pink, reflecting off the glaciers, making the world feel like it was on fire. Steps crunched toward him over the gravel parking lot, and then Leah was taking his hand, leaning her head against his shoulder.

“My dad and Brock gave us a joint wedding gift,” she said. “Well, I think it was mostly Brock, and my mom made my dad sign the card. He’s been sulking in a corner all day.”

“It’s still progress,” said Nathan. “Maybe he’ll come around. If not, fuck him.”

Leah held up a small, flat box with a card attached, and Nathan watched as she opened the card.

Noticed you were still missing these.

Brock & Violet

And underneath that, in different handwriting:

18k Yukon gold. Bit of home wherever you are.

Dad / Jonah

“I think I know what it is,” Nathan said.

He put the card in his pocket as Leah opened the small box, revealing two simple gold bands inside.

“They’re beautiful,” Leah breathed. The gold reflected the sunlight, turning pink and orange. She reached for the smaller one, but Nathan pulled the box away.

“Hold on,” he said. He put his empty plate on the ground, took out her ring, and turned to her.

“Leah, will you be mine for the rest of my life?” he said.

She smiled, her hair glinting in the light of the sunset.

“Yes,” she said.

Nathan slid the ring onto her left hand, then raised it to his lips and kissed it.

Leah took the box and took the other ring out, then looked up at him. She almost looked like she was glowing.

“Nathan, will you be mine for the rest of my life?” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

Then he kissed his wife as the sun set over the ocean.

* * *

The End

* * *

T
he bear rose
on its hind legs and sniffed the wind. It smelled like rain, of course, because it was always raining, but the bear could smell other things as well: the mushrooms growing under the log at its feet, nervous deer just out of its range of vision. Somewhere nearby, there were humans: camping or backpacking by the smell of them, nylon mixed with cooking fuel. Whiskey and hiking boots.

The bear steered well clear of humans, even though they were asleep. No use in freaking out a couple of hikers, even though it’d be kind of fun. Even then, better to wait until morning, when they were sleepy and fixing their breakfast.
Then
, scare them off and eat their bacon while they told the park ranger some tall tale of an enormous grizzly bear who’d lumbered out of the forest, roared twice, and then sat at their table and ate their bacon when they ran.

The forest rangers, of course, had never seen any grizzly bears in the area and routinely chalked any grizzly sightings up to the overactive imaginations of hikers, who had simply seen a larger-than-normal black bear. And, everyone knew, black bears were basically harmless.

If he tried hard enough, standing on his back legs, the bear could smell exhaust fumes from faraway Highway 20, but the bear didn’t really like to try that hard. This was his time off, the time that he
needed
so he felt like himself, why spend it thinking about cars, and people, and the civilized life he’d need to go back to in a mere twelve hours?

No, much better to slowly amble back to the lot where he’d parked his truck. On the way he’d swing by the lake and catch himself some nice trout. He was hungry, but not hungry enough to bother chasing one of the deer.

The bear yawned, stretched, and licked his snout. Then he headed for the lake at a slow, loping pace, moving easily through the thick forest.

E
vergreen
, Washington, was two and a half hours from the Seattle-Tacoma airport, and Ariana was afraid that Theresa was going to talk about Doctor Who the entire way there. Right now she was explaining the back history of Daleks, and what made them — cones with toilet plungers — the most feared thing in the universe.

“Then the third doctor stopped them from destroying the Earth,” Theresa explained.

Ariana loved Theresa, but this was why she never minded when they didn’t sit together on airplanes. She couldn’t imagine five hours of this.

“Did he have the scarf?” Ariana asked, only half-listening.

“That was the
fourth
doctor,” Theresa said. “He’s a lot of peoples’ favorite, though I like—“

Ariana slammed on the brakes as something ran across the road, eventually coming to a full stop right in the center, across the double yellow line. Luckily, they hadn’t seen any other cars on the road for at least twenty minutes.

“Watch out!” shouted Theresa much, much too late.

“Thanks,” said Ariana. She was still shaking. The animal had scampered off. She took a deep, deep breath, and then steered the rental car back into her own lane and continued on.

“We have to be close, right?” said Theresa. She turned her phone on again, uselessly. They’d been out of cell range for an hour. “Wait, I’ve got one bar...”

As if to answer her question, a sign, lit by floodlights, appeared on the side of the highway.

WELCOME TO EVERGREEN, it read, the word silhouetted in front of mountains, tall pine trees in front.

Visit our lovely downtown!
it suggested, underneath.

It didn’t take the girls long at all to find the Pine Cone Lodge, a big log building with a green roof, and to sign in and get their room keys.

In the elevator, they strategized.

“What time is it?” asked Ariana.

“Ten,” said Theresa.

“Okay,” said Ariana. “Want to meet downstairs at eight for breakfast and coffee, and then we’ll get moving on this?”

“Sure,” said Theresa. “What’s first?”

“We’ve got to talk to the two people who had the sightings,” Ariana said. “That’ll take a day, and then we’ll regroup and figure out whether there’s anything worth sticking around for.”

The elevator reached the third floor, and a pleasant
ding
sounded. They pulled themselves out of the elevator and to rooms right across the hall from each other.

“Ooh, I like this,” said Theresa. “When I get it on with a handsome ski instructor, you can’t listen through the walls.”

Ariana laughed and stuck her tongue out at the other girl. She tried to not be a little annoyed that Theresa wasn’t entirely kidding. She really did get more than her fair share of attractive men wherever they went, and more often than not, Ariana had to make do with noise-canceling headphones while texting Graham, her boyfriend.

“Night,” she said.

“Night,” Theresa said. They both closed their doors, and Ariana flipped on the light switch in her room.

It was almost exactly what she’d expected. The whole place had wooden walls, giving it a very cozy, cabin feel, and the fireplace had a hand-carved mantle over it, depicting some lumberjacks chopping down trees. She’d read somewhere that Evergreen had a lot of logging in it, or at least, it had for a long time — it seemed like now, there was less logging and more tourism, thanks to the national forest nearby, but she hadn’t put a ton of work into researching the town itself.

She flopped her big rolling suitcase over on its side, and tossed her backpack gently onto the king-sized bed. When she and Theresa went on these trips, she was never sure how long they’d be: sometimes, they found evidence right away and they were in the area for a few weeks; sometimes, their leads dried up completely and they were out in days.

For example, last month there had been yet another Loch Ness Monster sighting, in Loch Ness, Scotland, and Ariana had hoped that would be a long trip. She could see Scotland, maybe take some time at the end and go to London. Instead, there had been nothing after the original spate of sightings: no one had pictures, videos, not even sound recordings. They’d headed home after only five days.

On the other hand, when there was a Mothman sighting in rural West Virginia, it had taken them nearly a month, all while staying in a small town where there was absolutely nothing to do and almost no cell service. Every time they thought they had run the course of the investigation, someone found footprints or saw Mothman again or had some blurry photo that they wanted to show the girls. Ariana had thought she would never get out of there and back to Boston, where her boyfriend was eagerly awaiting her return.

Well, her friends had been happy to welcome her back and pepper her with questions about her weird job. Grand Theft Auto V had come out the day before, so Graham had been kind of occupied. It was OK, though. Ariana was sure that most boyfriends prioritized new video games over sex with their girlfriend for the first time in a month.

This time, the Cryptid Research Foundation — CRF for short — had sent its only two full-time employees to northern Washington state for a Bigfoot sighting, of course. There had been three in the course of a week, and that was enough for the eccentric guy who funded the CRF to decide that they should go there.

Well. Here she was, ready to put on her hiking boots and look for Bigfoot poop.

Ariana glanced at her phone. Nothing from Graham, but that wasn’t really surprising for a boyfriend who railed against what he called “clinginess” and “codependence.” She thought about texting him, didn’t, and instead brushed her teeth, washed her face, and got ready for bed.