“In there,” Governor Kruck continued, explaining the paperwork, “Are the details of your new personal security team.”He heaved a huge sigh. “Rather extravagant for a reporter, but there it is.”He’d muttered this, but not too quietly for Elena to hear. Charles clearly heard as well because a fresh frown settled on his face.“Anyway,” Governor Kruck pressed on, his tone overbright and sticky sweet, “having you settled in the city of Lupinton will allow us to protect you like the asset you are.”I scowled at this barely veiled disrespect. How could he? Suddenly, facing him directly wasn’t the trouble I thought it might be. I straightened my back and glared at him with disapproval.What right did he have to talk about me like one might discuss a slug? If anyone was slimy, it was him. Yet, I managed to treat him with basic decency.“No,” Charles clipped across him.“No?” Governor Kruck echoed.“No,” Charles repeated more firmly.Governor Kruck shook his head. “Excuse me? I must have misu
“These four men are staying with us all the time? Don’t they have wives?” I asked, suddenly feeling naive as the words left my mouth.Governor Kruck gave me a patronizing smile. “Our agents are dedicated to no one but the state. This means that they can give their full attention to an assignment like babysit- uh, guarding you two.”“Oh,” I said, then clamped my mouth shut. What else was I supposed to say?An awkward silence stretched through the room, pulling tight and making me squirm. I really felt like I needed to fill the silence but had no idea what to fill it with. I glanced at Charles, who uncharacteristically looked as lost as I felt. Evidently, even he didn’t know what to say to the news that we were going to be living with four burly, no-nonsense security wolves.Governor Kruck clapped his hands together, almost gleefully. “Oh, good. If there are no complaints, comments, or what you feel are witty retorts, that will make this go so much faster. I don’t know about you two, bu
I tried not to gape like a complete hick, but the apartment that spread out inside that door was the most amazing, plush apartment I had ever seen. Charles’s place back in Lustrum had been plenty sleek, but this put his place to shame.A wall of windows let in enormous quantities of natural light, which illuminated an apartment decked out in natural everything. Soft touches of bamboo, slate, and natural textiles on the furnishings gave the place a comfortable and rather spa-like feel.“Wow,” I breathed under my breath.Charles marched inside and immediately started poking around everywhere. I wasn’t sure what he was looking for or if he was just inspecting it to see if it met his standards. This apartment certainly met with mine. But, like not wanting to gape, I didn’t want to let on how much I really liked the place. It was too bad such an amazing apartment had come from such a horrible encounter.But even memories of the governor couldn’t spoil it for long. Before I could stop mysel
After a moment of awkward silence, one of our guards spoke up. He had dark hair, very dark brown eyes, and a nose that looked like it had been broken more than once during training. He wafted the scent of cumin each time he moved. Admittedly, this didn’t help my hunger.“I’m Agent Malik,” he said. “Excuse us. Being assigned to you has been both an easy and a difficult assignment all in one. It’s not at all what most of us were expecting to be doing with our time. We do know the restaurants around here pretty well. So if you would be kind enough to tell us what type of food you like to eat, we can probably match you up with something.”I glanced at Charles. “I don’t know about you, but I really have a craving for Thai food.”He smacked his lips appreciatively. “I could go for some Pad Thai tonight.”“Ooo, or Tom Kha soup,” I said.“Green papaya salad.” He smacked his lips. “The hotter, the better.”I turned back to Agent Malik. “There you have it,” I said. “Do you know a good Thai plac
I woke to Charles snuggled around my back. He nuzzled the bare skin on the back of my neck, his hand brushing along my thigh. So that’s how it was going to be this morning?A smile spread across my face, and I nestled back into his chest, pressing my hips to his. He pushed along my curves, already stiff. His hand dipped between my legs, and they parted willingly. Gentle fingers shifted aside the silky fabric of my panties, stroking the edges of my folds, coaxing my body into arousal.I twisted so I could kiss along his bicep and shoulder. He nudged me back to face away from him.“Close your eyes and let me please you for a bit,” he whispered.Well, one should obey the alpha, right? I did as he asked, pleasantly surprised to find my other senses heightened with my sight gone.Each touch of his lips brushed across the skin of my neck like flutters from a butterfly. His fingers slowly worked their way deeper, sliding along on my own wetness. This started an ache within me. My body wanted
On the night that closed our second week at our new home, Charles and I sat around the table while Agents Tang and Woolworth watched us.Charles slapped his hands down on the table. “I can’t take this anymore.” He looked between Agents Tang and Woolworth. “Is there any way that we can go back to Lustrum just for the day so that I can take care of business in person for a change? It would be nice to see my employees.”The two agents shook their heads as if tied to a string, moving the two of them as one. “The last-minute logistics are too complex,” Agent Woolworth said.“Find,” Charles gritted through his teeth. Suddenly, his expression shifted, and he focused on me.“You know what?” he said. “I think we should go out, and we should have a date.”He pointed directly at Woolworth and Tang. “You’ve got two choices. Either you guys stay far enough back, like in another vehicle following us, so that Elena and I can have a real day together. ‘Cause we’ve been living like a sad, creepy littl
When we reached the bathroom, I ducked inside and closed myself inside one of the cubicles. Now what?I waited there, going ahead and using the toilet since I was already inside a stall. The water had barely gone down after flushing when someone knocked on the cubicle. I frowned.“Occupied,” I said.“Not for long,” Charles whispered.I threw open the door with a gasp and a smile. “How did you get in here?” I asked.Charles shook his head. “No time.”He drew me into the main area of the bathroom, then squeezed the two of us inside what I thought was a closet just as the exterior door opened, and Agent Woolworth called inside.“Are you just about done before?”I couldn’t figure out what Charles was doing. He opened a vent near the floor and pointed me inside. I climbed down the access stairs.“Are we seriously going into the sewer?” I whispered.He shook his head and closed the grate behind us. Above us, the sound of a metal door clanking open and then shouts echoed.“Hurry,” he whisper
“Take off your clothes,” Charles ordered.I started to yank my clothing off, but he shook his head with a little growl.“Nice and slow. I want a show.”I carefully slid my skirt down, pinching my fingers inside the waist and sliding it along my thighs. There wasn’t a ton of room in there, but he managed to press himself back far enough so that I had room to give him a show.I slowly unbuttoned my blouse and slipped that off, as well. I reached for my bra, but Charles shook his head again. He held out one of the dresses, a skimpy little thing that was just barely acceptable as a cocktail dress and definitely not appropriate for some locations.“Put this on.”“But I thought you wanted—”He held a finger to his lips, shaking his head, his eyes glinting.I slipped the dress on over my head and took a look at myself in the mirror. I looked killer.While I was admiring the front view, he stepped up behind me, sliding his hands from my breasts all the way down the front of me.“You look amazing
For one moment after I arrived in the garden, the sun blinded me, and then my eyes cleared. Before me spread an amazing event: the wedding of our country's princess.It still hadn't fully sunken that I was that princess.The guests sat in orderly rows of brilliantly white chairs festooned in lovely shades of blue and lavender. I had chosen them because they most reminded me of the moon, and I wanted to honor the goddess at this event, as well. Without her, I would not only not have been at this wedding, but I wouldn't have been alive. She had done so much for me. The least I could do was throw a little recognition her way.I clutched the bouquet in my hand, and Theo hooked his arm through my elbow. “Are you ready?” he asked.“I'm ready.”We took a step toward the altar on the red carpet spread out in front of me, and the music swelled. The quartet played a beautiful melody full of promise and love.I didn't see the people looking at me, specifically, only that all eyes were on me. My
I signed and kept my head tipped back, inviting him to kiss my neck. Charles obliged, working himself inside me with the magic he always seemed to conjure up, driving my excitement higher. My heels fumbled for a place to rest, and finally, I settled for wrapping my legs around him, gripping his hips with my thighs and locking us together.Charles groaned and pulled us as tightly together as possible. And I wouldn't let him go. This left his movements small but the pleasure intense.His rubbing quickly brought me to orgasm, and I tried not to make too much noise and call attention to what we were doing. I really didn't want to be held in contempt for defiling the judge's bench or some such.A moment later, Charles got his release. He stepped back and tided himself, allowing me to do the same.“Now,” he asked with a grin, “Are you ready to go outside and face your adoring public, my princess?”“As long as you're by my side, I can face anything,” I agreed, hopping off the judge's bench.
“Of course,” Queen Yarrow said, “details like training successors aren't left to chance. The king and I already had arrangements made for a royal tutor, assuming that I would get pregnant one day. I'll connect you both with him. Hopefully, you can get started right away.”“So?” I asked the judge. How exactly does this work? What do you mean? She asked, looking quizzically at me. “I mean, what do I do with myself? Where do I go from here? When does all of this happen now?”She said, “The king will be escorted out of Orlune. They're probably already helping him pack. From there, he'll be on the next flight off the vampire kingdom. You get to move straight into the castle if you wish. It's essentially your house now.”“There's no, there's no legal paperwork or anything like that?” I babbled. “It just seems so abrupt.”The judge grinned. “I'll have all of that taken care of taken care of for you. So you don't have to worry about it, your majesty.”“Come, my dear,” Queen Yarrow said, putti
By now, the king’s lawyer had a hand on his shoulder, whispering furiously in his ear. The king gripped the arms of his chair so hard his knuckles were white. And if he could have turned people to stone with a look like a gorgon, the judge and I would already be statues.Still, the judge spoke as if unafraid. “The former king will serve out his sentence off the shifter continent, in the vampire countries,” she announced.A murmur went up from everyone in the gallery at that, but the judge held up her hands. “I chose that location specifically. It has been a standing tradition for generations upon generations that vampires and werewolves do not get involved in one another's politics.”“I would imagine he will find it very difficult to sway anyone into doing his dirty work for him in a country that holds itself neutral. Thereby providing anyone in Orlune that the king feels has wronged him in the safest position that I am able to leave them in.”Further murmurs rose up from the crowd, a
I hadn't even caught my breath when Charles scooped me up in the hardest hug I'd ever gotten from him. It was so hard that it almost drove the remaining air from my lungs.The rest of that morning flew by as Charles and Gwen helped me to avoid questions I couldn't answer from the press while Theo, David, and the other four guards pushed a path through the paparazzi so we could navigate our way back to the safehouse.We decided it was better to stay there than go back to our apartment, yet, at least until we made sure that any of the king's remaining supporters were under control.Gwen wore a mysterious smile on her face for the rest of that night and into the following morning. But I couldn't get her to confess to what she was up to. We'd barely finished breakfast when someone knocked on the door.Gwen hurried to answer it and admitted two people who took my breath away. One of them was Cathy!Since I didn't know the other, I ran straight to Cathy, hugging her as tightly as I could. T
It took me a long time to fall asleep that night, plagued both by worry and growing apprehension over how the next day was going to play out. It could end up being the longest, most brutal day of my life, if I had to spend it waiting and wondering what the jury was going to decide.Worse, what if they took weeks? Months? I’d go crazy before I found myself free from this mess.When we woke in the morning, Charles distracted me by teasing me in every possible way before bringing me to yet another overwhelmingly intense orgasm. I would never have thought that pleasure and pain could be such close neighbors, but he managed. However Charles and I were connecting in bed right now, it was certainly coming very close to more than I could handle.Theo must have told the chef what my favorite foods were because when Charles and I left the bedroom, breakfast was waiting for us. And it was one of my favorites. Belgian waffles with lots of fresh strawberries and whipped cream.I sat down and ate r
I kissed Charles, and he pulled back, eyeing me. “Should we be careful or anything?” he asked. “You know, for the baby.”I shrugged. “It's not like I've been pregnant before, but I would guess not. The doctor didn't say anything about that.”“And you haven't even searched things like that online yet?”I shook my head. “How could I? I've been so busy, not to mention the fact that I'm trying to keep certain people from finding out.”“Then we'll go slow and be careful,” he said.His kisses came soft and gentle, and his caresses all over my body were the same. Keeping secrets from him had been a bad idea. Now that they were out in the open, just these small touches made the connection between us feel so much more real as if I had closed some invisible distance between the two of us.This drove me to smash our lips together, desperately seeking the rest of the connection that I hadn't even realized I'd been missing.He chuckled and pushed me back. “What happened to taking it easy?” he teas
All of a sudden, a whisper of a breeze rippled through the courtroom and around my head, whispering reassurance in my ear. This breeze wrapped itself around me and then swirled out into the courtroom, where it produced an answering wind of murmuring whispers. Suddenly, everyone was shaking their heads, turning toward one another. Members of the jury shook their heads as if trying to clear them.Again, I heard a whisper in my ear, and I recognized the voice of the moon goddess. “Don't fear,” was all she said. And then her presence was gone. But the entire courtroom, everybody in the gallery, the jury, the judge, the lawyers, and even the king had all relaxed.The judge brought her gavel down and dismissed the jury to go deliberate. But this time, I wasn't frightened. The goddess had never steered me wrong yet. And she told me not to fear, that I needed to trust her and the fate surrounding her and me.I scurried out of the witness stand and back to my spot beside Mr. Wilcox. “What was
When I exited the bathroom, the importance of the day hit me in full measure. Today I was going to court. What and God's name was I supposed to wear?Someone knocked on the door, and I wrapped my towel tighter. “In a few minutes,” I called.“Elena?” I recognized Gwen's voice. “I brought you a suit for today. May I come in?”“Yes,” I said.She opened the door and entered the bedroom.“I'm just fresh out of the shower.” I bit my lip, feeling foolish. As if she couldn't gather that by my wet hair. But I seem to need something to fill the silence.She held up a garment bag. “You'll want to look your best today,” she said.I let Gwen dress me, taking comfort in the fact that she knew her way around important functions as a luna. When she finished, she grabbed my face and gave my forehead a kiss.“Do exactly what the lawyers, Charles, and I tell you to,” she said. “I don't want you to leave my son a widower before he's even officially married.”I patted her hands, which still rested on my c