Chapter 4: Give it your best shot!

Almost an hour had passed since Queen Beatrice had made her proposal and no word had yet come from the colonel. The Queen was beginning to get worried.

“Mother, can you please sit down before you wear a hole in the carpets,” Nikolai said lazily, while he flip through his phone. One of his friends had sent him a video of the Games from the night before, one he had placed heavy bets on, and he was idly trying to find it in all his messages. “Either she says no and we go home, or she says yes, and I have to figure out a way to tolerate her for the next coming years or so. I suppose I can give her a bunch of children to keep her so busy she won’t have time to run that mouth at me. It’s not anything to worry yourself about, though.”

Beatrice stopped pacing and turned on her eldest son. “Not worry myself? Niko, you do understand that this marriage could help bring about the end of a war that’s been going on for over a hundred and fifty years? A war that has killed millions of people?”

Nikolai put down his phone and turned his attention on his mother, “Of course I do, and I’m not downplaying its importance. I’ve lost plenty of good men myself. But you can’t make it happen, mother and neither can I. The little colonel struck me as a very stubborn woman. She'll not give in just like that.”

“Then you have to go talk to her.”

Nikolai whipped up his head. It's surprising he didn't get a whiplash. “Talk to her? The little shit tried to hit me! Multiple times! She ’s very stubborn and insolent and…”

“So she’s a bit fiery—she’s quite good-looking too. You did notice that, I presume?”

“You always told me and my brothers that ‘pretty is as pretty does.’ Have you changed your mind about all your old sayings or just that one?”

“Oh, so now you want to listen to what I tried to teach you while you were growing up?” Beatrice folded her fair slightly  muscled arms across her small chest and glared at him. “Get up off that couch and go talk to her and stop being insolent. Remind your young woman of what’s at stake here. Reassure her. Damn it, Niko, use a little of that charm I know you have and help me to make this work.” Beatrice walked over and sat beside him. “I knew you were interested in her when you first saw her—before the two of you started acting silly with each other.”

“Acting silly? I was defending you. And she hit me! Besides she’s not mine!”

“She only hit you after you started it. Now be the bigger person and go talk to her.”

Nikolai sighed, realizing he had little choice in the matter. The Queen had once tried to rescue a little creature and make it her pet. The creature was called a kumu, and it was a rodent for them. Beatrice wasn’t aware of that fact, because it's the very first time she had seen such a creature. She said it reminded her of some of the pets she used to have back home, except for its prominent front teeth.

Beatrice had given the thing a big, juicy bone from the kitchens, and it ran under the bed with it and growled menacingly at anyone who tried to come near it. No one had the heart to tell Beatrice what the creature really was, and that it carried diseases and would quite literally take her hand off if she tried to pet it when it had food. His father had it captured and taken away by the servants and he told Beatrice it ran away. Just like that kumu with its bone, Beatrice would never let this thing go without an ugly fight.

Nikolai got to his feet with a put-upon sigh and kissed his mother's cheek. “All right, I’ll go talk to her, but I doubt it will do any good. She struck me as an extremely stubborn little human.”

“Then you be stubborn right back. I know you can convince her if you work at it, sweetheart. Just try. And whatever you do, don’t fight with her anymore.”

Nikolai rolled his eyes and nodded before heading out to the colonel’s room on the next floor down from their rooms. His mother had given him directions to the colonel’s room, and how he found out these things, Nikolai didn’t even want to know. The corridors were thankfully pretty deserted at this time of the day, so he didn’t meet anyone who might have questioned where he was going.

He rapped confidently on the door and waited for it to open. He planned on giving this thing one more shot and if the woman was still acting stubborn and ill-tempered, he was going back to his own rooms and begin making preparations to leave. His mother would just have to understand. It was the principle of the thing after all. Then the door opened and the colonel stood there looking up at him.

How could he have forgotten how beautiful the little colonel was, with her pale, perfect skin and black, curly hair? And those lips… Her body was slightly muscled but curvaceous in the right places. And she looked so amazing Nikolai can feel his mouth water.

She had taken off the ugly red Alliance uniform and was wearing a pair of short shorts, her bare legs out into the open. And a shirt that was so tight it looked like a second skin. Nikolai wanted to run his hands over her bountiful breast and flat stomach. If they went through with this marriage, this woman would be his. And her body would be all his and everyone he knew would be envious of the beauty and strength under his command. Nikolai felt himself leaning forward slightly, inhaling her scent, which was sweet and fresh. Nikolai wanted to nip at her neck and suck up the blood to mark her. He wanted to cover her in those marks to show everyone exactly who owned her. Damn it, he wanted to fill her up with his cum until she's pregnant with their babe.

Then the woman opened her pretty mouth and spoiled everything. “What are you doing here? I told your… mother… I wasn’t interested in her proposition.”

Nikolai simply gazed back at her. “Yes, but my mother didn’t think you could be so stupid. I thought you could, but I was willing to give you a chance to prove me wrong.”

The colonel glared at him and tried to slam the door in his face. Nikolai caught the edge of it with his hand and easily forced it open, slamming it back against the wall as the dark-haired human jumped back out of the way.

“How dare you?” The colonel turned to walk away, and Nikolai grabbed her shoulder to spin her around. She bared her teeth at him. “Take your damn hand off me. You have a bad habit of grabbing people, don’t you?”

“I have several bad habits—would you like me to tell you about them? Or maybe I

should just show you.”

The human shrugged his arm away and backed up a few steps. “You don’t intimidate me, you know.”

“Are you sure?” Nikolai said, walking slowly toward her. “Then why are you backing

away?”

“I’m not going to marry you and be some kind of brood mare for your-your spawn. I wouldn’t even know how to raise children. It’s ridiculous!”

“Our doctors would give you injections to help you.”

“What?’

“Injections to give you—for want of a better word—maternal instincts. You’d need those to nurture the babies. And the injections would help you grow the necessary body parts to have werewolf children.”

The colonel narrowed her eyes with contempt. “Like I’d let your quack doctors inject anything into me!”

Nikolai tilted his head. “What is this quack? They’re just regular doctors.”

“What?” The colonel shouted in exasperation and scrunched up her little nose. Nikolai  eaned down to kiss it, and laughed as the colonel tried to punch him. He caught her fist in his hand.

“Settle down. Why do you always get so excited?”

The colonel looked confused. “W-why? What do you mean why? Because you come in here and ….you make me so…" she scowled at him. “I don’t like werewolves.”

“That must make it difficult for you. As my mother choose you as your sister's replacement to marry me.”

She just glared at him.

“And you’re not willing to even try? Even though the fate of a lot of people is at stake?”

The colonel sputtered and then groaned, her shoulders slumping. “No—I mean, I don’t know!” she said, miserably. “I don’t know what to do. How can I just agree to this-this marriage with a Werewolf? And even worse, with a sworn enemy?” She turned and began to pace back and forth distractedly in front of Nikolai. “But if I don’t, then the treaty won’t be signed, and the war will go on, and people will die.” She turned and raised her hands to her head, literally pulling at her hair. “And if I do, it means altering my body! Living my entire life on Tygeria. How can I? How could anyone expect me to do this? Oh God, I don’t know what to do!”

Nikolai immediately took pity on her and took her gently in his arms, stopping her from pulling at her poor hair. “Calm yourself. Come and sit down and talk to me.” She shook her head, but she allowed Nikolai to steer her gently toward a sofa along the wall. Nikolai pushed her down and then sat beside her.

“We’re in this thing together, you know. I’m being asked to make the same sacrifice you are. Well, not exactly the same, of course. But I am being asked to marry a woman who is my sworn enemy.”

The colonel whipped her head up to glare at him. “Really? I couldn't tell...”

Nikolai raised his eyebrows. “What does that mean?That I have no feelings? No preferences?”

The colonel’s pretty brown eyes got a look of confusion in them. “No. No, it just means…Werewolves take humans as prisoners and make them love slaves. Right? You all prefer it like that.”

“We do, yes. Some of us wanted humans as slaves not lovers  but it doesn't mean that every werewolf were like that,” Nikolai replied, watching the colonel’s face change as she heard what she must have thought was an insult.

“No,” Nikolai said. “Don’t. Stop thinking like that—I didn’t mean you aren’t attractive. You’re very attractive. You’re beautiful, as a matter of fact. But I do have feelings, little Colonel. And I would prefer it if the woman that I was about to marry didn’t look as if she were about to be executed.”

“I-I’m sorry,” the colonel said, her cheeks turning pink. “I didn’t mean…hell, I don’t

know what I meant. I’m so confused by all this.” She sighed. “I want to do the right thing, but what if I can’t…do it? What if I can’t get past the idea that you’re a Werewolf? Not to mention the enemy? And modifying my body to-to have werewolf children! It’s too much to ask. I’ve been fighting against you for all of my adult life. Your people have killed my friends, my fellow soldiers.”

“As yours have killed mine. But that’s what the treaty is about—it's all about stopping the slaughter, to end this interminably long war and have peace again. It would be pretty symbolic, wouldn’t it? If two warriors from opposite sides of the conflict made peace and ended their differences so dramatically? By making love instead of war? So many people are depending on us to do this—how can we say no?”

The colonel nodded her head slowly. “I know you’re right. I know it. But what if…if I can’t let you…make love to me?” She looked up at Nikolai. “Could you live with that?”

“No,” Nikolai said gently. “I’m sorry. But you and I are both too young to doom ourselves to a life like that. We would both have to try this—give it a real chance to work. If, after a time, say a year, if it didn’t work out between us, I could go to my father, the king, and tell him we needed a quiet divorce.”

The colonel’s eyes widened. “And you would let me do that? Get a divorce, I mean?”

“Yes, of course, if you wanted it. Or if I did. But can you at least try, Colonel? Can you—what is the expression you humans use—give it your best shot?”

Several long seconds passed when Nikolai began to think the colonel wouldn’t even answer him. Then finally, she sighed and nodded. “I-I guess I have to, don’t I?” she said, her lovely eyes wide in her small face. “Okay,” she said with a heavy sigh. “I’ll try.”

Nikolai stood up and the colonel held out a hand to him. Nikolai looked down at it for a

moment and then took it, the colonel’s fingers were warm and strong in Nikolai's hand.

“Then, let’s seal our bargain with a kiss. It’s not a practice I enjoy, but I understand that humans like it.” Without another word, he reached out and clasped the back of the little colonel’s neck with his free hand and pulled her forward into his arms.

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