It took a little over an hour to make it back to their ship, and Akari spent all of that time sitting as close to Nikolai as she could.After an hour of torturing Winters and Guzman they finally told them where they had kept the survivors. Thankfully other than the young soldier who was murdered in cold blood everyone else were spared. Looking at the man she's so worried about, she started touching him all over and couldn’t seem to stop, just to reassure herself he was really there. This whole thing had been a nightmare from start to finish, and she needed to get Nikolai and the others back home as soon as she could.As soon as they got back to the ship, all of the men they had rescued, including Nikolai, were thoroughly checked out by the physician that Akari had insisted be brought along with them, not knowing what they’d find on their search. “I don’t know what you’re doing here like this, but I thank the gods for it,” Nikolai said, nuzzling Akari's neck. “When we got closer to t
The knocking on the door of his private quarters had been soft and respectful, but it was getting annoying. Prince Nikolai, who couldn’t slept at all, opened one eye and glared at the time display on the wall. When he saw how early it is he couldn’t help but silently curse his fate.It was way too early for any of his servants to be disturbing him unless there was some dire emergency. And since somebody was bothering him after so little sleep, there had damn well better be. This house provided for them by the Humans were surprisingly divided into two parts—a business/military base of operations and an adjacent luxury hotel for visiting guests and dignitaries. Prince Nikolai and his faction had been assigned an entire floor for the duration of their stay, so Nikolai figured whoever was knocking was one of his own people. The guards would surely have stopped anyone else. “Enter!” he said, as he sat up and leaned back against the headboard of his bed.“Enter, I said! For the gods’ sa
Akari Kingston stared sullenly out the huge windows in her father’s office. She was trying so hard to hold on to the rags of her temper as she watched the people in the room behind her, or rather, their reflections in the window glass. It was probably rude to keep her back to these important visitors, but it would have been far more impolite for her to turn and let them see the utter fury on her face. For just under an hour her father, the President of the United Human Federation, had been trying unsuccessfully to apologize and salvage some of the important treaties they’d been about to negotiate until Allison pulled this stunt and ran away. The truth is, Akari had been honestly shocked —she’d known she was having second thoughts, but these diplomatic marriages of state were still quite common especially if your part of the High Status. She knew that. And once she learned she’d be a princess and eventually queen, she had agreed to go through with it, damn it. If she’d had cold feet
Nikolai had to be hearing things—his mother couldn’t have just said what he thought she’d said. He growled out, “No fucking way,” at the exact moment the Federation colonel cried out, “Oh, hell no!” Nikolai glared at her, only to find a pair of big brown eyes scowling right back at him. Nikolai growled again and showed his teeth for good measure. The growl of a Werewolf when his blood was high was a truly frightening thing. It was low and guttural and far from a sound any human could make. He saw the colonel’s eyes widen with alarm and fear as she took a hasty step backward. Good. She needed to remember who she was dealing with. Obviously, his mother had gone crazy thinking he could ever enter into a marriage contract with a bitchy Federation colonel, no matter how good-looking she was. It was ridiculous. Ludicrous. Impossible! He’d noticed the woman when they first came in, of course, distracting himself from the boring talks by admiring the way the woman’s round, perky ass filled
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?” Nik
Akari saw the prince’s head coming toward her and was suddenly froze as a bird with a cobra coming at it. Except this was no cobra—not by a long shot. This was a large, handsome—and she don’t want to admit it but it's true anyways —sexy as fuck Werewolf male, bending his head toward hers, intending to kiss her. And Akari was doing absolutely nothing to stop it from happening. The prince lowered his face to Akari's and she felt his soft lips brush over hers, once, then again, as if warning her what was about to happen and giving her a chance to change her mind. When she made no effort to move away, the hand on the back of her neck tightened, and the prince crushed his lips down on Akari's. Those moist, lush lips moved over hers and ground into them with barely restrained passion. Akari put her hands up to the prince’s jacket and curled her small long fingers into the lapels. She shoved the prince a little but then held tight to his jacket and stared up into his face. The green eyes
Word finally came from President Connelly Kingston that the wedding would take place at 4 in the afternoon. The preparations, which had already been made for that day and time, albeit with Allison Kingston in mind, would proceed as planned. Flowers were no longer being used, but new wedding programs were being hastily printed to reflect all changes, and it would be a most formal, but low-key affair. That’s what they told Nikolai anyway. The reality was turning out to be far different. Nikolai hated ceremonies of any kind, having sat through too many of them growing up. He fidgeted nervously as he waited for his cue from the wedding planner to go out and wait at the altar for his soon-to-be consort. These human customs were silly and unnecessary, he privately thought, and there was nothing really comparable to it on their own culture. Sometimes guests were invited to see the ceremony, but there were no silly decorations. A part of Nikolai wished he could chuck the whole thing and go
The ceremony was then apparently over, except for one more thing. The magistrate closed her book and nodded at Nikolai. “You may kiss your wife.” Apparently, no one had informed the elderly magistrate that this was a marriage of diplomacy. Nikolai couldn’t resist turning to her, especially when he heard the little gasp the colonel—no, her name was Akari.Very smoothly, while ignoring the raised eyebrows and the slight tug of resistance, he took Akari in his arms and pulled her tight against his body. He dipped her backward so that she was draped precariously over Nikolai's arm, with her feet almost off the floor. So she had no choice but to throw her arms around Nikolai's neck or wind up on the floor in an ignominious heap. Nikolai could hear the slight hum of the guests’ communicators as they pulled them out to record the moment for posterity. He smiled down at his colonel who had parted her lips to protest and buried his tongue inside her mouth, sweeping it around and tasting her