The Alpha King’s Runaway Mate .Chapter 68: Can we?.King Mattel visits Regina in the morning, after she has awakened, to reinstate the usual system of guards around the palace and her room both.When he returns, feeling already as though he’s been gone for far too long - despite it having only been a few hours - he finds Regina sitting on the floor of the room, dressed and wide awake.The girl is laughing.The curtains are wide open and a gentle breeze filters in, making Regina’s hair dance with the motions of the wind; her skin is awash in a warm glow, kissed by the light, eyes bright and dazzling as her laughter chimes like a song of bells in the room.Mattel can see sunbeams, blindingly bright, in the flush of delight on Regina’s cheeks, the curve of her smiling eyes. She’s dressed in a ruffled, balloon-sleeved chiffon blouse of daisy yellow, a lively, pretty brow tied at her neck; the sleeves, too, sway in the cool morning air.She’s resplendent.Dressed in the color of the su
The Alpha King’s Runaway Mate .Chapter 69: leaving again? .The Eastern Plains envoys arrive in a grand, stately procession, befitting of the honored and revered name of the great bloodline of their namesake. That goes to say, it is a much, much larger party that arrives that afternoon, than the paltry three carriages that had accompanied Regina on her trip back here.The horses are bedecked in the golden crest of their house, glimmering in the late sun, pulling a series of nearly ten carriages with them. Flanking each stately carriage is a small cluster of guards, they, too, bearing the noble insignia of the Eastern Kingdom, their swords gleaming proudly with every trotted step. And in the center of the entire group, a massive, portly carriage catches the eye - of polished white and gilded in gold, accented with royal burgundy curtains and golden tassels; all around the top is a series of pointed, golden fixtures, creating an appearance not unlike a crown.As the party nears the
The Alpha King’s Runaway Mate.Chapter 70: ask me to stay .“We weren’t going to leave you here,” Jana says. Her voice grows dark and abhorrent on the word here, as though she were saying- “With that, with him.”Regina grows rigid.Damien’s eyes watch her carefully, as Regina extricates herself from Jana’s hug, expression scrunched up into a frown. “Don’t say that,” She says.“Don’t say what?”“Don’t- talk about him like that,” Regina hunches her shoulders, crossing her arms uncomfortably. “Don’t use that tone when talking about him.”Jana stares at her. “Don’t talk about who like that? Him?”Regina stiffens even more. “Yes,” She says sharply. “He’s- Mattel isn’t-”“Mattel?”Regina curls back, stung by the sheer incredulousness in Jana’s voice. Damien steps in. “Regina,” he says patiently. “Tell us what’s going on in your mind.”For an individual whose prodigious telepathic abilities could present to him, at a moment’s notice, all the inner thoughts and secrets of any mortal man, D
The Alpha King’s Runaway Mate .Chapter 71: denying feelings? .So, with tears burning along her lashes, anxiety swimming in her stomach and making her fingers tremble, Regina says (pleads) again, “Ask me to stay.”Mattel looks at her, this darling, wonderful girl, who glows with sunbeams and starlights and illuminates the room she stands in, as if she carries the light with her wherever she goes. As if her presence - luminous and incandescent - is enough to bring a brilliant, dazzling light to every dark corner, even when there’s something as dark as Mattel present. At his little dragonheart.Impossibly, stupidly, beautifully brave.Mattel won’t (can’t) ask her to stay, here, in the shadowy depths of the dark where vile things like Mattel belong.Regina belongs in the light; she deserves to bask in the effervescent sunlight, like the vivacious, rosy-cheeked miracle that she is. (Mattel can already feel that treacherous beast inside of him, growing greedier and hungrier; fears tha
The Alpha King’s Runaway Mate .Chapter 72: is it too late? .Regina’s lips part in wordless shock.Damien shrugs. “Perhaps it is foolishness,” considering just how much a man like crown Prince Damien might have to lose. “But what is love, if not tempered with some uncertainty? It is not trust, otherwise.”For Damien - who had been Gifted with the greatest telepathic abilities recorded in history, whose prodigious talents had allowed him to expertly and effortlessly assess the threat behind every smile and every kind word - his brand of love, is trust.The blind, admittedly potentially catastrophic, kind of trust, that comes with believing in a person without ascertaining their thoughts even when he can.For Damien, this has been his greatest declaration of love possible.Regina stares, lost and uncomprehending. “But that- I...I never knew.”Damien’s smile shines like diamonds, the kind of happiness that only Jana has ever been able to place on his mild expressions. “So,” he laughs.
The Alpha King’s Runaway Mate .Chapter 73: a reconciliation, maybe ? .Regina freezes. And, as though - inexplicably - she has been jolted with more life than she’d demonstrated the entire day, she scrambles to peer out the windows with wide eyes.Jana’s eyes fly to Damien’s, before a mutinous, cold rage fills her gaze. Her jaw clenches. She snatches the sword at her side.Princess Jana, blue-blooded noble as she may be, is a talented swordsman whose skills have been hailed as second to none in their country; had she not be married to such a wealthy and illustrious family, she would have had a marked and lauded career in the military, no doubt.“Stay inside,” Jana commands, clicking the hilt of her sword out of its scabbard with an expert flick of her thumb. Fury casts her beautiful features in a strange allure, her broad shoulders moving to cover the doorway as his hand reaches out to swing it open.“Wait, no!” Regina throws herself at the princess’s arm - the one clutching the
The Alpha King’s Runaway Mate .Chapter 74: discourtesy.“It really is very discourteous to be so late, you know,” Regina sniffs, tears steadily trickling down her cheeks.“My most heartfelt apologies,” Mattel says, and she snorts.“And what were you going to do, if you hadn’t made it in time?” Regina digs her chin into Mattel’s shoulder like a particularly petulant huff. “If you had let me go, and I had made it all the way back to the Heartlands, with an entire kingdom in between us; if you had let me go, and I had left?” Mattel’s smile is somehow both tranquil and calamitous at the same time; like the gaze of a man who, incomprehensibly, is calmly prepared to tear entire kingdoms asunder in his path. It’s a magnitude of affection Regina has never been privy to, before, and one she doesn’t quite understand, nor know how to receive.“Something as trivial as time and space, are not sufficient deterrents,” Mattel murmurs, and Regina feels her eyes prickle once more. “I would have co
The Alpha King’s Runaway Mate .Chapter 75: boorish unpleasant man .“And? So you are going to stay here?” Jana leans forward from his seat at the table, voice incredulous.When the grand royal procession had promptly returned, right back to the gates of Mattel’s castle, the maids had come shuffling out in confusion. Before Jana even had a chance to protest, Mattel had led the head maid aside, and quietly informed her that Regina would, in fact, be staying and not go along with Jana and Damien. In the Western Plains, and the arranged betrothal as planned.To say that the people around had been exuberant, would be an understatement.An alliance forged on mutual needs is satisfactory, but just barely; in the uncertainty of wartime, shaky political alliances will not do. The permanent, immutable allegiance forged by a marriage, is infinitely preferable to that predicated by something as trivial as contemporaneous mutual need.By the time Jana had managed to disboard the carriage, mo
The Alpha King’s Runaway Mate . Chapter 98: Announcements . “We promised we’d do it together. I may have still been out of it, but I kept my promise. She’s just been ‘baby,’ her entire life so far.”Mattel laughs as he kisses her again. “Oh, Regina,” he breathes, then he looks down, observing her body, the way they’re able to be pressed close like this for the first time in months. “I can hold you close again now. No obstructions.”Regina grins, looking like she wants to chastise Mattel for the smirk on his face, but a throat clears. She turns to find Jana and Lionel staring at them, the omega smirking knowingly--and oh, there’s another conversation they have to have now. No one but Mattel knows that Jana is pregnant. There’s something to look forward to. “Do I get a hello?” Jana asks, and Regina throws her arms around Jana, breathing in her friend’s sweet scent as Mattel pulls Lionel into an embrace, the two alphas holding tight to one another even as Mattel’s eyes never leav
The Alpha King’s Runaway Mate .Chapter 97: Not without you .The moment her heat is over, Regina rolls out of bed and tells the others to get ready. Apprehensive eyes look back at her, but she knows it’s time. Her body feels stronger than ever, her mind is sharp, and they’ve involved just enough people in the lower town in their plan that they’ve got the numbers to pull off an attack. At least enough to sneak into the dungeons and free their military.Despite their hesitance, Damian and the others get the horses prepared and weapons ready. Hal even prepares a sling for himself--he’ll be the one watching Regina’s baby while they are fighting.She hopes beyond all hope that today is a success, that she’ll get her family back together and they’ll never be separated again. Today, she will reunite her baby with her father, she will, and from here on out, they’ll only know peace.Still, her fingers shake as she dresses herself, doing up the laces of her leather waist coat, and looking
The Alpha King’s Runaway Mate .Chapter 96: Accidentally .When she wakes, Regina is feverish and covered in sweat. The moment she comes to awareness, she knows what’s happening, knows that her body has finally returned to normal, but it brings about a feeling of great sadness.She can’t fight when she’s in heat. She can’t do much of anything. A soft groan parts her lips as she throws her blankets back, her entire body growing hot--too hot.“F-Fuck,” She breathes, all the aches and pains in her body not enough to distract her from the tears that spring to her eyes. Six weeks have already passed since she left Mattel behind, and this heat will just put her back another several days if not another week entirely. “Shit.”From her little makeshift crib at her bedside, her baby whimpers as she comes awake. She wonders if she can scent her distress, her curiosity spiking as ehe rolls off of the bed to attend to her, lifting her into her arms. “Hey, my love, I’m so sorry,” She whispers, h
The Alpha King’s Runaway Mate .Chapter 95: Side by Side .In the days after Imari discovers Jana’s pregnancy, things become difficult for them. Jana is now chained to the all, and after several sleepless nights, the poor omega managing to find a comfortable position by some miracle.Mattel tries to help her out, but there’s only so much he can do when there’s iron digging into his skin as well. He makes a mental note to completely get rid of the dungeons when this is over, when he and Regina have defeated the evil that’s taken over their kingdom.God, he misses Regina. He misses his baby. His family. Thanks to their situation, he’s only had a few minutes with his daughter and it’s killing him. A part of him is starting to fear that by the time he sees her again, his child will be a woman, and he and Regina will both be old and gray. And that’s if he sees her again.Today, Imari had summoned him and Jana in for a meeting, and they’d managed to buy themselves some time for the rescue
The Alpha King’s Runaway Mate .Chapter 94: Must go on .It has been four weeks since Mattel and Jana were left behind at the castle, four weeks without his baby, without either of their mates. Without a doubt, it has been the worst four weeks of his life.At night when he’s trying to sleep, he calls to mind the image of his daughter’s face, the sound of Regina’s laugh. He envisions a world where they’d never been separated. In that world, he imagines that they’d gotten the chance to hold one another in the aftermath, that he’d been by his wife’s side through her recovery.In that world, they’re just a couple with a baby. They don’t have the pressure of kings and royalty. It’s beautiful and evergreen, but it can never be a reality, they can’t abandon the kingdom and leave it behind for Imari. It would be madness.The fight must go on.He and Jana are being marched back into the grand hall, Imari having summoned them somewhat randomly in the middle of the night. Whatever it is, it ca
The Alpha King’s Runaway Mate .Chapter 93: A long way to go .Regina swallows the lump in her throat, leaning into Lionel as Castile rises from the picnic blanket to help her, the former moving aside to allow the latter to loop an arm around her back as well. Together, they make their way back toward the cottage, Hal and Damian following suit as the queen hangs her head low, fighting the urge to cry.“I’ll get them,” She whispers.Castile’s palm is warm against her back as he rubs circles into it, his alpha scent soothing. “We know, Regina.”“I’ll kill them.”“We know, Regina,” Damian says, then they guide her into the cottage, laying her gently on the bed as the queen fights back tears. “Get some rest, hold your daughter for a while. Remember why we’re here.”Sniffling quietly, Regina nods, watching as Hal enters the room with her baby, sitting down beside her before handing her gently over to her mother. Silence passes between them as she takes her, supporting the newborn’s head
The Alpha King’s Runaway Mate .Chapter 92: Coming for you .The rest of the afternoon passes in relative quiet. Once they got on the road again, Regina spent the bulk of their time mesmerized by her baby. She’s fed her twice on the journey, half worried that they’d run out of formula at some point, but eventually, she sees their friend’s little cottage at a distant bend in the river, smoke pouring out of the chimney—they are going to be all right.By the time they pull up in front of the cottage, the sun is beginning to set, the light streaming in through the carriage window to illuminate her daughter’s face. A smile parts her lips as she reaches up a hand into the light, the little dust particles floating in it dancing around her tiny fingers as Regina’s heart melts.“There’s the sunset, darling,” She tells her, laughing softly to herself as the baby coos softly.On the other side of the carriage, she can hear snoring beneath her infant’s soft coos, and she looks over to find Lio
The Alpha King’s Runaway Mate .Chapter 91: together we conquer .Tears prick again at her eyes, a couple of droplets making their way onto her cheeks before she wipes them away, kissing her daughter again before glancing across the carriage where Castile and Lionel are sound asleep in each other’s arms. Jealousy wells up in her chest as she watches, but she says nothing.They’re lucky to be together. She remembers how they got together. How in the beginning, her healer, Castile, and Mattel’s chief of Commander, Lionel had met and immediately fallen for one another at first sight.Only they hadn’t met until Mattel summoned Castile to court to treat an injury—one Regina had inadvertently given him when he’d been giving one of his training lessons. She almost laughs at the memory, but before she can get too lost in it, there’s the sound of Damian pulling on the reins.The other two in the carriage slowly stir awake. Curiosity floods both of their faces, then Castile turns around, pul
The Alpha King’s Runaway Mate .Chapter 90: Whatever shall be .The simultaneous feeling of joy at being a father and the sorrow at the loss of his wife and baby is already exhausting. A part of him wants to start thinking of names, Sandra, Ari, hell, just calling her “Baby,” even? But he’s too upset to think. He can barely even focus.Down the hall, there’s shouting, and he forces himself to wipe his tears, rushing toward the cell door as he hears banging and shuffling. He gets there just in time to see guards dressed in the enemy’s colors and symbols carrying a limp Jana in their arms.“Jana!” he cries, but before he can worry about his friend, the omega is thrown into the cell with him. All he can do is watch as he collapses, unconscious, with a bruised eye and a split lip facing the ceiling, then he hears a throat clear, and suddenly Imari, now king of the north, is standing before him.The omega king is taller than he is, but not quite as broad. They’ve met before, but someh