The Alpha King’s Runaway Mate.Chapter 34: the truth is bitter.A girl stood by the door of the king’s personal room trying to listen in on what was going on but she couldn’t hear a thing.She stepped back and frowned frustrated at the door wondering why it had to be a large wooden door so tight air locked.“Annalise?.”Her eyes widened as she turned around and saw Maria, the head maid with the king’s personal bodyguard, Lionel. They were both staring at her with confused expressions on their faces.That snooping old woman.Annalise tried to fake a smile as she moved away from the king’s personal room entrance curtsying a little to the older woman.Lionel tilted his head before looking around. “There’s always an assigned guard to the king’s personal room, why isn’t he here?.”Because I had managed to bribe him to leave thinking that I would get to spend an alone time with the king. Annalise thought.“There wasn’t any here.” Annalise replied instead putting up a fake smile.Lionel w
The Alpha’s Runaway Mate.Chapter 35: an almost predatory aura .Regina wakes first.This time, she awakens with the immediate and keen awareness of precisely where she is - that is to say, not her own bed, but the one she’d just shared with King Mattel.King Mattel, who, when Regina looks to her right, is evidently still asleep.Regina can’t help but to stare.In sleep, the king’s features seem impossibly young - with none of the heavy presence that bears on him like an ever-present weight when the king is awake. It’s something about his eyes, Regina thinks; those dark, fathomless depths that speak of years much, much beyond the King’s age of twenty nine.(And there’s a fascination here, too, of being permitted to observe such a feared man from up close - not unlike being permitted into a tiger’s den, when the ferocious tiger is declawed in its slumber.)“If you leaned in any closer, one would think it is my person people should worry about, rather than yours,” the low, gravelly ti
The Alpha King’s Runaway Mate.Chapter 36: tired of being set aside.“What is happening?” Regina asks, hushed and anxious, as soon as they come to a stop in the grand foyer.Regina hates, in this moment, the sudden realization that she had not grown nearly as skilled as she’d believed in deciphering the lord’s expressions.Whatever hints of emotion she’d been able to discern from his features must simply have been the ones that King Mattel had permitted her to see, for now - when Regina wants desperately to glean something, anything, from his expression - King Mattel’s face is a perfectly blank veneer.It makes something cold curl in her stomach, like a sudden chill.“Nothing for you to worry about,” is the quiet reply.*flashback*“Mother- mother, where are you and brother headed?”“Mother, why can’t I be allowed outside like brother, too?”“Mother, when-”“It is nothing for you to concern yourself over, Regina. It’s not of importance to you.”She stumbles a quick step backwards, f
The Alpha King’s Runaway Mate.Chapter 37: reflection of an open heart.Somewhere, in between King Mattel looking at her with a gravity underpinning his gaze as though Regina were something particularly remarkable; and Mattel, allowing Regina to cling to him; Regina had forgotten what it felt like.“Why am I not permitted to know?” It sounds childish and sullen, even to Regina’s own ears, but she feels so- choked up. The words come tumbling out, without her control. “Would it really be so burdensome, if I were allowed to-”Mattel’s brow furrows harshly. “Because you do not need to know.”Regina physically jerks back, as though stung. The perplexion in Mattel’s gaze grows more pronounced, as though he cannot fathom why it is that Regina’s features are twisted in such hurt. “I’ve already said,” Mattel says slowly. “That I will handle your safety.”“I’ll always be here to defend you.”But this time, it carries none of the warmth that the words had evoked the first time. Instead, Regi
The Alpha King’s Runaway Mate.Chapter 38: an animal yet not a werewolf?.The next morning, King Mattel is called into another meeting with Damian and Lionel before they’ve even had a chance to eat breakfast.As it is, Regina - pouting blearily and still ridden with sleep - insists on walking out with him until at least the main hall, before parting ways. (Here’s another thing about finding all the depths of his affections returned to him following a lifetime of being rebuked and sent away: it’s addicting, heady and exhilarating like nothing else. Regina finds herself rapidly growing attached, in a way that defies common sense and rationality.)She takes the chance to wrap her hands around Mattel’s, reveling in the small, amused smile Mattel sends her all the while, unable to do anything but smile shyly, sheepishly back.She can’t bring herself to stop testing out the boundaries of the space she’s permitted to explore, because each tentative step reveals to her that there are no suc
The Alpha King’s Runaway Mate.Chapter 39: worst depths.Jana finds Regina in the orchard by her usual tree.For a moment, Regina is almost fooled into believing that it is her dog, given that the princess comes jogging up to her in the form of a pitch black hound. Regina is once again startled into pitching backwards when the dog suddenly shifts into a woman, shrieking with laughter.She pouts.Princess Jana drops into a graceful seat in front of her with that preternatural, animalistic grace he always carries. “So jumpy,” She teases, but it’s without any malice.Regina picks at the fabric of her pants, flustered and embarrassed and a little sulky. “That’s not very polite,” She mutters, and her ears turn pink when Princess Jana, apparently, finds it uproariously funny.“You’re cute,” Jarad, sharklike.Regina barely suppresses a shiver.And then, she realizes what it must mean that the King is now out and about, rather than shut in the meeting room. “Is the meeting over?” Regina as
The Alpha King’s Runaway Mate.Chapter 40: what is love .Jana is waiting in their room when Damian, finally free of the loathsome meeting, returns.He trudges in, exhausted by the hours of convening and planning and discussing.She so hates human interaction, sometimes; as draining as it can be. (Is it such a wonder that she should have fallen irrevocably in love with a man who is not always a man?)“All done?” Jana asks, draped decadently as she is over the chaise lounge in the room. When Damian walks over, without any need for words, Jana gets up. Damian throws himself on the chair and Jana curls up around him, purring.“So,” Jana hums, nosing into Damian’s neck, stretching languidly as the other’s hand comes up to slide along her lower back. “Whom shall I devour for you?”Damian huffs a laugh. “No one, I’m afraid.”Jana mouths at Damian’s collarbone, allowing the sharp point of her fangs to scrape softly along his skin, eliciting a tiny shiver that she delights in. “Pity.”Dami
The Alpha King’s Runaway Mate.Chapter 41: orchids and readings.Mattel wakes from his sleep in the same instant way that he has a tendency towards.This means that Regina doesn’t have the time she needs to pull away and pretend she hadn’t been hovering over him, peering down at his features with curious (fascinated) abandon.Mattel opens his eyes to Regina’s face floating just inches above his, doe eyes round and glittering in the morning sunlight streaming through the curtains, seeming almost comically wide from the present angle below his nose.Heat floods Regina’s cheeks as she freezes, flustered, mouth parting and no explanation forthcoming save for incomprehensible stutters.Mattel’s lips quirk upwards, transforming the expressionless cold into something undeniably warm, creasing his features with lines that pull a helpless smile in turn from Regina’s own lips despite the blush still marring his cheeks.“May I help you?” Mattel rumbles, perfectly polite even in the early morni