Laurel woke up, curled up to Adolph underneath the early morning sun. She blinked blearily up at him and smiled at how peaceful he seemed in the early morning light. Birds twittered nearby. The sun was just starting to warm the air. “Adolph?”One of his eyes opened and focused on her before he threw his arm over his face and turned to bury his face in her shoulder.“Go back to sleep before Chasel comes out to interrupt us with castle nonsense.”She snickered, “Oh no, Your Majesty… all the petal jam is gone.”He narrowed his eyes at her and seized her by her waist, tickling her until she shrieked. “You find such an event funny, do you?”She twisted, trying to get away from him and shrieking, “Forgive me, Your Majesty! I was merely joking!”He grinned, watching her laugh and squirm around beneath him. “Oh? Were you? I’m not sure if you’re being sincere in your remorse!”Chasel walked towards the guards he’d set up to keep a guard over Adolph and Laurel’s dinner the night before. The
If there was one thing Delia could be sure of, it was Basil's physical attraction. He was a man, after all. She eyed herself in the mirror, examining every inch of her naked form beneath her robe.She thought back to Eden's comment and huffed. She never thought she'd be reduced to trying to get pregnant by the idiot prince, but desperate times called for desperate tactics. She closed her robe and resolved herself to walk to Basil's chambers. She'd put off sleeping with Basil since they got married with excuses, but that ended tonight.She wondered if Laura had ever slept with Basil and sneered as the thought came to mind. She had no reason to compare herself to a dead woman who was too stupid to use her station to her advantage. The woman hadn't even needed to use any tricks to get there and she'd been ousted with ease.She walked down the corridor to reach Basil's room and found it empty as she entered. She looked around with a sigh before closing the door behind her and going to h
Basil swallowed, hazarding to ask. What he was implying was preposterous, but he needed to know for certain whether or not it was what he was expecting.“We?”Henry nodded, “We.”“But… what about the gardener?”Dorian shook his head, “You know nothing…”Basil flinched and Henry shoved Dorian, “Really Dorian? You’re as bad as your wife.”“That’s why we’re great together.”Liam snickered and Henry let out a long put upon sigh. While he agreed that Dorian and Irene were a match made, ordained, and blessed by the moon goddess, that didn’t mean he appreciated him stepping on Basil’s likely fragile ego. They’d all agreed that they would do their best to educate Basil as a favor to Adolph. The man had nearly lost his life several times over protecting them all and had lost over two decades of his life to a loveless marriage so that he and Raven could raise Liam in peace and safety. Whipping Basil into shape and undoing all the damage Gavin had done over the years was the least they could do
Sarah hurried to gather a simple traveling bag for Laurel. Chasel had given her very specific instructions about what was needed for the journey, so it was an easy task to complete. What worried her was that Laurel had barely said a word after Adolph found her, content to stare off into space for hours at a time without even glancing towards the door no matter what time of day it was. She hadn’t even asked about Lily and the movements of the castle. Sarah had reported to Adolph Laurel’s state and he promptly had Lily take over as much of Laurel’s duties as she could to give Laurel time to collect herself. Everything else was to be put on hold. Sarah agreed that Laurel was in no state to be working, but she didn’t know how to help her either. Sarah had tried to ask her, but Laurel had turned away from her, barely managing to say she didn’t want to talk about it before Sarah decided to leave her with her thoughts and focus on getting her things together. Maybe Adolph had something pl
Laurel and Adolph ate lunch and dinner with the priestess. She was a bit too tired to brave a tour of the temple, but Adolph escorted her to her quarters with a chaste kiss on her cheek and told her to sleep well. She didn’t remember falling asleep, but she awoke refreshed. She slept without dreaming and woke up calm. Maybe there was something to be said about the moon goddess’ presence in the temple. She had never felt so safe while being conscious before. She rolled out of bed and wiggled her toes against the warm stone beneath her feet. It was a bit weird, walking around barefoot, but she left her room in the plain white robes she'd been given. She walked down the corridor and found Adolph lounging beside one of the fountains reading a book. He looked up and smiled at her. “Hello, Laurel,” he said and sat up. “Did you sleep well?”She nodded. She almost didn’t want to get up. After several days of waking up screaming or not sleeping at all, she had begun to wonder if sleep would
It wasn’t an odd question, but the timing felt strange. He was serious when he said it was unlikely that the vampire queen’s forces would try to poison him again, but did she think that they would attack the capital? Or rather, did she believe that he couldn’t protect her?“Why?”Her lips twitched and she nodded at the depiction. Adolph looked at the window and winced. “You don’t think it’s just a metaphor?”“Can you handle a sword?” She asked with a wry smile. He sighed, “I suppose you have a point…”“If something happens,” Laurel said. “I don’t want to be a useless shield.”She looked up at him, “You wouldn’t begrudge me that, would you?”Adolph grumbled. She knew he would never begrudge her anything. “Very well,” Adolph nodded. “As soon as we get back, I’ll arrange someone to train you.”She smiled, “Thank you, Your Majesty!”He growled, backing her up against the wall and leaning in her space. Her face turned red and she let out a shuddering little breath. “Call me by name,” h
Sam stepped closer and took Laurel by her shoulders.“Breathe.” He said and watched her take in a deep breath and look up at him fearfully. “You were poisoned and spent a week in a coma. It is not unheard of that your wolf is still recovering from the ordeal. His Majesty couldn’t shift for a few days after being poisoned and you were exposed to a far greater dose than he was.”Laurel swallowed and nodded shakily, “O-Okay.”“When you can shift, we’ll start on that part of your training. For now, we’ll start with basic moves.”“Okay.”She tried to regain her calm as Sam lifted his fists and told her to mirror him. He corrected her posture and the grip of her fists kindly and guided her through the basics of how to throw a solid punch. Then, it was a kick. He moved on to a combo, showing her the proper way to hold her balance and how to move.It felt a bit like learning formal dances. She was almost grateful for the strict instruction from the etiquette teacher. Her balance wasn’t perfec
Laurel forced herself to breathe, her mind started to race. Eden was a vampire. Was he dangerous? Was he a spy or just taking refuge in the werewolf kingdom? Why would he be here if that were the case? His hands began to shake as the nurse came back with more towels, breaking the silence in the room. Laurel wrapped her hand in one of the towels and stood. “I should get this seen to,” Laurel said, “I’ll see you later, Eden!”He nodded, turning a kind smile on her, but the hunger in his eyes was still there. She hurried out of the backroom and snagged a bandage and rushed back to the castle.She went to her room and closed it behind her without a word before setting to pacing.How could Eden be a vampire? How had he managed to hide it all this time? Was he connected to the poison attempt? Was he connected to Laura's death? She stopped and shook her head. Eden had been nothing but kind to her. There was no real reason to suspect him other than being a vampire. In the same way that th
His stomach churned but he nodded, walking into the room. Fear filled him, but as he entered the room he started to relax. “You’re so beautiful… you take after your father.”Laurel lay among the sheets, dressed in a loose gown and cradling the baby to her chest.At the distance, he could only see a tuft of honey blonde hair in the swaddling blanket. The wetnurses bowed and stepped aside as he approached. Laurel smiled up at him, “Want to meet him?”“Him?”Laurel beamed at him, “Him… Nimue told me before, but I wanted it to still be a surprise for you.”Another boy. Adolph sunk onto the bed beside her, kissing her cheek before looking down into her arms. He had Laurel’s nose and hair pattern though the coloring was all his. Maybe when he grew up he’d take after his grandfathers, but he wouldn’t be able to tell that for a while.“Can I hold him?”Laurel nodded, offering the child to him. He smelled like fresh water and clean skin as Adolph took him, and held him close. He was so smal
Nimue took a deep calming breath as Basil let out a mournful sob. The air began to warm slowly around them as the path between their world and the afterlife closed. She should have known when her first evocation yielded nothing that Olivia was going to be another troublesome spirit.She hoped Basil would be able to recover and accept the truth in time.“No… mother…” Nimue’s heart twisted with grief as she calmed her powers and Basil’s hand tightened on her ankle. “Why? She… She lifted it.”“She was prepared to sacrifice you,” she said solemnly.“She lifted the curse, Nimue! You didn’t have to!”Nimue looked down at him, “She only did so to save her existence, Basil. That was the test. It wasn’t about remorse towards what she’d done to your father… it was about what she did to you.”His eyes welled with tears as she set her staff aside, allowing it to hover in the air. “She was never your mother.”She kneeled beside Basil, placing a glowing hand near the dagger in his chest as he fell
Adolph’s voice was sure and even, but Basil couldn’t believe what he was saying. Didn’t he understand that they had no way of knowing how long that would be? A few months? A few days? His father was the strongest man he knew, but he wasn’t indestructible!“But father—”“You’d let Basil be king?” Olivia scoffed and laughed, “You know he’s not ready. He won’t ever be ready!”The twinge of pain that went through him took his breath away. He pushed it aside. This wasn’t the mother he’d imagined his whole life. He expected his father to say those things, not the woman who died giving birth to him. He winced at the thought. She hadn’t died giving birth to him. She’d died giving birth to a curse. There was no other choice to make.“Nimue, end the séance.”Nimue said nothing. Whether that meant she couldn’t or wasn’t going to, he didn’t know.Adolph shook his head, “Your father tried to make that true, but it’s not. Basil isn’t an idiot. He’s young and inexperienced, but that’s fixable. He h
Adolph narrowed his eyes down at Olivia. She was just as pretty as she had been before, but he saw the wicked light in her eyes. “Shouldn’t you be greeting our son whom you’ve never met?” Adolph asked. She smiled at him, poisonous and vicious, “I would never put anyone before you dear husband.”“You are dead,” Adolph said, “Speak to Basil.”“… very well.”Olivia turned her head and looked at Basil. Adolph was about to retract his statement at the hopeful look on Basil’s face, but it was too late. “You asked them to kill the man who raised you,” Olivia said, “You asked for the death penalty.”“Mother, they—”“Don’t call me that!” Olivia hissed at him. “All of them. Murdered and for what? What of your loyalty to me?”Basil’s eyes widened, “To you…?”“After what your father did to me?” Olivia said, “What is a bit of money?”“You… You knew?” Basil asked. “But—”“I love your father,” she said, her eyes glimmering with tears. “But… that wasn’t good enough. My love was never good enough f
Laurel didn’t expect Basil to come quickly, so when the door closed, she was grateful that Nimue made herself a cup of tea and smiled at her. “You were once someone else,” Nimue said. “I am glad that the moon saw fit to bring the white wolf back to us.”Laurel blinked and sat across from her, “You’re… not much like Eden.”Nimue chuckled, “Eden and I have different gifts… He is what we would call an elemental Wiccan. Lightning strikes, fire, flashy shows of power that most associate with real magic. I’m a spiritual mage.”Laurel blinked and made herself a cup of tea, “What… does that mean?”“It means I have a connection to the living and the dead. Hence, I know the body you’re in right now is one you were reborn into. I can only guess how you died, but I assume that Basil knew you in your past life.”Laurel winced, “This… isn’t how I expected this conversation to go.”Nimue shrugged, “You make plans and the spirits laugh, but I’m not concerned about your aura. It’s more than healthy a
Adolph watched Basil leave. Nimue winced.“I… would like a moment to speak with my wife,” Adolph said slowly. Nimue nodded, “I’ll… go after him.”She left wincing. That had been a fucking disaster if she’d ever seen one. As she exited the room, she followed the trembling confusion, fear, and anger down the hall and around the corner. The thing about magical compatibility between fated matches was that it worked like a homing beacon. She found him in a parlor sitting on the couch with his head in his hand. He lifted his head and shot to his feet as she entered. “You—You can’t just say things like that!” Basil said, “You can’t just accuse her if you—You’re a healer! How would you know something like that anyway?”Nimue watched him, his shoulders heaving as he held himself still. “I am a healer,” she said. “But I am not just a healer. Sit down and calm yourself.”“Look me in the eye and tell me the truth,” Basil said, glaring at her. “Tell me you know for sure my mother did it. Tell
Basil had tried to keep his mind focused on the path ahead the next morning, no matter how Nimue’s scent had seemed to take over his senses and make him dizzy with need and desire. She smelled like fresh blooming flowers, fresh earth, and a hint of fresh sweet bread. It was a distracting, comforting, and maddening scent. His wolf growled in contentment and want whenever she grew near, so he took to riding further ahead to try and keep his mind clear. *I hate you*, his wolf huffed and growled. *You and your stupid pride and fear and…**Not now*, Basil thought, stubbornly. *Focus on getting back to the capital, okay?*He huffed, *And your need for distraction instead of facing the truth…*Basil sighed, tuning out his wolf’s whining. This wasn’t the time for thinking about such things. Adolph and Laurel were supposed to be staying at the temple until the baby was born. There was no reason they should have called him back unless the baby was early or something had happened to his father
Taliesin sent the message off with a heavy heart. While his judgment was sound and he knew he wasn’t wrong, the likelihood that it would all go to plan was slim. Curses laid by the dying or the dead were harder to get rid of than living curses and he was not an expert in such dark magics. He had no affinity for creating or breaking them. His late brother and twin, Merlin, had no such limitations, but he had gone into Eternal Repose after his wife, Viviane, had been killed in the war against Morrigan. Merlin could not help them.Taliesin couldn’t blame him. The war had taken so much from all of them and raising the barrier had taxed them both greatly. There was little hope that he would ever wake up, and Taliesin had accepted that centuries ago, focusing on raising Merlin’s daughter as if she were his.“Nimue?” Taliesin called as he returned to the meeting hall. She was seated on the old stone bench, looking up through the canopy of the ancient oak trees that were always in bloom. Hi
Laurel woke up, frozen in terror in bed. The last time she’d had a vision of the moon goddess, she’d been pushed off a cliff. She wasn’t sure if hearing that her husband’s late wife put a curse on him was better or worse. How bad was the curse now? How much longer did they have? Could she break it? If she couldn’t, what would happen to him?Her stomach turned as she turned over to see Adolph sleeping peacefully beside her. The days of his insomnia seemed to have caught up with him all at once. The strain of the days seemed to be gone now as he slept.His scent was just as bloody and lovely as ever, but that blood that she had once found just a bit sexy seemed tainted with danger now. It wasn’t just the scent of someone who had seen a great deal of war, but it was affecting his mind. An alpha werewolf like Adolph could be dangerous if they lost control of their strength. She knew that Adolph was much stronger than the average wolf. Was it anything like going rogue? Would it kill him?