The Alpha King (Kingdom of Askara #1)(72)

Shift, now, Luca my love. I was wrong. Askara does need you, but I need you more.

From what seemed to be a great distance away Kit heard a deafening roar and Kit absently wondered where it had come from. Then the ground started shaking. Screams rose from the crowd and Kieran shrieked both in temper and frustration. Kit forced his eyes open just in time to see Kieran raise his sword to his brother. For a second, time seemed to be suspended and then Luca leaped and shifted, all the chains snapping instantly.

Luca growled in fury and shook his white coat out, all blood instantly gone. He snarled and shimmered, half-shifted into human, and rose on two legs, his claw-tipped hands reaching out and grasped Kieran by the throat. Kieran dropped the sword and scrabbled at the hands that were choking him. Luca roared again in temper as walls collapsed and the sky started raining bricks and stone.

The ground shook and tore. Huge cracks appeared in the stone steps and great cracks spread up and down concrete walls as if they were made from nothing but paper.

Buildings shook and men cried out in terror and panic. Kit closed his eyes and tried to breathe. He had to get Luca’s attention before someone got hurt. Luca, Luca. Please. Kieran is nothing. Leave him. I need you my darling. I am hurt.

Love me, he whispered in his head and in his heart.

Suddenly, large hands were reaching for him and wrapping him up. Instantly he was able to breathe and he gasped as oxygen and Luca’s scent filled his lungs and calmed his racing heart. He stayed still, eyes closed, and let their love wash over him. He would never forget this perfect moment however long he lived.

Finally the warm lips that he needed so much caught his own and he clung to Luca’s body and let him maul his mouth. It had, after all, been far too long.





Chapter Twenty-One





“You have got to be joking,” Luca said, horrified. Half my people don’t have enough to eat and you want to waste money on a coronation?”

Gabriel extended his arms. “Sire, tradition demands it. Christoph agrees,” he added hopefully. Sam snorted and Asher hid his face. Kit lowered his, but Luca caught the smile before he bent his head.

Just you wait until I get you upstairs.

Promises, promises. Kit arched an eyebrow and Luca chuckled. He was getting quite good at that.

In two weeks, he had mastered the raised and condescending eyebrow to perfection. It had started with the missive from Luca’s mother. She had written a long gushing letter extending congratulations to them both on the birth of their twins and offering to relocate to help care for them. Luca had suggested she relocate to Arrides...permanently. Kit had suggested she merely be retired to the small house Luca had found out he had inherited from Hendrick. The fact that the house was at the northern most point of Caedra at the base of the Tzion mountains and took a full day to get there on a sled as it was too deep in snow for the horses, was, as Kit had explained, simply a bonus. To make things even better, Tara had accepted a mating proposal from an Alpha-heir to the east of Tethra and had moved away, probably terrified that she be asked to accompany Luca’s mother.

Molly, Iris, Tomas, and Danni were traveling south and would be here in a few days. Danni would be staying permanently of course to help Gabriel who, much to his delight, had discovered locked and untouched vaults beneath the ruins of the great library, hidden for centuries but uncovered as a result of the earthquake. There had been many books destroyed, but there were hundreds that had been saved.

In the end it hadn’t been Luca who had killed his brother. Kieran’s own men had turned on him as soon as Luca had let go. He was at least glad he didn’t have to live with the thought of killing Kieran. After that, Luca had become so busy he had barely had time to do anything, but he at least in the last two weeks he had achieved three things. He had immediately removed the license requirement for having children. All papers would be granted to whomever asked for them, meaning all humans had the same rights. He hadn’t broken the news to the werewolves yet that he wanted registration from them. Baby steps. Eventually, Luca hoped to integrate both species fully, but it would take time to repair the hatred so many years of neglect and abuse had caused. He had made Sam his senior beta-commander, and Sam, with Luca’s approval, had then offered commander positions to Asher, Sascha, and Christoph. Christoph had declined for the time being, but instead asked to lead a group of wolves and humans into Solonara to make sure the boiling pits were either closed down or they found an alternate method of labor.

Sascha had his father’s blessing to stay in the capital as long as Luca needed him. Taheesha had her fourteenth birthday the day after they had arrived. She was busy with various advisors regulating the health care that Askara so desperately needed.

“I don’t know why you’re looking so pleased,” Luca had shot back at Kit as they were discussing the coronation. “If I’m having a coronation, then so are you.”

Kit squeaked. “Me? But you’re the Alpha King.”

“And you,” Luca wrapped his arms around Kit’s delicious body, “have a crown on your neck the same as I do. “The twin crowns, apparently, have been safely found in one of the vaults below the palace.” Luca smirked as Kit went a little pale. Suddenly the idea of a coronation might not be a bad thing.

“You’re evil,” Kit thumped him ineffectually on his arm, but he went quiet. Luca bent his head but Kit shifted to the side and laughed when Luca growled his frustration.