With Everything I Am (The Three #2)(11)

The guard and Desdemona, without delay, dropped to their knee, forward on their hand but, in the presence of their king, they bowed their heads toward the floor.

Ryon didn’t drop to his knee.

He was not only a duke. He was not only Cal’s cousin. He was not only born precisely one year after Cal (to the very hour, a significant happenstance in the brotherhood). But his blood had mingled with Cal’s on too many battlefields for Ryon to take a knee.

He’d done it once, after the king had fallen.

Cal had forbidden him ever to do it again.

Without looking at anyone but Ryon, Cal made his way to the throne.

Ryon felt a muscle jump in his jaw at the look of fury on his cousin’s face.

Cal sat on the throne, gently arranging Sonia in his lap so she was close, her forehead tucked into his neck, her hand resting on his chest, her knees cocked and tucked into his side. His arms, finally, settled protectively around her.

Ryon had seen her many times since that night her mother and father were murdered. She was a pretty child.

She was a f**king amazing woman. If she wasn’t destined queen, Ryon would have taken her to his bed.

And kept her there.

Until the day she died.

Cal was a lucky bastard.

“Rise,” Cal ordered, his voice an angry rumble.

Desdemona rose slowly, her eyes carefully not looking at Sonia but also not looking at Cal.

Ryon didn’t have time for Mona.

“Is she okay?” he asked his cousin, his eyes on Sonia.

“Ellington threw her across the room. She cracked her head, went unconscious. She was coming to but I sedated her for the drive to the cabin,” Cal replied, his eyes never leaving Mona.

Ryon’s eyes never left Sonia but his hands clenched into fists.

At this news that their soon-to-be queen had been manhandled, the air in the room again went thick. Or, Ryon could say, thicker.

Mona drew in breath.

Then she said something immensely stupid.

“She’s human.”

“She’s your queen,” Cal ground out and Mona took a step back, bowing her head while Cal went on. “Jesus, I will never f**king understand my father’s decision about you,” Cal gritted out and Mona’s head bowed further as her shoulders drooped. “Tell me, Mona, how in the f**k could you let the treaty get broken in your territory?”

Mona lifted her head. “I had no –”

Cal cut her off, “It happened.”

Mona leaned forward. “But, your grace, I had no –”

Cal interrupted her again, biting off every word. “In these tense times, it’s your f**king job to monitor every goddamned wolf.”

“But, Cal –” she started plaintively and, without hesitation at her familiarity with her sovereign, Ryon started forward.

“Leave it, Ry,” Cal clipped and Ryon stopped and looked back.

“I’m interrogating her personally,” Ryon demanded and without looking at him Cal nodded.

“Interrogating me?” Desdemona asked, a tremor of fear shifting through her voice.

“Warriors are coming, Mona. Can’t you hear them? For f**k’s sake, do you ever pay attention?” Cal told her. Mona’s head tilted and Ryon listened to the sounds of the takeover of the mansion. “The plot was hatched in these walls, Governor,” Cal clipped. “By tomorrow night, we’ll know who was involved.”

The guard was shifting uncomfortably and Mona’s mouth was opening and closing like a fish but Cal just rose from his throne, cradling Sonia. He started to stride from the room seconds before the doors opened and twenty warrior wolves, all of whom were chosen specifically by Cal as Cal’s royal guard, advanced through.

They parted for Cal and Sonia as if they’d practiced it hundreds of times. Cal walked through the stream of warriors and exited the room.

Ryon looked at Magnum, the leader, and jerked his head to a visibly trembling Mona.

“She’s mine,” he ordered.

Then he left the room much like Cal in search of his lieutenant.

Chapter Three

The Cabin

Even though Sonia felt awake, she knew she couldn’t be.

She was ultra warm and it felt like she was lying on one of those down mattress top thingies and Sonia didn’t have one of those down mattress top thingies. But she was going to get one, it felt lush.

She also felt like she had a soft, fluffy but snugly, down comforter covering her as well as the softest sheets in the history of mankind shrouding her. Sonia owned a quilt, not a comforter and her sheets were soft but not this soft.

And lastly, she wasn’t holding her stuffed wolf close to her chest and Sonia never slept without her stuffed wolf much to the chagrin of the very few lovers she’d had in her life.

She opened her eyes to assess her dream state and found she was definitely dreaming.

This she knew because she saw from her vantage point of head on a fluffy, down pillow (also not hers) that she was in her family’s cabin and, as that cabin had been burnt to a cinder years and years ago, she had to be dreaming.

This was proved irrevocably when she heard a door open.

She tensed as she heard booted footsteps hit the floor. And she stared, not moving, as she watched an unbelievably tall man walk into the room.

All she saw was his back but she also saw that his hair was dark, thick and overlong. He was wearing one of those quilted, flannel shirts, his was a brown, gray and yellow plaid on a cream background. He also had on jeans and boots. She could see the tight, bulky muscle of his thigh through his jeans when he crouched by the fireplace and quietly arranged some logs with gloved hands on top of an already big pile there.