Malicious Prince: A Reverse Harem Romance (Territorial Mates Book 3) Read online

  “I hardly think that matters,” I tell him as Justice’s voice booms out across the land. I’m gripping the edge of the steps that lead up to the raised platform where Justice, Salem, Queen Kloe and Ronin are standing. I can see the tightness in their backs as they position themselves with a foot of distance between each of them—separate but very much together. I try to reach for a wry smile to give to Lexi. “The people are most likely going to throw mud at me the second it’s all announced, so keeping me spotless is kind of a pipe dream.”

  “They are not,” Des offers as his arm coils around my waist. It’s a sweet lie, but a lie nonetheless.

  It’s just the three of us at the base of the steps with Queen Butcher behind us, hidden behind the platform that faces the whole of the Jacoba territory. Every shifter is in attendance, no doubt hoping for fantastic news, only to soon be let down by a devastating blow that they’re now stuck with me.

  “They’re going to hate me, hate the new direction of things, and hate Salem because of me. I know it’s probably too much to ask, but I was hoping just one of my weddings wouldn’t be protested and despised. Weddings are supposed to be happy occasions.”

  Lexi’s hand is gentle as he turns my chin so he can look deep into my eyes. “Are you happy?”

  “I’m happy I’m marrying Salem, yes.”

  “Then that’ll have to do for now.”

  Queen Butcher hasn’t fidgeted through the entire event thus far. She stands hidden with us, but a couple feet behind me below the platform, listening to our exchanges with tight lips that curve into a small smile every now and then. “It does my heart good to hear tha,” she tells us. “Tell him more often than ye think ye need to. My Salem deserves to know he’s loved.”

  “Of course,” I say with a slight bow.

  Lexi fixes his eyes on Justice’s back. “That’s your cue,” he says to Queen Butcher.

  “Cheers, Prince Alexavier.” Queen Butcher is tall and regal, with a jaw as stern as her sons’, but with a steady gentleness to her eyes that every person would want in their ruler. She pauses at the base of the steps, reaching out to grip my icy fingers. “Let them throw mud if they must. But keep your chin high and your eyes fixed on the future. This is but a moment. A moment doesn’t make ye, and a moment can’t destroy ye if ye understand what’s important.”

  “Yes, your majesty,” I say, inclining my head to her again.

  “Mammy,” she corrects me with a wink. “Even if ye weren’t about to marry my son, I would ask ye to call me tha.”

  I like her so very much. Her blue velvet robes are regal, to be sure, but it’s the way she carries herself with her shoulders back and head high as she moves up the steps that convinces me she’s a born leader.

  Justice’s speech swells, ending in the announcement that their queen is well again, and ready to reclaim the throne her sons kept warm for her.

  The thousands of animal howls and verbal cheers are so deafening, I wince against Lexi, who takes care not to mess up my hair as he presses my ear to his chest to muffle the noise. Des’ hand finds my back, and I’m fairly certain my knees are shaking so badly, I would be in danger of falling if they weren’t surrounding me.

  This is where I need to be, even if they don’t want me. I need to get the shifters consistent access to water. I want to do everything in my power to heal relations between the shifters and the fae so Jacoba’s land has a chance at blossoming.

  The part that’s making me tremble is that Salem will be hated on his wedding day. I might be part of the plan that redeems his land, but I’m also going to be the one who makes his followers turn on him. I want to marry Salem so very badly, to belong to him as much as he’s always belonged in my heart. But part of me knows I’m the waitress from the seedy pub in Neutral Territory, and he’s an actual prince. He commands an entire army, and I didn’t even have the authority to change a menu item. How he ever noticed me, scarred and small as I am, is beyond me.

  And now the entire shifter territory is going to spot how much I don’t deserve to be near someone as incredible as Salem.

  When the cheering dies down after a full five minutes of jubilation, I hold onto Lexi so tight, I’m afraid I might draw blood and ruin his white pants and dress shirt. Queen Butcher greets her people, and though her tenor remains steady, there’s no mistaking the swell of love she has for them. I feel that same wave rise up in me, and as much as I’m able, outsider that I am, I want to belong to these warriors, these cast-outs.

  Queen Butcher’s voice booms out across the land, sounding a mix of regal and loving. “The lass who brought me back to life and captured my tormentor shall be given in marriage to my son. She loved our family and our people enough to question how I landed in my coma. She stopped at nothing, taking great personal sacrifice upon herself, to bring me back to ye.”

  The buildup of making me sound like some impressive person is normally something I would cringe away from, but I absorb her gratitude, amplified as it is. They’re about to see me for the first time and will need to hold tight to Queen Butcher’s acceptance of me if they’re ever going to let me help them.

  “Salem has never been questioned in his ability to lead our army, and has proved he’s capable of trust in this decision to select a lass. I can assure ye, she’s gifted in standing tall by his side.”

  It’s almost my turn to let the entire nation down and piss everyone off at the same time. My palms are sweating and the flash of desire to run away from the stage and all it represents fills my entire body. It’s not until Queen Butcher says my name and I don’t move that Salem turns to see what the holdup is.

  I want to go to Salem, but I can’t. So I freeze, separating myself from the destiny I’ve chosen.

  26

  Our People

  Lilya

  I’m the holdup. I’m the chicken. I’m the one stock-still while my husbands are gently urging me to move up the steps. I can’t do it. I want to marry Salem, of course, but a third territory despising me for my love feels like something beyond what I’m capable of handling in this exact moment.

  Des and Lexi step back when Ronin moves toward us, trots down the platform steps away from the view of the throngs of shifters, and flicks his wrist so we have some semblance of privacy from the guys and guards. Even Benny, Ronin’s most trusted guard, steps back. “Darling, are you quite alright?”

  Ronin can handle my fear without feeling personally rejected or attacked, so I don’t hold back the panic in my eyes. “I think I’m having a stroke or something! I want to marry Salem, but they’re going to…”

  And now I’m hyperventilating. Fantastic.

  Ronin holds my face like he knows how, focusing my increasingly blurring vision in that hypnotic way he’s mastered. “This one is real for you, yes?”

  I’m running out of words, so I nod emphatically. “I didn’t know Des, and Lexi was my friend first, so that wasn’t too big a leap. But this? Now it’s here, this incredible thing, offering itself to me like I’m the kind of girl who should get what she wants.” I shake my head at myself, disgusted with everything I am.

  Ronin brings my body tight to his so our words stay just between us. His lips tickle my ear, pushing the rest of the world out of focus. My heart is pounding, but Ronin’s is steady, so I cling to the life raft. “There is no crowd. There is no crown. There is only your heart and Salem’s. Do you love him?”

  Desperation to be near my brooding, bulky, sexy prince fills every fiber of my being, but still I can’t move. Each step along this journey has been expected to be taken without hesitation, but all that cumulative jumping off the cliff has brought me to a place where I’m too nervous to take another step.

  “Do you love him?” Ronin asks again, my knees trembling while he holds me. His dapper suit is never disheveled, and despite the potential disaster we’re walking into, neither is he. He curves a finger around one of my pinned curls.

  I picture Salem’s face, never smoothly shaved, hiding that sliver of
a smile he gets every now and then when he thinks no one’s looking. But I see him. I see his moments of happiness, and I truly want to be one. I want to be the thing that makes him smile.

  “I do,” I confess. “I love Salem so much, I’m not sure my heart can handle it. I love him so badly, my insides feel hollow when he’s gone. I love him, Ronin, and I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to cure it.”

  Ronin’s smile lifts my cheek in time with his. He kisses the spot near my ear and whispers, “Then go get him.”

  Just like that, a switch flips in my heart, untethering me from the spot I’ve been clinging to in life that promises hope can only bring pain. I gather the front of my lace dress up and make my way up the steps, slowly revealing myself to the people. First they glimpse my lavender hair, then my too-white face, then my bridal gown. I can see their collective confusion and dismay that I’m not the tanned Jacoba princess they ordered. My heart is hammering so loudly, I can barely hear the outcry and the animal howls that are no doubt calling for my head.

  I’m supposed to stand in the center of the platform with the queen, Justice, Salem, Kloe and Ronin behind me. Lexi and Des are to join them in the background, standing with them to make our kingdoms look like a united front. We rehearsed it all, but the plan flies out of my head at the sight of Salem in a suit, all shaved and bathed with a note of need in his eyes when he sees me. I don’t stand in the center, but beeline straight for him. My ring needs to feel his heart, to know for sure that all we’re about to promise each other will remain true until the end.

  “Sorry it took me so long,” I tell him, unsure if I mean just now, or the winding road it took us to get to this moment.

  Salem gazes at me like I’m something amazing, something breakable, something precious. “I would have waited forever.”

  I’m supposed to pause for Queen Butcher to give the next bit of her speech, but I can’t. I’m afraid that if I put off kissing Salem another second, something in me will scream so loud, part of my very soul might die off completely. I surprise a shocked noise from him as I stand on my toes, my arms looping around his neck so I can kiss him how I like to. His arms encircle my frame with a chuckle that vibrates from my lips all the way to my toes.

  Finally, my knees steady. My thighs calm their quaking. I love the sound of his happiness. It melts into me and fills my dark places with hope I promised the world I’ve never needed. His lips are soft just at the moment I know the world is about to turn rough. I love him for becoming my soft thing, for the arms that cradle without coveting, for the lips that promise without words that even when the world falls apart, we will always have each other.

  There is no applause. There is no outrage. Even though the field is filled with tens of thousands of shifters, there is utter and total silence that consumes whatever reaction they may have had at the ready.

  Many turn their heads away, unable to hide their disgust. Des and Lexi frame us, lending their political weight to ensure the territory knows of their support.

  Queen Butcher explains the lengthy story of our plan to unite the territories. She doesn’t apologize for or diminish my marriage to Des. She doesn’t tighten up at the mention of my marriage to Lexi. She’s a woman who isn’t afraid of her own voice, and I love her for it.

  “So when Salem wanted to marry Lilya, I worried her plan was more important than our people. After watching her care for my sons and bring me back to ye at great personal sacrifice, I can assure ye, tha has not been the case. Though she is new to our people, she loves us enough to risk her safety to bring the three heads of the territories together to barter a peace agreement. She saw an injustice—tha Jacoba was being forgotten—and sacrificed everything to give us a brighter future.”

  Ronin steps forward. This is where he’s to say his part about the specifics of the treaty we signed without King Fairbucks’ knowledge, but before he begins, he hooks his arm around my waist and brings me to the front of the stage beside him, making it look as though the two of us are delivering this message together. I mean, we decided on it together, but it’s clear to me he needs Jacoba to understand that I’m a decisionmaker, not just a girl in a fancy dress.

  Ronin’s voice projects with a firm power across the mix of animal and human heads. “Queen Kloe and Prince Alexavier are committed to helping the citizens of Jacoba not just survive, but thrive. In exchange for tearing down your borders and sharing your plumapples, they are going to assemble a team of fae that will set up and maintain enough wells to ensure every shifter never thirsts again. They will sprout food-bearing plants and make your fields green again, as they were in the days of your forefathers.”

  Only Ronin can get away with using fancy words like “forefathers” and get everyone to agree with him.

  Ronin’s unwrinkled and unruffled disposition is delivered with ease as he explains the treaty between the fae and vampires as well, but his arm tightens around me. Only I can tell that he’s worried. I can read between the lines of his self-possessed smile and neatly fastened bow tie. Though the entire territory is picking apart every word, every movement, my body can’t help but curve toward his, my truth-seeking ring finding its way to his heart, where it knows it will find layers and layers of deception.

  But I let him lie to the world and tell them it’ll all be okay.

  I let him lie to me, because I need the hope, even if it’s a wish at this point.

  The moment my form clings to his, my stomach tight to his hip, Ronin’s voice grows more impassioned. “Your future queen will not sit by as Queen Butcher, the fae Fairbucks rulers, and I have done for too many years.” His fingers grip my hip, digging in to let only me know his confidence is riddled with cracks. “Lilya will put her life in danger, stand before you and tell us to our faces that we must change, or we’ll lose all we love about the territories we’re fighting so hard to defend. I do not wish to lose what I love, so I welcome the shifters into Drexdenberg. In one week’s time, it will become our law that any vampire caught attacking a shifter will receive the same punishment they would receive for turning on one of their kin. The high premium I should have placed on your lives long ago will be proclaimed, and all I ask is that you take your time forgiving me for my cowardice, for my shortsighted behavior in thinking shifters would never want more than the life and the land you have.”

  Ronin’s other arm brushes down the curve of my side for the whole territory to see, turning his body so there’s no way around it—we’re embracing, holding each other together while we place ourselves square in the center of the target. Together we brace ourselves for the arrows we know are coming. My hand remains over his heart, where, for this moment in history, it belongs.

  I know Des doesn’t like the sight of me in Ronin’s arms, but this is where I need to be, so I stay in harm’s way for what I hope is the greater good. When I feel a hand on my shoulder, I’m not surprised to see Des, though I am relieved that his hand has recently regained some of its functionality.

  I’m also not shocked when Lexi steps forward to stand with us. It’s when Salem comes forward, taking my hand, that I truly worry we’ve gone too far off-book. Salem doesn’t address the people publicly all too often, from what I’ve been told. He doesn’t like to talk much, but I can see his chest puffing with something to say as he claims me as his in front of the entire territory. “Lilya Klein is my mate. As much as ye respect me, you’ll stand by her.”

  That’s when murmuring and gasps multiply and splinter out over the field.

  Salem doesn’t back down. “I don’t understand how it happened, but it did. So if anyone is confused about what fate wants for Jacoba, here we are. See tha she belongs to our people, and should be protected as your princess.”

  Queen Butcher’s voice echoes out over the crowd. “Jacoba, your future!” Then she gestures to Salem and me.

  Of all the things I expected to happen, I am truly shocked when the entire territory puts their confusion and questions on hold to obey their queen. Heads lower and k
nees are taken, and in the middle of it, no one is more shocked than me.

  There are no arrows. There are no protests. There is only respect for the journey that led us here, and the years of work still ahead of us.

  I love my family, and looking out at the sea of shifters, I realize that these are our people, and I love them, too.

  27

  New Home, New World

  Lilya

  If I had a coin for every time Ronin drew a glower from me, I’d be a very rich woman. Though, as I now have access to three treasuries, maybe that’s true regardless of how many times he pisses me off. “I’m not useless, you know.”

  “Indeed. I think you’re confusing ‘useless’ with ‘treasured’. I don’t want you moving furniture into the castle because you’re to be queen. It’s not proper. Benny can get that.”

  I brush some dirt off my jeans and then face him, arms akimbo. Only Ronin wears a three-piece suit to help someone move. “It wouldn’t be proper to work for what I have? This is my house too, you know.”

  Ronin looks at the structure with a sigh of discontent, not even romanced by the overpowering scent of freshly-hewn wood. “You’re right, it’s hardly a castle. It is more like a house. I mean, it’s only two stories tall. You should have one floor for each husband, at least. And where are the parapets? This is ridiculous.” He taps his foot to the base board. It’s a lighter color than the dark wood floor, and his nose crinkles as if the simple touch offends him.

  Benny picks up the box before I can protest, because he’s just that good.

  I try not to let too much exasperation show, but honestly, it’s been all day with these two. “It’s the first project the three territories are working on together, and it’s a far sight bigger than the apartment I lived in most of my life, so I’m not about to complain.”