Page 15 of Angel's Conquest
Many questions popped into Clara’s mind and fought for first place. Angels? Real angels? And she was sitting a few feet away from them?
As if sensing her mind spinning out of control, Rhode lifted his hand. “Forgive me. I’m sure you have a multitude of questions about our kind, and we’ll be happy to answer them, but I find your own story quite interesting as well. Why are you looking for a mate to compete for your hand? Do you not have eligible lycan males to choose from in your lands?”
Hesitation gripped her, jarring her back to the matter in front of her. “I do. No, that’s not correct. My father does, and he has already made his choice.”
Clara risked a glance at Bronze and was bolstered by the sharpened heat in his hazel eyes. “The male I have been promised to is, for lack of a more appropriate descriptor, a tyrant. He would be better off mating my father directly and leaving me out of the whole business altogether,” she griped, “but that is not possible.”
“So you ran away,” Bronze stated.
“Yes.”
“Because the guy your father wants you to marry is an asshole.”
“Yes,” she said quietly.
It sounded so silly when spoken aloud, especially when distilled down to the sum of its parts by such a formidable male. She needed to make him see the severity of what would pass should her union come to fruition.
“You must understand, my father is not himself a good ruler. There is no kindness left in him. Fear is his most commanding motivator, as well as his power. He is the leader of the northeastern lycan territories and is liable to either destroy all that remains of our monarchy and people or expand his holdings through an advantageous match with a neighboring territory’s warlord. He craves legacy, and the only way he seeks to gain that is through unabashed might. My people suffer as a result. More and more are fleeing the lycan lands, but there’s nowhere for them to go. Some assimilate into human culture, but that is not easy or desirable long term. The warlord to the west, the one my father has chosen for me, has been moving closer, and if a deal is struck between my father and that brute for my hand in marriage, there will be no stopping the empire that will result. The prospect of that empire,” she added for emphasis, “is what I believe keeps my father rising each morning. It’s certainly not his love for me, if it ever existed. He . . . he wishes to see lycans live beyond our confines and has come to believe, corruptly so, that humans should no longer be allowed to have the run of the lands. He believes that their time as the dominant species is closely coming to an end.”
Clara lifted her hands to her chest. Through her mantle, she pressed the relic’s warm weight closer against her breastbone, right above her heart. Bronze tracked the movement but didn’t speak. Slowly, she lifted the moonstone fang free of its confines and held it gently in her hands. Though the weight was slight for its size, it may as well have been the moon itself. Such was the burden she carried.
“This is my people’s moonstone relic. It is the symbol of our lycan monarchy.” Clara held it out expectantly, feeling not a whit lighter despite hefting the thing off her neck. When neither male took what she offered and merely exchanged indiscernible glances, she lowered the relic, and her heart sank right along with it.
They didn’t recognize it at all. Not even a flicker of awareness had flashed in either of their intent gazes. And then an extremely humbling realization dawned on her. Of course they didn’t recognize it. Her people had done far too good of a job remaining hidden all these centuries, passing for humans when they needed to, but living largely apart from them. So, why would these males—no, angels—know the significance of what she offered them?
Shame crept up her cheeks. God, she was such a fool, wasn’t she? To think she’d thought herself clever, daring even, for stealing the relic in the first place, thinking it would be the one thing to prove her story. The one thing that would identify her as who she was. And what was she, exactly? A princess in title only, to be doled out as a broodmare in a game of land ownership and power moves. A foolish, foolish female who hadn’t the cunning or brutality to maneuver through the world in the way that would garner her half the benefits it would her father.
At a loss for not only words but a plan of action, Clara floundered for how to proceed. She knew nothing of where she found herself, and the males before her clearly knew nothing of her. If she returned home now, it would still be night. Perhaps she could convince her father she had been kidnapped or maybe there was an intrusion in the keep? A threat? Or possibly?—
Bronze’s gruff voice broke the silence. “You said ‘compete.’”
Clara’s worried frenzy ground to a halt by the tether of his tone. “Forgive me. What?”
“When you spoke to me near the river, the first lucid words out of your mouth were, ‘Compete for me.’”
A strange clarity filled up the holes of the sieve in her mind, redirecting her focus to the male before her, who had taken a step closer but still did not crowd her. “I did. Yes.”
“You asked me to compete for your hand in marriage. I’ve gotta confess, dragging a nearly drowned woman out of the river and getting a marriage proposal for my troubles isn’t the oddest thing that’s happened to me, but I haven’t had time to examine that list in a while. Care to elaborate?”
Clara fiddled with the leather strap around her neck. Oh, gosh. Where to begin? “I do not wish to marry just to further propel my father’s machinations into motion. The warlord he has chosen is, well, not one I wish to be tied to for the rest of my life. I do not agree with my father’s view of the world, and though I may not have as many avenues available to stop what’s coming, as the sole lycan princess in our monarchy, I do have one. Among my people, it is known as the Betrothal Games. In essence, if I object to the male my father has chosen for me, a series of games may be enacted wherein several competitors engage in events that advance them through a tournament. The winner shall earn my hand in marriage and all that comes with it.”
Bronze’s eyes narrowed. “And when you say ‘all that comes with it,’ you mean any connections to your father’s holdings, alliances, money . . .”
“Yes. Traditionally, and for my father, it is a power play that would allow him to unite with the strongest proven male competitor in lieu of his own original choice. For me, I fled hoping to find a competitor unlike those my father would choose. Someone not of my world who is kind and just. Powerful in strength, yes, but also a warrior in his own mind. One who would champion far more than just the desire for a land grab or legacy.” She lifted her eyes to his and was momentarily stunned by the earnestness there. She studied him further and detected no hint of the craving for power she was so accustomed to being around. There was something else instead, something far more intriguing and just . . . old. Ancient. Mature, even. It sent hopeful urges fluttering around her heart that he would help her, or at the very least, once they were mated, she could work to convince him of what she needed him to do to help her people. He would be malleable, dependable.
Yes. He’s the one. He has to be.
“I suppose I had hoped to find someone,” she continued, quietly stressing her words, “who would pull a nearly drowned princess out of a river and offer her aid without ever knowing one thing about her.”
Her final words were a challenge, and she watched the angel intently to see whether he would engage. Again, that pressing silence made the air in their small room nearly unbearable, but she wouldn’t look away, no matter how devastating his hazel stare became. She was a lycan princess, an heir, a leader to her people.
And he was the warrior angel who’d rescued her. The one she believed the Moon Mother had sent her to find.
More of those meaningful looks were exchanged between the two males, and Clara had the feeling entire conversations were taking place in the span of their silent thoughts. Were they reading each other’s minds? Could angels do that?
Oh, boy, she had a lot to learn, and the pounding in her head was doing its level best to make holding herself together a near impossibility. God, she was exhausted. Mentally, physically, emotionally. If this angel rejected her, she wasn’t sure there was much left in her that could withstand the hit.
Then Bronze looked at her and sealed her fate with two simple words. “I accept.”