Chapter 90: Worlds Colliding

REIGN

^~She was scared and unprepared. Lost in the dark, falling apart…~^

~His name is Keir…~

My vision was blurry, and my world was spinning. This man was supposed to be my mate, yet his father was the madman who brutally murdered my father. How was I supposed to be okay with this?

Without saying a word, I stood up and left. I could hear Maddox following behind me, but I didn’t turn back when he called. I could feel his distress through the mating bond.

The same way I had been feeling his anxiety for the past couple of weeks.

~A mating bond we didn’t complete…~

~Could we ever complete it now?~

~Given who he shares blood with?~

“Reign!” he called out, but I just walked faster, my feet leading me somewhere while my mind raced.

“Reign, wait!”

I came to a stop, my chest heavy, my breathing harsh.

“He killed my father,” I sobbed.

“I know,” Maddox whispered. He was standing close to me, close enough to touch me, but he didn’t. Instead, he just stood behind me in silence as we both processed what we had just heard.

“I’m sorry I was avoiding you,” I whispered into the wind.

He shuffled behind me. “It’s all right. You had a lot on your plate. It can’t be easy being a female alpha when everyone wants a male one.”

I nodded, still not trusting myself to look at him. Will I see the madman in him? Will he look different to me now?

“I’ll understand if you reject me now” His voice was soft, but the fear was there.

A wolf whose mate has rejected them will never find another. And heir to the throne or not, he was a royal wolf. They were expected to carry on the royal line.

I slowly turned to face him. He didn’t move, but he shot me a worried smile.

“I won’t reject you.”

His shoulders fell in relief.

“But I hope you understand this man needs to pay for what he has done to my father.”

He nodded. “I understand. He may biologically be my father, but I don’t feel anything for him.”

I bit my lip and glanced away. “Everything is going to be different now.”

“Only if we let it be.”

He seemed so sure nothing would change.

~Just wait until my family hears~ ~about this.~

~Do they need to know everything?~

~No, I guess they don’t.~

“No one else needs to know about this. When my family asks about the power surge, we will tell them there was a witch in your mother’s line. Hundreds of years back. The gene was dormant until now.

“If my family finds out about Keir, it will change how they view you and make things so much more difficult than they need to be.”

It felt wrong to be deceiving my family like that. We had always been honest, but I couldn’t deal with Diego going on one of his sprees.

“So does that mean you will agree to be my mate then?” He looked hopeful, his hands shoved in his pockets as he rocked on his feet.

I laughed softly. “Yes, I will agree to be your mate.”

“Great.” He smiled happily. “Don’t worry. I do not want to be alpha. That job is all yours.”

I laughed heartily. “Gosh, thanks! How generous of you!”

He closed the distance between us. “Can I kiss you?” His voice came out as a whisper.

I suddenly felt nervous, my mouth going dry. Not being able to speak, I simply nodded.

He reached out a shaky hand and cupped my face gently. His lips felt soft against mine. His kiss was gentle and tender, to begin with, but grew more passionate and intense.

BOOM.

We split apart and looked toward where the noise came from. “That doesn’t sound good,” Maddox muttered.

I shook my head in agreement. “No, it doesn’t.”

~BOOM.~

That time it sounded like it came from the direction of the witch’s quarters.

Maddox and I took off running without exchanging a word with each other. We ran as fast as we could through the forest and toward where the noise was coming from.

~Why does everything always happen in this damn forest?~

As we rounded a corner to our left, I could see some warriors heading in the same direction. Clearly, they had heard the explosion too and decided to investigate.

We came to a stop at a smoking hut. “What do you want us to do, Alpha?” General Laura stood awaiting her orders.

Maddox stood behind me. Before I could give an order, the door to the hut opened, causing more smoke to billow out.

A young witch appeared through the smoke, coughing and waving the smoke from her face. Storm was behind her, motioning the same.

“I told you not to add burdock root to that mixture,” she snapped in between coughs.

“Well, I’m sorry, Storm. I was just trying to make a powerful potion. It’s not like we know what we are up against here,” the young witch snapped back.

“Storm?” I questioned, raising my eyebrows slightly. “Care to fill us in? Half the pack heard what just happened.”

Storm shot a dark look at the young witch, who just shrugged her shoulders and went back inside the hut, opening up all of the windows to let the smoke out, still coughing loudly.

“With the springtime ball coming up, I wanted to make sure that the witches were ready if Keir were to attack again. Now that he knows I am here, he will be anticipating my power.

“He’ll expect me to fight, and seeing as I taught him everything he knows—”

“You wanted to catch him off guard by teaching the covens here and having more power than the last time he was here.” My voice trailed off, finishing her sentence.

Storm smiled softly. “Exactly.”

Maddox looked between us, confused, before realization dawned on him and his mouth formed a soft “Oh” before he looked back down at his feet.

“Prince Maddox! Prince Maddox! There is a matter that needs your attention urgently!” One of my council members raced across the lawns toward us.

“What’s the matter?”

He came to a stop, his hand clutching his side as he caught his breath. “There is a man in the alpha’s office in the pack house asking to speak to the man in charge.”

I cleared my throat. “Excuse me! I am the ~man~ in charge!”

I took a calming breath, closing my eyes to center myself and not shift on the spot in a fit of rage.

He shot me a dark look. “My apologies, ~Alpha~.” He rolled my title around his tongue with such distaste I wanted to rip his tongue from his mouth.

~When will all of this bullshit end?~

“But when the king of dragons asks to speak to the man in charge, I thought it wise not to correct him and tell him that we are a pack being run by a…~woman.~”

He looked me up and down with disgust, as if he couldn’t believe his own words. I, however, felt like the ground had been ripped from underneath me.

~The king of who?~

~Dragons?~

~What next?~

~Fairies?~

~I can already feel the headache coming on…~