The Kings Mate

I’m thrown awake from the horrid images in my mind. The sudden movement affects the clenching muscles of my stomach and my hand grips at the sensitive area us a bout of nausea runs through me. Within seconds warm arms are wrapped around me and everything moves so quickly the nausea comes up my throat and into the toilet I’m placed in front of.

Ryder’s hand holds my hair back as I retch up the liquid contents in my stomach, his hand moves from the small of my back to slide over the part of my stomach where I can feel the pain of my abdomen.

“It’s just the drugs baby, it’ll go away when your body gets used to it.” I’m sat in his lap leaning into his chest as he wipes at my mouth with a bit of toilet paper.

Shaking my head at him I try to remember what happened in the haze of the night before. I remember Alexander and him telling Ryder to get me pregnant while I had no idea what was happening and the fertility needles that were given to me by Eleanor, the reason behind my reaction.

Looking down I see Ryder’s hand over my exposed stomach the faint pink line is all that’s left of the wound that caused me so much pain for the first week of me being here and there is no flesh memory of the three needles entering my abdomen.

“How long do I have to have them?” Ryder lifts me up to walk me over to sit me down beside the sink.

He doesn’t look like he wants to answer me as he runs a face washer under the cool stream of water he just turned on from the faucet. Stepping between my legs he wipes the cool cloth over my forehead.

“Two weeks maximum depending on how well your body takes to it.” He smiles at me when I lean into the cloth he holds to my face. “Better?”

Nodding my head gently at him so not trigger another bout of nausea I try to push away his ever so caring hand but he just pulls it away and continues to wipe at the beads of sweat pooling on my forehead. He drops the hand from my head for a second to run the wash back underneath the cool water before he picks me back up to wrap me loosely back into the light sheets of the bed as he places the cool washcloth over my forehead.

My eyes drop closed and he softly runs his hand over my cheek before he presses a lingering kiss to the tip of my nose. My eyes blink open lightly when his weight leaves the bed next my hip. The bed is still made on the opposite side of me and when I look over I see that he’s laid back on the three seated couch, it’s set up with a pillow beneath his head a sheet over the top of him.

“Ryder?”

He looks over at me when I push my croaky voice to carry across the room. “My wolf gets unsettled being away from you. I can’t sleep when I’m not in the room with you, I’ll keep a distance if it makes you uncomfortable but I’m not leaving.”

“Wi-will you sleep in the bed with me?” I don’t try to push myself up from the soft mattress because the pain that I still feel in the tight clenched muscles of my stomach is getting unbearable.

“Are you sure? I don’t want to make you uncomfortable and if I sleep next to you my wolf and I are going to want to be as close to you as we possibly can.”

Watching him carefully I try to think of how I’m going to feel if I wake up being wrapped into his arms again. This morning when I felt the warmth of his arms around me I was shocked and there was only a sliver of unease in me but Maxon was in the room with us and I’m not sure if it was him that I was feeling threatened by.

“I’m sure.” I whisper knowing that he’ll hear.

He smiles a small smile before he moves over to the other side of the bed my eyes following his naked torso with every single step as the taunt muscles move in his abdomen. When he pulls the sheet back and gets in next to me there’s still a wide space between us because of the width of the oversized king bed. Ryder’s hand hits something above the bed and the dark curtains close over on both sides of us with the light of the crackling fire coming though the small gaps and illuminating the defined features of his face.

My eyes start to close as I let the cool washcloth settle the fever that I’m running and try to ignore the pain from the fertility injections that I was given. The throbbing is minimised when I feel Ryder’s hand slide into mine that’s closest to me. I’m comfortable with this contact that he gives me with a small squeeze of his hand I welcome back the sleep.

***

Jumping from my sleep again I try to even my breathing out not to alert my guards to the alarming pictures running through my mind that plague me every night. The curtains are closed around the bed and there is only a tiny bit of natural sunlight entering through the gaps.

The warmth of what was keeping away the nightmares is gone. Ryder had woken me up this morning with a kiss to my forehead to wake me up early this morning, all I could do was groan and pull the sheet in around tighter to me. He had told me that he had to go to a meeting and then he left allowing me to sleep with a kiss back to my lips.

The sound of my breathing must be easily heard now as Ellie opens the curtain and sits down next to me with a raise of her eyebrows.

“Morning my queen,” she says with a laugh.

Shaking my head I allow her to help me to sit up. She’s in a nice casual blue dress with blue polka dots, the sleeves reach to just above her elbows and have white cuffs to go with the white curved collar. Her dark hair is curled and pulled up into a ponytail, a white ribbon wrapped in a bow around the base of it.

Groaning when I see the needles set up on the bedside table I try to look away from them. “Ryder asked me to do them but I remember when I had to get them that they hurt even when I had Maxon close. They’re stronger than normal fertility injections so I can’t imagine how your body takes them.”

“You had to do it as well?” I ask as she fiddles with the large needle.

“All high ranked wolves have to do it. Anyone ranked higher than Major General excluding the council. Because we are so high ranked it’s important that we produce heirs.” Her voice is quiet and I’m glad to know that it isn’t only me that is uncomfortable from this.

“How old were you when they did it?”

“I was a couple months younger than what you are now, three and a half years ago. I’ve known Maxon since I was little. I grew up with the boys, Cyrus is my twin brother. When I was eleven my mum told me that I couldn’t hang out with them anymore, it didn’t make sense but I grew apart from them. It was after my seventeenth birthday that I bumped into Maxon in the hallway. I wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near them, and I realised why the second his skin touched mine and I felt those shocks and my wolf told me that he was mine. They were keeping us away from each other because we were so young. A week later they started the injections because they knew there would be no way to separate us.” She smiles at me lost in her memories.

Tilting my head at her I call her attention back to me by asking my next question. “What about heat? Shouldn’t you have already had pups?” I’m not sure how to phrase the question but I leave it for how it came out.

“It’s unexplainable for how it happens but it’s difficult for the same ranks to get pregnant to far from you.” Swallowing deeply I pull my legs in. “Cole is a year older than Ryder and when his mate got pregnant off her heat it pretty much told him that he’d find you soon but don’t worry about it Lottie. As soon as it starts your body is going to be burning so hot that you’ll be craving Ryder’s touch to cool you down that everything else will disappear and you won’t regret anything that happens even after it finishes.”

“I don’t want to be a mum.” I whisper watching as she sets the needle back down.

Ellie squeezes my thigh. “The maternal instinct of a queen is astounding, not to mention how many people you will have to help you.”

Ignoring the warmth of her touch I stare down at my feet forcing the last question that I have for her out of my mouth. “What’s the chance of the prophecy being true?”

“It’s fated as much as it was to us to be born into our ranks and to be mated to who we are.” When I don’t reply to her she stands up from the bed and I can see the nude pumps that she has on. She holds her hands out towards me helping me up from the bed whether I want to move or not. “Come on let’s get you dressed we have a lot to do today.”

I wince when she has me on my feet but she hooks an arm around my waist to help me into the walk in wardrobe. It’s the first time that I’ve been in the room and I’m surprised by how luxurious it is. Ellie helps me down onto the cream upholstered seat that’s sat near the glass topped island made of a black wood. Through it I can see a lot of jewellery, a lot of expensive jewellery.

The entire back wall of the room is just shoes, very high shoes with flat ones sitting beneath them in small cubes of the similar black wood. On the other two walls on opposite sides of me are clothes, on my right are Ryder’s suits in closer to the end of the room with causal ones closer to me and more clothes in the cubes separating the bays with three seats of draws on the floor beneath it all. The same goes for what’s on my right where Ellie is shuffling though. There a large handful of dresses that reach the floor and puff out taking up most of the space but there are more casual clothes than formal dresses.

“Ryder wants you in a dress for today but I can sense you burning those ones with your eyes, he’ll have to be satisfied with this.”

Twenty minutes later I’m standing looking at my reflection in the mirror. Ellie had pulled my hair up into a low ponytail and put a light coverage of foundation over my face and the tiniest bit of mascara. Her hand was steady with every movement and I couldn’t believe the small difference made by the makeup it was subtle but I looked so much more like the Queen they all expected me to be.

I was actually wearing a skirt. The loose material felt nice and when I turned it moved with me. The pattern was a sort of floral type thing and the colours were dull but it suited me and the black sleeveless top that finished just below my belly button.

Both Ellie and I were going to meet Ryder for lunch and then whatever Ellie was keeping from me had to be done afterwards. When I walk out of the room Reynolds and Charlie give me a quick look and then avert their eyes with a quick clearing of their throat. I don’t have time to react to what just happened with them before Ellie is pulling me out the door and down to where I first had breakfast with Ryder.

When we got close to the room I can hear arguing from the other side of the closed door. Maxon is nervously stood near it with his arms crossed up over his chest with another guard that I’ve never seen before standing behind him.

“Max?” Ellie questions her eyes flicking nervously to the closed door to the tea room.

When Ellie gets close enough to him he places his hand down on her waist and pulls her into his side. “The meeting with the Council didn’t go as we expected.”

The yells in the room are growing louder and more defined and I can easily sought Ryder’s voice from his mothers and fathers. There’s a large crash and I go to step into the room sensing distress and anger from my mate but Reynolds takes my elbow to stop me.

“I am the King not you, neither you nor the council’s orders come above mine. Get out now.” I can almost feel the growl he lets out through my own chest.

Alexander is the first to exit the room and the rage is vibrating off him. He doesn’t look at anyone as he makes his way past us but for the smallest second I see his eyes flick down to me. Allie follows him out next but she stops and her arms wrap around my shoulders and she pulls me into a hug.

“I’m so sorry Lottie I had no idea he was doing this but Ryder will never let him do this to the both of you don’t worry.”

Alexander reaches out for his mates’ hip but she immediately slaps his hand away, he growls at her and some of the guards shift uneasily on their feet but all I can do is watch how her facial expression doesn’t falter in the slightest.

“Don’t touch me. You’ve been lying to me Alex.” She gives me a quick smile before she walks off leaving Alex to trail of after her like a lost little puppy.

Turning my head back towards the door I try to meet Maxon’s eyes but he looks to be in a deep silent conversation with his mate. Uncertainly I take a step forward and push the door open and slowly walk in to the room. Inside I see that some of the furniture has been upturned and there is broken glass on the ground. Ryder is sat on the balcony in front of the table that that’s been knocked to its side. He’s lent against one of the glass panelled French doors with one leg pulled up, his arm resting on his knee. He’s twisting something between his fingers but all I can see of it is the glint that the sunlight gives off.

Moving slowly across the room I pull the flows of my skirt into my hand. Lowering myself down I sit in his lap resting my back against his bent leg and lifting the arm that’s against his chest to run it through the curls of his hair beneath his ear.

I don’t know what provoked me to get this close to him but I can feel the distress that’s rolling off him from whatever happened in the meeting that he left for early this morning. He doesn’t respond too much to me getting this close to him but eventually his free hand comes up to play with the strap of my top.

Surprisingly his fingers running over my collar bone delicately doesn’t make me uncomfortable, eventually with a sigh his fingers pass over his mark and I try not to react to it in the desirable way that I want to.

“The Council agree with my father.” His voice is dead flat. Void of any emotion.

“Agree with him in what.”

“They want to move your coronation up to the end of the week. You will official be announced as Queen and all my mother’s duties will fall to you. That night they want us fully mated and you carrying my pup. They think that this will remove any chance of us being blindsided in an attack.” His hand pulls my ponytail over my shoulder almost hiding his mark from view.

Biting my lip I try to relax the rapid beating of my heart. Ryder notices it and his hand comes down to rest over the area on my chest warming the slight goose bumps that have risen over my skin.

“I’m not letting them do that to us Lottie. Only when you’re ready will I mate you, I may not be able to control you getting pregnant but I will make sure that you won’t get hurt and that you’ll never have to deal with anything by yourself.”

My heart slows with his words and the warm touch that he gives. Like always I feel the electric shocks that I always feel from his touch and already I can feel the fluttering burn in my lower stomach.

“Ellie was telling me about heat.” I say ignoring the feeling that he gives me as I play with the little locks of his hair at the base of his neck that he doesn’t seem to be able to get into his hairstyle. “She told me that when it begun that all I would want was you and that if we mated and I got pregnant I wouldn’t regret it.”

“It’s a maternal instinct both you and your body recognize that it’s finally got what it’s wanted. I think that you’re ready for it, you’re just scared.”

“Ryder…” he cuts me off by a quick peck to my lips.

“I’m going to take you away for your birthday ok, that’s two months away. Take a deep breath and until then erase all of it from your mind.” His hand is holding my face into his and it makes it easier to do as he says. “Don’t think about it.”

I don’t know how he ended up with them but he has the velvet roll containing the fertility injections. “That’s not a very good way to make me forget about it.”

“They hurt you,” his fingers hook into the high waist of the skirt and slowly pull it down tickling at my skin ignoring what I had said before.

I can feel my muscles trembling at his touch and I know he’s just trying to distract me. With one hand he has my skirt out of the way and his fingers move up to dance over the defined bones of my hips, he leans in capturing my lips. It’s a second later that I feel the painful pinch of the first needle entering my stomach as he squeezes the plunger down with his other hand a majority of the pain is filtered out by the sensual feeling of his touch but by the time he’s injected the third one his hands can no longer distract me.

Ryder’s hands message the skin there once he’s pulled back away from me. “I don’t think this is the best room to eat in now.”

Looking throughout the room I can tell that it needs a serious clean up and it’s all because he let his anger take over him. He helps me stand back up and readjust my skirt continuing to play with the material of it.

“This is nice,” he whispers his hand sliding down the side of my thigh.

It’s when he goes to lean in and kiss me again that someone knocks on the door side tracking his actions. His hands had slid back up to are rest on my hips and when he hears the knocking noise his fingers tighten their hold into my skin and he lets out a quiet but noticeable growl for whoever is on the other side of that door.

“Come on, you need to eat something.”

“Why do you always say that?” I joke even as the guards walk into the room.

“He’s your mate, he never stops worrying about you and he never shuts up.” Ryder growls again at Reynolds words.

To see the difference in the way that Ryder reacts around his childhood friends is cute especially with the protective way he pulls me in closer to him so my hips are against him and there is basically not even an inch of space between us. While he’s arguing with Reynolds about barging in on us I lean into press a kiss to his cheek but at the last second he turns his head completely ignoring Reynolds calling him an obscene word to turn his head towards mine and crash his lips against mine in a heart-warming kiss.

I feel the growl emanating through his chest as he swings me away from the other males in the room. I quickly pull back away from him not enjoying how intense it got and how quickly we got to the stage.

***

“Together they will fight to a winner prevails.” Ryder’s eyes snap up to me with the words absentmindedly leaving my mouth.

Ryder had organised for the food that he had prepared for me to be presented in the Kings garden. He had scoffed everything done within seconds of Abigail placing the plate down in front of him but I took my time to savour the crisp sandwiches’ that I was given.

It’s been over half an hour since we’ve been down here and now that Ryder’s had me alter the last part of the prophecy so I temporarily forget about it all I can do is concentrate on the first part of the prophecy.

“Lottie?” Ryder groans, he pushes his plate away and tries to pull me in close to him but I pull my legs away.

“Your father told me the rebels are closer than they’ve ever been before. They want the throne they want you dead.” I say watching as his hand sits on the arm rest of my chair his long tanned fingers lifting from the surprisingly comfortable iron seat every now and then to get just that little bit closer to me.

“You really shouldn’t listen to my father.”

“Ryder,” I corner him before he can worm his way out of the conversation. “What are rebels exactly?”

Ryder sighs shaking his head. When I see him roll his eyes at me, my mouth sets in a straight line annoyed that this protective side of him is turning him into an asshole.

“I heard that.” He smiles, “I’m sorry, it’s a wolf thing and it’s not going to change. A rebel however is a wolf who has broken the sire bond to the throne.”

“Sire bond?” I don’t know if I’m pushing it or not but he seems to be opening up to me like this.

“You and I have a mate bond, you know what that feels like, and you can sense it and once we complete the mating process you’ll be able to sense the sire bond as well. The sire bond links everyone from the throne to the rest of the ranks even the rouges, it’s what really forces other wolves to do as we order. Rouges have rejected the bond to their Alpha they roam free usually alone or in groups of two or three but they still have to report to me, they still have to obey my orders but rebels have broken that bond, you can see it in their wolves, they’re disfigured, it’s the way that they break the bond.”

“What has that got to do with them attacking you?”

Ryder pulls my chair closer into him and I don’t push him away as his hand hooks around the back of my knees to drop my legs over his. “They want the throne. They believe that I don’t rule well and they want to do it themselves but a royal wolf is stronger for a reason, we are meant to rule not them it’s why we’re born the way that we are.”

“You said we a lot there.”

“You’re the future queen remember, you were born to rule as well.”

“Together they will fight to a winner prevails, death or life will come.” I repeat. Beneath my legs I can feel Ryder tense.

“I don’t want you in a fight.” Ryder’s hand tightens around my knee as he tries to get out the words that we both already know to be true. “You are either going to die in this fight or you will end up pregnant, you know create life. There is no way I can keep you out of this, I know that now but I want you prepared. Later my mum is going to start teaching you about all the things that you’ll have to do as a queen when you’re in public but what she doesn’t know is that I have Cole lined up to tech you something’s as well.”

My chest tightens at his words and I go to say something else to him but he slides me into his lap so my legs are straddling his hips.

“You know every time that you think you’re going to upset me, you can’t just grab me.” Contradicting my words I wrap my arms around his neck and press my body against his my lips slanted above his, the scent of his breathe wafting up my nose.

“I’m going to get him to train you.” He whispers the feeling of his lips moving against mine as he softly speaks.

Out of unease I slip my tongue out of my mouth slightly. I didn’t take into account though how close Ryder’s lips were to me in the first place and as my tongue moves tenderly over his he’s eyes close and I can feel the strain that he has inside to hold back from doing more with his.

“Behind me, Cole and Maxon are the strongest trained wolves. He won’t hurt you but he has my orders to makes sure you will be as safe as you possibly can and that means teaching you to defend yourself.”

“Why can’t you do it?” I barely know Cole, and Ryder wants him to ‘train’ me.

“I’ll help but with the hand to hand combat. I’m not going to be able to look at my mate and think that I have to punch her in the face.”

“Hand to hand combat.” I exclaim after a minute of stunned silence. “I’ve run from stuff like this my entire life and now you want me to do something like this.”

When I try to move out of his hold he grips my hips tightly stopping my profoundly fidgeting body from moving an inch further as he lets a low growl leave his lower throat.

“Stop moving,” his voice is a low growl as his usual hazel eyes swirl with a pitch black colour.

I can feel the hardness that my squirming had created pressing against the centre between my legs. “Will this training help me neuter that?”

Ryder says nothing and stands back up with the iron feet of the chair scratching against the sandstone pavers as he pushes the chair back. His arm is tight around my waist as he removes my contact from him and props me back onto my feet.

He doesn’t let go of me for another five minutes and the entire time he has his eyes clenched tightly shut and keeps a steady but heavy breathing pattern. My mind is telling me not touch him. I knew that the black colour he’s eyes had turned meant that his wolf was close to the surface. His wolf wanted to mate me, he wouldn’t hurt me but I know enough to realise that his instinct to complete the process would be too much for him.

Eventually Ryder’s eyes open and he looks down at me questionable searching my face for a negative reaction to what just happened. They’ve returned to their beautiful hazel colour though.

“I’m in control.” He confirms the current thoughts running through my mind. “You’re not blocking your thoughts from me.” He’s a lot calmer now and his voice shows it.

“Why should I?”

“Do you hear mine?” he seems confused and his eyes continue to scan over my face.

“No, not really, you block me out don’t you?” I think I’ve become more confused than him now.

Ryder’s eyes squint and his hand comes up to run lightly over my cheekbone his fingers dancing against my temple for a second. “I don’t block you. I’ll only ever block you if I’m afraid my thoughts will affect you in the wrong way. When I hear your thoughts, I hear them as if they were my own. Open up your mind to mine, please, it’ll calm you more.”

Ryder leads me from the garden when I divert my eyes from his not wanting to reply to what he said. I don’t know whether he’s going to take me to the lessons that his mother is going to give me on how to be a respectable queen or the lessons in self-defence from one of my most experienced guards.

We get to the fourth floor and Ryder leads us down the right hallway where I saw him disappear after the first time I meet him. It’s vast. Not as big as our room upstairs but this one is set out to have more open living space. The floor is made of soft mats on the floor that also run up the back wall and on the side of the room there is exercise equipment.

Cole is sat over the other side of the room on a table and Eleanor is stood in front of him bandaging up his hand. When I see the six month old bouncing on Cole’s knee something clicks inside my mind.

“Eleanor is Cole’s mate.” I can see the way that she looks at him and the way that the little baby tries to get closer to the both of them, stretching himself in a way that shouldn’t be possible tells me that he’s there’s.

The little family has noticed our presence in the room now and Cole gives a nod to Ryder before he walks us into a small room off to the side. It’s an insignificant room with only a screen divider in it and a small side table. Ryder hands me a pile of black clothes nodding for me to go put them on behind the divider as he begins to lift his shirt up over his head. Before I can get stuck staring at the toned muscles of his abdomen, I move behind the thin divider to slip into the clothes that he had given me.

The tight leggings finish just past my knees and the loose black tank top has purple stripes around the sleeves. When I round the corner back to where Ryder is my mouth drops open when I see that he hasn’t slipped on another shirt along with the black workout shorts that hang low on his hips. He’s lent against the table tapping away at the screen on his phone.

He looks up at me when I get in closer to him and I’m guessing that the reaction that crosses his face is similar to what crossed mine as his eyes move over every inch of the glossy material that hugs the new weight added to my legs. He’s quick to change it though.

“You’ll start with me today. I don’t want you getting hurt so I want your reflexes faster before you start with Cole.” Somehow I manage to nod at him.

Eleanor has the baby boy in her arms now and is standing in the middle of the room. Cole looks nervous as he stands with her his arms crossed over his chest showing the prominent bulges of his muscles beneath his black t-shirt as he converses with Eleanor as the baby pulls the end of her ponytail into his mouth.

He growls lightly when he sees Ryder but my mate doesn’t react to the threat. I see Eleanor roll her eyes before she leans forward to kiss Cole, his eyes don’t leave Ryder even as he shares the intimate moment with his mate but when the baby lets out a squeal of joy he looks down to press a small kiss to his head. Even Ryder reacts to the reaction of the little baby and I can feel the small chuckle through his chest.

Eleanor rolls her eyes again and pulls away from Cole. “Careful of her stomach, she’ll be in more pain of you put too much strain on her.” She says to both of the boys as she makes her way out the door giving me a sympathetic smile before she goes.

“You ready,” Ryder asks as he leads me across the room with Cole leaving a distance between us but eventually I nod and I’m surprised by how little warning I have for what he does next.