Whatever is holding my ankle has a tight grip. No matter how much I kick, it refuses to relinquish it’s hold. I manage to at the very least keep myself from getting dragged further down but the fight is making my legs grow tired quickly.

I get one of my hands above water, and someone grabs, attempting to pull me back up. The grip on my ankle tugs sharply though, and I am tugged deeper down. Whoever was trying to pull me to safety is pulled into the water with a splash, and I realize with horror that it’s Gemma. Despite also being on the swim team with me back in high school and college, I know Gemma can’t hold her breath for as long as I can.

Gemma is trying her hardest to help me back to shore but the more we struggle the further down the force pulls me. I don’t know how long we’ve been underwater, but my lungs are starting to burn. And Gemma is beginning to grow slack, no doubt running out of air.

I push her away from me, noticing her eyes flutter. I’m running out of time, and I can’t swim her to safety. 

I wrack my brain for something, anything to help her, and that’s when I remember the elemental book. There is a chapter about controlling air, creating air bubbles. Though I’ve never practiced it, I go over the steps in my mind. 

The air bubble I manage to create around Gemma won’t last long, but it will be enough to get her back to shore. I push her up, watching as she disappears from my sight.

A sharp tug on my leg brings me back to my predicament. I can’t pry it off with my hands. In fact the more I try the tighter it gets. I’m sure it’s cut off circulation by now.

I think back to the book once more. Aside from air bubbles there is a way to use the elements as an offense. I cup my hands together, aiming at my trapped ankle and shooting an air bullet. It hits my ankle sharply, causing me to wince but more importantly releasing whatever was holding me down. I swim back to shore as quickly as my legs will push me, finally breaking the surface. 

I suck in the air, coughing up a bit of water as I drag myself onto the dry ground. A pair of shoes fill my vision, and I look up to see Titus glaring down at me, holding an unconscious Gemma. He seems less than thrilled to see I survived, and my stomach drops as I realize he must be behind the attack.

“Let her go.” I cough, standing shakily. My ankle is screaming and I force myself not to show just how much pain I’m in.

Titus does let Gemma go, dropping her with a thud onto the ground. His face morphs into a snarl as he growls, “it’s not her he wants.” He lunges at me without another word and I scream, bringing my hands in front of me and shooting another gust of air that knocks him away from me. I take the opportunity to sprint for the packhouse.

It has just reached my line of sight when I am dragged to the ground hard. My head slams on the ground, my vision temporarily going dark from the impact. He drags me back towards the trees by my injured ankle and I scream. His grip is painfully tight, unyielding even as I fight to get away.

He growls at the noise, yanking sharply and sending another wave of pain through my leg.

I scream again and Titus curses. “Would you shut up?”

Titus flings me further away from the packhouse. I manage to think quick enough to create an air bubble so I don’t hit the ground hard. It isn’t as big of a bubble as I want, still landing with a thud. My shoulder throbs, screaming in protest as I use it to push myself off the ground.

Too quickly for me to react Titus is once more in front of me. He has his hands around my throat in an instant, squeezing tight. Spots are beginning to dance in front of my eyes. I reach out, grasping at his sleeve and setting it ablaze. He lets out a howl, yanking away from me as the flames begin to lick down his arms.

The fire doesn’t last nearly as long as I hope it does and Titus lifts me by the top of my dress, tossing me into a nearby tree. I let out a gasp as the pain radiates from my back through the rest of my body. I force myself onto my knees, but Titus has me by the throat again. He presses me against the tree, the bark scraping my back as he lifts me to eye level. 

“Be a good little Princess and die quietly.”

My head is starting to grow light, the world around me tilting in a way that would make me vomit were I not being strangled. I can’t concentrate enough to summon more fire. The panic is beginning to bubble in my chest, making it more and more difficult to fight to stay conscious. 

There is a snarl, and then I am dropped to the ground as Titus is knocked away from me. He hits the ground with a thud, though I hardly notice, rolling onto my side and coughing. I hear several footsteps, and through the dizziness see large wolves rushing past me, surrounding Titus who has pushed himself to his knees. 

I hear another growl, and Ronan is beside me. He’s mid-shift, claws out and eyes completely black. 

“Gemma.” I cough when I realize what he’s looking for. His eyes snap to mine and I wince at the strain in my voice. “She’s still back there.”

Ronan is gone before I can say anything else. Suddenly I am being lifted off the ground.I let out another scream, fighting to get away from whoever is carrying me. A rush of nauseous courses through me as my vision pushes to steady itself. 

“Stop, Dove it’s me.” Caspian’s voice causes my chest to tighten, and I don’t know whether to hug him or cry. Or both.

So instead I say, “let me go, I'll get your clothes wet.” 

The look he gives me would make me laugh if I weren’t in so much pain. Leon bounds toward us, telling Caspian to follow him. He leads us into the packhouse, to a room where Caspian sets me on a bed. The Luna brings me a change of clothes, and has the pack doctor make sure I am okay.

Caspian hangs around the door to speak to Leon and Ronan, allowing the doctor to examine me.  Luckily, because of the accelerated healing I get from both my werewolf and vampire ancestors, he determines my ankle should be okay within the week. My shoulder is bruised but nothing major, and there is no lasting damage from the strangulation as far as he can tell. Still, I am more or less on bed rest for at least a few days to give my body a chance to heal fully.

Soon it is just the two of us in the room, and Caspian is looking at me expectantly.

As I explain what happened, his expression slowly darkens. And then his eyes fall to my throat, and to the bruises that have inevitably begun to show. He’s in front of me in an instant, on his knees, his fingers brushing against my throat gently. Though his face is calm I can see the anger and frustration raging in his eyes. “This is getting out of hand.” His voice is quiet, almost scarily so. “A direct attack is far too reckless. They are getting restless.”

“Cas.”

“We need to find out who keeps trying to end your life.”

“Caspian.”

He continues on as if I hadn’t spoken a word. “I need to talk to Elroy, find out who hired Titus. And–”

 I reach out, covering his mouth. His rambling is making me dizzy. “Calm down.”

“You need to rest your throat.” He scolds, taking my hands in his.

“I’m okay.”

“Pandora.” 

“We’ll figure out who’s behind this but not if you stress yourself to death. For now let’s just wait for Ronan to come back with Gemma and then we can talk about this.”

“Okay, alright. Just stop talking.” He sighs. “Maybe we should just nix the guard thing altogether and you’ll just be by my side until we can know for certain you are no longer in any danger.”

“But I like Riol.”

A glare from Caspian has me smiling. I take his face in my hands. Caspian gives me another sigh, leaning forward to press a kiss to my forehead and trailing down my nose before landing on my mouth. I hum into the kiss, reluctantly pulling away when I hear the door open. Ronan and Leon enter the room, the former looking pissed and the latter worried.

“We have good news and bad news.” Leon says in a way that leads me to believe none of the news is “good” news. “The good news is we captured Titus and you won’t have to worry about him going after you anymore. The bad news is whoever sent him must have put a spell on him because he died before we were able to question him.”

His face falls, letting out a heavy breath. “I apologize I can’t do more to help.”

“You’ve done more than enough, Leon. Thank you.”

Soon it’s just me, Caspian and Ronan left in the room. Ronan hasn’t stopped pacing the entire time he’s been in here.  

“How’s Gemma?” I finally ask when the silence wanes too long.

He turns to me, his eyes though now closer to his normal blue are still much darker than I’m used to. My eyes fall to his hands, which are clenching and unclenching at his sides. His claws are still out and his palms have reddened from blood. “She’ll be okay. Whatever you did saved her life.”

“I wouldn’t have had to if there wasn’t a bounty on my head.”

“We need to find who did this. And we need to amp up your training.”

“I agree.” Caspian crosses his arms. “Leon said Titus was under a spell, which means either a witch is behind this or at the very least someone who knows a witch. I need to talk to Rosedriah.”

Talks with Rosedriah has resulted in all of my training being increased. Within a few weeks I have improved far more than I thought I ever would. I have learned to control my elemental powers better. 

Ronan has increased our training as well. I’ve gained muscle, toned up and can hold my own in a sparring match with him. 

With Dimitri we’ve discovered that I am immune to his mind manipulation, which means I can manipulate the mind, though we still aren’t sure the extent of my abilities, or how to tap into them. It is turning out to be a bit more difficult than we anticipated. 

Sereifa has begun teaching me a siren song. She says I will still develop one of my own as time goes on but it never hurts to borrow one. Even better, I’ve learned how to manipulate the water in ways the book won’t teach me.

Even Riol has joined in the training, starting me on swordplay. Surprisingly, he is a very patient teacher. We practice every day after my regular training, and before the day I am with Dimitri. Unfortunately for him, despite the fact that I did sports during school, learning to use a sword seems to be beyond my capabilities. There are several moments where he has to repeat instructions multiple times for me to understand, and even then it’s been hit or miss.

“Concentrate Princess. You need to always focus.”

“Maybe I’m not cut out to learn swordplay.”

“Nonsense. Your father was a master swordsman before he ran off, and King Julian could hold his own as well. It’s in your blood. Now, let’s run the exercise one more time.”

By the end of the day I find myself too tired to think, let alone properly prepare for bed. It takes everything I have to even make it to the room, and even then I am collapsed onto the bed by the time Caspian comes into the room. It has become somewhat of a routine for him to help me into the bath so my body isn’t too sore the next morning.

He’s helped me into my pajamas, which at this point is still just a shirt of his, and is towel drying my hair. “Hey Cas, what is it you do when you’re not with me?”

“Planning our wedding.”

“Wait really?” I tilt my head back to see him smiling at me. He nods before straightening my head so he can finish drying my hair. “I figured you’d be off doing something else.”

The actions in my hair stop and he’s in front of me, flicking my nose. “One of us has to do it, and you’re a bit preoccupied learning now to not die before you are officially crowned Queen.”

“Can I see what you’ve got so far?” If I’m perfectly honest, it has never dawned on me before that we would have to plan the wedding. Actually, I am glad Caspian is the one doing it. I’ve never been good at party planning, or planning anything really. Gemma is always the one picking the places when we go out, and forcing me out for either of our birthdays. Putting an entire wedding together would be way too daunting.

Caspian gestures for me to sit on the bed, waiting for me to do so before going over to his desk and pulling out a large planner. He sits next to me, balancing the planner on his lap. I am in awe as he flips through the pages. They are filled with decoration ideas, scraps of fabric, dates scribbled in the margins.

The one thing that catches my eye, though, is a sketch of a wedding dress. I reach out to touch the page in order to prevent him from continuing. “This...?”

“Do you like it?”

I nod, running my fingers over the sketch. I’d never thought too much about getting married or having a wedding, so naturally I never had a dream dress. However, looking at this dress, I know for a fact it is something I would choose for myself. “It’s so pretty.”

“I think it will suit you.” He closes the book, setting it aside and lifting me into his lap. There is a brief moment of quiet as he runs his finger along the edge of my shirt. “I’ll have to send for someone to get your measurements at some point.”

“My...did you design that dress?”

"I did." Caspian laughs. His fingers go from the edge of my shirt to my bare thigh. It reminds me that I've been sleeping in Caspian's clothes since I've been sleeping in his room and that poor Daphne has had to bring me dresses from mine every day.

“We should get my clothes from my room.”

“Your room?” Caspian scoffs. “As if you haven’t moved into mine? Besides, I quite like the look of you in my clothes.”

“What if I want to wear my own clothes?”

“I suppose we can grab your things, if you truly wish to do so.”

I smile at the pout in his voice, patting his cheek. “I at least have to get my regular clothes. It wouldn’t be acceptable for me to go out in public wearing your shirts.”

“You will be queen. You can decide what is and is not acceptable.”

I snort, running my hands through his hair. They snag on the ponytail holder so I pull it out, watching with a smile as his hair falls around his shoulders. He leans forward to kiss me. “I’m sleepy.” I hum when he pulls away. “Let’s sleep.”