"You don't look happy," he finally commented, forcing me to notice that I had stopped walking and was standing on the side of the road like a rock. "Should I be the one worried that you're going to reject me now?" he asked. His tone was light, but there was an undertone of worry.
My wolf growled at me in my head, as if I might actually be thinking of doing something so foolish as rejecting my mate. I may not trust this thing, and I may not want all the baggage that was surely going to come with it, but I was hardly going to sabotage things intentionally.
{Good,} my wolf muttered.
"No, of course not. You are my mate, right?"
His smile of relief was blinding. "Yes, I am."
I liked the way he sounded just a touch possessive.
We kept walking. "So, if you're the prince, what does that mean for me?" I was already certain I was going to be abducted and held against my will for some creepy and probably illogical reason at least once or twice in my life now.
He paused. "Well, your life is going to change a bit. Hopefully for the better."
I shrugged. I could adapt. It was not like I could ask him to leave the throne and live in this small town with me. I wouldn’t be able to stay here, either. I would need protection since I had just become his biggest vulnerability.
"What about my family?"
"They live here?" he asked.
"Yeah. I live with them."
"Well, they can stay or move to the capital, but either way I should probably put some light security on them. We wouldn’t want anyone using them to get to you."
"Makes sense."
We walked towards the grocery store and he held open the door for me and then followed me inside.
I quickly grabbed a bag of sugar and carried it to the cash register. Behind the counter stood Darcy, and her eyes were bright with speculation over the gorgeous specimen who had just accompanied me into the mundane little grocery store. It was as clear as if her thoughts were displayed in LED on her forehead, and her track record confirmed it.
Her smile widened with ecstatic joy at the identity of her unlikely customer. I wondered how she recognized him faster than I did. Well, she was rather obsessed with celebrity magazines and gossip in general, so maybe her radar was tuned to it.
And, in my defence, I was too busy being mesmerized by his ridiculous good looks and heady scent while being distracted by my fear of rejection to wonder who he was beyond my mate.
She sniffed lightly, scenting the air while trying to be discrete, probably trying to figure out if we had been intimate. My face flushed with embarrassment.
Gossip was going to fly. The whole kingdom would probably know by nightfall.
It was clear my life had been swept off by hurricane Arthur and would be scattered everywhere. Picking up the pieces was going to be impossible.
I tapped my card to pay for the sugar and he picked up the bag. We left the store to a cheery farewell from Darcy. There was zero hope she would keep her mouth shut. She was probably already posting the news on MuzzleBook or texting her poker buddies. Ugh.
The door shut behind us.
"So, your family?" he asked, drawing me back to where our conversation left off.
"I live with my parents and my older sister, just up the road from that gas station where you stopped. Want to meet them?"
"Already?" he seemed surprised.
I shrugged. "Everyone's going to know soon, at least they should be first. And your family?"
"I'll call my parents after we get this sugar back to your house. Then maybe you could give me a tour?" he asked.
I was not sure what to think. "And then what?"
"Well, then I guess I should take you home with me. You can meet my family...and the kingdom."
I nodded slowly, in contrast to my racing thoughts. It did not help that the sight of him from the side of my vision was enough to make me want to give him a tour of my bedroom.
"I feel really overwhelmed," I admitted.
"I do too. Must be so much worse for you, though."
I smiled at him. "I think there's one upside."
"So do I," he agreed with a sexy grin that made my wolf whimper in anticipation. "So do I."
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My house could only be described as normal. It was well maintained, but there was nothing extraordinary about it. Dad worked in the office at a factory, mom worked part time at a nursing home.
I had just graduated and was taking a year off to save for my postsecondary school at a job in the next town over. Guess they were going to have to get by without me now.
I pushed open the door. "Hey, Mom! I got the sugar. And... There's someone I want you to meet."
My mother rounded the corner, and the bulging of her eyes was testament to her shock at the surprise guest.
"Anne?" she asked, staring at him like she couldn’t believe it. That made two of us.
"This is Arthur. Turns out he's my mate."
Her eyes darted between him and me for a long moment. "You know he's the—"
"Yep."
Arthur used the lull in conversation to speak. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mrs...?"
Whoops, probably should have told him that before I brought him home. Everything was happening so fast.
"Roberts."
He stepped forward and extended his hand. “Mrs. Roberts.”
My mom's smile overwhelmed her face as she shook his hand. "The pleasure's all mine. Congratulations, both of you. But, I think I need to sit down." She staggered over to the couch and dropped onto it, fanning herself with her hand.
She’d be fine, so I carried the sugar to the kitchen and set it on the counter. The stove was preheated and the ingredients my mom had already gathered before she discovered the lack of sugar were still on the counter. I turned to Arthur, who had followed me into the room.
I needed to get a handle on the situation. "So, do we need to leave today?"
He raised an eyebrow, and it was ridiculously hot, just like all his other facial expressions—so far. His voice was silky. "You're willing to leave your life behind, just like that?"
I bit my lip. His eyes bore into mine. They really seemed as endless as the sky to my befuddled brain. "Well, I'll do what I have to, right? I imagine you're really busy."
He smiled. "Yeah, but I can make time, give you a couple of days to adjust."
My eyes widened. That was unexpectedly thoughtful. "Really?"
"Sure. I'll have to stay here in town, though. Is there a hotel?"
My wolf started to panic. {No! Make him stay! If he leaves I might just wake up and find I'm having a lovely dream about us finding our mate and you not screwing it up too badly.}
Since she was so upset, I decided to cave into her demands.
"Yeah there is, but you could just stay here, Arthur. We've got a guest room. Except maybe it's not what you're used to." I realized how out of my depth I was.
{The guest room?} my wolf asked with disgust. {Our room would be far better accommodations for our mate.}
"Nah, it's fine. I'll stay there. Brandon and Lucas need a place, though. And others when they arrive."
"Alright," I said. The town’s lonely hotel was going to have a lot more excitement than it was used to.
He paused. "I'll let you go talk to your mother, she seems a bit under the weather. While you do that, I'll go call mine, get security set up. Two days enough? I could try to swing more."
His consideration was already more than I expected. From what I had heard, high-ranking males usually found their mates and dragged them off with no regard to the female's comfort and preferences, like a cave man carrying a new woman home.
I smiled. "No, two days is great." That would be enough time to get stuff together and say my goodbyes. Now that it seemed fate might not be jerking me around, I was starting to get excited about my future with Arthur.
He grinned at me. "I'm going to go now. But first," he tapped his phone and thrust it towards me open and on a new contact.
I entered my phone number and handed it back to him. He took it with an excited smile.
"I'll be back in a few."
"'Kay."
He walked out the door, and I missed him already.
A moment later my phone buzzed. I looked at the screen.
Arthur [Won't be long, promise.]
Anne [See you soon.]
Arthur [<3]
I stared at the stupid little emoji on my screen and just about died of happiness.
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Once I had resuscitated and regained my ability to walk, I found my mother still on the couch. She seemed to be hyperventilating. "You found your mate. Your mate is the prince."
"Yeah, isn't it great?" I agreed, a sarcastic edge to my voice. It wasn’t that I wasn’t pleased with him. He was obviously perfectly great, but the situation around him seemed like a minefield.
"I'm so happy for you," she wheezed. She took a puff of her inhaler.
"Thanks," I responded.
She seemed to be calming down a bit, which was good, because we needed adults in the room, and I did not want to be the only one. My mother was just a bit emotionally reactive.
Although she was not even that bad, relative to many of the other wolves I knew.
"So, Mom, my life is going to change."
"Life always changes when you find your mate, Anne," she told me.
That sounded like she got it off a bumper sticker.
I frowned. "I mean really change. I'm going to need constant security once people know, and Arthur's friend/bodyguard/whatever wasn't exactly quiet about it. Then Darcy saw us together, so..."
"Oh goodness, the whole world probably knows already. Maybe we should call your dad right now before he hears it through the rumour mill."
"And Arthur also said that if you want to stay with the Desert Night Pack you'll need light security, too," I pointed out.
My mother looked like she was going to protest, but then she stopped herself. "Whatever your new family deems necessary."
"Mom! We're not married or mated yet!"
"Yet. Well, just try to stay out of the gossip magazines. Darcy is going to have a field day." She groaned out loud, and her wolf added to me in a snarky aside through our family link, {She’s the only wolf I know whose human has a bigger muzzle than the wolf.}
I chuckled at my mother’s wolf. She was much more quiet and meek than mine, but when she had something to say, she said it. Then I responded to my mother’s words. "The magazines are probably unavoidable unless you want Arthur and me to rule as tyrants and squash the freedom of the press."
"I suppose that wouldn't be great. Now, go call your father. Or you can tell your sister first."
I considered my options. Tell my wonderful and supportive father, or my sister who had been spiralling continually out of control ever since she found her mate and he rejected her instantaneously.
"I'll call Dad," I said brightly. No shame in procrastinating the sister problem.
I scrolled to my father's contact in my phone and hit it. The rhythm of the ringing made me really nervous all of a sudden. What would my dad think?
"Put it on speaker, Anne," my mother suggested. I rolled my eyes and hit that button, too.
Finally Dad picked up.
"Hey kiddo," he said.
"Hey Dad," I said, super casually.
"What is it?" he asked. I never called him at work so he was probably wondering what was happening.
I took a deep breath. "SoIjustcalledtotellyouIfoundmymate,andhe'sPrinceArthur. Talktoyoulater. Bye."
I hung up.
"Anne!" Mom complained.
My phone rang with my father's contact flashing on the screen. I sighed and hit the receiver button and put it on speaker again.
"Did I understand you right?"
"I'm surprised you understood her at all," my mother interjected. I rolled my eyes.
"You really found your mate, kiddo?"
"Yep."
"And he's...I don't want to say what I thought I heard here in the office, tell me again," he said.
I sighed. "He's Prince Arthur."
"Well. That's unexpected."
My father's description was applicable to a couple things which were about to happen.
There was a knock on the front door, and my mother rushed over to usher my mate back into the house. He looked larger than life as he stepped through the door frame, smiling his dazzling smile. My heart did silly things at the sight of him.
While I was dazed and ogling, a loud crash accompanied by a shriek came from upstairs, startling me from my gorgeous mate haze. Arthur immediately jumped into action and ran up the stairs. I followed in his wake.
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