Betrothed to a Prince, In Love With My Bodyguard

The Barf-Worthy Engagement Party

Rowan's POV

I’ve never wanted to vomit with disgust, murder with rage, or melt with love so much in a single moment. As I watch Red and Dom descend the stairs, I’m so overwhelmed with emotions, I consider making a run for it. Anywhere would be better than here.

But I can’t leave. There are hundreds of wolves in our castle. Eli needs my protection now more than ever.

She needs my protection now more than ever.

She’s glowing, of course. Corrin certainly worked her magic on her. Red always looks beautiful, but I’d be lying if I said she often looks like a lady. I don’t mind it; those of us who prefer Reds to Auroras don’t need our she-wolves to look like ladies all the time.

But I certainly can’t deny how it makes me feel to look at her right now.

I want to s***h the eyes out of every other wolf in the room, frankly. Other than the very recent corset incident, I've never seen so much of her body, and I’ve lived in the same castle as her all my life. Now half our kingdom gets to see it, too?

I understand why Corrin gave her the dress. It’s expected that she announce her engagement in a dress that tells the world she’s a woman now. 

But she’s not! She’s not even eighteen. The way he’s looking at her… the way I looked at her…

If there was any doubt in her mind how I felt for her before, it’s surely gone now. I didn’t even try to hide how I felt, seeing her in that corset. The things I wanted to do to her—the way I wanted to tear her underthings apart, to touch and taste the skin beneath them, to feel her, to make her squirm the way she was making me squirm…

She liked the way I looked at her, I could tell. The way she smelled… I’ve never smelled it on her before. It was arousal. She might not know it—she’s probably never felt that way before. Moon God, I hope she hasn’t.

That smell was the sweetest thing I’ve ever smelled. I wanted nothing more than to bury my face in her s*x and breathe it in, even taste it…

I feel a woman’s touch at my arm, and I jump, reddening at the thoughts I’ve just had in a very public place. I turn to see Teyla, a Saros Pack Sentinel who was a friend of mine in high school. She’s pretty, and kind enough, but more of an Aurora than a Red, and thus not my type.

Still, I realize when she looks expectantly at me that the music has kicked in and she wants to dance with me. I offer her my arm, and we begin a clumsy waltz.

Teyla asks me how I’ve been, and I answer her as best I can. I try to keep her at arm’s length. The memory of seeing Red in that corset has made me as stiff as I became when it happened, and I certainly don’t want to insult Teyla or embarrass myself by exposing that. As we dance, I settle back down, but I find myself unable to look away from Red.

I’m not the only one. Every set of wolf eyes in the room seems to be on her.

She’s a surprisingly good dancer, considering she chose weapons training over dance lessons nine times out of ten. She floats with the ease and grace her mother once floated with. Elianna was a beautiful woman, one of the few women I wouldn’t classify as a Red or an Aurora. She was a brunette, but her brown hair had a softer, gentler tone than the thick, dark manes of most she-wolves. Her eyes, of course, were just like Red’s, but despite their fierce color, she had been a gentle soul, preaching for peace and love until the day she died. I often find myself musing that Red is more like Kat than Elianna, a warrior fixated on justice and vengeance, but at moments like this, I see that she is truly her mother’s daughter—a being of light and goodness so pure, she seems to be from another world entirely.

But she’s in his arms.

I hate him. I’ve always hated him; we all hate the Gibbous Pack. They’re a weak bunch who would have let every wolf in Meridian die as they sat safely behind their castle gates. Only once all their wolves were dead would they have surrendered to the vampires, pleading for their lives like the cowards they are. If not for Red’s grandfather Cascius Crescent and the treaty he formed with the faeries, that would have been our fate. 

Dom hadn’t even been alive then, nor had his sister Sophie, or me, for that matter. I never hated the Gibbouses I went to school with for that reason.

But now, watching his hand creep farther and farther down the small of her back, watching his eyes drink her in with hungry, animalistic lust, I hate him even more than I hate his traitorous family.

The thought of murdering him crosses my mind. A part of me wants to do it then and there, in front of all these people. It’s not my own morals that keep me from doing it, nor my fear of the execution I would be sentenced to if I did so. It’s the fear of bringing shame to my pack—to her pack.

So I resist.

I dance with Teyla for several songs. I begin to get the feeling she wants more from me than I want from her, and for a moment, I consider it. What am I waiting for? What have I been waiting for? It’s not the first time a she-wolf has come on to me. Why do I always turn them down? I’ve never wanted anything more than for Red to be my mate, but I’ve also never intended to make it happen. I can’t. So why make myself suffer?

But the thought of Red with Dom makes me so wild with rage, I can’t imagine being the one to make her feel that way.

You don’t know that she would, I remind myself. I may have smelled her desire for me that day—I may have seen a look or two in her eyes before that—but it doesn’t mean she comes close to feeling about me the way I feel about her. Especially not before her wolf has awakened.

After my eighteenth birthday, she told me when I asked her when she would be married. 

At least there is some small grace in that. 

I begin racking my brain for an excuse to leave Teyla, but when I see Red excuse herself from Dom and step out the back doors to the East Wing, I word-vomit the first thing that comes to me: “I’ve got to take a leak.”

Teyla’s eyes widen, and she releases me instantly. I consider apologizing for my brashness, but decide that would take too long. I push my way through the sea of people, avoiding the suspicious look Corrin sends me as I close in on the French doors. The Omega at the door recognizes me and lets me pass where he wouldn’t let most, which I appreciate.

I know where she’s going. I take the first staircase on the right up to the library, then step out onto its balcony. The garden is her mourning spot, but this balcony is her thinking spot.

She doesn’t look surprised when she sees me. All she looks is sad.

I stand next to her, looking out at the kingdom that would, if the Celestial Gods were fairer, one day belong to her.

“Mrs. Gibbous,” she mutters after several seconds of silence. “It’s enough to make you sick, isn’t it?”

I can’t help but laugh. It shouldn’t feel so good to hear her say that, but it does. “Yeah. Pretty f*****g sick.”

I don’t usually curse around her, but if there’s anything I’ve realized that day, it’s that she’s all grown up now. She can handle it.

Her fingertips brush against mine, and at first, I think it’s by accident. But when they linger there, I realize it’s intentional.

Her hands are cold for a wolf, and small. But they’re calloused, like mine, and stronger than they look. She’s never held my hand before. I’m not sure I’ll be able to handle it when she lets go.

“I have to do this,” she says softly to me. I look up from our hands to see that she is staring straight into my soul. “It’s what she would do. It’s what she did.”

She’s referring to her mother, I realize. I wonder whether Queen Elianna loved someone besides William. We all knew that William loved someone besides Elianna.

“I know,” I finally say. “Doesn’t really make it any easier, does it?”

A tear slips down her cheek. I use my free hand to wipe it away. Her skin is so soft, I feel my fingertips linger there.

Every inch of me wants to kiss her, but I can’t. Not when she’s standing there, explaining to me why we can never be together. Not when she’s admitting to me that it’s hard for her, too.

“No,” she tells me. “It doesn’t.”

- - - - -

She returns to the party at that, but I don’t. Being there will only make me feel sick and angry all over again, and while the bittersweet longing I now feel isn’t much of an improvement over that, I’d rather end the night with the feeling of her touch on my skin than with the sight of her in his arms again. I know I should be there to protect her and Eli, but there are plenty of worthy warriors in that room. I stay within earshot of the ballroom, just in case, taking my seat in the adjoining hallway and staring at the moon through the window.

It’s a gibbous moon. Of course, it is.

When the guests start to trickle out, I fall farther into the depths of the castle, watching from the shadows to make sure that she makes it back upstairs safely. When I see her and Dom step into the hallway, I want to look away, but I can’t. I thought I’d walked far enough away to be out of earshot, but apparently I’m not.

He makes a cringe-worthy quip about taking her to her bedroom. He’s not even trying to hide what he wants to do to her. It makes my blood boil, and I start to walk over to them, having no idea what I’ll do when I get there.

But that perfect angel of a she-wolf rejects him, saying with more courtesy than I knew she had that she’s had more excitement than she can handle for one night.

I stop walking, and I feel a small smile play at my lips. She’s talking about me.

He leans forward to kiss her, and she turns her head to the side just enough for his kiss to land somewhere on her lower cheek. I want to be pleased by that, but even the cheek kiss is too much for me, and I feel my fists clenching.

When he leaves, she turns her head toward the shadows. She doesn’t see me—I’m too well hidden—but as always, she knows I’m here.

She gives the shadows a small, sad smile before heading up the stairs.

- - - - -

My dreams that night alternate between images of the gentle, sweet love we exchanged with our words and our touches that night and the crazed, wild passion I’d felt for her when I saw her in that corset. When I awaken, I’m hard as a rock and aching for her more than I ever have before. I curse into the dim, empty room, rising and making my way to the bathroom for a cold shower.

Corrin comes and gets me for breakfast, as she usually does. We live next-door to each other, on the same floor as Eli and Red but on the far side of the castle. Our parents were reluctant to let us move out of their house when we were assigned to be their bodyguards, but he knew as well as we did that it was an honor. The steward of the castle has been more than fair to us for the eight years we’ve been here, ensuring that we are treated like members of the royal family.

“Now that the barf-worthy engagement party is done with,” Corrin tells me as we walk, “I’ve decided that it’s on us to plan Red’s eighteenth birthday party. I already talked to William, and he said he wasn’t planning on throwing anything.”

I frown. “Did he say he’s okay with us throwing something?”

“He said it needs to be in-pack only, and not very public,” she admits. “But I think that’s fine. After seeing how she looked last night, I think inviting her betrothed is the last thing she wants.”

I can’t help but brighten at that. “Really?”

“She did a decent job of hiding it, I guess, but it was still obvious as hell to me. She’s miserable about it.”

“Has she said that to you?”

She narrows her eyebrows, scanning my face quizzically. “Why do you care so much? And don’t think I’ve forgotten about that X-rated look you gave her yesterday. So not cool, Row.”

For an instant, I consider telling her the truth. It’s not like I can tell Eli, and I’m desperate to tell someone. But if Red hasn’t said anything to her, it’s for a reason. I might not like the reason, but I have to respect it.

“Sorry about that,” I finally say. “I just… wasn’t expecting it.”

She doesn’t seem to buy it, but she lets it go. “I guess I shouldn’t have told you to come in. Anyway, what do you think? We’ve got two weeks. We could make it pretty special.”

The reminder that her birthday is in two weeks doubles as a reminder that her graduation is in three, and sometime after that, I will lose her forever.

My inner wolf, utterly defeated, whines to me that we should just give up—that seeing her over these next few weeks will only make losing her even harder.

But I ignore him. I want to spend every second I can with her, no matter how much it hurts.

- - - - -

The next two weeks are even harder than the last two. Now that the kingdom knows about the betrothal, Dom is obnoxiously public with his affections for her. He doesn’t kiss her—by the grace of the Moon God, she seems to have found a way to keep his lustful lips at bay—but his hands are another story. His arm snakes its way around her waist every time he sees her, and he steals every chance he gets to whisper things into her ear. Sometimes I swear he looks back at me over her shoulder with a maddening smirk.

I try to distract myself with the party planning, which Corrin seems to appreciate. We agree to throw her party out at the campsite, away from the pressures and responsibilities of the Crescent Castle. We agonize for days over the invite list, not wanting to invite anyone who will bother her with incessant questions about her betrothal and her future. If anything has become clear as of late, it’s that she doesn’t like to talk about—which is good, since I certainly don’t want to hear about it.

We finally agree to keep the party to twenty of her closest friends, only ten of which are her age, and ten of which are closer to her father’s. We even invite one Elder. Red has always been a bit of an old soul, valuing the opinions of those with more wisdom and experience than herself. Just another thing I love about her.

We enlist the help of three of Corrin’s favorite Omegas to hammer out the details of décor and furnishings. We agree that everyone should have the option of staying the night, and that proper barracks should be available for the twenty horses the gang will ride in on. I leave the details to them and Corrin, knowing little to nothing of décor myself.

All I know is that I want it to be perfect. I want everything in her life to be perfect. She deserves nothing less.

The weekend before her birthday, my father shows up at the castle, asking for me. It takes me by surprise a bit; he’s more the type to call and check in than to make an in-person visit. When I reach the lobby, I sense nervousness from him, which is strange, since he is one of the bravest people I know.

“Let’s go for a ride,” he says.

I glance around, wondering whether he’s called for Corrin, too. But when he turns and walks toward the doors, I realize he hasn’t.

I follow him wordlessly, seeing with surprise that he’s already acquired horses for both of us. The stable Omegas hand them off to us, and we mount and lope off.

“You could have linked me,” I tell him as we ride, referring to the pack’s mind link. “I know you’re all trying to wait to include me until Corrin’s wolf awakens, but… mine’s awake.”

“It’s more of an in-person kind of conversation,” he explains. “William preferred that I come here to tell you—and that we go out of earshot of the rest of the pack.”

I stare at him, confused. What did King William want me to know that the rest of the pack couldn’t?

“He doesn’t want to set a date yet,” he continues as we turn off the paved road and onto the horse trail. “The engagement is contractual, as I’m sure you’ve inferred. There are terms of peace and submission that he wants signed in writing before setting a date.”

I hope my relief isn’t as clear on my face as it is in my heart. A part of me had feared she’d be married within a month or two. It could take months, even years, to get the Gibbouses to agree to sign a contract like that.

“The Gibbouses aren’t happy about it,” he continues. “They’re concerned that the betrothal is a farce—a lie concocted to keep them from rebelling, with no true intentions of going through with it.”

The thought hasn’t crossed my mind before, but I certainly like the sound of it.

 “So, to appease them, William has agreed to send Tempest to live at Castle Gibbous for the duration of their engagement. She is to depart a week after her graduation.”

I pull my stallion to a halt against my better judgment. I try to disguise my horror, but I can’t. He reins his own mount back around to me, coming to a halt. His expression is pained.

“I feared this,” he says. “You’ve fallen for the princess.”

I don’t bother confirming it or denying it. I can’t think of anything productive to say, so I ask the only question that won’t dig me even deeper into the hole I’ve created for myself. “Why are you telling me this? Why does King William want me to know this before anyone else? Does she even know?”

“He’s telling her tonight. He asked me to wait until tomorrow to tell you, but I wanted to you to hear it from me and not her. I know how close you two are. Well—I thought I knew.” He frowns.

I still don’t understand. I can’t even bring myself to regret exposing my hopeless love to my father, I’m so confused.

“He wants me to send you with her,” he finally explains. “To keep her safe.”

He wants me to send you with her.

A thousand different feelings cascade into me like a hailstorm. Elation, initially. Relief, that I won’t have to lose her, that I won’t have to say goodbye to her.

And then sheer, unadulterated fury.

I’ll have to live with him. I’ll have to live with them. Will they share a bedroom? How long will she be able to stave off his kisses—more than his kisses? She’s a princess; surely his people will understand her wanting to wait until the wedding night. But what then? Will I be expected to stay there—to be her bodyguard forever—to have to see them, every single day, to see her give birth to his pups—to see her—

All I can see is red. My eyes sting with a mixture of sweat and tears. It’s too much.

“Why me?” I finally ask. “Corrin is her bodyguard. I’m Eli’s.”

“Corrin’s wolf hasn’t awoken yet,” he reminds me. “William fears for Tempest’s safety. He doesn’t trust the Gibbouses, and with good reason. Until they’ve signed the contract and he’s released it to the Alphas of Canis, he won’t rest easy with her in Castle Gibbous. Corrin is skilled with a spear, but he wants someone who can shift—who can truly protect her.” He glances pointedly at me. “Who has the incentive to protect her.”

I find myself wondering whether the entire pack knows I’m in love with her. I thought I was perfectly adequate at keeping my feelings away from the mind link, but maybe I was wrong.

“How long?” I ask him. “Until the contract is signed? Until the wedding? Or even later?”

I’m not sure I want to know the answer. Which would be the hardest? I don’t want to leave her, but to stay…

“It won’t be forever. Until the wedding, most likely. A little past that, perhaps. He’s not just worried about her safety; he’s worried about her happiness, too. She’s spent so much of her life inside this castle. She’s very close to her pack. He knows it will be hard for her, starting over. He knows she cares for you—that having you there will make it easier.”

He knows she cares for you.

It’s silly, really, that those words make my heart sing. Silly, when there’s nothing but darkness ahead of us.

“You’re still going to be the Beta of this pack one day, Rowan,” he tells me. “You won’t be there forever—I promise you that. And when you return, we’ll find you a mate of your own.”

The thought of having any mate but her disgusts me, but I know better than to say it.

“Okay,” I finally say, because all I really want, even now, is to be near her. “I’ll do it.”