The Alpha's Princess Mate

6

GAVIN

"How are you doing?" Caroline asked me, patting my back.

I knew I'd signed up for an adventure into the unknown when I'd chosen to follow her into the human world, but ... well, I certainly didn't expect to end up on all fours on the side of a road, throwing up even my own soul - and of course, the sandwich I'd eaten once we'd gotten off the plane.

A first day full of new, exciting experiences, for sure.

Panting, I managed to nod. She handed me a handkerchief, which I wiped my mouth with, and then helped me to stand up on my weakened legs.

Disgusting. There was nothing I hated more than nausea.

Caroline gave me a small, reassuring smile and ushered me back into the car.

"I'll go slower," she said, and then sat in front of the little wheel that commanded that evil metal carriage (steering wheel, I think she'd called it). She'd tried to explain to me how it worked, and I'd nodded the whole time, making her believe it was all clear, when in reality I hadn't grasped a single thing.

But I hadn't had the heart to tell her, or to interrupt her - she'd seemed so happy to tell me about her other world, and I'd rarely heard her talk that much, so I'd let her, and then I'd started asking her about other things, like the airplanes, the chemical fertilizers and the little shiny boxes on which everyone lived bent down, to keep her chatty and happy.

It was a tactic I'd been using for some time, now: my uncle, King Orion, had put me in charge of her safety four years ago, and it hadn't taken me long to realize why, every time she came to the Fae realm, Caroline was always moody, cold and angry.

It was because of her father, because of the things he forced her to do.

Her career as an assassin had begun shortly after I was chosen as her sworn guard; I still remembered the way her face looked right after she was forced to take her first life and sought refuge and peace there in Carenna. She'd been so pale, so distraught, it had made my heart clench. She'd flung herself into my arms as soon as she'd seen me. We'd never been really close, but everything had changed that day. I realized that the person who, on the surface, looked like the worst spoiled princess in the world, was just an extremely lonely and suffering young girl, so in need of a modicum of affection and human touch to look for it even in a semi-stranger. It changed the way I saw things.

It was that day that our friendship was born: we talked little - none of us was really a chatterbox, but we didn't need that to understand each other on a molecular level. Our friendship was forged on the blood we shared and on the one we'd spilled fighting for our lives, and it ran so deep it made our souls one.

It was the day she left, that same year, at her father's request, that I realized I was looking forward to her return.

"There's a pink beauty case in my bag," Care said, her blue eyes fixed on the road. “Inside, you'll find a blister of pills named Benadryl. Swallow one with some water, it'll help your nausea”.

With a flicker of blue magic, her bag appeared directly on my lap, so that I didn't have to bend and turn to pick it up, further straining my already sore stomach.

I nodded in thanks and started looking for the pills, finding them almost immediately.

"Are you sure it's going to work?"

"Trust me".

It required me a leap of faith to put the pill in my mouth and gulp it down.

I hope it works - as far as I'm concerned, some nice ginger tea is the best solution.

Five minutes later, the nausea was gone, and I'd completely changed my mind.

"f**k the ginger tea," I muttered, amazed.

Caroline giggled, but this time her smile didn't reach her eyes. As we got closer to our destination, ignoring the reason for our trip to Scotland was getting increasingly harder, too.

"The miracles of modern medicine," she chuckled.

Then she turned up the volume of that sort of little box from which the music came out, and we never exchanged a word for the rest of the trip.

A few hours later, we entered the small and, according to Caroline, squalid hotel in the town. I'd stayed in several hostels and inns in the Fae world, and I didn't feel like calling the place small and squalid.

The main hall was fairly large and with enough exits to allow us to have a good defense strategy and an escape plan if things went south; there was, which seemed important enough to me, a fire extinguishing system; and food was included in the price.

It was small, yes, but it offered privacy - and confidentiality, on a mission like ours, was vital.

“Good evening,” Caroline smiled as she walked over to the counter, her true appearance masked by a glamour. "My name is Vanessa Grant, and this is my husband, Gerard. I'd called a week ago to book a room for a couple of days".

A flicker of magic, and the receptionist's eyes clouded over. One second, and her face broke into a friendly smile.

"Of course. Welcome to Angel's Inn, ma'am, sir. Here's the key to your room. It's number 57. Dinner will be served from seven thirty to nine PM”.

“Thanks,” I smiled, squeezing Caroline's hand to make our farce more believable, even though the very thought of being her husband made me sick - by the gods, she was my cousin. A distant one, but still - she was blood of my blood.

As soon as we got away from prying eyes, we both snatched our hands away from each other's.

"It went well," I said, stripping away my glamour. I hated walking around with a different face - every time I crossed my reflection, seeing another face where mine should have been made me uneasy.

Caroline, on the other hand, had no such problems. Because of her work, the glamour had become an integral part of her routine. Very few people in the human world had seen her true face; they all belonged to her pack, the Night Shade. As a Fae heir, she had been extremely protected in childhood - she was only known to exist, she had told me. And when her father had requested her services as a killer and made her captain of the Elite, glamour had become mandatory.

Only in the Fae world she was free to be who she was, to show her true face - masking it only when she wanted to, when it was her choice.

"57, here it is," Care said, opening the door in front of us.

Our room was… pretty awful when compared to the one I'd chosen for myself in the mansion of that bastard of her father.

Everything was in shades of brown and orange: the upholstery, the walls, the bed linen… all brown and orange.

"Oh, it's an eyesore," Caroline grumbled, dropping her bag on a chair that was probably older than King Orion, placed in front of a desk so tiny it was basically useless. The window was small and looked out on a gray building, and when I dropped onto the bed, the springs in the mattress made a rather disturbing sound.

Caroline gave me a doubtful look. "I wouldn't do it again if I were you," she mused, biting her lower lip. “I don't know if it could take another blow like that”.

"I doubt it," I agreed. Slowly, she sat down on the bed next to me, her laptop and notebook in hand.

"Good," she said. "We have a murder to plan."

Her tone was cheerful, but could not mask the pain, the tension, the self-loathing in her eyes.

Moved by instinct, I squeezed her hand.

"You're not a monster," I told her. "You had no choice in this."

Because contravening an order from the king meant death. And as the Fae Crown Princess, Caroline couldn't afford it. She had sworn to serve the Fae for the duration of her life, after all - that life itself no longer belonged to her, now. It belonged to the kingdom.

Something warm moved in her eyes, and a small grateful smile stretched out across her features. Her hand tightened around mine in thanks, and we started planning.