Total pages in book: 148
Estimated words: 140412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 702(@200wpm)___ 562(@250wpm)___ 468(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 140412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 702(@200wpm)___ 562(@250wpm)___ 468(@300wpm)
I wriggle around to face him. It always stuns me how handsome he is close up. It seems unfair that a person would look fantastic from all angles and distances. “There’s another thing we know for sure about the binding.”
“Hmm?” He yawns and he even somehow looks hot doing that.
“Well, I’m already pregnant and we still want to go at it like squirrels.” I giggle against his neck. “So, we know it’s not about breeding.”
CHAPTER 53
“It’s about breeding.”
I blink in horror at the Hierophant’s words. The last thing I want a room of strangers thinking about is that. On the other hand, at least two people in the room saw it in progress at our mating ritual.
My face gets hot.
We’re in the council chamber, but thankfully, there’s no audience, and only two members of the council. They’re both tall, dignified looking gentleman with transparent white hair and liver-spotted caucasian skin. They’re on a subcommittee that handles thrall-werewolf relations, a thing I didn’t realize existed. I just assumed we all got along like one big, happy symbiote.
The hierophant being here is surreal. I’ve never met him one-on-one, even now that I’m queen, and I’ve never seen him wearing just regular clothes and not his ceremonial garb. He wears glasses, too, with thick, red rims. They add an extra, wholly superfluous, air of authority to him.
“Pardon me?” Nathan asks, leaning slightly forward. We’re all seated around a large, round table, as equals. It’s fascinating to watch him in this dynamic, seeing him not in charge of anything.
“Whoever placed this binding on you and the queen meant for you to breed. That’s the only purpose of it. It isn’t a love spell—”
“No shit,” I say, before I can stop myself.
The Hierophant isn’t amused. He continues, “And it’s not meant to alter your fates. The point of it is to make sure you that the two of you procreate.”
“But we did procreate.” I gesture at my stomach.
The Hierophant smiles slightly, and I remember that we haven’t announced my pregnancy yet. “Congratulations are in order, then?”
“Yes. But we won’t be making an official announcement until the next full moon. I would appreciate your discretion, gentlemen.” Nathan is sure to meet the eyes of the other three around the table. I’m not sure there would be any consequences for disobeying him, but that means neither are they. Our secret is probably safe.
“My point was,” I begin again, fully wanting to curl up and die in a hole rather than say this in front of these strange men, “it’s not gone. It’s still…doing its thing, if you get my drift.”
The two council members shift uncomfortably. One clears his throat.
But the Hierophant is unbothered by the comment. “The effect might fade over the course of the pregnancy. It might not. This type of binding is an ancient magic. It’s unrefined.”
“Obsolete?” Nathan suggests.
The Hierophant spreads his hands. “It clearly still has some use.”
“But we don’t know who’s using it—using us,” I revise, “—or why. And that’s my main concern.”
“It’s a great concern for all of us, Your Majesty,” one of the near-identical councilmen says.
“Uh-huh.” Nathan leans his chin on his hand, rubbing his index finger over his lower lip. “And is the spell put on us, specifically? Or could it have been put on me and it simply found Bailey and made her the target?”
“It could have been the other way around,” I grumble. “Maybe they put the spell on me, and it got you.”
“Why would they have put the spell on you?” Nathan asks, growing annoyed with me. “I’m the king of this pack, you were a runaway.”
“Fine,” I snap back. “Maybe they put the spell on you and I’m just so beautiful and interesting that the spell chose me!”
“It would have to be placed specifically on both of you,” the Hierophant confirms, raising his voice over our spat. “And I assume whoever placed the spell on you would have had to have access to both of you within a fairly short time span.”
“Then it had to be in London, right?” Suspicion confirmed. “When was the last time you were in London before you met me?”
“It had been over a year,” Nathan says.
The Hierophant shook his head. “I doubt a spell so archaic could have remained uncompleted for that long and still been effective.”
“That just leaves the ride home from the airport and a day in my parents’ house,” I point out. “Not a lot of time to do a spell.”
But there had been stylists and thralls delivering dresses.
“I’m so dumb,” I blurt. I glance between all four of the men around the table. “There were people in and out of the house that day. My mom had a stylist, my dad had someone dropping off his tailoring. I had my hair done…”
“Is there a reason you can think of that your parents might have wanted you mated to the King?” the other white-haired guy asks.