It was the strangest thing, but I felt like he could actually see inside me, and that my words were reaching him even though I was speaking a different language.
“See,” I began as my voice faltered, bottomed out for a moment, and then when I cleared my throat, returned. “I’m a romantic at heart, and I want you to be happy with me, but also with your new life, and I want to find out what you love so I can help you find whatever your path is.”
Easing me close, he tenderly put an arm around my shoulders and then tipped my head back as he bent and kissed me.
I felt it roll through my chest to my stomach, a steady rise and fall, gradual and lulling, as he tasted all of me. The feel of him pressed to me was overwhelming, and I ground against him, my cock thickening as I writhed in his hold.
He lifted me effortlessly, and I wrapped my legs around his waist, my arms around his neck as I kissed him desperately, letting him feel the submission in me, my almost painful craving to be joined with him.
“Herra.”
The spoken title made Keir break the devouring kiss with a low growl as he turned his head to Linus. The caretaker of L’Ange bowed, and my mate stood there glaring at him for a moment before he carefully put me back on my feet. The tremor I felt rush through his heavy, muscular frame made me smile. He was as affected by me as I was by him.
“What does that mean, what you’re calling him?” I asked Linus as we both faced him.
“It’s like lord, or lord of the hall, older than king and something I hoped he’d recognize.”
I nodded.
He took a breath, gesturing to the wide circle of chairs that had been carried in. Taking my hand in his, Keir led me to the closest one, and he sat and gestured for another to be brought close. I shook my head and slipped behind him as the princes, along with their entourages, came into the room, with Luco Ansgar, the king’s son, leading the way.
“What the hell is this, caretaker?” Luco reproached Linus, sneering at him before his voice rose. “How dare another of the glen be seated first in my presence!”
But the moment he got halfway to Keir, he stopped short, staggering back a step, as though he’d hit an invisible wall.
The others froze as well, no one speaking, everyone seemingly mute, the entire contingent, as they stared at my mate with a mixture of horror and awe.
Keir stood then, slowly, still for one long moment, glaring at the assembly before taking one step toward the princes, and then another. With each measured movement, they fell to their knees, dropping as though synchronized, like a wave, until finally Luco, too, followed suit, kneeling rigidly on the marble floor.
My mate spoke, his glare dark, and to my surprise, one of the princes in the back fainted.
I didn’t understand what was happening, and I startled when Quade moved up beside me, his hand heavy on my shoulder, almost like he was using me as a brace. Turning to look at him, I saw him take a deep breath. “What do you think is going on?”
His brows lifted quickly. “You can’t feel that?”
“Feel what?”
Quade huffed out a breath. “Tucker, the energy, or power, not sure what you wanna call it, rolling off your mate at the moment is––” He clutched my shoulder at the same time as he grabbed hold of the back of the chair. “Even when I was being flogged, it wasn’t like this.”
Glancing around the room, I saw Kelvin down on one knee, Jon beside him in the same posture, but with his eyes closed and his head thrown back.
Arman was on his knees as well, and Linus had a hand on his shoulder, his fingers white with the pressure he was exerting, using his mate to remain vertical.
Roman, who I hadn’t noticed come into the ballroom, was at Quade’s side, leaning into him, arm wrapped around his back, head on his chest.
“I can barely pull air into my lungs,” Quade reported, sounding hoarse.
“Let me get out of here,” Roman apprised him, even as Quade’s arm tightened around him. “No, I know you’re using your power to shield me, and—oh God, baby, your lips are turning blue.”
My alpha was in danger, and his mate sounded frightened.
“Keir,” I called over to my mate.
His head turned, and when our eyes met, I murmured the word please and smiled at him as I nodded.
Instant scowl, which I loved and chuckled at seeing.
There was an audible sort of rush of air, like a zephyr sucked through the massive space, and then Quade gasped in relief, both hands on the back of his chair as he straightened up.
The princes sagged in place, hands gripping their thighs as their heads hung forward. The others, those that called the château home, all climbed to their feet, except Linus, who swayed for a second before straightening, head up, shoulders back, chin raised, looking ready as ever.
“Even when Linus is in his cern form,” Quade whispered to me, “there’s not that amount of power coming off him.”
“I don’t—I didn’t feel anything,” I affirmed with a shrug.
“That was terrifying,” Quade confided to me. “Now I know what drowning feels like.”
“How did you shield me from that?” Roman asked, his voice breaking, arms tight around Quade’s waist. “And why would you––”
“You’re mine,” Quade assured him. “And I will protect my mate first, before all else. Always. You understand me?”
Roman nodded quickly, pressing his face against Quade’s chest as my alpha turned his head to look at me. “Thank you, Tucker.”
“I’m your guardian.”
“Yes, you are,” he agreed, “and you needed to see the value in that, though it’s a moot point now.”
“What are you talking about?”
He tipped his head at Keir, who was gesturing for Linus. “You have to realize your value now, because if you can’t, you don’t get to keep that which every shifter dreams of and prays for—their true mate.”
It was true. Those who were weak down deep inside, who gave up, who couldn’t pick themselves up and try again—in life, love, in anything and everything—never got the chance to claim their future. Fate was fate, true, but it also favored the brave of heart, mind, and spirit. You had to be whole by yourself before you could be part of a new and sacred loop.
I stared at Keir, and it hit me that I could lose him if I didn’t step up, cast off my self-doubt and self-denigration, and realize that if I didn’t prove myself truly worthy, I couldn’t provide what my mate needed—a hearth and home. For him to accomplish whatever it was he was supposed to do and be, I needed to serve as his shelter, just as he was to be mine. As Roman supported his mate, the alpha, I had to do the same for Keir. He had to have a confident, strong mate, and it hit me, at that moment, that I would be exactly what he needed me to be, and do what he needed me to do.
As Linus reached Keir, my mate put a hand on his shoulder for a moment and said a word I didn’t know, which brought gasps from those assembled in front of him.
Linus cleared his throat and took a step forward. “As fylkir,” he began, and spelled the word for everyone. It appeared those of us on L’Ange weren’t the only ones lacking in the ability to translate Old Norse or know the words that the ancient fains used as titles. “I convey to you the words of the deigh, the last of the dorcha.”