“Your crown, Your Highness.” Liam bowed his head and held the golden circle up in both hands.
Like the blood adorning his body, Kael had not expected to wear one of these again. As the sovereign, he had several crowns for different occasions. This mating crown had been made new, completed just a few hours before by the Warrior Ronan, who was also a skilled goldsmith. Kael settled the metal atop his head and adjusted it. “The hood, please,” Kael managed in a raspy voice.
“Yes.” Liam lifted the wide hood over Kael’s head, careful not to snag the pointed ornaments on his headdress or the jewels in his braid.
Now he was ready.
Together, the men made their way through the manor house to an older part of the underground compound. Once again, the halls were empty and candlelit. It seemed to take forever to arrive at their destination, but finally Liam was opening the arched doors to the Hall of the Chieftains, where the mating ritual took place for all who lived herein.
All eyes turned to Kael as he entered the room. Six clan warriors formed a circle around the center of the room, each standing at a marked symbol tiled into the floor—symbols that represented elements of the heraldic badge of Clan MacQuillan. The vampires present were his senior clan warriors, his oldest compatriots, the closest thing he had to a blood family. Indeed, he was tied to each of them by a blood connection.
Kael watched as Liam crossed to the far side of the room and disappeared through a similarly arched door.
Then Kael took his place at the center of the circle, dropped to one knee, and waited.
“I do believe it is time for you to be mated,” Ciara announced.
Shayla nodded and accepted the woman’s hand. With assistance, she rose from the seat in front of the ornate vanity where she had been readied for the ceremony. Nervous energy gripped her, but so too did something else. An urge she’d never before felt, and somehow knew would only be eased by Kael’s presence, flowed through her, held her muscles taut, resonated in an empty ache in her gut. She clenched and released her left hand.
“Thank you,” she said, smiling at Ciara and Maeve.
The women had spent the day with her while the men assisted Kael, or at least that’s what she’d been told. Ciara and Maeve were warriors’ mates and great sources of information and reassurance for Shayla. Ciara was the mate of a warrior named Marcas, and though she appeared Shayla’s age, she’d been born in 1922. Even more stunning was Maeve, who was mated to Ronan and had been alive for three hundred years.
Shayla had taken an immediate liking to both of them. They’d helped prepare her for the mating ritual and surrounded her with friendship and sisterhood, easing the pang in her heart that no one from her family could share in the ceremony. Kael had explained the previous night that they would be notified and invited for a special wedding dinner soon.
She was the only human who could attend the mating ritual.
Ciara helped her put on the velvet cloak over the rich silk gown she wore. With its plunging V neck and thin lace straps, it was more lingerie than gown, but it was gorgeous, bejeweled with glittering beads along the neckline, empire waist and bottom hem.
“Lower your head,” Maeve said. Shayla stooped down and bowed her head. Maeve and Ciara lifted the cloak’s hood over the bridal circlet, careful not to muss the intricate braiding and bejeweling of her hair.
“Now, remember,” Ciara said with warm smile, “that should be the last time you bow your head to anyone, save your king. In an hour’s time, you will be queen.”
The very idea made Shayla’s head spin. Flustered, she tried to speak but no words came out. She didn’t know what to say. All three women fell together, laughing.
Finally, she calmed herself. “Well, my new friends, my future husband does not strike me as the most patient man. So, should we go?”
Ciara and Maeve led her through stone hallways where priceless art decorated the walls and sat atop pedestals. But Shayla’s need to see Kael was intense and she could not pay the pieces the attention they deserved. Forever seemed to pass in the time it took to arrive at the arched wooden door of the room they’d shown her earlier in the day.
The Hall of the Chieftains.
Liam waited next to the door and offered her a warm smile when their eyes met.
“Liam will take you from here,” Ciara said, her expression affectionate.
Shayla nodded at her new friend and exchanged hugs with both women before they departed.
Liam turned to her and held out his left arm. “It would be my honor to escort you to your mate.”
Trembling, not out of fear but out of an urgency she could not fully explain, Shayla grasped Liam’s forearm with her unmarked hand. He opened the door and guided her forward.
In an instant, Shayla’s gaze fell on Kael’s kneeling form and he was all she could see.
The desire to run to him made it feel as if her insides were vibrating. She licked her lips and released a shaky breath. Her left hand tingled and she fisted against the maddening, arousing sensation.
Kael’s eyes glowed the brightest she’d ever seen. He was magnificent, regal, and more beautiful than she’d remembered after just a day’s painful separation. A fierce masculinity rolled off him and curled around her until she swore she could smell him, taste him, feel his touch on her skin.
Liam paused at the outside of the circle and dropped his arm.
And then Shayla stood before the man, the vampire, the king she knew without question owned her, heart and body.
They joined marked hands and she barely resisted crying out. She sucked in a sharp breath as the most wondrous current of belonging shot through her—she simply didn’t know how else to describe it. By the trembling of his hand in hers, she knew Kael felt it, too.
On instinct, she sank to her knees. They were so close her chest nearly touched his. Only their clasped hands separated them.
Then Kael began to speak. She didn’t know the ancient language, but she understood perfectly well the emotion behind the words. Her heart swelled at the passion with which he spoke. Tears bloomed in her eyes at the glassiness she saw in his. Their hands clutched tighter and the feeling was simply, fundamentally right.
She was so focused on Kael she didn’t even react when he paused and the warriors chanted in a fierce yell and fell to one knee around them.
After a moment, Kael’s deep, fervent voice continued. “I am on my knees before you because we will always be equals, partners in all things. I hold your hand in mine, because we will always be together. I look into your eyes to see into the real you, and let you see into the real me. I pledge to take care of you, protect you, and cherish you for all time.” Shayla’s heart thundered in her chest. A single tear quietly rolled down her cheek. He raised their hands to his mouth and kissed her fingers.
Her lips dropped open and her mouth salivated at the picture of his mouth tasting her. That foreign urge flared within her, stronger now, more demanding.
“The ancient blood magic has deemed us a good match. I agree with all my heart. Shayla McKinnon, will you be my mate?”
She swallowed hard and smiled. “Kael the Fair, Son of Iain, Warrior King of the Vampires and Chieftain of Clan MacQuillan, I will be your mate. I, in turn, pledge to take care of you, protect you, and cherish you for all time.”
Intense heat flared between their palms, stung and burned, and then the pain disappeared completely. Kael flipped their hands over and pulled his wrist back enough to reveal new identical knot-shaped marks covering their palms. Unlike the rest of the mating mark, the knot was colored in greens and reds and blues. It was stunning.