Reign: A Royal Military Romance (55 page)

The big doors open, and Ian and Carson finally left the casino.

Leah exhaled, and suddenly realized that her hands and knees were shaking, but Nathan caught her up in an embrace.

Around her, the humans started applauding, and Leah looked at them all, baffled.

“Why are they clapping?” she asked.

Nathan kissed the top of her head.

“I love you,” he murmured.

Even though she was in Nathan’s arms, she felt uneasy about him for the first time.

E
ven as they
walked away from the knot of humans on the casino floor, holding hands, Nathan could feel something wrong right away. Leah was suddenly distant, her mind somewhere else rather than wholly right there with him.

“I’m impressed that you spotted those guns,” he said, once they were in the elevator.

“I didn’t,” she said, her voice still sounding like it was coming from far away.

He had to bring up Kaitlyn,
Nathan thought.
God damn it, I was going to tell her.

He watched the light in the elevator click on for the third floor.

Maybe,
he thought.

He didn’t want to tell Leah. He wanted to bury that part of himself forever, forget about the Nathan who could do something like that. A small, possibly stupid, part of himself thought that if he just never told anyone about Kaitlyn again then the nightmares would go away, and it would be like he’d never done it.

Of course not. Of course it couldn’t work that way, and of course that asshole Ian would use her to try to ruin the one truly good thing that Nathan had in his life right now. It was Kaitlyn who’d gotten him here, in a way; before her, he’d had morals, he thought, as questionable as they might have been.

It was only after Kaitlyn that he’d turned into someone who’d do whatever Brock wanted, no questions asked. It was only after Kaitlyn that the other members of the North Star pack started avoiding eye contact with him, started being extra-polite when they had to interact.

The elevator doors opened, and silently, Leah and Nathan walked to their hotel room. He opened the door and they both stepped inside, and then stopped, in the slight space between the beds and the TV.

Leah opened her mouth, but Nathan stopped her.

“Sit down,” he said. “It’s easier if you’re sitting down.”

Without a word, she sat in the arm chair in the room, but Nathan paced in front of her. Four steps and turn. Four steps and turn.

“Well?” Leah finally asked once she got tired enough of waiting. “Were you in love with her? Engaged? Married? Secret love child?”

Nathan just shook his head, then ran both hands through his hair. He took a deep breath.

“Worse,” he said.

Leah’s face didn’t move.

“It happened five years ago,” he said, slowly. “Well. Not really. It starts when Brock became alpha, after everything that happened. We’d always been best friends, and when he became alpha, I more or less became his enforcer.”

He rubbed his hands together and started pacing again.

“And, you know, at first it wasn’t a big deal. I’d go threaten people, tell them that they needed to step up, get their kids to stop dating humans, that sort of thing. It was just my job to look like I could hurt people, and since my brother had won alpha in a duel, I kind of got a reputation as someone you don’t fuck with. Plus, you know, I was this bachelor, I rode a motorcycle and got laid a bunch, so people weren’t really sure about me.”

He cracked his knuckles, not sure how to get into the next part.

“It got worse,” he said, slowly. “Brock started asking me to rough people up, threaten them with guns, that sort of thing. You ever wonder why that house is empty that your family is staying in?”

Leah didn’t answer, just looked at him with her big saucer eyes, waiting.

“I made the people who lived there move,” Nathan said. “Brock asked me to. There was this minor rebellion in the pack, and they wanted someone else to be the leader, so I got sent over there at midnight. I think I broke the father’s nose, but they left.”

Nathan sat on the bed, the flimsy mattress sinking under his weight.

“They had kids,” he said, shaking his head, talking to the floor. “The thing I remember is, as they were driving away, the little girl had her teddy bear in the back seat and she just looked right at me, and she was so
sad
.”

Leah swallowed, hard.

“Was that Kaitlyn?”

Nathan just shook his head. He didn’t even know where the start the story about Kaitlyn. There was no good part of it, no way to ease into the terrible thing he’d done.

“The thing that Brock hates the most is intermarriage,” he said. He was slumped, with his elbows on his knees, examining his hands. “Shifters marrying humans. He absolutely hates it, and he thinks that shifters who try to intermarry should be killed, the humans run off, the whole thing. He says it dilutes our blood, renders strong bears weak, you know.”

Leah just nodded.

“My father too,” she said.

“There was this kid in the pack named Boone,” Nathan said, slowly. “He was fifteen, and he was dating a human girl from town. Him and his friends thought that the pack didn’t know, but of course we did. He wasn’t very good at hiding it.”

He rubbed his palms together, desperately not wanting to say the next part.

You have to
, he told himself.
She deserves to know
.

It would be easier to tell Leah that he’d been in love before, even been married. A thousand times easier.

“Brock wanted me to teach this kid a lesson,” he said. “One Friday night, we found out that him and this girl and two of his friends were going to the movies in town. So we followed them, and when they came out, we were going to talk to them. Give them a good scare, that kind of thing.”

Nathan felt almost nauseous, and he squeezed his eyes shut, wishing that he could just say it and not have to relive it at the same time.

“This human girl mouthed off to me,” he said. “Nobody did that. Not by then, when I had the reputation. And for a second, I just saw red. Who the fuck did she think she was, you know?”

He flexed his hands into fists.

“So I slapped her,” he said. “I backhanded her right across the face, but I’d forgotten how fragile humans are. She just crumpled, and as she fell her head hit the bumper of the car behind her with this awful crack and then she just stopped moving. I barely even noticed right then, I was so hopped up on nerves and adrenaline, and we grabbed the three shifter kids and took them to an empty lot to teach them a lesson.”

“What about her?”

“We left her.”

Nathan looked up and could only see Leah flex her jaw, siting rigidly in that chair, her mouth a hard line.

She must hate me
, he thought.
Why wouldn’t she?

“The three kids we beat up pretty bad,” he said. “Brock did, really. He said he just wanted to teach them a lesson, but he was really hard on them, and then we drove away. He swore up and down that they’d show up in town the next day, ready to toe the line, be better shifters and all that.”

Nathan swallowed. He couldn’t look at Leah. Unshed tears burned behind his eyes.

“The shifter kids disappeared. The girl was in a coma for a week.” Nathan’s chest tightened. “She never woke up.”

He took a deep, deep breath and forced himself to look up at Leah, bracing himself for what he might see. As far as he was concerned, she’d have every right to storm out of the hotel room and never see him again.

“That was Kaitlyn,” he said. “She was fifteen.”

Leah was crying, silently, tears running down her face. She looked out the window at the parking lot, and then finally at Nathan.

“What happened to the shifters?” she asked, quietly.

“They ran off into the woods,” said Nathan.

“Are they dead?”

Nathan paused.

“I don’t know,” he said. “For a while, people around Fjords kept saying they saw them around, always as bears. But that hasn’t happened for years.”

“Maybe they went somewhere else,” Leah said.

“I wouldn’t blame them.”

“What were their names?”

“Jake was the oldest,” he said. “Boone had the girlfriend, and Coleman was just along for the ride.”

Leah was quiet for a long, long time, and Nathan felt all the words he wanted to say gnawing at him from the inside, until finally, he spoke.

“I have nightmares about it still,” he said. “But I feel like I’m broken, Leah, and the only thing that’s any good around here is you. I don’t want to be this person that I became, and I feel like, around you, I’m not. I’m the guy I was before Kaitlyn, before my brother left and Brock became alpha.”

When Leah finally spoke, she spoke slowly, her words deliberate.

“Could you give me twenty minutes?” she asked, very politely. “I need a little time to think.”

“Sure, of course,” Nathan said, standing quickly from the bed. He walked toward the door, Leah sitting still, and then turned when he was almost there.

“If you don’t want to marry me I understand,” he said, the words rushing out of him. “I’ll tell them that I kidnapped you or something, that it’s not your fault you’re here with me. Or I’ll give you money and put you on a bus to Seattle.”

He looked at her one more time, eyes pleading.

“Leah, I’m at your mercy,” he said. “I’ll do anything.”

Then he left the room.

* * *

H
e gave her half an hour
, more time than she’d asked for. At first, he went downstairs and tried to play blackjack, but he couldn’t even concentrate enough to add two numbers together. Even the slot machines were too hard for him just then — all the big noises and bright lights, when all he wanted to do was crawl into a hole and freeze time for a little while.

Nathan ended up getting a club soda at the bar. What he really wanted was whiskey, but he made himself stay sober.

You can drink after she ends it,
he told himself. He checked the time on his phone.

Just ten more minutes, and then you can get as drunk as you want. Hit on every woman in the place, fuck three of ‘em at once.

The thought offered absolutely no comfort. He didn’t even want to fuck anyone else.

I’m ruined
, he realized.
She’s going to reject me but she’s still going to be the only one I’ll ever want
.

Seven more minutes.

* * *

F
inally
, he forced himself to go back upstairs and hear Leah’s verdict. As he opened the hotel room, he felt nothing but total dread.

What if she wasn’t even there?

But then he saw her, standing by the window, wearing the same brilliant blue dress she’d worn to her engagement party.

She’s gorgeous even though she’s about to break my heart
, Nathan thought, and Leah turned her head to look at him.

“I’m back,” he said, saying the only thing he could think of.

“Good,” she said. “We’re almost late. Come zip my dress up, I can’t reach.”

Obediently, Nathan crossed the room. For the first time, he dared to hope.

Leah didn’t say anything until she turned around and gave him a long, hard look from head to toe, her face critical.

“Aren’t you going to change?” she asked.

“Why?”

“You can’t get married in a t-shirt and jeans,” Leah said, matter-of-factly.

I
n the bathroom
, trying in vain to do something to her hair, Leah wasn’t certain that she wasn’t making a huge mistake. After all, hadn’t he just told her that he was capable of doing terrible things to other people? Hadn’t he just admitted that he’d caused pain and suffering to plenty of people?

He’s not a bad person
, she reminded herself.

No matter what happened, she couldn’t believe that he was. When she looked at him, she saw goodness shining out. Maybe she was the only one who could see it, she thought.

Maybe it’s because I didn’t meet him earlier
, she thought.
But whose fault is that
?

Around her neck, Leah wore a thin, delicate gold necklace. It had four small gold beads on it, hanging perfectly in the hollow of her throat, and she touched it once, a little afraid that she might break it.

Her mother had given it to her for her to wear at her wedding. It had been intended for her wedding to Ian, of course, but that wasn’t the wedding she was going to have.

She’d wear it at her wedding, like her mother had, and like her grandmother had. It had been saved for her, being the oldest, even though she had two married younger sisters.

For a moment, Leah felt a pang of sadness that her mother and her sisters weren’t there with her.

It’s the happiest day of my life, and it’s going to be me, and Nathan, and a couple of strangers in a chapel
, she thought, and she couldn’t stop her eyes from welling with tears.

But you’ve got the most important part
, she reminded herself.
You’ve got your mate
.

Just thinking it made something in her heart swell.

I’ve got my mate
, she reminded herself, then knocked on the inside of the bathroom door.

“Are you decent?” she called.

“I’m never decent,” Nathan called back.

Leah rolled her eyes and opened the door.

“Is this what I’m getting myself into?” she asked, teasing him. “Stupid jokes for the rest of my life?”

He wore gray slacks and a long sleeve, plaid, button down shirt.

“I don’t actually own a suit,” he said, apologetically. “And I ripped up my other nice outfit when I shifted at your... party.”

Leah just laughed. “Roll up your sleeves,” she said. “You may as well go full lumberjack for the wedding,” she said.

Nathan raised one eyebrow.

“Besides, I think your forearms are sexy,” she said, feeling the heat creep into her face even as she said that.

I don’t think I’ll ever master dirty talk
, she thought.
Not if I can’t handle ‘Your forearms are sexy.’

In a flash, Nathan’s sleeves were rolled up and he was ready to go.

“All right,” he said. “Are you ready?”

Leah nodded, but then put her arm on his.

“Wait,” she said. “I just want to say something.”

Nathan waited, taking her hand in his.

“It’s not okay that you nearly killed a girl,” she said. “And I thought really hard about leaving, just now, when you were gone. I almost did.”

She swallowed.

“But I don’t think you’re a bad person,” she said. “You did a bad thing, and now you wish you hadn’t. I think that’s all I can ask for, in the end.”

Nathan squeezed her hand.

“I wish that every day,” he said.

“Let’s go get married,” Leah said.

* * *

T
he justice
of the peace was waiting for them outside the door of the chapel, two rose corsages in his hand.

“You must be the happy couple,” he said, smiling.

“That’s us,” said Nathan.

As he pinned the corsages onto them, he spoke.

“The ceremony will be fairly short,” he said. “No religious stuff, no frills, as long as that’s fine with you. Most people just want to get married.”

“That’s us,” said Leah, blushing as the justice of the peace pinned her corsage to her chest. He didn’t even touch her, but she was still a little embarrassed by it.

How am I ever going to manage sex?
She wondered, feeling a little desperate.

“Who are your witnesses?” he asked as he finished pinning.

Leah and Nathan looked at each other.

“I forgot that part,” Nathan said, apologetically.

The justice pointed at the casino floor, only about fifty feet away.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “This comes up all the time. People love to witness a wedding.”

“We’ll just grab someone and be right back,” Leah said, grabbing Nathan’s hand and walking toward the floor.

The first people she saw were two older women, gossiping with each other on the casino floor. They both had lanyards around their necks, casino membership cards hanging from them.

As Leah and Nathan approached, they stopped talking and looked up.

“Hi,” Leah said. “We’re getting married in the chapel, and we were wondering if you’d be our witnesses?”

The woman on the right, who wore a pink shirt and had reading glasses on a chain around her neck, clapped both hands over her heart.

“Are you eloping?” she said.

“Yes ma’am,” Leah said, not certain what the reaction would be.

“That’s so romantic!” the woman said.

“What?” asked the other woman, her gray hair back in a severe bun.

“THEY’RE ELOPING, PHYLLIS,” shouted the first woman.

“Oh, you poor thing,” said Phyllis, a bit loudly. “You look lovely!”

“Thank you!” said Leah at top volume.

Then she noticed that the first woman was giving Nathan a pretty good once-over.

“If I were forty years younger I’d show you how to elope properly,” she said, winking at Nathan.

Leah and Nathan looked at each other. Neither had any idea how to respond.

“Thank you,” said Nathan, a bit formally.

“What?” asked Phyllis.

“I THINK HE’S A HUNK,” shouted the first woman.

Leah felt like they were getting nowhere. Then, a man came up behind them. He looked very Alaskan: jeans, a camouflage t-shirt, suspenders, and a gray beard.

“You’re getting married?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Leah, hoping she could get this back under control. “We need witnesses.”

The man smiled and pointed at Leah, then winked.

“Hold that thought,” he said, and walked away quickly.

“So, would you mind being our witnesses?” she asked the two old ladies.

“Of course, dear—”

Phyllis was interrupted by the PA system crackling on over the whole casino floor.

“Everybody listen up,” said the man’s voice. “You all remember that sweet girl who told off that asshole an hour ago? She’s gettin’ married, and she needs a couple of witnesses.”

Suddenly, everyone on the casino floor was looking at Leah and Nathan.

“Please raise your hand if you’d like to help these two lovebirds out,” the man’s voice said.

Every hand in the casino went up.

“We’ll need a change of venue,” the justice of the peace said, coming up behind them.

* * *

F
ifteen minutes later
, everything was sorted. The crowd had formed an aisle between the rows of blackjack tables, and everyone stood alongside it, with Nathan at one end, next to the justice of the peace. Someone had cued up something classical on a Walkman and was holding it up to the microphone of the PA system.

Leah stood in the women’s bathroom, two old ladies fussing with her hair. It didn’t look any better, but she felt like she might cry with gratitude. Could these two women possibly know that they were doing more for her than her own family?

“All right, dear,” one of them said. Leah hadn’t even gotten her name. “Ready?”

Leah just nodded, afraid she’d cry if she said anything.

The other woman opened the door to the ladies’ bathroom, and Leah looked out, down the aisle that the throng of people had made for her.

She thought her heart might just beat out of her chest as she started walking.

There was Nathan, grinning. It was the happiest she’d ever seen him look.

Right away, Leah felt better.

It’s going to be okay,
she thought. For the first time since they’d run away, she felt like it was true.

It felt like she was walking on clouds, even as she walked between old people at poker tables, all of them watching.

Then, when she reached Nathan, they started applauding.

He reached for her hands and bent down to kiss her.

“Not yet!” a lady shouted from the crowd, and everyone laughed.

Chastised, Nathan straightened up.

“Ladies and gentlemen, today I present to you Mr. Nathan Kamchatka and Miss Leah Whitehorse, here of their own free will, to be joined in matrimony before us.”

Nathan squeezed her hands and Leah almost laughed. She felt giddy with happiness.

“If anyone knows a reason that these two should not be married, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

Dead silence.

“That’s what I like to hear,” the justice of the peace said. “Shall we get to the good part?”

The room erupted in cheers.

“Do you, Nathan, take Leah to be your wedded wife, to live together in marriage?”

“I do,” Nathan said. He rubbed his thumb across the back of Leah’s hand.

“Do you promise to love her, comfort her, honor, and keep her for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and health, for as long as you both shall live?”

“I do,” he said.

“And do you, Leah, take Nathan to be your lawfully wedded husband, to live together in marriage?”

She swallowed.

“I do,” she said quietly.

Nathan rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb again.

“And do you promise to love him, comfort him, honor, and keep him for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, for as long as you both shall live?”

“I do,” she said.

Someone in the crowd cheered, only to be hushed immediately.

“By the power vested in me by the state of Alaska, I now pronounce you husband and wife,” the justice of the peace announced.

The crowd erupted into cheers, and Leah felt like her heart might burst.

“You may
now
kiss the bride,” the justice said.

Nathan leaned down, and the noise of the rambunctious crowd faded to a dull roar in Leah’s ears as she raised herself on her tiptoes.

Their lips met, and there was nothing else in the world. Leah felt like she and Nathan were alone, together, in a cocoon of their love, like no one else was watching.

He deepened the kiss, sliding one hand around her back and pulling her body closer into his. Leah put her arms around his shoulders, holding on for dear life, feeling almost dizzy.

“Save it for tonight!” someone in the crowd yelled, and everyone laughed, even Nathan and Leah. They pulled apart, and then Nathan reached for her hand.

As they walked back down the aisle, people showered them with torn up bits of paper like confetti, the cheering only getting louder and louder.

“Where are we going?” Leah shouted, squeezing Nathan’s hand.

“Our room, of course!” Nathan shouted back over the din.

They reached the elevators, and he hit the button.

Then he bent down, and before Leah knew what was happening, he scooped her up in his arms like she weighed nothing.

The crowd went even more nuts.

Then the elevator doors opened and he carried her inside.