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And any regrets he might have had vanished.
Declan stormed out of the estate and headed back to the palace, and there he told the housekeepers to move Taryn’s things into his bedroom. It would officially be their bedroom from then on.
His desire to make her his had increased twofold since interacting with Phillip. Not only did he want to protect her, but he wanted everyone in the kingdom to know that she wasn’t to be trifled with.
Anyone who fucked with Taryn was fucking with the king. And the consequences of doing that would be ghastly.
He paced his bedroom waiting for Taryn’s shift to end. He instructed the enforcers to keep a close eye out for Phillip as Declan knew within his heart that he was the stalker that had been sending the letters.
The stench of betrayal lingered as Declan thought about the horror that Phillip had inflicted on him and his mate.
How could my oldest friend do this?
No matter. It is over now.
His story with Phillip was over, but a new path with Taryn was just beginning. He retrieved the family heirloom ring from the safe in his study, nestled in a dark wine velvet box.
Anxiety surged through him like an electrical storm. He loved Taryn, and he would fight to the death and swim within the depths of hell for her. But would she do the same? Or was all this mystical romance too much for a shifter who couldn’t completely tap into what it meant to be one of his kind?
Declan took one last look at the box in his pocket, popping it open, his heart pumping. It was symbolic of Noblegrace’s colors, the crystal at the center an icy glimmer of powder blue encrusted in a gray band with effervescent sprinkles of crimson and lilac.
Declan tilted it into the spill of light in the bedroom. He prayed for the first time in his life that his instincts were correct.
TWENTY-FIVE
TARYN
Taryn sensed something was off as soon as she returned to the palace. She wondered, with a lot of hope, whether or not it had anything to do with her shifter senses growing keener. She was falling deep for Declan, and maybe because of that connection, the access to the portions of her abilities that had been cut off since birth was starting to slowly unfold. She stood at the entryway, frozen, her blood feeling like a raging river in her ears.
“Where is the king?”
A housekeeper was passing by and motioned to the spiral staircase.
“I do believe he waits for you in your chambers, miss.”
Taryn gulped. She wasn’t sure why she was so nervous. Her stomach coiled as she ascended the stairs, that sense of doom looming over her head again like a storm cloud ready to burst at the slightest sight of trouble.
She strolled down the hallway, moving past her private bedroom. It looked like it had been ransacked. Declan, or the housekeepers anyway, must have moved her things into the king’s chambers. That was his way of telling her without words how he felt about her. He wanted everything to be theirs until the end of time.
Taryn brooded as she cautiously continued. The mate concept wasn’t anything new to her … it was inherent to her kind … yet it still felt somewhat foreign and distant. Declan had known without a doubt that she was his. So why didn’t she know for certain?
It terrified her to think that her mate was out there and was someone other than the King of Noblegrace. Her heart ached at the very thought, but matehood wasn’t something to be toyed with. It was cosmically determined, and every shifter would follow suit to obtain that person as their mate, even if it meant sacrificing their own life.
Taryn didn’t know if her affection for Declan was enough. She didn’t know if she, as a defective shifter, was enough.
She trailed down the rest of the hallway, her heart leaping at the sight of the closed door. She could feel him behind it, throbbing like the quick pulse of an adrenaline rush.
Taryn’s hand grazed the door, and she braced herself. Her entire future lay behind that door, and she knew, as tangibly as the taste of the air she breathed, she had to be courageous. There was no other way.
She swung the door open and was greeted with the most wonderful sight. It melted away all of her doubts like water paints in the rain, leaving behind a majestic tapestry of truth.
Andlove. Real love.
“Taryn,” Declan said, his eyes glassy orbs, down on one knee with his hands trembling. “I have never met anyone like you in my life, and I know I never will again. That is because you are my fated mate … my beloved, my sacred, my divine being. I want to marry you. I want you to be my queen.”
Taryn clapped a hand over her mouth, struck by the way Declan’s hand shook. She was barely able to absorb the grandeur of the ring, sparkling magical shades of icy blue, deep red, and a dusting of purple ash. All she could focus on was the valiant man before her, who was clearly terrified of his emotions but taking a chance anyway.
He was diving deep into the unknown just for her. That was the kind of man she needed and the kind of man she loved.
