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He pointed at himself, still chewing on the remainder of the pork chop.
“Are you talking to me? Your king?” he teased her.
Emilia rolled her eyes at him. She was the eldest after him, a mirror image of their mother. It made him both happy and surprised to see his mother reflected so strongly in his sister’s gestures.
“Yes, I’m talking to you,” Emilia jested back. “You are the king, after all, and thisisyour engagement party.”
Fletcher and Madison looked at each other, a knowledge shared between them as fast as the speed of light. She knew how private and sacred the gardens were. As enchanting as they would be for a wedding setting, they both knew that the elements of the environment were far too delicate to risk allowing commoners within.
Madison twitched her nose, then leaned forward onto the table. The sight of her breasts leaning against it like a shelf made the blood run hot to his cock.
“I wouldn’t want to spoil the gardens for such an event. What about the palace itself? It has so many rooms I haven't even had a chance to be inside yet.”
The conversation diverted, and the women went on again, with Fletcher only chiming in when called upon. But he didn’t care; watching them all interact was a thing of beauty. He was falling even deeper in love with the half-shifter who was flung out of nowhere into his arms.
They talked long into the night, with whiskey and cakes fueling their buzz, finally leaving just before midnight. The storm had stirred quite a bit since they’d arrived, clouds covered in a dark carpet layering. Street lamps along the road stood like red blazing lighthouses in a dead sea.
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay the night?” Dahlia inquired at the front door.
Fletcher was interrupted by a strike of lightning that lit up the black dome of the sky, followed by a pounding throb of thunder. It made his sisters jump, then burst into a cackle of laughter.
“We’ll be all right, I promise you. The palace is not far. I will get this sweet lady back home safely.”
The king saw her cheeks flush again, a mixture of the booze and compliment showing as a pink blush rose in her cheeks. He couldn’t wait to get her back and make the rest of her blush.
They held hands as they strolled through the rain, with Fletcher holding his blazer over her head to keep her from getting completely soaked. When they climbed into the car, they were both laughing, high on the presence of one another and the blessing of their lives.
“God, that’s not the kind of wet I wanted to be tonight,” Madison said.
Fletcher groaned, yanking at Madison’s thighs and waist to pull her on top of him in the driver’s seat. She pushed him away, though, giggling as she did with her damp hair dripping onto him.
“You’re a bad man, you know that right?” she murmured to him as she settled into her seat.
He started the car, then zoomed into the night. He had one hand tucked between her thighs again, stroking her cool skin with his thumb when he looked away from the road.
“You love it …”
He watched Madison’s face turn from carnal delight to sheer horror in a matter of seconds. The flush in her cheeks faded into a ghostly white, all of the life draining from her eyes as they fixed on two bulbous headlights that were heading toward them faster than she could speak.
“Fletch …”
Another car collided with theirs with brutal force. The sound of it was what Fletcher would remember for much longer than he would desire, the ear-splitting smashing of a thousand-pound metal crushing the other like a soda can. It came from the side, hitting the driver's door first, the impact mashing the king’s left leg and arm between the door and the hood of the hurdling vehicle.
The pain was the last to arrive as they were pushed to the side of the road. He was a strong, formidable shifter, but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel anything. His bones crunched, followed by a hot-searing sensation that traveled from his toes to his neck. There was no time to respond with yelps or cries as the spinning of the car halted abruptly into a nearby tree.
The king smacked his head against the steering wheel and sank into unconsciousness.
FIFTEEN
MADISON
The headlights were like double moons, eerie and sinister eyes hurtling through space and time. Time itself froze for Madison, her body responding in a defensive stillness.
All she could do was call out his name, but even by then, it was entirely too late.
They were thwarted out of their bliss, shoved into oblivion across the road and into a nearby tree. Madison would later feel great gratitude for the mighty oak with its thick trunk and sturdy foundations. If it hadn’t been planted there in Willowfrost hundreds of years ago, her king, as well as their future plans, would have been sent into the river beyond.
And who really knew what would have happened then? Would it have swallowed them whole, drowning them with a cold reality?
