King's Throne (9 page)

Stunned silence filled the room while Gina held Mitch’s gaze, trying to communicate her pride and confidence in him with a single look. She’d never seen him seem so unsure, even when he’d been close to death. He’d faced his demise with a calm acceptance and bravery she admired, but this simple—earth shattering—change from golden to white had him stymied.

“For real?” Paul finally asked in an awed tone. “Can that even happen?”

“According to my dad, it’s happened a few times before, in the distant past. And it had the clear blessing of the Lady. That’s the power surge your mom felt from the circle. The Lady’s Light engulfed him,” Gina said, remembering the amazing moment the day before. “It was so beautiful. So powerful.”

“What does it mean?” Maribeth whispered.

“It means—” Mitch seemed to recover from his momentary uncertainty, “—I’m probably going to be taking on Gina’s uncle in a challenge fight. And to do that, I’m going to need to sharpen my skills. Are you up for a little sparring, Paul? Maybe later this afternoon?”

Paul frowned and really looked at Mitch, giving him an assessing once-over. Paul was bulkier, but Mitch was taller. Gina knew how ferociously Paul fought and thought he would be more than a challenge for Mitch—which both worried her and spurred her competitive streak. Her tigress purred inwardly, looking forward to seeing which male would prevail in the matchup.

“It would be my honor to help you prepare. We have a barn we use as a dojo down by the main house. Gina can show you where it is or I can send up one of my brothers to guide you down. Is that acceptable?”

Mitch shot her a questioning look
that she answered with a nod. He then turned back to Paul. “We’ll come down around three, if that’s a good time for you?”

Paul agreed readily, and it was Maribeth who brought up the subject that hung in the air between them all. “Does this mean your father is going to take back his throne?” she asked Gina.

“To be honest, I’m not sure. My father is coming for lunch, so hopefully he’ll make his intentions clearer then. But whatever the goal, one thing is for sure. The status quo is about to change in a big way.”

Chapter Six

The Miller siblings took their leave a short time later, leaving Gina and Mitch alone for a while. They finished breakfast and then Mitch settled down with the book again. He wanted to finish it before the king showed up for lunch.

Mitch had dined with royalty before. He wasn’t nervous about sharing a meal with the exiled king. He was more concerned that the man was Gina’s father. He wasn’t sure what the exiled king thought of Mitch sharing the cabin with his daughter. Mitch’s intentions were sincere, but his mind was all screwed up. Since the change from golden to white, he hadn’t had much time to consider his place in the universe. What had he become? What was his role now? What was his destiny?

Or was it conceited of him to think he had such a grand thing as a
destiny
, at all? Mitch was used to thinking of himself as a soldier. An Alpha. Top of the food chain—as far as that went. But still a soldier in service to the rulers of their kind.

That he’d been serving the
pantera
Nyx and not the Tig’Ra didn’t matter. He still had a definite role and a place in big-cat shifter society. But now? What was he now? Neither royal nor Guard, he didn’t quite fit in either place.

When a cub was born with strong Alpha tendencies, they were usually driven to create their own familial Pride once they reached adulthood, strengthening the Clan as a whole. A precious few Alphas felt a higher calling to forsake their own power in service to a higher authority—the royal families who served the Goddess. The structure of big
-cat shifter society had been set up in Europe during the time of the Renaissance. They’d taken the titles for the kings and queens of each big-cat shifter species from different traditions.

The mysterious
pantera noir
had chosen to call their queen the Nyx, after the Egyptian goddess of the night. The
tigre
Clan had chosen to be a little more straight forward since the Mother of All had given them an easy way to know who was chosen to rule over them all. They simply used the names of the colors in French.
D’or
literally meant gold in French.
Blanche
translated to white. Simple words to cover such complex differences. But they’d also gone back to antiquity to give their king the title Tig’Ra after Ra the sun god of ancient Egypt. The queen was called the Tig’Ren—in which a bit of liberty was taken with the spelling of
reine
, the French word for queen.

The white tigers, it was said, had come about after the first conclave when the tiger Clan’s greatest priestesses
had gathered. They’d prayed for a sign by which to know which of two great warriors should rule over the entire Clan as Tig’Ra. After a week of unrelenting prayer, the two candidates were called into the sacred circle and the Lady answered the prayers of Her servants, turning one of the mighty tigers white. He then had become the very first Tig’Ra.

That was real royalty. Every subsequent generation ha
d been either descended from that great warrior in some way or singled out by the Mother of All in a blinding flash of light. None had ever changed the way Mitch had, and he didn’t know what to think of it all.

He wondered what the
real
royalty thought of him? What did Gina’s dad expect of him? And would he blow a gasket if he realized that Mitch and Gina had shared the bed last night?

He was a father. An overprotective tiger father, at that. Of course he’d be upset. And he had every right to be.

Even knowing that, Mitch wouldn’t have traded last night for the world. Holding Gina in his arms—just once—was worth her father’s wrath. If she was any other woman, Mitch would have claimed her already. Taken her body and made sweet, sweet love to her. Made her his in the most elemental way.

But she was the tiger princess. Off
-limits.

Or was she?

There was a little devil sitting on his shoulder that kept whispering that things were different now. He was
blanche
now. Could it possibly mean that he was now good enough for Gina? Could he somehow win her heart? Or was he only dreaming?

A princess and a guy like him?
Wasn’t there a line from an old movie like that? He didn’t remember how it had worked out for the characters in the movie, but that little imp on his shoulder kept making him hope that somehow, some way, it could work out for him and Gina.

If he didn’t die in the challenge first.

He had to keep that always in the back of his mind. It wouldn’t be fair to give in to his baser desires, to make love to her, only to leave her alone and unprotected should he fall in the challenge. He wouldn’t do that to her. He loved her too much already to toy with her emotions in that way. Not to mention her safety. If he fell in battle, she would be even more vulnerable. He had to maintain a professional distance—as best he could.

They’d already gotten much closer than he ever would have allowed had he himself not been in dire straits when they met. His professional detachment was shot to hell. He’d been as close to death as he ever cared to be and hadn’t been thinking rationally for the first few days they’d been together. He’d said things he otherwise would never have said. He’d done things he wouldn’t have dared had he been in his right mind.

He’d allowed himself to feel things. Dangerous things. He’d allowed himself to need her. Like he’d never needed another woman. Ever.

If Gina were a regular woman, he’d have staked his claim. He wanted her until his dying breath. He felt more for her than he’d ever felt for any female. He
needed
her until it physically hurt. Emotionally, the wound was raw as well. He needed for her to be safe. As safe as he could make her in this crazy world where her uncle probably wanted her dead.

Mitch knew one thing. He would give his life—if that’s what was needed—to ensure her safety. He would die for her.

And that was something he had taken for granted in his line of work. He’d said the same thing about Ria, the young Nyx. But with Ria it had been a matter of duty. Of honor. When he said he would die for Gina, there was some previously unknown emotional intent behind the words. His heart—which he had thought was frozen in ice—was fully involved in the declaration. He
felt
something for Gina that he had never felt for the Nyx. It was more than duty. More than his honor. It was his heart on the line. And though he had readily put his body in front of danger for his charges in the past, never had he put his heart out there.

It was a stark realization. If he’d had time, Mitch would have shifted form and taken a good hard run to help him put it all in perspective and figure things out. But he didn’t have the time. He’d finished reading the Rule a few minutes ago, though he
’d pretended to still be concentrating on the last few pages as he sat there at the small table.

Gina was puttering around the kitchen area, getting things ready. Her father was expected shortly.

When the knock came at the door to the cabin, it wasn’t the distinctive thundering of the tiger king. No, this was a gentler sound. Made by feminine hands. Apparently, the queen had decided to come to lunch as well.

Mitch stood, crowding Gina as he checked the small screen he’d found hidden discreetly near the door. Every entrance and exit—including the small windows—had hidden cameras trained on them. The exiled king didn’t take security lightly even here, on his home territory.

Sure enough, both of Gina’s parents showed on the screen as she went to open the door. It was safe.

Nevertheless, Mitch moved to stand behind her in a respectful pose. He had often adopted such a stance when guarding the Nyx. It was a position from which he could easily protect her if such a thing became necessary. It was also second nature to Mitch after so many years as a Royal Guard.

Gina greeted her parents with hugs as she ushered them into the cabin. The queen held a basket, which Mitch took from her. It was heavier than it looked and his estimation of the queen’s strength rose a notch. She looked so delicate—shorter even than Gina—but perhaps this queenly tigress had more to her than met the eye.

Mitch stood and waited while the lunch was set up. Gina had prepared what they had left in the way of provisions, but the basket the queen had brought contained a great deal more food. They set it out and soon were sitting around the small table. Mitch waited until the others sat and then only joined them at the king’s specific request.

The king sighed as they began to eat and turned his attention to Mitch.

“Look, Mitch,” he began with seeming resignation. “Although I am glad of your manners and respect for our position, you must realize by now that things have changed drastically for you in the past days. For that matter, things changed drastically for my family when I chose exile over bloodshed. I renounced the position,
and unlike you, I cannot change my stripes.” A hint of humor crossed his lined face. “Your formality is appreciated but unnecessary. I am no longer king and you are no longer
d’or
. We are equals, and you must call me Fred.”

Mitch was shocked by the invitation to such familiarity. Speechless actually. And it only got worse when the queen joined the discussion.

“And I am Candis,” her majesty added. “When we decided on America, we changed our names. Even Gina’s. She was very young at the time. Her real name is Gleda. In our old land, her name was meant to be a wish for her. Happiness. I didn’t like the sound of Gladys, which would have been a closer translation, but I always thought Gina had a nice ring to it.”

“You picked right,
Mom,” Gina smiled wryly. “I don’t think I’d have enjoyed being a Gladys in grammar school.” The women chuckled as Mitch tried to understand what was happening.

“Fridrik Americanized easily to Frederick,” the king added. “But Snaedis had a little harder time until she decided on Candis. It’s close enough in sound, though there is no comparative name that we have found in English for my snow goddess.”

Mitch knew the Icelandic language. He’d been born in Iceland, though he’d left there as a child to go to his adoptive parents’ home in the States. Most tiger shifters learned the language since the traditional seat of power had been in Iceland for centuries. It hadn’t really occurred to him that Gina and her folks had given up their homeland in order to come the States. Not only that, but they’d had to give up their original names as well. It seemed like adding insult to injury.

“Of course, the
blanche
didn’t always live in Iceland,” the queen put in when the silence dragged on a bit. “If you go back a little further, our people emigrated from Europe, like most of the other big cat shifter species.”

King
Frederick lifted a book from the basket his wife had put on the floor next to him and placed it on the table. “The rest is in here. A history of our people. As far as it goes. There are some parts missing. Lost to the mists of time. But most of the past few centuries are in here. I thought it would be a good place for you to start. This book focuses on white tigers, but some big events among the golden are in here too. Might give you context depending on how much you remember from your history lessons when you were a cub.”

“I admit I wasn’t always the best student as a youngster.” Mitch picked up the book and stroked one hand over the spine, admiring its age. “But I started to like history as an adult. It’s a hobby of mine. I’ll enjoy reading this. Thank you, sire.”

“Fred, remember?”

“Sire, I—” Mitch began, but the king held up one hand to stop his words.

“I’ll make it a royal decree if I have to,” King Frederick warned. “You are
blanche
now. We are the same.”

“With all due respect, we’ll never be the same.” Mitch’s frustration with the mindboggling situation he found himself in shone through his words. “I wasn’t born
blanche
. I am a foot soldier. A Royal Guard. Nothing more. I never have been.”

“I wasn’t born
blanche
either,” the queen said softly. Her expression gave away nothing of her thoughts, but it made him feel calmer. She was serenity itself. The perfect queen. If she could adapt so well to her change, maybe there was hope for Mitch? It was a concept worth thinking about.

They went on to discuss the political situation among the various groups of big
-cat shifters that had organized into its current state during the Renaissance in Europe. Mitch spoke what he could of the
pantera noir
, while Frederick filled him in on the other groups. It turned out that while Frederick had been in exile for decades, he still had his ears tuned to the doings in the big-cat shifter communities. He was very well informed.

“What it boils down to is that my brother doesn’t want to be just the steward. He has made many attempts in the past to break through our defenses,
though none in recent years. Gina was safe enough while she was still a cub. Even while she was in school. Gisli would not stoop to killing a cub, even as bad as he is.” The king sighed heavily as they finished eating and sat with full mugs of steaming coffee. “But things are changing. The unrest among our enemies and the sorry state of the Clan’s finances is pushing Gisli to action once again. Gina is an adult. Youth will not protect her. Especially now that she may soon mate and have young of her own.”