Lycan Alpha Claim 3 (128 page)

“No!” she shrieked as Charles landed another blow on Matthew, and he retaliated, snapping his arm forward as quick as a snake, impacting Charles's jaw as she watched his head snap. But like an enraged bull, he came at Matthew again, his bell rung but not stopped. Head down, he charged, and Clara did the most stupidest thing she had ever done in her life. She ran in front of Matthew, as if her fragility was a shield that he needed.

“Clara, no!” Matthew roared, and Charles's momentum carried him into them both, knocking the wind out of Clara. She fell against Matthew, who pin wheeled backward and grabbed onto her as she was falling, cushioning her fall. She bounced on top of him, her head cracked back into his forehead, and she was saw stars
.

Bright spots of color danced before her eyes like fireflies, narrowing to a single pinpoint beam of light. The last face she saw was Bracus’s, his mouth moving but no sound coming out, then she knew no more.

CHAPTER 35

Clara came awake in stages with Charles at her bedside. She did not snatch her hand away, but she said the one thing that came to her mind, “Matthew.”

She saw Charles's eyes flinch, and she had a stab of guilt, then recalled his behavior and was battling her remorse less keenly.

It was not Matthew but Bracus who appeared at her bedside. Clara gazed about her room and saw that there were four guards, two inside her doorway and two outside. Breathing easier, she sat up, releasing Charles's hand and arranging the pillows behind her.

She noticed that she was still in her royal wardrobe but missing the crown. Olive had put it away, she was sure. Clara had not yet donned the Queen's crown, preferring her own to the ostentatious ornament that had been Ada's.

Clara's head throbbed where it had landed on Matthew's forehead, and she laboriously gathered her wits about her. “Bracus,” she began, and he stepped forward under the glare of Charles's scrutiny.

“Where is Matthew?”

“He is in the guest chambers,” Bracus answered.

She nodded. That was good. “Is he —did I hurt him?”

Bracus grinned so wide she heard his face smile. “Nay, Queen Clara, a wee thing such as you bouncing off his thick skull would do nothing.” His smile faded, and he looked at Charles briefly then back at her. “It is you who had us worried.” His gaze traveled her face as if he knew every curve and plane. Clara could feel a reciprocal heat warm her face, and she knew that her response showed. Charles's eyes narrowed as he watched. What had happened to him? His anger seemed always near now.

Clara did not wish to incite Charles further, and a pool of resentment bubbled up. She was tired of tiptoeing about, walking amongst peoplesʼ feelings as if eggs were scattered at her feet.

She sighed. “Bracus?”

He inclined his head, taking in her loveliness, that special fragrance that was Clara but also more,
other.
That “adviser” of hers was going to be trouble. Even before today Bracus had known it. His feelings for Clara clear to all but her.

“Let me have a word with Charles, and later today we will convene with your president and choose a time that works for all.”

“Yes, Queen Clara.”

“Please, we have been through entirely too much to stand on ceremony. It is my wish to be called Clara by you.”

Bracus smiled. She made a fine ruler for one so young. He did not mourn the other Queen's passing, especially in light of what Matthew had told the Band. He paused, remembering.

*

“She has known little of compassion since the death of her father, the king.”

“Why did the Queen beat her?” James had asked Matthew.

He had shrugged. “She drinks wine incessantly. She only breaks from it while asleep. Clara kept the secret of her abuse for years.”

“Aye, it is very good that she is dead. It is that wolverine of a Prince who gives me worry. He and that guard evaded our blades. I, for one, will not rest until his neck is beneath it again.”

The Band put their fist to their hearts. A promise was forged. For the protection of the new Queen, for the strengthening of the alliance between their peoples, the Prince must be found and executed.

*

“Bracus?” Clara laughed.

“I apologize, Clara. I was deep in my memories.”

“Of what, pray tell?” Charles asked, and Clara gave him a look of warning but he ignored her.

“I was thinking of the discussion I have had most recently with the Band about the Prince and the serpent's whereabouts,” Bracus said with gravity.

Charles nodded. “We have scouts on the patrol for him but with the rain of the Outside...”

Bracus nodded. The weather had made tracking virtually impossible.

“He will not try to enter the sphere again. Let him take his chances amongst the
fragment
and clans which are not as friendly as yours,” Clara said dismissively, the Prince utterly gone from her mind.

And that was where she wished for him to remain.

“I am afraid the
fragment
may welcome someone such as he,” Bracus said. “However, we can do no more, and he has no force now that the king of that sphere has cast him out. He is but a refugee.” He rolled his tremendous shoulders into a shrug.

Clara nodded, and Bracus began to walk to the doorway where a guard opened the massive oak door. Turning, Bracus looked to her directly. “I will speak with you later.”

Matthew.

Just thinking of him had brought a trembling energy to her body, and she struggled to suppress it. Charles watched her facial expressions like a hawk.

Clara got right to it. “Charles,” she began, taking his hand, “we are the greatest of friends, and although you have made your intentions toward me known, my feelings do not extend beyond friendship.”

“Can you not see what we could be together?”

She
could
see. That was the misery of it. Clara loved him with all her heart
.
But there was no fire, no passion. Perhaps in time, it could grow. She did not know. Then there was the complication of being a
select.
W
hatever that meant. She did not fully understand its significance yet
.
She knew that there was a certain biological compulsion working within her that colored her thoughts and emotional processes, mayhap robbing her of what she may have thought and chosen in their absence. The facts were that it was her reality now. Clara was keenly aware that she was royal. Her father never let her forget her sense of duty. If she were to marry, or mate, as the clan referred to it, she could not exclude the Band, as they were seen as the royalty of their culture. It was all very convoluted, and she wished not to dwell upon it, but dwell she must.

Clara needed to walk. Holding on to Charles's hand she swung her feet out from the covers and stood. Charles rose with her.

“You answered not my question.”

“I will. Let us walk. I need to ease the throbbing in my head, and I believe my blood moving will aid in that.”

Charles could not suppress his guilty expression. Clara had suffered because of his jealously. He held out his arm, and she took it. The guard smoothly opened the door. He could no longer think and act rationally where Clara was concerned, and it troubled him.

Clara felt a trifle lightheaded as they made their way to the top of the huge staircase and began their descent, Charles's right hand gliding atop the polished wood bannister.

“I do see what we could be, Charles. But there is more to my decisions than potential. I have many things to consider.”

Charles stopped on the stairwell. The magnificent stained glass mermaid observed them. Charles put his back to the glass. The colors of the sea washed him in a halo of aquamarine. Clara looked into his face, and then the sun slanted into her eyes through the sphere wall, bleeding through the glass. Lifting her hand to shield her eyes, she saw the face of the mermaid was in shadowed relief. Only the eyes glowed softly down at them.

Clara's memory poured over her, and she heard her father's words.

*

“
Those waters look like your eyes, Clara. A part of the sea remains with you. You have only to gaze into the looking glass to know those waters
.”

Clara's mind hovered on the edge of a revelation. She stood in Charles's grip, looking up at the mermaid as if she were an angel come from heaven, remembering the touch of sadness in her father's voice as he recounted the sea.

Suddenly, it slammed into her with the force of the ages,
“The mermaid...”
Queen Ada had said. She had said she was not her mother. Then Clara flashed her eyes to the window above her. The one that had looked over her countless times, walking, playing on the step, admiring it. And all the time it had been...

“Clara, what is it?” Charles shook her slightly.

“Charles, when was this stained glass window commissioned?” she asked with a thread of hope running through her. The beat of her heart was a wild thing, like a moth in a jar straining toward the light.

Charles leaned his head back, a puzzled look coming over him. “After your birth.”

Clara's heart leaped with joy. Could it be?

“It was not old, as the others?”

Charles shook his head. “No, it was replaced after your birth.”

“Do you know for what reason?”

Charles stood quietly for a moment, considering what she had said, the oddness of the question. Finally, when Clara felt she was near bursting he said, “I believe it was celebratory. I remember my father speaking of it. Why is this important?” he asked, a hint of impatience leaking into his voice.

She is my mother.

It was the only way that my father could have her with him. That was why Queen Ada had mentioned it at the last. It was the one kindness she had ever bestowed on Clara. The Queen's actions made so much more sense now! She had never loved Clara because Clara
was not hers
,
only King Raymond's and this mystery woman’s. Clara's eyes went to the glass. How she had never seen her own face staring down at her she did not know. But there it was, Clara's face with hair of spun gold and eyes of the palest violet. She must find her...
her mother
.

She looked at Charles with barely contained joy that was so contagious that he smiled down at her in response.

She told him the lot of it and he turned to look at the stained glass apparition behind him, his face at once becoming an aqua wash, gazing at it for a full minute. He looked at Clara, then back at the glass.

“It is you, but not. Do you really believe...?”

“I do.”

“You do not think that she misspoke, so near death?” He let his question trail off.

“I do not.”

He nodded. If anyone could be lucid, it was Queen Ada.

On impulse, Clara reached up and hugged Charles fiercely. Surprised at first, he stood still, then his arms came around her, her joy encompassing them both.

Finally, she went to let go, and he cupped her chin in his large hand, palming her entire jaw, and in his eyes was a question she had seen once before. Weakened by his nearness and their friendship, she allowed him to kiss her.

Charles didn't ask twice. He pressed her body against his, hip to chest and she could feel all of him. His heart beat fast and hard against her chest, and one arm held her against him while the other moved to the nape of her neck and climbed into her hair, tilting her head up to meet his kiss. When his lips touched hers, they molded to her mouth as if they had a thousand times before, and she felt such surprise at it her mouth opened, and his tongue found entrance, caressing hers as he pressed and moved his lips over hers. Then he broke the kiss, moving her closer until she was crushed against him. He worked his kisses from her jaw to the tender places of her throat, and an involuntary moan escaped her. She was not herself. The moment captured her entirely. She responded against everything she knew was proper. Her hands traveled and reaching his hair. She grasped it, winding slender fingers through the silky blackness, and when his kissing went lower she came to herself. The velvet brushes of his lips on the tops of the exposed flesh of her breasts brought her back to her senses. “Charles... no... we mustn’t,” she said in the softest voice.

“Your body says, yes but your words say no.” Charles raised his head. Any closer and their faces would touch. His eyes were black pools of longing. That cooled the heat between them. Clara’s intellect slowly returned. But it was a sound at the bottom of the staircase that made them part.

Clarence looked up at the two, having come upon them while Charles was crawling down their Queen's throat, bending her small body backward even as he drew her closer.

Charles looked guiltily away.

Clara met Clarence’s eyes. Her swollen lips, flushed cheeks, hair formed a halo about her, and Clarence was struck by her beauty. With the light from the window behind her, she looked like a goddess.

He shook his head. “What are you doing with our Queen, my friend?”

Charles looked down at him in anger. “Kissing her
,
dolt.”

Clarence strode up the steps, taking them two at a time. “You forget your duty to her, to our kingdom, when you press your advantage.” Clarence's chest heaved, not with breath, but with righteous indignation.

“I want her to understand that the
savages
are not the only one she can feel passion with!” Charles said, disgusted.

“Your prejudice against them cannot affect her decisions as Queen. You know this!” They stood chest-to-chest, ready to come to blows.

Males.

“Stop this. I go to their clan. I will be
tested. If there is one amongst them that is a contender,” Clara stumbled over the word, “I will consider a courtship. That is the end of it.”

“What of us?” Charles asked.