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The Gift
I ended up begging Eden to escort me to my lessons with Signora Flori the next day, and every day after that.
The unaccompanied walk across the main floor to the kitchen after my etiquette lessons, though, turned out to be much easier than I had anticipated. There were many servants bustling around at that hour, enough to help me to feel less vulnerable, alone in the alpha's castle.
The cooks had returned to regarding me with that same wary deference that I had worked so hard to overcome. I tried some of my old tricks, even asked direct questions regarding information that they had shared about their personal lives.
It was no use.
The princess had reminded them of my rank, albeit temporary, and it would take a lot more effort for them to forget it a second time.
Returning to the royal quarters had proven to be the most blood chillingly terrifying part of my days without Matteo there as a constant shadow. It took three days for me to gain the courage to explore on my own, instead of slinking back to my room to sulk before the hearth to await dinner with the royal family.
There were many sitting rooms just down the hall from the royal quarters, each decorated in a different hue. They appeared, for the most part, unused. A thin blanketing of dust covered the majority of the surfaces, however, there was one in particular that seemed slightly more lived-in than the others.
This sitting room was decorated with dark wood furniture, and heavy burgundy drapes. I could still see the dust particles floating on a beam of sunlight coming in through the window, but the desk near the door was clean. The settee appeared recently dusted as well.
As I perused one of the bookshelves built into the wall on either side of the unlit hearth, I found another difference. The books in this sitting room were not the great adventures and poems that every one of the others had held. There were some science and mathematics tomes, as the alpha had seemed to prefer in his own room, but those weren't what caught my attention.
I ran my fingertips along the spines of the books, the likes of which I had never seen before. Anatomy of a Shifter. A Complete Guide to Early Childhood Development of the Shifter Species. Navigating The Change. Controlling Your Instincts. The First Shift.
I pulled two from the shelf at random, Anatomy of a Shifter and Controlling Your Instincts, and settled at the desk.
~*~
Dinner was uneventful, much to my relief.
There hadn't been a single incident in the three days since I had taught the princesses and Matteo to cook. It was almost as if we had fallen into some kind of an unspoken truce.
"Will you accompany me for a walk?" The prince's question didn't surprise me. He had been asking the same thing every night for nearly a month. This time, for once, I was actually excited to accept.
He hid his shock well.
With the information from the books swirling fresh in my mind, I was bursting with questions. But, once we had started our seemingly aimless meandering through the castle grounds, suddenly my mouth had gone dry. He was so much bigger than I was, every inch of his body radiating power and grace. The thought of someone like that, so strong and confident, wasting even a year of their time on someone as weak and insignificant as me was still so very strange, even after all this time.
He caught me staring, one corner of his mouth tilting up in a smirk in time with the scorching heat spreading across my cheeks. His brow raised just the slightest bit, "Is there something on your mind, little mate?"
Little mate.
He said the word so casually, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. To me, it was anything but.
I dragged my gaze from his, looking out at the dark treeline across the small field to our right. My lip fell between teeth, still unsure of how to proceed, or if he would even be willing to answer my questions.
After a while, he sighed, slipping his hands into his pockets as I felt his gaze leave the side of my face, "Whatever it is, you know where to find me, should you change your mind about telling me." He paused a moment, as if thinking through his words with care before adding, voice a touch softer, almost wistful, "I hope you'll find that you can trust me, someday."
I made the mistake of looking back up at him, immediately finding myself ensnared by that all-consuming pull. The words slipped out without my conscious permission, "I've been reading," I hesitated, swallowing down the lump in my throat, "about your kind."
"Is that so?" His smirk returned.
I nodded, face reddening further.
"Alright," he said, tone hinting at his amusement, "well, I assume you have questions, then?"
"I do," I hesitated once again, "but to be honest, I'm not sure where to begin."
He hummed deep in his chest, "Take your time."
"Well," I started, "all of the books seem to agree that 'the mate bond is unforgiving'," I stressed the words, "or some variation of that phrase. What is that supposed to mean?" The phrase had been on my mind, eating away at me since I first saw it.
He drew out a long breath, "No one knows why it happens, it's as much a mystery to us as the mate bond itself. But, the saying is alluding to the fact that every little bit of yourself that you give to the bond, no matter how small, cannot be taken back. The bond will only grow stronger and harder to resist."
He allowed me to mull that over. "Did accepting your first invitations for a dinner or walk together count as giving to the mate bond?"
He didn't answer my question directly, "Did the pull grow stronger for you after that?"
"I– I–," I paused, taking a moment to think it over, "I'm not sure."
He nodded, and I was envious of his collected demeanor. "Does that make you regret accepting my invitation tonight?"
My mouth opened and closed like a fish. "No," I finally managed, looking up at him reluctantly, "I have more questions."
He chuckled, his eyes shining like the twilight sky above us, "Then, by all means, ask away."
"Alright then," I was going to make him regret that invitation by the time I sated my curiosity, "tell me about accepting mates. The books said that the bond is initiated at first contact, but can be detected earlier through scent. They also said that acceptance is what completes the bond."
"That is correct," he agreed. "Was there a question?"
I looked down at the stone pathway beneath our feet, "I suppose my question is, what is acceptance? And how does it work?"
"That's a bit complicated as well, but it's quite literally when both parties have accepted one another. That intense, insatiable need will taper off to a more comfortable level, to allow them to settle into their new lives together." He paused to allow two servants to bustle past us on the path, then resumed, "How it happens is another story entirely, it varies between each couple. It could snap into place after a first kiss, first proclamation of love, first night together, anything at all."
I took a deep breath, reeling from the influx of information. "And what exactly is 'the gift'?"
He gave me a warm smile, "You really did do your research."
I tilted my chin up like Signora Flori taught me, "I like to be thorough."
His eyes studied the action, trailing as always, down to my bare neck, "I might have known that. I've been told you're receiving excellent marks in your etiquette lessons. Signora Flori says you work very hard in her class."
My face flushed. The cranky old woman had said such nice things to him about me? Then, another thought occurred to me. Were the etiquette lessons some kind of test to see if I would be fit to fill the role of queen? I wasn't sure if I should be angry, or flattered that I seemed to be passing their pointless test.
Instead, I prompted, "So, 'the gift'?"
"The gift," he sighed, "is a term usually used to refer to the Goddess's third gift to our people. After granting us the ability to change form at will, and giving us soul mates to live our lives with, she gave us a third gift. It is a sort of change that happens hand-in-hand with acceptance. A sort of awakening, if you will."
My lips pursed, "What kind of awakening?"
"Mates each contain half of one soul. Together, they are complete. The gift is an awakening of untapped power within yourself that you couldn't access before. Strength that you didn't even know you had. Even human mates experience changes from the gift, that is the power of our Goddess."
I tried to hide my repulsion, "Changes, how?"
He shrugged, "Some experience minor increases in strength, and speed. Others, a bit of accelerated healing."
I gulped, "Just minor though, nothing compared to that changes a shifter might experience."
"That is correct."
I nodded, faking a smile to hide my growing discomfort.
The prince needed me, to attain the gift and reach his full potential. The kind of strength that his father had used to brutalize each and every one of his opponents in The Trials.
The realization hit me like a blow to the gut.
Despite the alpha's kind words and gestures, he had absolutely no intention of letting me go at the end of the year.
~*~*~
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