**If you enjoy, don't forget to leave a vote/comment to let me know what you think**
For The Better
"Don't be terribly offended if they don't take to you right away," I warned Gianluca as the carriage lurched down the path.
"After you, I wouldn't expect them to," he replied smoothly, not seeming bothered by the prospect in the slightest. It may have had something to do with the tiny, absentminded circles he had been tracing on my knee through the material of my dress the entire ride.
And the fact that I hadn't pulled away from the contact.
Matteo, who had been silent since entering the transport, snorted at his comment, eyes never leaving the window. I wasn't sure if he was really enjoying the scenery that much, or if he thought by not looking at our subtle flirting, that it would somehow cease to be.
I couldn't bring myself to care either way.
I knew I should be pulling away. There were so many humans suffering under his rule, yet there I was allowing him to caress me so intimately. It was a betrayal of the worst kind, but the mate bond was stronger than I was. And every instinct in my body begged me to trust him.
That's what had caused me to invite him in the first place. Because I knew I could trust him with my family, and because a small part of me was hoping that my year in the castle might still influence him for the better.
If only I could show him the good that humanity had to offer, that we had a right to live in peace and safety as much as any other.
I glanced out the window to a very familiar forest, and suddenly the apprehension hit me in full force. It wasn't whether or not he would be kind to my family that I should be worried about.
After everything we had been through, they had every right to shun him.
Yet, I couldn't help but hope that things would play out differently.
"Today is a holiday for many humans, is it not?" He mused, breaking me from my thoughts. "Should we have brought gifts?"
"No," I shrugged, not meeting his eyes, "my family hasn't exchanged gifts for any occasion in nearly a decade."
He hummed, and opened his mouth to say something, but he never got the chance.
The carriage pulled up to my house, and for a moment none of us moved. Then the prince cleared his throat and pushed open the door. I felt cold in the absence of his hand from my knee, but colder still when my gaze traveled up the little pathway.
I swallowed hard. No turning back now.
Matteo remained by the transport, leaning casually against the side with his arms crossed. I could feel his eyes on our retreating forms, likely finding great amusement in the palpable tension in the air.
When Reed opened the door for us, what little hope I had for the day was squashed. The excitement that had filled his eyes upon seeing me was wiped completely away the moment they fell on the man standing behind me.
"Merry Christmas," I offered, voice a little too cheery for the tense atmosphere. "May we come in?"
For a moment, I actually thought he might refuse us entry, but then he stepped aside. "Mom," he called loudly into the house, an edge only those closest to him would be able to hear straining his voice, "Rose is here!"
My mother's appearance around the corner from the kitchen was almost immediate, but her steps faltered as she looked at us. Behind her, Lily and Daisy did the same.
I took a few steps inside, and could hear the prince following suit, allowing me to take the lead. "Merry Christmas," I offered again.
"Merry Christmas," my mother returned, but her eyes kept darting nervously behind me.
I sucked in a deep breath and pushed on, anxious to see if it was possible to dispel the awkward tension in the air. I cursed whatever half conceived notion I'd had that made me decide that this would be a good idea. It's too soon. "This is Gianluca." My mate. The unspoken end of the sentence hung between us.
I watched as, one by one, their eyes widened in recognition of his name. It was the very name that had signed the bottom of our invitation to the ball all those months ago.
Without his surname, the name Gianluca was ordinary enough for this area, if not a touch old-fashioned. But, paired with the authoritative air he carried and those violet eyes...
They knew who he was without my saying.
My mother dipped in a sloppy curtsy and I watched in horror as the rest of my family followed suit with their own best approximations. I could almost see the scowl on Signora Floris face as if she were in the room with us. "Alpha," they intoned.
"Please," he took a step forward, but halted his advance when he caught sight of the look on my face, "just my name would suffice." They didn't return his smile.
I stepped further into the room, "Shall we sit?"
My mother gestured toward the seats across the front room. As I passed her, she snagged my arm, allowing the prince to walk by before pulling me into a tight hug. "Are you alright?" She breathed the question lowly into my ear.
I nodded and gave what I hoped was a reassuring smile, though it likely looked more like a grimace. I didn't know what to do or say to ease her fear, and Gianluca could hear every word of it regardless.
He caught my eye across the room, and offered me a spot on the loveseat he stood beside. Before I could draw too near to him, Lily caught hold of my wrist, directing me instead to the sofa, where I was squeezed between her and Reed. Without missing a beat, the prince sat himself in the spot that he had intended for me, while my siblings crammed onto the same small sofa and my mother stood tensely beside us. A heavy, awkward silence befell the room.
Gianluca, to his credit, didn't seem to notice that everyone's attention was on him, wary of his every move. Or, perhaps he was just used to it from a lifetime in the public eye. Either way, I envied his calm. My own emotions were likely written all over my face. Anxiety. Fear. Dread.
None of them helped to dispel the suspicion in my family's eyes as they gaped at the prince in their living room.
"Where is Ash?" I had a sinking feeling I knew the answer already, but couldn't keep the question from tumbling past my lips anyway, if only to distract the others from the fact that the most powerful man in the kingdom was sitting across from them, gazing around at the family pictures hung on the wall.
My mother's blue eyes remained glued to the alpha while she answered me. "He's still working extra hours at the plantation." To pick up my slack. The realization that my absence had affected my family, and especially my own twin, in such a long-term way was like a blow to the gut.
"The school semester just ended," Reed spoke beside me, his voice laced with a hollow edge, "I won't be returning for the spring. I'll likely work at the plantation with Ash, if they'll hire me. Then he won't have to take on so much by himself anymore."
Some instinct drew my gaze to Gianluca in my panic, and I found him already looking at me. He opened his mouth to speak, but just then, the sound of the back door opening and closing filled the quiet house and all eyes flew to the entry to the kitchen. "You should have enough wood chopped to get you through the week," A familiar voice called. My heart twisted painfully in my chest. No, not today.
Jax drew up short when he rounded the corner and those warm, chocolate brown eyes found me, squished between my siblings on the sofa. "Rose," he breathed, so many emotions flashing across his face at once, that I couldn't place them. "I wasn't expecting to s–" he finally noticed the shifter in the room and his words cut off abruptly as his gaze hardened.
"Merry Christmas," I offered lamely, not sure what to say. I hadn't expected to see him either, and hadn't thought of what I might say to him. Our last encounter had been a nightmare that I couldn't help but replay over and over in my mind in the time since, but I had never figured out what I might tell him the next time I saw him.
What could I say? The guilt that gnawed at me whenever I thought of him, had to be born of the mate bond. But, what if it wasn't? What if all of the kind words and gestures from the prince were starting to have a real affect on me?
Or, equally terrifying, what if the mate bond were something I would have to live with– and around– for the rest of my life, regardless of the pretty promises the prince had made?
"Merry Christmas," his smile didn't reach his eyes, didn't crinkle them in the corners like I used to admire. He looked away from me quickly, to my mother, "Is there anything else I can help with before I head home?"
"Thank you, Jax, but I think we'll manage for the night, you should return to your own family, I'm sure they missed you this morning." She hesitated, as if unsure of the proper protocol. "May I introduce you to Rose's– uh– mate," she hit her grimace surprisingly well, "Alpha Gianluca DiLuna, King of Lupia."
"Just prince for now," Gianluca corrected with a smile that I suspected he used a lot for painful meetings, almost too civil. His sharp gaze took in Jax in a way that told me he had already worked out who he was– what he had almost been to me, "the council has yet to set a date for my coronation.
Jax's brows had raised in surprise, but he recovered quickly. "A pleasure," he said, though his expression said everything but. He turned back to my mother "I'll be heading home, then. When Ash gets here, give him my best. I'll stop by tomorrow, if you need any more help." With a brusque wave, he was gone.
An awkward silence befell the room in his absence.
Daisy was the first to speak up, her eyes shining in childlike wonder, "If you're a prince, then does that mean that you live in a castle?"
Gianluca gave her a small smile, "Yes, I do."
Her face lit up in excitement. "I have a castle dollhouse. Would you like to see it?"
"Of course," he said, smile growing. His gaze flicked to me and for a moment I thought I saw an emotion swimming in the depths of his eyes, but dismissed it a beat later.
After all, there was no way the alpha of the kingdom was nervous of a bunch of humans.
She shot to her feet, "Follow me!"
When he stood to do as she told, my mother looked to me, fresh panic in her eyes as she made to follow them. I shook my head at her, trying for another reassuring smile, and she reluctantly halted her steps, but Reed would have none of it.
He stood and followed them up the stairs anyway.
My mother's gaze trailed after them until they had all disappeared from sight, "Are they safe with him?" Her voice was quiet, but I still had a feeling that he could hear every word from the second floor.
"Yes," I said the word with a confidence that I didn't even know I had until that very moment. But I knew it was true. He wouldn't hurt them, just as he had never hurt me.
My mother and Lily exchanged a skeptical look, but even worse, when they returned their gazes to me it was as if I had grown a second head. As if I wasn't myself.
"I think it's time you tell us more about your time away."