The Bears Shared Bride: A Paranormal Menage Romance Page 14

  Lavinia zipped Callia up in the emerald green dress that did, in fact, look far better on the handmaiden than it had on Lavinia. “You look stunning. How did you get ready in twenty minutes when it took a team of people and four hours to get me to a point where I still need a lash change?”

  Callia smoothed a stray hair back into the cherry red topknot at the crown of her head, “So you do admit that I was right about the lashes? I’d like someone to note that I made this suggestion hours ago.”

  “Everyone else is gone. They all left to get ready too,” Lavinia said moving around the dressing screen again.

  Callia followed, pausing at the edge of the screen to slip on a pair of gold glitter pumps. Clad in the four-inch heels, she clicked her way over to the makeup table. Fluttering fingers over a plethora of lash options, she picked up the amber colored mink lashes between two gold painted fingernails.

  “All right, come on over—I won’t mess anything up if you stay really still.”

  “I’m always still,” Lavinia muttered.

  “Vinny, you haven’t been still since you left the palace over a month ago. You’ve been on the run like no other. I think you barely sleep.”

  Lavinia felt Callia apply a new layer of lash glue, “I’ll be happy when tonight goes off without a hitch. It’s my first time hosting as Queen and I want to make a good impression.”

  Callia pressed the lashes into place and counted softly as the glue dried. When she lifted her fingers Lavinia let her eyes flutter open.

  “Perfect,” Callia declared looking at the amber fringe around Lavinia’s chocolate colored eyes.

  “Perfect,” Lavinia agreed and with no further changes to be made they both headed off to the Ball.

  ***

  The first half of the Summer Solstice Ball went swimmingly. The ballroom at the palace had been utterly transformed into a fairy world. White drapery faded to dark green at the edges of the space and live flowers and topiaries had been brought in to simulate gardens. In the center of the space, there was a dance floor where everything was precisely arranged into an English garden. From there, the decor spiraled outward becoming more and wilder until one reached conversion areas of small potted trees and bushes.

  The guests too seemed to transform as the night spiraled onward moving from graciously ordered to sublimely free, as the wine started to flow and the dinner tables were removed. Werebeasts mixed and mingled and more than a few couples sneaked off to the darker regions of the ballroom for moments of private discourse—both verbal and physical.

  Lavinia was the belle of the ball, and for most of the night, she stayed the course and remained a proper Queen, reigning over her guests with a warm and conversational air. Not one guest in attendance was aware of the level of scrutiny she held over the crowd. For their parts, Thearon and Parker never left her side for the first two hours of the event. But after the doors were sealed and no incident occurred, they too took a tour of the room and left Lavinia to hold court in the middle.

  When both men were gone for fifteen whole minutes, Lavinia started to worry. It’s not that their absence was greatly missed, it was just that after months of their smothering attention, it was odd to be left alone for such a long period of time. When a full half an hour passed, Lavinia excused herself to find them. No guard trailed her, they maintained a perimeter and the doors were sealed so for the first time since the assassination attempt Lavinia had relative freedom.

  Winding her way into the farther reaches of the ballroom, Lavinia was chilled as she didn’t see her husbands. After an entire circuit of the room, she started to panic. Now Lavinia dipped into the private garden areas, not caring what trysts she interrupted or how many naked Werebeast asses she accidentally saw. Her eyes were only trained to see the bodies of her husbands.

  Lavinia came up short when she encountered a particularly robust tree that appeared to be misplaced. Odd for a tree that probably weighed a few hundred pounds, those types of things didn’t just grow legs and move themselves. Walking quietly around the large trunk she encountered yet another tree—a spruce—that was supposed to be on the east side of the ballroom. She remembered because she thought to bring a Christmas tree into a Summer Solstice Ball was a little excessive and potentially off-theme. Lavinia remembered she had been outvoted and here the thing stood in all its pine glory.

  Leaning into the soft needles, Lavinia held her breath and listened. There was silence and then a low grunt of pain that Lavinia knew was Parker’s. She had caused that same grunt many a time during their sparring practice. Lavinia moved back to the break between the spruce and the tree next to it. Due to their varying shapes, Lavinia was given a small peephole with which to look through.

  The scene revealed was bloody and brutal. Parker and Thearon were surrounded by Werebeasts wearing gardener’s clothing. The white and green checked shirts of the uniform were splattered with blood. Before Lavinia could freak out, she noted that there were a few prone bodies on the floor and that some of the Werebeasts in question were nursing bloody lips and noses. While Parker and Thearon had fought hard, Lavinia could tell their strength was failing. She watched as Parker moved suddenly—faster than Lavinia would have guessed he could, given his bloodied hand—and took another Werebeast down with a low kick to the man’s knees. As he fell Thearon punched him and gave a backward kick to another Werebeast who was using the distraction to advance. Thearon negated the threat, but Parker dropped to his knees as one of the two standing Werebears administered a punch directly to his chest.

  Lavinia watched as the air left his body in a whoosh, and he collapsed on the floor desperately trying to maintain consciousness.

  “See George, I told you a surprise attack was necessary. With all their pride, the Alpha and Omega never saw themselves as potential targets. Come now, let's finish this and hang them from the trees like the animals they are.”

  “Winston had the rope, Octavius. It’s still beneath his body,” George said.

  “Well then go and get it, you fool. His dead body isn’t worth anything to us anymore.”

  Lavinia watched as Thearon tried to take advantage of George’s movement by sweeping the man off his feet. While he succeeded in putting George on his ass, George retaliated by pulling Thearon into a headlock, cutting off his air until Thearon passed out. Watching her husband’s eyes flutter shut was the final straw for Lavinia.

  On tip-toe, she moved around the large potted plants, the soles of her shoes silent on the moss covered flooring. Before she turned the corner she tested the slit of her skirt with one bend of her leg. Reaching down she used one finger to cut through the stitching, ripping the design element up to her hip. Taking another glance into the private area allowed her to assess where George and Octavius were in the space. Closing her eyes and asking the gods for help, she ran into the private space with a battle cry that had surely alerted the surrounding guards to her location.

  However, there was no time to wait for backup. Lavinia rounded the corner and kicked at George’s head with a sickening thud. The man went down without a sound. Regaining her balance, she narrowed her eyes at the only man left standing, Octavius, before allowing her gaze to take in the positions of Parker and Thearon. She could see that her husbands were far more injured than they had appeared with blood rapidly pooling around Thearon’s prone form.

  “So Queen Lavinia, we meet again,” Octavius greeted, his formal tone utterly unexpected in the middle of a war zone.

  Lavinia straightened to her full, Queenly height, “I don’t believe we’ve ever been formally introduced.”

  “Ahh, you are right. Though I believe we have both spent many a private hour intimately dismantling the other. After that battle cry, Lavinia, you’ve thrown a bit of a monkey wrench into my plans. I’m going to have to kill you with less fanfare than I would have liked.”

  “Oh, you’re killing no one tonight,” Lavinia said settling into a battle stance and waiting for Octavius to make the first move.

 
; Keeping her eyes on his, Lavinia forced herself to read his body language—to see the shift in his gaze that would tell her which direction he was heading. For a long moment, it was rock steady on her own and Lavinia worried that she had given him the upper hand by waiting for his attack, then there it was: a flick to her left.

  As Octavius moved toward her in a full-body rush, Lavinia instinctively knew this was her only chance. She dropped down to one side, putting all of her weight into her hip and freed her other leg, and it’s spike stiletto into the air. Octavius had too much momentum to stop and he impaled himself on the six-inch spike with a grunt just as the first round of guards came into the wooded space.

  The man started to wilt over Lavinia and the unit moved forward to catch the dying man before he fell in a sickening heap over Lavinia’s body. Next, guards rushed forward to help her but she rerouted them.

  “No! I’m fine, my husbands are injured. We need medical assistance now!”

  In a sudden rush, the lights of the ballroom came up and emergency units were rushed in. Lavinia crawled over as medic units assessed her husbands and moved to staunch bleeding. She barely heard what they were saying as the two men were rushed away.

  Epilogue

  Callia rushed back and forth between the teleprompter and the smattering of journalists huddled around a table of coffee and danishes. IT buzzed by and announced that they were ready to go and Callia moved to the stage to quiet the crowd.

  “Please, ladies and gentlemen of the press, if you would please take your seats.”

  Callia watched as the crowd sat in their assigned seating and glanced at the door to check that everyone was ready. When the figures appeared, she stepped away to let them take the stage.

  ***

  After Thearon and Parker had been evacuated by the medical unit, the Ball had disintegrated into utter chaos. Royals of many Werebeast Tribes were instantly locked down by their personal guards and the palace turned into a fortress. A long night followed where Lavinia had to attend to her Queenly duties as the only active Royal Werebear of the LeKing Tribe.

  Being constantly updated via message was not the same as falling into bed with her husbands after the ordeal was complete. By that time both men were resting comfortably in her bed and touching them was barely enough to let Lavinia know that they’d made it out of the ordeal alive and well.

  Days later, after George had regained consciousness, the entire plan came to light. The group was, in fact, all second and third sons and their mission had been to assassinate all of the non-human conforming Werebeasts in the major Tribes. George had called it a “culling” and Lavinia still shivered to think that she and the men she loved were the focus of such hatred.

  The details of how they sneaked into the palace were eerily easy. They’d come in with the gardening staff in the early days of the planning and their tech guy had formatted identities for each that fooled the facial recognition system which, Thearon admitted, had mostly been focused on guests anyway, not on staff that had access to the building for weeks.

  In the end, it was the group’s patience that had almost ended the LeKing Tribe and Lavinia’s perseverance that took the group down.

  Finally, Parker, Thearon, and Lavinia were holding a press conference for the Werebeast Tribes across the nation and the world, to put out a statement of truth and health. It was a call to action to strengthen their joined traditions and proof of Thearon and Parker’s well-being.

  Looking out into the small room, Lavinia gripped her husbands’ arms. She was nestled between the two, a flower in their midst. At Callia’s nod, they walked on to the stage with strong intent. They stopped directly behind a host of microphones and, together, Thearon and Parker spoke their first official words since the final attack.

  “All hail the Queen!”

  THE END

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  ALSO BY AMY STAR....

  BEAR MEETS BRIDE

  Dylan had finally come of age. He was now a fully fledged member of the bear clan that reside on a secluded island in the middle of the Pacific.

  Now, the first thing he had to do was choose a mate.

  But with no women to choose from on the island the bears had no choice but to send for a mail order bride and Dylan picked the curvaceous Sarah.

  When Sarah arrived on the island she had no idea what to expect.

  She knew she was going to be married to someone but she had no idea just who, or what, he might be. Will she like him? Will he like her? Will she be able to please him the way he wants? There was only one thing that was guaranteed for certain.

  When Bear meets Bride, sparks are certain to fly and in this case the sparks fly in more ways than one...

  This is a Bear Shifter romance with elements of fun, love, romance, sex along with adventure & excitement. The perfect mixture for the perfect escape!

  START READING NOW AT THE BELOW LINK!

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