Chapter 59
The cold metal made Savannah shiver, and she looked at the ancient bracelet on her wrist.
“It‘s just temporary,” Bjorn assured her. “Until I can fully trust you.”
“At this rate, it‘s going to take a while,” the Princess hissed, realising that the silver bracelet with a
familiar
northern pattern on it was enchanted to drain strength from her and prevent her from shifting. This was
something
she had not anticipated, and she red at the man who swore that he was her new mate. Mates were
not supposed to be like this. She knew it when Zack betrayed–
her, and she knew it now after everything she had experienced with Kai. Maybe the moon
goddess never wanted them to be together, but in her heart, Fiongh was the one and only
mate in her whole life. He gave her what she craved the most. He made her
feel safe, wanted, heard, respected … His death did
not change her heart. She would love that man forever.
“Just think about the positive. I‘m letting go of that girl you like,” he had the audacity to smile at her, and
if she could do it now, she would rip his heart out just as she did with her first fake mate.
“Only if her father pays you more than others!” Savannah pursed her lips, reminding him that he wasn‘t
really generous, and he looked at her as
if she had done something absolutely adorable. She loathed the way his eye traced every
feature on her face and wanted to getaway, but he
caught her from the back and wrapped his arms around her tightly, not letting her leave.
“The things you do to me, Savannah Stormhold!” He buried his face into her hair, inhaling her scent an
d not wishing to let go. She was so close, she smelled so nice. This woman finally
belonged to him, and he couldn‘t wait to savour her.
“Let me go,” she said coldly, and he froze from the iciness in her tone. He‘d angered her again when he
knew he had been walking on thin ice with her already.
“I am so sorry,” he whispered into her ear, brushing his lips over her earlobe gently, wishing to fix everyt
hing fast. He didn‘t know how long he would be able to hold himself back. “I know this is far from ideal,
but it‘s just for now. Savvy, after I mark you, the bond will snap in its ce, and you will see.”
His fingers trailed over her corbone, and she flinched. One of his ws elongated, and Bjorn grazed i
t over the skin on her marking spot, which caused fear to ripple
through her whole body. Werebear marks were different from werewolves and lycans. If a bear
bit someone, even in half–transformation, it would be safe to say that the bitten
person would have his or her bones crushed and flesh torn because it was harder for bears to control t
heir jaw strength once they tasted blood. Especially the white bears, who were known as the strongest
and fiercest of any other.
So, instead of biting, they left
their marks with ws on the same spot every other species used for iming their mates. Three deep
cuts that would turn bright red on a true mate and ck on a chosen one.
If he pressed just a bit harder, he would find out that she wasn‘t his mate, and she couldn‘t have him fin
ding
out now. She was not ready. Nothing was prepared yet.
“You say you‘re sorry, but these are just words!” She tried to distract him, and surprisingly, it worked as
Bjorn finally let her go, scratching the back of his head instead. He wasn‘t good at this courting thing. H
e never got how it worked.
“Savvy, it may not seem like it, but everything
I do, I do for you, too.” He ced hisrge, calloused palms on her shoulders and turned
her gently to face him. “These hard days will soon be over, I will be King, and you will be my
Queen. Both the West and the North will belong to you. I know that you will never forget what I did, the
rtives of
yours I took, but with time you will understand that it was a war and I had no choice. I will give you pups
to fill that void. So many that you will forget about anything else. We
will make you happy. Not now, but one day it will happen. Mark my words.”
“Still, these are
just words!” Savannah said reproachfully and walked away towards the desk, scanning it
quickly as she approached in search of something useful. Anything to make listening to this delusional
cr.ap worthwhile.
“Tell me what I can do to fix this,” Bjorn stepped closer but kept his distance this time, trying to pretend t
hat he
respected her personal space. It almost made herugh, but she had a role to y, so she suppressed
it.
“Tell me something I don’t know about you,” she taunted, locking eyes with him. “No, better yet –
tell me
something that no one knows.” She wanted to avoid the repetition of all of the sad events in his past th
at she didn’t care about. She needed something useful this time.
But he stayed quiet, and she chuckled bitterly, trying to make him feel even more guilty than he already
did.
“Never mind,” she said and strolled towards the door, “I will see myself out. I can at least walk back to
my room, can’t I?”
“Savvy!” Bjorn’s voice was more like a plea at this point, but she was already prepared to leave.
“Please don’t follow me,” the Princess cut him off. “You clearly want a trophy wife and not a mate. I am
not in the mood for all this.”
Her hand was already on the door handle when she heard him, “I’ve been blessed by a God.”
The words made her halt
on the spot, clutching the metal of the doorknob so hard she was afraid that she might rip it off.
“Is that a joke?” she asked without facing him. It was madness! He must be mad!
“No, it’s
not,” he assured her. “Moreover, this is my biggest secret, and I haven’t told anyone about it. You’re the
first person with whom I’ve shared it.”
Savannah’s head was buzzing with
thoughts. Now that she thought about it, it made sense. In fact, it made so much sense that she couldn’
t believe she hadn’t thought of it before. His strength was beyond everything she had seen
before. She thought that it wasn’t normal, but she had never suspected divine intervention.
N?velDrama.Org is the owner.
First, however, she wished to ensure it was true, so she said, “You’re lying.”
Bjorn’s eye shed for a second as she angled her
head at him with one of her brows raised in a challenge. He exhaled loudly through
his nostrils but didn’t do anything else.
–
“Why would I? I’ve proven it to you many times. A regr werebear wouldn’t be able to defeat a royal ly
can with ease, don’t you agree? Not to mention that you already know a person who has been blessed
by a goddess – your sister–inw.” Nothing on his face made it seem like he was
lying, and Savannah felt like he was sincere. “So, it’s not like this is unbelievable.”
“What God?” Surely, it wasn’t the Moon Goddess this time.
“It doesn’t matter,” Bjorn shook his head. “He’s one of the old ones, but he chose me
as his champion, and I have not fail him once.”
“What is your power?” Savannah knew that he had to have something. Riannon was reborn back in the
past and now had the ability to see the future either in her dreams or with
the help of her wolf talking to the Moon Goddess,
The blessing of the gods meant special abilities.
“Strength,” Bjorn confessed easily. “No one canpare with me in strength.”
“Why were you running away all the time then?” She couldn‘t help this little jab, and the bear’s lips curl
ed into an understanding smile.
“To have as few casualties as possible,” he admitted. “I was serious about this. And also–” he stopped t
alking,
and Savannah suddenly realised that he was about to reveal something extremely important, somethin
g she had to hear.
“What is it?” She urged him to reply.
“There
was only one limitation to my power,” Bjorn said after a pause, looking at the woman that was now his
and thinking there wouldn‘t be any harm in letting her in. “I will tell you. There‘s no point in hiding it now
that everything is over.”
Savannah leaned with her back against the door, ready to listen, and nodded for him to go on.
“I asked for this power, and I had to prove myself worthy to get it,” he
started exining, “and when I finally achieved my goal and became this strongest shifter to ever exist,
my first thought was to march straight to the capital of the North and kill Kai that
very day. He was already the Northern King back then. However, the deity who blessed me told
me not to do it.”
“Why not?” Savvy‘s voice was barely a whisper as she imagined that her
beloved could have been killed even
before they‘d gotten to know each other. Those precious memories she cherished might have never ha
ppened.
“I don‘t know the details, but he warned me against going into a battle one–on–
one against Kai. He said that the
lycan king would defeat me if this was to happen and that I had to find another way out of my predicam
ent with the
Northern Crown. I didn‘t have any reasons to doubt the words of the God who had given me what I nee
ded the most,
so I took his advice to heart. After all, there were ways to defeat Kai without fighting him, and this was e
xactly what I did in the end.”
Savannah clenched her lips as the pain stabbed her heart deeper. If only Kai was alive, she would hav
e known
the one way to end it all. This did not exin, however, why a God would tell him that. Weren‘t gods al
mighty? Why
couldn‘t his chosen one kill Kai? As far as she knew, Kai wasn‘t blessed by a deity, although he did hav
e a special ability. Was this somehow connected to the fact that Kai and
Elene could easily shift to their third forms and then shift back without any
kind of trouble, unlike other lycans?
She stopped herself. There was no use thinking
of this now. Kai was dead, and Bjorn was basically a super bear now. Her n was getting morepli
cated because killing him was at the centre of it all, and now she knew exactly what she was up against
.
“Again, Savvy,” the man walked closer to her, and she felt the scent of chestnuts and wintergreen inten
sifying,“
I’m telling you this as the first step of our new rtionship because I believe in this. Your wolf is still
healing after everything that happened and”
Not this again. She couldn‘t listen to this again.
As if the heavens heard her thoughts, the
door opened, and the Serpent entered the office without invitation.
“I hope I‘m not intruding,” he smirked, although it was written all over his face very well that he knew he
was.
Savvy was grateful, though, because it was a chance for her to escape.
“I will leave you to it,” she said and tried to retreat to the exit, but Joran caught her wrist and yanked her
back.
“Nice bracelet!” he sneered, and Bjorn growled menacingly.
“Take your hands off my mate!” he snarled, each word filled with venom and warning tones.
“Just admiring my most recent creation,” Joran chuckled, unclenching his fingers and making Savanna
h gasp.
“You made this?”
She touched the patterns on the cold metal. She knew at once that magic was involved when
Bjorn sped it on her wrist, but Joran did not give her a warlock‘s vibes.
“I can make anything happen,” the Serpent winked at her, standing with his back to Bjorn, who seemed
furious
about their interaction. He was clearly implying that he could help her, but she remembered the price.
Savannah made her way to the exit, trying to grasp the bits of the conversation between the two men a
s she was slowly closing the door behind her.
“Bad news for you, Bjorn, I still have not found my dragonfly,” Joran said in a mocking tone.
“Theye and go as they please,” the Bear King grunted. “What seems to be the problem this time?”
“The problem is that I sent you my favourite one, and now she is missing along with my payment,” The
Serpent sat in one of
the chairs and ced his feet on Bjorn‘s desk, to the displeasure of thetter. “And if you can‘t find her,
this will make ourst contract void which will result in a lot of trouble for you.”
“She got the payment as usual,” Bjorn had a vein protruding between
his knitted brows. “What happens after she takes it is none of my concern. They all belong to you.”
“She is somewhere on yournds!” Joran saidzily,“so it is very much your concern.”
Bjorn turned to one of the bookshelves and got a scroll that
looked a lot like a map. Savannah gasped as a map
was something she could use. If she could take just a glimpse…
The bear‘s healthy eye glimmered as he spotted her in the darkness behind the door, and she realised t
was time for her to retreat.
To Savannah‘s relief, Bjorn didn‘te to the room at night. She feared that he
might, but for once, luck was on her side.
However, she was about to test it because the more she was thinking, the more she was sure she need
that map.
The thing was… Savannah did not want to believe it, but she suspected that the God, the deity Bjorn wa
talking about, was Joran. It simply made sense because the White Bear King bowed to no one, and mos
were afraid of him. But not Joran.
Joran behaved like he owned the ce. Not to mention their first conversation and
the fact that he asked for her firstborn. That was a bizarre request for anyone. Unless…
Unless he was a deity.
The thought alone terrified her, but also… also it gave her hope. She was not going to give him her firstb
because if he asked for that, then he knew she would have one. Or at least that was what her logic told
her.
Moreover, he must have thought that when she
did have a child, that it wouldn‘t be with Bjorn. Savvy did not
want to think of it, but it suddenly started looking like she had a future. Like there was hope.
Although maybe it was just her wishful thinking.
However, if Joran wanted her child with Bjorn, he would have asked him and not her. Bjorn would have e
power was what he cared about the most.
But Joran wanted Savannah’s future child. Not Bjorn’s.
Her hands touched her belly as she looked out of the window into the starry sky. Could it be possible? W
there was already a small part of Kai
growing inside of her? She couldn’t know for sure; even Athena couldn’t tell her
this early, but even the slightest possibility of it happening made her change her n entirely as she wat
North Star shining brightly in the darkness of the night.
A few hourster, she tiptoed to Bjorn’s office in bare feet after she managed to get rid of one of her gua
put the other one to sleep, just like Gideon and Reid taught her. The office was close, and she needed ju
alone with the map to know all possible escape routes. Her worst fear was that Bjorn would be inside, bu
she was fortunate to see the room empty and didn’t waste time rushing to the bookshelves. Savannah to
she saw earlier today and was happy
to see that it was a map of the territory around the castle. She greedily studied
it and moved on to the next one. One after the other, she went through them all until she hit the jackpot
and found a
map of the castle itself. The princess sighed in relief when she found a few secret passages she could
use in future.
This ought to be the best feature of these old castles.
Savvy was about to clean up when the door opened, and a chill
went down her spine. She was caught, after all!
“What are you doing here?!”
M Marissa Gilbert
”
Just hang a little bit more. Action and reunions areing very soon. I can now confirm that the book w
in November, but don’t ask me how many chapters. Further announcements will be made in Marissa Gil
Thank you so much for all the moon ticketsst month! The Luna Trials has reached 2nd ce, and
it’s a great honour for me because, once again, this is a ce brought to me by you, my readers. It mea
can still #vote for my books this month as this is a monthly event.
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