Page 74 of Beastly Armory

“Yep. We are. That was it. I’ll put that purple sapphire on your hand, feed you some cake, take you to a beach somewhere sunny, but you’re my wife now. You’ll live here, at the manor. You go where I go. My people are your people. You’re a bear now, even though you’ll always be my little fox. Okay?”

If I didn’t think I could form more tears, I was wrong. It takes me at least a minute before I can even choke out the words. “Yes, okay.” He’s my husband. Maybe he always was, because this was meant to be.

Leaning down, his lips tap the top of my head. “Mrs. Freidenberg.”

Meeting his eyes, I feel the comfort with him now to confess something I should have all along. Something I’ve been holding back. But now he is mine and I am his. Weare one. No more secrets or trying to tear us apart. I see that now.

“Max, our parents… I think they were right about something, no matter how screwed up they were.”

His lips don’t stop pattering over my skin, my hair, my ear, anywhere he can reach. “What’s that, foxy?” he asks between kisses.

“Their wills. They wanted us to get married, wanted me to birth your heirs.”

Black eyebrows raise with his shock. “Really? I mean, I never took the time to look at the latest one.”

“Yes. They wanted something different from our ancestors. There’s a section in my parents’ will that talks about wanting our three families to combine to overthrow the tyrant. You know that with three families agreeing in the senate, then they can cast out the sitting consort.” Shaking my head, I lean up on my elbows to take in his handsome face. “I just resisted it all this time because my father… Well, fuck Franklin Von Dovish and whatever he wanted, you know?”

A corner of his lips lifts as he nods. “Yeah, that makes sense.” His large palm brushes my hair and plays with the short strands on either side of my head as the divot between his brows grows deeper. “So, Calum was to marry…”

“Ashley Donovan.”

“Ah.” He swallows. “Wait, that means… Arianna and?—”

With a grimace, I let him know the truth. “Ace, yes.” His forearm muscles twitch and tighten around me as hepulls me back to his chest, placing his hand on my head, stroking my hair.

“He’ll just kill her to spite me.”

“We won’t let that happen.” As his arms flex, he tugs me into him tighter. Those dark eyes turn almost black as his stare seems to find something far away.

“No, we won’t.”

Nineteen

MAXIMILLIAN

“So it’s official, then?” Markus struts to the fireplace in my office, hands behind his back like he’s won some victory.

“Yeah. We signed the certificate at the courthouse just now.” I place my parents’ wills back in their file and kick my feet up. Livia was right. The added section discussed their secret plans to overthrow Strauss by combining our families. Donovan, Freidenberg, and Von Dovish joining to dethrone him from power with a three-vote majority in the senate. Our families, despite their ingrained generational hatred, had become weary allies, then friends. Their secret meetings disguised as having us play together were part of their strategy for peace.

“Congratulations. I think the pairing is a good one. Arianna?—”

“Isnotgoing to marry Ace. I won’t let that happen. He’d just torture her or some shit.” Brushing a handthrough my hair, I consider what would be most likely. “Maybe give her syphilis.”

Widening his palms with a question, he shakes his head. “Max… if she doesn’t, who will she marry? Strauss?”

“No! She can remain single until?—”

“I’m an adult, and I will choose who I want to be with, Max,” Arianna says as she strolls into my office unannounced. When she stops, she perches a hip on the front of the cherry wood desk, her little pink dress riding up, too short for my liking.

It’s not even worth arguing about. Shewillmarry someone, and it won’t be some mechanic with a bad attitude. “That’s not how things work around here, Ari, and you know that,” I murmur, trying to pretend to busy myself with paperwork on the desk.

Jakob peeks his head inside the door my sister left open. “Sir, a Miss Hannah Smith is at the gate, asking for you.” His face is slightly less grim from the dark grief he held there for the last few weeks.

“Hannah? Oh! Hannah. Derichs’s girl.” Oh no. Dread fills my heart as I have to face the person I least want to after losing my true friend. But it’s necessary, and I invited her to come.

“Yes, sir. Should I?—”

“Let her in. I’ll meet her in the parlor. Where’s my wife?” Scanning my crew’s blank faces, no one answers me.

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