"I'm stopping," his voice is as breathless as mine, he smiles up at me as he continues. "If I don't stop now, I'm afraid I won't." "I don't want you to." "I can't." He sighs dropping his head back down into my neck and he brushes his nose over my mark. I hear him sniffing as I remember hearing that even if he was on the verge of shifting into his wolf and decimating an entire town with his anger, one breathe of my scent will calm him down. I can feel that he's worked up probably as easily as he could feel how afraid I was. Whatever is working him up so much is making me a little nervous. He even senses that and he pulls back to tell me that it's ok and he'll explain the last of everything later today, pressing a quick peck to my lips as he shifts me back down next to him. Handing me the plate of pancakes with chocolate chips and whipped cream that was disturbed only moments ago by his finger, over the top. Even though I feel slightly awkward when he does I allow him to put the bits he cuts up into my mouth purely because I like the way he says oops with a devilish smile across his face when he gets more whipped cream somewhere on my face and he has to kiss it off. *** We don't leave the courtyard until after we've been served more decedent food for lunch. I'm so engrossed by the feeling of having Ryder this close to me as we slow pace around the bottom floor of the castle that I don't take note that it's now Charlie and Reynolds with us and every single time we pass a guard or a maid they bow. I do however realise that they say 'you're majesty's' every time they do so. Ryder squeezes my hand and looks down at me with a romantic smile, recognising that it makes me uncomfortable but I'm slowly getting used to it. Snail speed seems to work for the both of us though. He's not pushing me into this the way the women at Carlett pushed me to study and to make something of myself on a place where I had no idea who I was in the first place. Here I can actually see myself becoming a Queen if I'm given the time I need to be comfortable with it because here I know who I am. What my life is and what I was always looking for. Someone I can trust with all my heart. Here I have Ryder and he has me. Nothing that throws itself in our way will make me leave the life I've always looked for. 'Can't', can't what though? Just this morning he was telling me how much he wanted to go all that way with me and how much he wanted to complete that last bit of the bond with me. Yes I'm seventeen. Yes, I'm underage. Screw it. He loves me, I love him. It would take a lot to get him to leave me and me to leave him, so why not just do it now. Where's the point in waiting? "Lottie," My eyes snap up to Ryder and I realise that he's stopped me in front of two dark wood doors down a dark navy hallway. Reynolds and Charlie are at the end and I'm surprised that I was distracted by my thoughts that I couldn't even add up what was happening. "There is much more to why I won't mate you than the fact your underage." He pauses and looks towards the doors before turning back to me. "You reacted better to being Queen than I thought you would, but this," he jerks his head towards the door again, "Will be a lot more to handle. I want to tell you everything now. Get it all out of the way so you only have to deal with it once." There's a slight quiver of my jaw as I nod at him. "Stay close. My hold calms you." those words don't make me feel any better but he doesn't give me a chance to analyse them before he's speaking again. "The reason my guards attacked you in that alleyway was because your scent isn't human." I try to step back away from his words but he grabs my elbows holding me to him. "They should have stopped attacking you when they realised your scent wasn't that of a werewolf or even a rebel." "I always fight against the rebels and it's common that they will attack the town as much as they attack the castle. I've been described as been one of the most ruthless, sadistic, aggressive Kings we've ever had and it may not seem like that to you, Maxon, Reynolds and the others have been taking the piss out of me for how I react around you, but it's because I care so deeply about my people that I was down there to protect them." When I look up I see that Maxon is standing at the double doors leading into the room and so is the man that pulled me back that first time I was nearly attacked by the rebels. Both of them are watching with uncertainty as Ryder struggles with his emotions over what he's trying to tell me. "You're scent hit me the second I left the castle boundaries. I had no idea what it was, it was so mixed and different from any species I had no idea what was happening to me. I was being pulled towards you and before I knew it I had you in my sights and there were wolfs attacking you." A growl is thundering in his chest as he continues "I was seconds away from fücking killing them that it took me a while to notice that your scent was the scent wasn't normal and in that one second I realised why I was the way I am the way I am and what was about to take place in my life with you by my side." He breathes for a couple of seconds trying to let everything he just said to me but I can't make sense of any of it. He just said that I wasn't even human. How I am supposed to react to that? "You're human." He sighs, "Just not fully." I shake my head telling him that I don't want to know whatever he's about to tell me. He can keep it to himself. "You need to see this Lottie." I allow him to take my hand back in his as Maxon and the other man hold the doors open for us.