Chapter 327: A New Sensation

Maddie

My legs no longer work. My lungs are frozen, and my heart stopped beating the moment the prince called my number.

With the apparent strength of an ox, Ellie hauls me out of the ballroom, back into the door we’d used to enter the ballroom. As we walk, flowing skirts disappear around the bend in the hall up ahead.

“He picked you!” Ellie lets out a barely hushed squeal the moment we’re alone in the hallway, and she hops a few times, her excitement uncontainable. “You did it! We did it! Oh, my Goddess! This is the best thing that ever happened in my life!”

I manage to turn my head toward her, but my vision is fuzzy, and those frozen lungs prevent me from speaking a single word. Her head is sort of circling around in my vision like a clock face, even though she’s still jumping with excitement and not quite moving that way.

Despite my daze, I want to ask her what she means, who she is talking about. Whatever just happened, surely, it’s a mistake.

Right?

He read the wrong number. He pointed to the wrong woman. He really meant to call the number of that nice lady behind me, and all this Ellie excitement is completely unjustified.

But my senses are starting to clear. There has been no mistake, and even right now in this state, I can tell that moment will live in my mind forever. The prince looked me right in the eye, pointed his finger toward me, and said the number that I know was on the sign in front of me.

He chose me.

As a breeder.

His breeder!

“Maddie, breathe!” Ellie stops jumping and puts one hand on each of my shoulders, placing me solidly in front of her, meeting my eyes with a grounding look. “Breathe, Maddie,” she repeats, this time in more of a whisper. “You’re okay. This is real, and you’re going to be okay.” She looks up and down the still-empty hallway. “Let’s get you back to your room. Can you walk?”

“Yes.” I finally find a word in the haze.

She takes my hand and leads me down the labyrinth of hallways and staircases toward my room. There, she guides me over to a chair and helps me sit. “I’ll get you some tea. Will some tea help?”

“Tea? I guess.”

“It can’t hurt,” she says. “Stay right here, and I’ll be right back, okay?”

I nod, settling back into the luxurious fabric of the overstuffed chair. I force air in and out of my lungs, which are thankfully working now, but my heartbeat races and I begin to feel nauseous.

Ellie returns in what must have been seconds. Her room is connected to my suite, after all. Her forehead crinkles as she looks at me while setting the tea service tray on the coffee table.

“I think you’re in shock,” she says, feeling my forehead with her palm. “Should I call for the healer?”

“No, please,” I beg. “I don’t want to trouble anyone. I’m sure the castle healer is much too busy to see to me.”

“Nonsense,” she insists. “You are the future mother of the heir to the throne. If anything happened to you and I didn’t call for a healer, I’d be out on my keester in an instant.”

“Keester?”

But she ignores the question, reaching for my wrist. “Your pulse is too fast,” she says. “The healer is on her way. I’ve asked her to bring herbs to soothe the shock.”

I nod, placing both of my palms over my heart instinctively to try to calm it.

“Try closing your eyes,” she suggests. “Maybe you’re just dizzy.”

I obey, but that just pulls my thoughts inward and turns my focus back to the moment the prince chose me. My heart thumps even faster.

“Never mind!” she says. “Open your eyes, Maddie! Look at me.”

I do, and she grips both my hands in hers and gives me that calming look that’s so detached from her normal state of excitability. That alone snaps me out of the worst of it, I think.

The door opens, and a woman with dark hair and graying temples walks in with a medical bag. Ellie rises and moves to the side so the healer can take her place in front of me, though she keeps a firm grasp on one of my hands.

“I hear congratulations are in order,” the healer says. “I’m Remina, the castle healer.”

“Hello,” I manage to say. “I’m Maddie... Madeline.”

She nods and gives me a friendly smile while pulling out a stethoscope and putting it to her ears. “I know, dear. You’ll probably see a lot of me while we do our regular checkups.”

I just nod back at her, but a moment later, it hits me... what these ‘regular checkups’ will be all about.

She’ll be examining... down there—a place no man has ever seen or touched that I suppose belongs to the prince now—and then... she’ll work with me through the pregnancy.

My heart starts thundering again.

“Dear, you need to calm down,” Remina says. She nods toward the tea tray, looking up at Ellie. “This her tea?”

“Yes,” Ellie answers.

Remina nods and rummages through her black leather bag, pulling out a vial. “This is a calming tincture,” she explains, emptying it into my teacup before she holds it up to my lips. “Drink this.”

She checks my vitals while I do just that and try to sit still. I haven’t seen a real healer since I was much younger since the closest one was called away years ago.

On my next breath, my heart has already calmed to a steady beat, and I don’t feel like I’m going to throw up. I guess the tincture works fast.

“Let’s have you get some rest,” Remina says. “You should relax before tomorrow’s activities anyway.”

I crinkle my forehead before asking, “What’s tomorrow?”

I’m glad Remina and Ellie never answered my question. They both changed the subject, and they waited until I’d slept all night before explaining what will happen today, though I wish I hadn’t had to spend the whole morning getting myself worked up about it.

I’m going to have lunch with the prince today. And now, I’m getting ready for it.

“I really wish I had some more of that tincture,” I say nervously.

“That’s just for emergencies, Maddie,” Ellie tells me, working on my hair again but this time leaving my curls down in flowing ringlets. “You need to be as healthy as possible for the baby.”

“I know. I didn’t mean it.” I gaze into the mirror blankly. “Baby.... That’s so much for me to think about. I’ve never even... been with a man.”

“None of us have,” she says. “Well, I mean, those of us without mates.”

I take a deep breath. I don’t want to tell her that I’ve been worried about that, too. What if one day, I do find my fated mate? He won’t want me if I’ve already been a breeder. Once the prince is done with me, I’ll go home and spend the rest of my life alone.

No, I won’t think about that. I’m doing this for my family. It doesn’t matter what happens to me.

Eventually, it’s time to go downstairs and meet the prince. Though I’m definitely nervous, I’ve really calmed down since I almost hyperventilated yesterday. The prince has chosen me, and that’s that.

I can’t pretend there isn’t part of me that isn’t... excited for the possibilities.

Instead of the huge ballroom, Ellie leads me to a smaller door, an intimate parlor with red fabrics decorating the walls and windows. But I don’t look at those long before the Prince Zachariah rises from his seat and walks over to greet me.

I swallow down a lump in my throat, barely registering Ellie’s hasty bow and even quicker exit.

“Hello, Madeline,” he says, his voice deep and confident. He lingers on my name, and a pleasant rush of tingles tickles my spine.

I snap out of it, realizing I’m standing here in front of royalty, and bend into a somewhat graceless bow.

He chuckles, and it’s something like the tinkling of sleigh bells in the winter snow. “Bows are unnecessary, Madeline.”

I rise, meeting his eyes. Up close, they look even more like sapphires, glistening against the dim lighting. “Yes, Prince Zachariah.”

“I think that’s a bit formal too,” he says. “But please, have a seat.” I expect to sit across from him at the small table, but he pulls out a chair right next to him and motions for me to sit.

It’s hard to take my gaze off his eyes, but I do so to sit, feeling the warmth of his hands as they brush past my shoulder, and he pushes in the chair.

There’s another sensation, a calm, gentle thrum that has my wolf growling in a pleasant way I can only describe as a purr.

No, it can’t be....

Can it?

“You feel it too,” the prince says. He lowers himself into his own chair and looks up to meet my eyes again. “I didn’t suspect right away. I hadn’t even considered the possibility. But when I touched you just now.... I can’t deny it. It’s the mate bond.”