Chapter 103

Rowena

My heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest as I watched Eric mouth those two simple words to me.

“Kiss me.”

His bright blue eyes bored endlessly into mine, and in those moments, time stopped. Kiss him? Kiss him? Now? In front of everyone?

“C’mon, Ro,” Eric murmured, sensing my fear. “You promised.”

I gulped, unsure of what to say; and at that second, I felt myself being thrust back to our childhood, back to one summer afternoon so many years ago when things were so much different…

“Hey, Ro?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you ever wonder what it would be like if you were born in a different family?”

I remembered that day clearly; Eric and I had been laying out in the grass beneath the big oak tree behind our house, watching as the leaves waved back and forth. I was nine, and he was going on twelve.

Oddly enough, I remembered exactly what we were wearing: he had on a blue shirt, and I wore a pair of overalls. I think I remembered the shirt because it matched his eyes, and the color of the sky.

And I remembered laughing at him.

“A different family?” I had asked. “What makes you ask that?”

Eric had opened his mouth to say something, but then shut it again—as though thinking better of whatever it was he was about to say. I rolled over onto my belly and propped myself up to look at him as he picked at a blade of grass.

“Nothing,” he said, shrugging. “I was just thinking.”

“Hmm…” I had paused, rubbing my chin as I thought deeply. The summer breeze ruffled his blond hair, causing me to smile. “I think that, even if we were never a part of the same family, we still would be best friends.”

Eric had shot me a confused look. “How would that be possible? What if we never met?”

I had grinned in response. “We would have found each other…”

I swallowed hard, my gaze flickering over to where my parents stood on the sidelines. They were still there, watching intently, along with the rest of the audience—the Northern guards, my fellow students, my friends… Emma stood next to them, clutching her necklace, with Liam at her side.

My mother caught my eye at that moment, and her expression was unreadable as she seemed to sense the turmoil roiling around inside of me. Did she know what I was thinking, somehow? What I was about to do?

Eric was not my blood brother, but we had been raised together. He was my mate, and yet, to many, our upbringing was no different than blood siblings.

And maybe what we were about to do would still be considered taboo to the masses.

My eyes flicked back to Eric’s, seeing the silent question still burning there. If we did this—if we kissed in front of everyone, announcing our love to the world—nothing would ever be the same.

But I supposed that our fate had already been sealed sixteen years ago when Eric had found a scared little girl in a blizzard.

A shy smile tugged at my lips then, and I knew what I had to do. To hell with the consequences.

Leaning up on my tiptoes, I murmured, “What the hell.”

Eric’s brows shot up in surprise as I gripped the sweat-soaked fabric of his shirt in my fist, yanking him down to meet my lips in a searing, passionate kiss right in front of everyone.

A stunned hush seemed to fall over the entire arena around us. My kiss was answer enough—I was done hiding who I was, who my mate was. Let the whole world know, no matter what they thought.

We clung to each other fiercely for several eternal moments, my fingers tangling in Eric’s tousled hair as I pulled him closer. He had risked everything to defend me, to protect me, to love me. I never wanted to let him go.

Finally, purely for the need to breathe, we broke apart—although our foreheads remained pressed together as we stared into each other’s eyes. A wry grin slowly spread across Eric’s face, making those adorable crinkles appear at the corners of his eyes that I loved so much.

“Well,” he murmured lowly, “that wasn’t so bad, now, was it?”

I snorted softly, giving his chest a playful shove. “We’ll see how bad it was in a moment.”

With a gleeful grin, Eric threw his arms around me and pulled me closer, hugging my entire body against him. Over Eric’s shoulder, I glimpsed my parents again—my father’s mouth hanging open in shock, his eyes wide and his shoulders trembling.

But my mother, on the other hand, just smiled and gripped my father’s arm.

A knowing look passed between us then, and in that moment, I was certain—my mother knew. Perhaps Eric had told her, or perhaps she had known from the beginning that Eric and I were fated. Perhaps she knew, that fateful day that Eric had carried me home in that blizzard with a drop of blood trailing down his shoulder, that we hadn’t been brought together by mere coincidence.

The crowd, however, was still deadly silent. Thousands of eyes stared down at us, hundreds of mouths hanging open in shock. No one dared to move, no one even dared to murmur.

I knew in that instant that I would have to say something. Gripping Eric’s hand, I turned toward the crowd and stuck my chin out in defiance.

“I know what you’re all thinking!” I cried out, my voice surprisingly steady despite myself. “That what you just witnessed is taboo, sacrilege!”

I shot Eric a sidelong glance, and he gave my hand a squeeze, silently urging me to continue.

“But I will no longer hide the truth. I may have been raised by the Griffith family, but I am the missing Northern Princess—and Eric Griffith is my fated mate!”

The silence continued to stretch on for several endless seconds. A bead of sweat trickled down my back, my hand trembling despite Eric’s sturdy grip. I wondered what they were all thinking—whether they were astounded, disgusted, furious, maybe all three.

Then, from somewhere toward the back, a solitary voice called out…

“Long live the Princess! Long live the future King!”

Another voice quickly joined in. “Long live the Princess! Long may she reign!”

And then another, and another—until the arena swelled with the voices of hundreds of spectators, students, and… even my parents.

“Long live the Princess! Long live the future King! Long live! Long live!”

Grinning from ear to ear, Eric slipped an arm around my waist and pulled me flush against him. I was breathless, awestruck—could this moment possibly be any more perfect?

As if he could read my mind, Eric took the trophy from the announcer and shoved it into my hands before abruptly hoisting me up onto his shoulders in one smooth motion. I let out a squeak of surprise, clutching the trophy tightly to my chest as he began to spin in a circle.

All around me, the crowd grew into a massive, cheering, undulating roar.

Beaming from ear to ear, I thrust the trophy high up over my head as Eric continued to whirl us faster and faster...