Chapter 102: 102. Terms and Conditions
Maisie
The silence that followed my words was suffocating.
My heart slammed against my ribs like it wanted to escape. I needed to leave. Right now. I couldn’t stand in this room with them for another second. I wasn’t their wife. I wasn’t their princess. I wanted nothing from them.
I took a step back, muscles coiled tight, ready to bolt.
Jericho was the first to speak. There was a dark edge to his voice, but his expression was calm. Too calm.
"Is that what you really want, malyshka?"
My heart jolted but I locked down on it, raising my chin with resolve. "Yes."
Something flickered across their faces. Four pair of eyes honed in on me sharply, pinning me to the spot. An oppressive, violent energy rose in the air. It felt like a pissing contest and battle of wills.
I didn’t back down. It didn’t matter if my body and my Lycan was against the very idea of separation. This was my choice to make. And I would take it. This was how I took my life back.
But something surprising happened. They all nodded collectively.
I knew then that something was wrong. They were calm. Way too calm. It was almost as though... they had been expecting it.
Soren straightened to his full height and gave me a lazy smile as he leaned over and lifted a brown document off the table. Extending it to me, Soren said in a voice that was low like a caress and also... smug. "We thought you would say that. You never disappoint, Adams."
My fingers creased over the envelope. "What is that?"
"Read it," he drawled.
I cut through the seal and was greeted with a stack of papers. Warning bells began pealing in my mind. The words on the first page blurred. Same for the second.
My gaze flicked to the bottom of the document and my heart began thumping wildly. Cold sweat broke across my skin.
No. No. That couldn’t be.
It was my signature staring back at me. My signature. It was sketched clumsily, slightly crooked, but I knew my handwriting when I saw it. The little hearts over the ’i’s.
But I didn’t recognize the document. My fingers shook. "What in the hell is this?"
Soren inclined his head towards the door. "I’m sure Alden can explain."
As if on cue, a man who seemed to be in his late thirties strolled in through the front door. Had he been there the entire time? He looked extremely familiar. He was dressed in an expensive tux, had a pair of glasses on the crook of his nose and held a briefcase in his grasp.
He was the man who had the semblance of an attorney and had been at the house yesterday.
He bowed to the four of them. And then shifted sterling grey eyes to me. And bowed again, low enough to smack his forehead against the floor. "Your Highness," he said to me. "I am Alden, the Royal Counsel. And I believe you may have a few questions about your marriage contract."
I was never getting used to that. But to more pressing issues...
"My what?"
Alden fixed his glasses. "Your marriage contract."
"I didn’t sign a marriage contract. I didn’t sign any contract. The only thing I’ve ever signed in my life is a scholarship document."
Quinlan cleared his throat in my peripheral. "About that. You signed it five nights ago, cherie." He stuck out his tongue and ran it over his fangs. The movement pulled heat from my stomach and I despised it. Especially when he finished, "While I was inside you."
Alden started coughing.
I suffered the same afflicted when a horrendous flash of images assaulted my mind. My thighs straddled Quinlan’s face. My head was tipped back against the sealing and his tongue was inside me, thrusting as he ate me out and sunk his fangs into my...
Oh my god.
"Please," I said to Quinlan, grinding down against his tongue and his hands bruised my hips. "Please. I need you. Please?"
"Fuck," he swore and I grew wetter just hearing the words from him.
He lifted me off his face and I was suddenly on my back, with him poised between my legs. I lifted my hips, moaning and begging, but he held me in place. "I need you to do something for me first, ma belle."
I loved his accent. I love it more when he was between my legs. I nodded. "Anything. I’ll do anything... please..."
"Anything?" he purred and sucked my nipple into his hot mouth. Gods, but his tongue.
"Yes," I cried out.
The image flashed and I was holding a pen, scribbling down obediently on the pages of a document. It didn’t even occur to me to read it or ask what it was, before I threw it across the room and panted again Quinlan’s lips, "Please, fuck me."
My face flamed. Scratch that. My entire body flamed. I couldn’t look at the bastard in the eye. So I turned to Alden. "This can’t be legal. I was coerced."
"We both know you weren’t, cherie."
I barely my teeth at him. "I was... I was not myself!"
Jericho arched a brow. "I’d say you were more yourself than ever."
My face burned with humiliation.
"It is legally binding," Alden said. Then he frowned. "I suppose in a human courtroom, there are at least five broken laws here. Lack of informed consent. Undue influence. Incapacity. Bad faith execution. Unconscionable contract."
I started to nod, but he deadpanned, "Fortunatey for Their Highnesses," he flipped over to the last three pages that had about nine of my signatures. "You Highness signed ten separate affirmations stating that Your Highness was of sound mind."
Fortunately for them...? "I DIDN’T READ THEM!"
Alden glanced down at the document. "That is unfortunately addressed in subsection four. Which you also agreed to and signed."
"Subsection four?" I echoed.
"’Failure to read the contract shall not invalidate the contract.’"
I snarled and Soren chuckled. Jericho’s lips twitched. Mercer snorted and Quinlan looked to be having the time of his life. I thought I was going insane. I was going to kill every last one of them.
Alden began flipping through the papers and reading them.
"As outlined in Section One, subsection B, paragraph four—"
"There’s paragraphs?"
"There are forty-three pages of clauses carefully curated with care by the Princes."
I made a strangled noise in my throat.
Alden cleared his throat. "The marriage shall remain legally binding for a minimum period of one calendar year before any petition for dissolution may be submitted."
"One year?" I hissed.
Alden continued. "The Bride shall refrain from entering romantic, emotional, physical, intimate, suggestive, flirtatious, experimental, accidental, recreational, ceremonial, contractual or spiritually significant relationships with individuals outside the marriage within the duration of agreed twelve months."
I blinked. "Excuse me?"
Alden checked the page and pointed. "Page fourteen."
My mouth went dry. Alden kept reading. "In clear terms, the Bride shall not kiss, court, date, entertain, encourage, exchange suggestive correspondence with, or otherwise engage in activities commonly associated with romantic attachment."
My mouth fell open.
Alden continued, "Included but not limited to: holding hands, prolonged eye contact, exchanging compliments, pecks to the cheek or groping in anything that resembles a library or sneaking around woods—"
All I could think of was murder.
Alden turned another page. "The Bride shall not think of or refer to any male individual as handsome, attractive, beautiful, charming, rugged, mysterious, alluring, unexpectedly nice, or compare any male individual favorably against her husbands."
Alden kept going. "The Bride is under no circumstances, allowed to run away."
Jericho nodded. I wanted to strike him across the face.
"The Bride shall not fake her death."
I stared at him in disbelief.
"The Bride shall not disappear under a new identity."
"The Bride shall not flee the country. Or the continent. She must inform all mates of her location at all times via the bond or phone. Failure to do so will result in retrieval by force."
My blood pressure skyrocketed.
"The Bride shall maintain primary residence within the shared domicile and is required to spend at least, one night, per week fulfilling her duties to the crown. The Bride is forbidden from sleeping alone for more than two consecutive nights. Failure to do so will lead to forceful retrieval and a possible fine. Or in monetary value. Or in kind. The Bride shall not consume alcohol without supervision. The Bride shall not wear clothing the Princes deem ’too provocative’ in public—"
I was shaking with rage.
Alden paused. "There are also clauses involving bodyguards, tracking devices, emergency retrieval permissions, relocation restrictions, and mandatory communication requirements, and the next article clearly states the terms their highnesses must fulfill—"
"Whose idea was this?" I asked with deadly softness.
It was a silly question Alden didn’t need to answer. Of course I knew who the hell was behind this, and it was a good thing I was feeling extremely lethargic.
Soren flew backward across the living room and slammed into the far wall with a deafening crash. Plaster rained down around him as he slid to the floor, exhaled a half-groan, half-laugh sound as he moved.
I didn’t wait to see if he got up.
"You are all psychopaths," I snarled, snatching the contract from Alden’s hands.
I stormed toward the door, heart thundering, tears of pure fury burning down my face.
"I’ll get my own goddamn attorney."
