Reign: A Royal Military Romance (34 page)

B
arstools are never made
for someone my height
, Miles thought for the thousandth time. He’d managed to find a table in the bar area at Bella Notte, but they were all tall tables with tall chairs. At six-foot-five the last time anyone had checked, he just didn’t fold into them right. Either he was half standing, or his legs were crushed practically into his chest.

He sighed a little and shifted himself again, beginning to wish that he’d just stood at the bar. Delilah was tall too, and she probably wouldn’t have minded it. Instead he tried to ignore the unpleasantness and sipped at his Alaskan Amber. Bella Notte poured all their beers into glasses, and Miles felt classy just drinking there.

The doors opened again and this time, Delilah walked in.

Miles took one second —
just one
, he told himself,
don’t be weird
— to appreciate how
good
she still looked. She’d gotten even better looking since high school. She’d always been curvy, but at twenty-five, she really knew how to show them off, and the effect made Miles’s mouth go dry. Time had given her a certain confidence and radiance that she hadn’t had at seventeen.

Miles stood up and waved one arm in the air. The place was close to empty — it was Wednesday night in a dying town, after all — so she spotted him right away.

“You were right,” she said when she got to their table and hung her bag across the back of the chair. “This place is pretty classy.”

“It’s Fjords upscale, for sure,” Miles said. “They put your beer in a glass.” He raised his to her and then took another swallow.

The waiter, probably some high school kid, came over and Delilah ordered an Old Fashioned, not too sweet. Miles raised his eyebrows.

“What?” Delilah said.

“Just not what I was expecting,” Miles said. His eyes crinkled at the corners.

“Were you expecting me to order a Rainer and a pocketknife so I could shotgun it right here at the table?” she asked, teasing.

“I would pay to see that,” Miles said, making his face as serious as he could. “I’d love for you, Dr. Silver, to come back to town after years away, only to go into the fanciest restaurant and shotgun a beer.”

Delilah just laughed. “It would make an impression, huh?”

“For sure.”

She leaned forward across the table, onto her elbows, close enough that Miles could smell her scent. She’d changed her shampoo since high school — not surprising — but underneath that, she smelled exactly the same, still Delilah.

Still her.

Miles had to fight down his instinct, to grab her and kiss her as hard as he could. He could feel his bear deep inside him, fighting against his more civilized nature.

“So,” Delilah began. “Tell me about my classmates. Start with you.”

“But I’m the least interesting,” he said. “No kids, no arrests.”

“Do you have a mate?” she asked, blurting it out.

Miles laughed.

“You
have
been away for a while,” he said. “Since when can a mated man get drinks with a woman who’s not his mate?”

She smiled, embarrassed.

“True,” she said. “I guess I got used to the outside world.”

To be honest, Miles thought it was a little weird that not all couples were possessive like shifter couples — or the shifter couples of the Fjords pack, anyway. His own parents rarely went anywhere without the other, as far as he knew. It just wasn’t done — seeing someone who wasn’t your mate, no matter how platonic, was grounds for an explosion of jealousy, bear tempers flaring, and probably at least a few people shifting in the middle of town.

“Are you seeing anyone?” he asked.

The question made him oddly nervous, even though it was a perfectly normal question. She didn’t have a ring on her finger, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a boyfriend.

“Nah,” she said. “I’ve tried dating some humans, but it doesn’t... I don’t know. It gets weird at a certain point.”

The waiter came back with her old fashioned and set it down ceremoniously in front of her, on a small bar napkin. Delilah thanked the kid, and he walked away slowly, looking back over his shoulder at her. He couldn’t have been more than nineteen, and Miles guessed he didn’t see a lot of new faces — especially ones as pretty as Delilah’s.

“Is that certain point when you explain that sometimes you turn into a large bear?”

“It is,” Delilah said, sipping her drink through its tiny straw. “That is
exactly
the point where it gets weird.”

“I’ve never dated a non-shifter,” Miles admitted.

“It almost always falls apart before that,” Delilah said. “I’m always going out to the country for two, three days, and they want to come along at first, but of course I tell them they can’t. After a little while, they decide I’m cheating on them and end things.” She stirred the ice in her drink idly, looking down at it. “It’s been a while since I bothered dating.”

“Shifters aren’t necessarily better,” Miles said, leaning in. He’d dated around some in Fjords — well,
dated
was a very fancy term for some of what he’d done, particularly in the year after Delilah had left — and he didn’t need any girls or their fathers or brothers or friends overhearing him.

“They all think that they need to be mated by the time they’re twenty-four, and if they’re not, there’s something wrong with them,” he said. “That’s a lot of pressure.”

Delilah nodded. “You can add that to the pile of things I don’t miss,” she said.

Miles lowered his voice even further. “I don’t know about this
one true mate
thing,” he admitted.

“Me either,” Delilah said, her voice conspiratorial. “I mean, there are all those stories you hear as kids, about the woman who walked across Siberia for her mate, or the man who waited until he was eighty, but they’re just—” she waved her hands, “—fairy tales.”

“More like
beary
tales,” Miles said, and Delilah burst out laughing, covering her mouth with one hand. She laughed until she snorted.

Miles felt a pang at the snort. It was so... dorky, and lovable.

“I’m sorry,” she said, still giggling. “That was the dumbest pun.”

“It wasn’t my best.”

“Are there good puns?” Delilah asked, tilting her head, still stifling laughter. “Are there really?”

Miles looked down, admitting defeat. “Probably not,” he said.

“Beary tales,” he heard her mutter. “God, what was I even saying?”

“You don’t believe in true mates,” he said.

“Right,” she said, lowering her voice again. “It’s such a part of our culture, but how many couples do you see that you think are true mates? Are your parents?”

Miles shook his head. “They buy into it wholesale, but it’s not true,” he said. “I mean, they’re always telling the story of how my dad asked for my mom’s hand in marriage every day for a month, and that’s supposed to be a big romantic thing and all, but I don’t think they even
like
each other any more,” he said.

Miles didn’t want to elaborate — not there, anyway — but even though his father was the pack’s beta, the second in command, he slept in the guest room most nights.

It was true that his brother Nathan was causing his parents to fight, but there was never a glimmer of real affection between them, just the show they put on in public. In private, they barely acknowledged the other’s existence.

“You know what happened with my parents,” Delilah said, and Miles nodded.

“Or maybe there
are
true mates,” he said. “But it takes more than just love to maintain a lifelong relationship.”

“Then why aren’t they selling that to all the kids getting mated when they’re twenty?” Delilah hissed. It almost seemed like she was starting to get upset about it. She took a long drink of her Old Fashioned, which was half gone by now.

Miles shrugged. “The pack needs new members sooner and not later?” he said.

He’d gotten his own fair share of grief from his parents over not being mated, lots of
How can you be sure she’s not your true mate if you won’t even go out with her again
, lots of
When I was your age, you were a year old already
.

He didn’t believe in true mates, that was for sure. But he didn’t tell Delilah the real reason.

It was because he already know, bone-deep, that if true mates existed, she was his.

Obviously, she wasn’t. Therefore, the whole thing was a sham.

“Okay,” Delilah said. “That got heavy, quick. Tell me who’s got three kids by three fathers.”

“Crystal Johnston,” Miles said. “She keeps threatening to go on Maury.”

“So she can turn into a bear on national TV?” Delilah said, shaking her head and then taking another sip. “I guess she didn’t get any smarter.”

They gossiped for a while, going over babies and arrests and DUIs, who else had left town and which couples hated each other but couldn’t get divorced, not while they were still in the pack. Reciting all of it, Miles felt quaint, left behind, like Delilah had gone out to see the world and he’d just stayed in Fjords, one tiny little corner of it.

Well, that was technically true, he guessed.

He was describing a classmate’s misspelled tattoo when he saw someone get up from a booth across the room. He was on his third beer and Delilah was on her second Old Fashioned, and he knew that they were getting a little loud. As he watched, he realized it was Roy — his pack’s alpha, and the mate of the woman who’d nearly been killed in the crash the day before.

“Miles,” he said.

His eyes flicked to Delilah, and he had a smile on his face that wasn’t quite in his voice.

“Roy,” Miles responded.

He tried to make a show of looking cool and relaxed, even if he didn’t quite feel it. He was always uncomfortable around the older man, always somehow aware that their priorities didn’t exactly line up, and always aware that, in a grizzly pack, that could get dangerous.

“And you’re the lovely lady who saved my mate, aren’t you?” Roy asked.

Miles grit his teeth.

Roy knew exactly who Delilah was and Miles knew it. “This is
doctor
Delilah Silver,” he said. “She grew up here.”

Roy made an exaggerated movement with his hands, acting like he was surprised or something. “Of course,” he said. “Marge and Ethan’s daughter. I’m so sorry to hear about your father.”

“Thank you,” she said. “It was a long time coming.”

“Well, I just wanted to thank you for saving Susan’s life,” Roy said. “She’ll be up in Anchorage for a while, still, but she’ll live.”

“I’m just glad I could help,” Delilah said. “It was an awful accident.”

Roy’s jaw tightened a little, and Miles could see his barely-contained rage. “It was,” he said. “And that asshole’s going to stay in jail until he dies, if I’ve got anything to say about it.”

Delilah’s eyes widened a little, and Miles felt them flick to him. He straightened up, his own bear on alert: Roy was the alpha, sure, but if he was about to do something...

Roy’s hands flexed into fists, but then he nodded quickly and walked away. Both sets of eyes followed him as he walked through the glass doors, into Alaska’s long twilight.

“He doesn’t like me,” Delilah said. She seemed almost amused by the fact, removed from it. “Even after I saved his mate.”

“He doesn’t like your parents,” Miles said. “He’s always been a big believer that blood will tell and all that. Only likes me because he’s best buddies with my father.”

“You’ve got other good qualities.”

“Not that he cares much about,” Miles said. He felt a little sulky after Roy’s interaction, but tried to shake it off. “You want another drink? It’s last call.”

Delilah looked at her watch and frowned. “It’s eight thirty.”

“You’re in Fjords,” Miles reminded her. “You want another one of those?”

“Sure.”

* * *

H
alf an hour later
, they paid — Delilah utterly
insisted
on paying half the check, and Miles knew better than to argue with a tipsy bear — and then she tried and almost failed to stand.

“Whoa,” she said, almost tripping over her own feet. “Miles, I think I’m drunk.”

He raised his eyebrows. He’d had four beers, but they didn’t make much of a dent — it took a lot more than that to take him down.

“You need a ride home?”

“Do you mind?”

“Course not.”

“I’m parked over on third,” Delilah said, waving her hand in the direction of that street. “Is my car gonna be okay there?”

“It’ll be fine.”

They walked to his truck and he helped her in, offering her his hand then walking around and getting in the driver’s side. Delilah was already buckled, looking behind her seat at something, just barely touching it with her fingertips.

It was the sleeping bag.

Shit
, Miles thought.

He’d been meaning to get different blankets to keep in his truck for a couple of years now, but he’d just never gotten around to it. Deep down, he knew it was because he didn’t want to forget all those times in that sleeping bag. In a strange, almost masochistic way, he liked having that daily reminder.

“Gotta have blankets or risk freezing to death if you break down somewhere,” he said, forcing some jocularity into his voice. “Bet you don’t miss that.”