Faleron was ecstatic. Tomorrow was his wedding day. He'd managed to con the boys out of an elaborate bachelor party, and they simply went to the tavern for a couple of drinks. Faleron wasn't a drinker, however, and drank water while his friends slowly became more and more inebriated. Neal's jokes got worse and worse, Seaver's speech became more and more slurred, and Merric's eyes became less focused the more they all drank, and Faleron was able to laugh at his friends' misfortune when their appropriate wives and girlfriends found them. He'd sent them all home, and it was just past eleven when Faleron was walking back to his home for his last evening of bachelordom when they got him.
He was bundled over and had a bag shoved over his head, and there was a scurrying of movement. Faleron yelled. Someone whispered into his ear a threat.
"Scream again, and it gets painful, King's Reach."
He believed the voice.
They didn't take him far. Soon, he was bound, and sitting on a chair, having the bag ripped from his head.
He laughed.
"Dom! Lerant!" he said while a smile. There were other men in the room, lit by two lonely candles, and he knew each of their names – they'd been invited to the wedding, and, of course, Kel had insisted that he got to know her company. As head of Third Company, Kel had the files of every man in every squad in her home, and Faleron had read every file, and gotten to know each of them.
But it was Dom and Lerant that stood in front of him, arms folded, not laughing.
Faleron's giddiness eased awkwardly. He was the only one laughing. In fact, he was the only one making any sound at all.
"Think this is funny, King's Reach?" Derom asked.
"Fellows, I have no idea what's going on," Faleron said.
"You're a pretty boy, King's Reach," Dom said. "You've captured Our Girl's heart. Tomorrow you're going to marry her, and you didn't ask permission."
"Pardon? Yes I did. I asked her brother's permission to ask her to marry me, considering her parents' death. I asked her best friend to come ring shopping with me."
"You didn't ask us," Lerant said. "She's our girl."
"Boys…" Faleron stammered.
"Don't speak," Dom ordered.
"This is the only warning you will get, King's Reach," a familiar voice said from a dark corner where Faleron assumed the door was. "If you hurt her at all, if you cause her any manner of pain, if you do anything to make her cry – anything at all that renders her less than the perfect condition we relinquish her in tomorrow, all of us," a quick gesture at the ten men in the room. "and our companies, will cause you extensive pain." Raoul put his hand on Faleron's shoulder. "Are we clear, son?"
"Deadly," Faleron said.
The King's Own were torn as to what to do with the man who might, in the future, mess with the King's Own Girl.
