The Alpha King's Mate novel Chapter 37

"Princess Maia, what a pleasure to have you here. Is there anything I can help you with?" An archer asks.

"Yes, I would like to use your bow, please."

"Oh," he replies, waiting for an explanation.

"I enjoyed watching you all shoot the targets that I thought I must try myself."

They all blush and are humbled by my words.

"Of course, Princess," he says, handing me the bow with the arrows.

"Have you shot a bow before?" He asks.

"I haven't, no," I say, running my fingers along some bowstrings, feeling their tension.

"Every bow has a different tension—a weaker tension for beginners and a tighter tension for archers. Archers have built their strength up in their arms over time and have the muscle required to pull the higher-tension strings backward, and beginners don't. You have a very slight frame, and very slender arms, with minimal muscle. You might want to swap the tighter tension bow for this lower-tension bow instead," he offers kindly.

"I would like to try this tight tension bow for now," I smile.

"When we're out on the field – the first rule of thumb is – never run into the field without stopping every other archer first. When a man is focused on his target, it's easy to forget about his surroundings. The last thing we want is you being speared with an arrow," he says, smiling.

"I understand. Thank you," I say, flinging the quiver over my shoulder.

"If you need to stop the archers, yell HALT FIRE," he says, "very loudly,"

"I will," I say, thinking of the words inside my head. He takes a large bow with stronger tension and his quiver of arrows and flings it over his shoulder. He hands me a two-fingered glove with a wrist strap.

"Pull out an arrow and copy me," he says.

So I copy him, pull an arrow from the quiver behind my head, and nock the arrow.

"Good. Excellent. Yes. That's exactly how to hold it," he says and releases the string on his bow. It fires with lightning speed into his target, hitting the large red circle in the centre. The target has three colours: red, white, and blue. Red is in the centre, white encircles red, and blue encircles white.

"Your turn," he says, standing two metres behind me, watching.

"I have a matter I would like to attend to." I say with a smirk on my face.

I turn my attention back to Sir Hugo, not giving the King a chance to respond. At first, Sir Hugo isn't too concerned, but he becomes nervous as he realises that I am walking toward him. I stop a few metres in front of him. He crosses his arms and tries to mask his worry. He avoids eye contact even though it's obvious I am staring at him in anger.

"Sir Hugo," I say in a stern voice.

He looks up.

"Kitten... and what do I owe the pleasure?" He says calmly.

"Well, you see, I've come to kill you," I lie.

Hugo glares and straightens himself. "You see, Sir Hugo, when you kidnapped me and had me chained up in iron, I promised myself I would kill you when I was free from the iron cuffs... so, here you are, and here I am without my iron cuffs," I smile.

Sir Hugo pulls his sword from his sheath and steadies himself.

"You can try and kill me, kitten." he says and readies himself for a fight.