“The Prince’s Ball?” I look up with wide eyes. How did she get an invitation?
Dahlia’s naked again, hands on her hips, staring into her closet. She glances over her shoulder at me and shrugs. “Yeah, what about it?”
“How did you get an invite?”
“In the mail,” she replies, pulling on a pair of teal jeans followed by a purple sweater. It matches her hair and it makes her look completely colorblind, but the outfit still kind of works.
I take a deep breath. I love this girl to death, but sometimes she is seriously off her rocker. “I know you got it in the mail, Dahl—but why did you get one? I thought it was only the upper echelons of Farcliff society that got one of these.”
I follow her to the kitchen as she waves a hand. “My parents know the royal family. It’s not a big deal.”
I frown. “Not a big deal? You told me you were putting yourself through college without their help. That’s why you work at the restaurant, remember? Where we met?”
“Coffee?” Dahlia asks, smiling.
I take a breath to calm myself as my friend does her best to ignore my questions.
“Who even are you, Dahlia?” I look down at the envelope in my hands and my eyes widen. “Dahlia Raventhal? You didn’t tell me you were a Raventhal. The same Raventhals that got kicked out of the Kingdom when the Queen died?”
I follow Dahlia into the kitchen as she hums to herself and rummages through our cupboards.
“Dahlia?” I say softly.
Finally, she leans her hands on the counter and takes a breath. “Yes, I’m a Raventhal.” Then, her face brightens and she turns toward me. She puts her hands out and jumps up and down in excitement.
“What?” I ask.
“This is perfect!”
“What’s perfect?”
“You! Elle! You’re perfect!”
“What are you talking about, Dahlia?”
“You can go to the Prince’s Ball instead of me. You can take my invitation and they’ll tick my name off the list. My family will think I went, and it’ll keep them happy. You’ll get a night off to enjoy yourself, which you desperately need. It’s the perfect plan!”
“Perfect is not the word I’d use to describe the nonsense that just came out of your mouth, Dahlia.”
Her smile doesn’t slip. She does a little dance and throws her arms around me. “Amazing! I can do your hair and makeup, and we’ll find something for you to wear.”
“No.”
“You’ll go, dance, feel pretty, and forget about whatever it is that makes you cry in the shower.” Her smile widens and she hugs me again.
I freeze. She heard that?
I disentangle myself from Dahlia’s arms and shake my head. “No, Dahl. Absolutely not. This is not happening. I’m not going to some stupid party by myself just because you want your name ticked off the list. And in case you haven’t noticed, I’m almost six feet tall and you’re barely four foot nine. I weigh about sixty pounds more than you do. No one will ever, ever believe that I’m you.”
She waves a hand. “None of them know what I look like.”
“No.” I cross my arms over my chest.
Her smile drops, and her eyebrows draw together. A pain passes through my chest. Dahlia is the only constant source of positivity in my life, and I hate hurting her. She knows how hard it is to be a scholarship student, and how hard I work for my place on the rowing team.
She also knows how the other girls love to torture me. I bite my lip.
“Olivia and Marielle are going,” I say softly. “I can’t go. The last thing I want to do is run into them while I’m pretending to be someone I’m not.”
Dahlia makes a soft noise as she sighs. She crosses her arms and drums her fingers against her bicep. Finally, she shrugs. “They’ll be stuck to Prince Charlie like glue, if I know anything about them. All you have to do is avoid the Prince, and then you’ll be in the clear. There’ll be at least five hundred guests there. You can easily melt into the crowd.”
“Look at me,” I scoff, spreading my arms. “Melting into crowds isn’t exactly my forte. I’m not going, Dahlia.”
“I can drive you.”
“You want me to pull up to the biggest event in Farcliff in your bright, orange Jeep? Whatever happened to ‘melting into the crowd’? Everyone will be arriving in limousines! Listen to yourself, Dahlia—this is insane! I won’t go.”
“Uh-huh,” she says as her face brightens again. “Coffee?”
4
Charlie
My father may be the King, but he can’t stop me living my life—and that includes boxing. I run straight from the lake trail to the gym, arriving at the old warehouse-style boxing gym soaked with sweat and hyped-up on adrenaline.
I glance further down the street, where the houses get smaller and the lawns are overgrown. Grimdale. Behind me, manicured lawns get bigger and bigger, leading to the McMansions that line the streets all the way to the castle gates.
Farcliff Kingdom is severed almost perfectly in two between Grimdale and Farcliff. Grimdale is often seen as the lower-class end of town. The residents are lower-income, working-class people. My father often dismisses them, even though they’re just as much his subjects as the richer residents of Farcliff.
Money talks, though, right?
It talks to him, that’s for sure.
My mother wasn’t like that. She volunteered at many Grimdale organizations and was beloved by everyone. Sometimes I think my father was jealous of her—the people never cared for him like that. He doesn’t have the sparkle she had, or her ability to make everyone feel loved, important, and heard.
In a way, I’ve tried to follow in her footsteps. I’m not perfect—not by a long shot—but at least I still respect everyone in Farcliff Kingdom. That includes the people of Grimdale
The boxing gym sits almost exactly between the two districts, like an impartial observer to both sides of the tracks. I walk inside the old warehouse, ripping my tee-shirt off and pointing to the guy pounding the bags.
“Jimmy. You and me. We’re sparring. Now.”
He glances from my face to my tattooed chest, his eyes widening. Then, he glances over his shoulder and shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Your Highness, I can’t, I…”
“You what? You can. You’ve beat my ass a dozen times when I first started. Are you scared I’m going to beat you this time?” I flex my arms and he puts his hands up.
“No, I…”
“I am commanding you, as your Prince, to get in that fucking ring and spar with me.”
He turns mute.
“Charlie!”
I turn around to see old Bo ‘The Badger’ Smith walking out of the office. He’s old and hobbled now, but I’ve seen grainy videos of his fights. He went toe-to-toe with the best, before he started this boxing gym. Only Bo, my brothers, and a couple of other trusted people call me Charlie.
My mother used to call me Charlie, but she’s gone now.
To everybody else, I’m ‘Your Highness’. I’ve tried to get Neville to call me anything other than that, but he’s a stickler for etiquette.
Bo looks at me, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, son.” His eyes are soft and sympathetic.
“About what?” I pound a fist into the palm of my other hand. I need to get rid of some of this energy. I need to punch something.
Bo sighs, putting a gnarled hand to his forehead.
My heart starts to thump. “About what, Bo? What are you sorry about?”
“I’ve received a Royal Decree. If you train here, I’ll get shut down.” He sighs. “I’m sorry, Charlie. I tried to fight it.”
White-hot rage spikes my blood. “A Royal Decree,” I repeat, even though I heard him just fine the first time. This stinks of my father. I take a trembling breath. “I can’t even train here? What if I don’t fight? I’ll just train, nothing more. I won’t even spar.”
Bo reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out a folded piece of paper. I take it, immed
iately recognizing the thick, watermarked and heavily scented paper stationary used for all royal correspondence. I wrinkle my nose as I read the decree, my heart sinking to my stomach.
If I’m caught here, Bo gets shut down.
I try to keep my face steady as I hand the paper back to Bo, but I can feel my eye twitching.
I need this gym. Ever since I was ten years old, I’ve been boxing. My mother brought me here when I started acting out. When the big scandal happened, back when I was fifteen—the one that damaged my relationship with my father beyond repair—boxing became my lifeline. I need the bags. I need the pain. I need Bo.
“I’m sorry, son,” Bo repeats over and over again, finally putting a hand on my arm. “You know how many kids stay out of trouble because they come here. If I get shut down…”
I shake my head. “You’re not getting shut down. I won’t let it happen.”
His eyebrows arch and I see the sorrow in his eyes. My heart squeezes in a way I’m not used to… so instead of anguish, I turn the feeling into anger. Bo has been there for me ever since I was ten years old, and now he’s being threatened because of it.
It’s not fucking right. I don’t give a shit about being ‘princely’. My father is a power-hungry, reputation-seeking, unscrupulous little man, and I will not fucking have it.
I don’t even say goodbye to Bo. There’s a ringing in my ears as I make my way back to the castle, my rage carrying me all the way up the wide steps to the front entrance and through the Great Hall to the King of Farcliff’s personal offices. I’m ten feet away from the door when I feel a hand on my arm.
I spin around, fists raised, ready to punch the head off whoever dared to fucking touch me. My heart is pumping hot, molten lava through my veins. My eyes bulge.
“Whoa!” My brother Damon says as he throws his palms up toward me. “Easy.”
I lower my fists and turn away from him. “I’m going to kill him.”
“Charlie…”
I don’t answer, just keep stomping to my father’s office. The ringing in my ears gets louder as I see visions of my fist connecting with his pudgy, royal face. I see myself smashing him against that stupid cherrywood desk of his, and flinging him against his Persian rugs.
“Charlie!”
I spin around. “What?”
“Don’t. Whatever you’re going to do, don’t do it.”
“He’s a tyrant, Damon.”
“You’re going to be King.”
“I don’t want to be King!”
“Neither do I.” Damon’s eyes widen and in a flash, I understand what he’s saying. If I go in there and bash my father’s face in, I’ll be thrown out. Banished. Disowned.
I’ll lose my claim to the throne—not that I care—but that means that Damon will be next in the line of succession. And Damon is no King, nor is our younger brother, Gabriel.
They haven’t had the training that I’ve had. Ever since I was born, I’ve been pushed toward this. They haven’t.
Don’t get me wrong, Damon is strong as an ox and he has a heart of gold, but he’s not made for state dinners and royal duties. He’d rather be on his own, far away from it all, nose buried in his books to study medicine. He’s going to be a fucking brilliant surgeon one day—something that requires more brains than I’ve got.
Becoming King would sap his spirit until it killed him. As much as I despise my father, I love my brothers more. I know that neither of them is suited for the Crown. The weight of it would snap their necks.
Damon is the least confrontational person I’ve ever met. I don’t want to put him in a position to have to deal with the Crown… and a part of me doesn’t trust that he’d be able to stand up to my father. If there were important political decisions to be made, I’m the only one who could face off against my father and win.
And based on how things are going in Farcliff—with Grimdale residents becoming more and more destitute while my father consolidates power for himself—it’s time for a change
It has to be me.
Which means I have to play by the rules. I have to do what I’m supposed to, like go to this stupid Prince’s Ball.
For now.
My shoulders slump and I nod at Damon. “Okay.”
He breathes a sigh of relief. “Thanks, Charlie.” Damon points over his shoulder. “I have to go. I’ve got class.”
I nod. “See you later. Thanks for stopping me.”
“Anytime. And Charlie?”
I look up, arching an eyebrow.
“Thank you.”
I grunt and watch Damon walk away. Glancing back at the door behind me, I think I see movement out of the corner of my eye. When I look again, there’s nothing there.
I shake my head and walk to the garages to grab my motorcycle. The engine purrs underneath me and I take off, needing to put as much space between the murderous rage mounting inside me and the target of said rage—my father.
So, I go to the only place I know where I’ll be treated like a normal human being. I weave through the streets, loving the roar of the bike underneath me as I make my way to Grimdale, to a small side road with a few shops and an abandoned building. I park my bike outside the Grimdale Animal Shelter and pull my helmet off.
When I walk in the door, Francis is standing behind the counter. He smiles at me with a deep nod. “Your Highness.”
“For the love of Farcliff, Francis, call me Charlie. How many times do I have to say it?”
“Ah, but riling you up is so much more fun,” he winks. I lay my bike helmet on the counter and arch an eyebrow. He shakes his head. “Your temper will be your undoing, Charlie.”
“Yeah? What else is new?”
Francis grins at me and nods to the door marked ‘Staff Only’. “We had a couple of strays dropped off today. I could use your help with them.”
I follow him into the back, reaching into my motorcycle jacket pocket and pulling out a couple of dog treats I keep stashed there. When Francis isn’t looking, I slip the treats to my two favorite dogs as they rest in their kennels. They munch happily, and Francis glances back at me.
I know he knows I feed them, but he pretends not to notice. Just another reason I like the man.
At least my father can’t take this away from me. No one knows about this place—not even Damon, or Gabriel, or Neville. This is my last refuge, and the only place where I can untangle the mess that is my life.
I need to figure out how to get out from under my father’s thumb. The law states that the Crown Prince must declare a bride before his twenty-sixth birthday, and tradition says that the Prince’s Ball—my twenty-fifth birthday—is the event where it all gets decided.
Only once I declare a bride can my father officially name me as his heir, and the transfer of power can begin.
I think it’s a load of horseshit, but my father obviously disagrees. It’s a stupid tradition, anyway, one my father could change it at the drop of a hat if he wanted to.
But he doesn’t.
The fact that he’s pushing me to find a wife gives me pause. There’s something else going on, but I don’t know what it is yet. I don’t trust my father with anything, least of all with my life. If he’s pushing me to find a wife, it’s because he’s getting something out of it, too.
As Francis gives me instructions to clean out a few cages and help him with some heavy lifting, my mind drifts. Ever since my mother’s death when I was eleven, my father has become a cruel man. I was the one who found her, cold and stiff in her own bed, and I think a part of him has always blamed me. No one ever discovered why she died, but my father always looked at me differently afterward.
Then, when the scandal with my governess happened, when I was fifteen—that’s when things between my father and I really went south. According to him, I was tarnishing the Farcliff name and I wasn’t fit to be King. He’s never supported my claim to the throne, but that’s one law he can’t change.
If I don’t find a wife, though, it would be an easy excu
se for him to refuse to name me his heir—so why is he so keen to see me married all of a sudden? Seems to me it would be better for him if I didn’t find a wife.
“Charlie, pay attention.” Francis sighs as a bag of dog food drops in front of me and splits open on the floor. Kibble tumbles everywhere, causing a frenzy of activity in all the kennels that surround us. Half a dozen dogs bark excitedly at the smell of food.
My mind snaps back to the present and I lift my palms up. “My bad, Francis. I’ll clean it up.”
“I know you will. And when you’re done, you’ll give that little monster a bath.” He points to one of the new dogs. “Get to work, Your Highness.”
I grin, nodding. I’d knock anybody else to the ground for speaking to me like that, but Francis is like Bo—he understands me, and he gives me a refuge from being a prince. And right now, that’s exactly what I need in order to figure out what’s going on with my father.
5
Elle
Olivia heaps her dirty workout clothes into my bag after our evening practice, and then bats her eyelashes at me and laughs. “Oh, I’m sorry, Elle. I thought you were my maid. My bad.”
Marielle laughs, as do a couple of the other girls on the team. I brush it off. I always brush it off. I’m just here to row and get a degree from the best college in the Kingdom. After that, nothing else matters.
Just one more year.
I’m not here to go to the Prince’s Ball or brush shoulders with the supposed ‘elite’. I totally understand why Dahlia didn’t tell me she was part of this world. If my parents were well-connected, I’d probably hide it, too.
This week has dragged on, hour by hour, and all I’ve heard about is the stupid Prince’s Ball. Even Dahlia is under some kind of spell, talking about how she’ll do my hair and what I should wear. When I tell her I’m not going, she doesn’t seem to hear me.
The only remotely enjoyable events during the week are my now-daily races with the stranger on the lakeshore. Every day now, at the same time, he appears between the trees and lifts up a hand in salute. I’m always on my last lap, and my heart beats a little harder.
Royally Unexpected: An Accidental Pregnancy Collection Page 3
