The Frog Prince

by Tracy Lauren

  “Sure, we’d settle down. When we found the right place. It’d have to be a planet that we love though.”

  “Hmm,” he says as means of agreement. “What’d you think of Atana?”

  “It’s got lovely dungeons?” I shrug. Kethian laughs at my words, but he still rakes his fingers through his hair as if he’s troubled. It dawns on me that he’d probably like to go back home and see his brothers. Hell, I’d like to be introduced to them.

  “Hey, you brought me to my world. I’d love to see yours sometime too.” I consider his brothers and wonder about them. Do they have families? Will I gain a sister-in-law or any nieces and nephews now that Kethian and I have become an item? “Are your brothers guardsmen too?”

  “No, they are not. They actually took over the family business when my father passed.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It is nothing to be sorry over. It happened years ago,” he says, stroking my back. “And they are much better at the job than I would have been.”

  We lie there in silence for a while, our hands still wandering across each other’s bodies. It’s companionable and I can tell we are each lost in thought. For the first time in so long, I feel happy. I feel free to be happy. No one is scrutinizing me, watching me, and waiting for my gratitude. There’re no expectations hanging over my head. I’m free of all that pressure.

  And what’s more, I’m free of that painful sense of loss I had been holding onto since I left Earth the first time. Kethian was right. I had this image in my mind of Earth as a utopia. But being here again, I realize that it’s not. It’s just a planet—like any other. Yet I had been holding onto this dream of Earth for so long, and it was so scary to allow myself to let it go. But now I have and it’s like everything has changed.

  Suddenly I think of my Rasarit. It’s supposed to be this time in a young person’s life when they transition from childhood into adulthood. It’s supposed to be all pomp and circumstance, ceremony and formality…and even though I skipped it, it somehow it feels like I’ve made it through that rite of passage regardless. And sure, maybe I was a couple of years late getting here, but I feel like I’m starting an entirely new stage of my life. One where Kethian will always be by my side.

  I look over at him and sure enough he’s as deep in thought as I am. I hope I’m not being a naïve virgin, but this thing between us feels so real. It feels like forever.

  “I think we should go somewhere tropical,” I say suddenly. “It could be like a honeymoon.”

  The thoughtful look melts away from Kethian’s features and is replaced by a warm smile. “Perhaps we should get married first then,” he tells me, linking his fingers with mine.

  “This all feels really official already. Like it’s…like we’re…” I blush, trying to find the right words to express what I’m feeling.

  “We belong to each other. Those weren’t just pretty words I was giving you, Madison. It was a vow.” He pulls me into another kiss—deep and passionate—and I lose myself in it. It doesn’t take long and I’m panting with need again. Kethian meets me stride for stride and I feel his shaft growing hard against me.

  Yes, something about this just feels just like a honeymoon.

  Chapter 32

  Kethian

  Madison and I fall asleep in each other’s arms. She belongs to me finally—now and forever. There will be no more talk of someone else being the man of her dreams. I am the only one for her and she is the only one for me. I no longer have to compete with her Earth fixation, and while I don’t know where we will end up, it doesn’t matter, as long as we are together.

  The only problem is that she says she doesn’t want to be a princess anymore. Unfortunately, it seems like an inevitability. Though I think things on my world will be different than what they were for her on Tevera. My brothers rule Atana, leaving Madison and me free to lead a life that is more her pace, outside of the limelight.

  But it is nothing more than a simple technicality. Everything will be figured out in the end. For now, I’m filled with such a sense of peace that I lose myself to a deep state of rest. And perhaps that was my first mistake. Or at least…it was my last.

  I tense in the dark, ripped from my happy dreams to the sound of growling—low and menacing. It only takes me a second to whip myself into awareness, but already it’s too late. The lights flicker on just as I’m rising from the bed, ready for a fight. Standing before me is a man that could be no other. He’s massive and imposing, all wild mane and thick fangs. If it were just him, I might have a chance to fight our way out of this… I might. But it’s not just him. We are surrounded by his men and all of them have their guns pointed directly at me.

  Beside me Madison wakes, sucking in a terrified gasp before her eyes go to the figure at the foot of the bed.

  “DAD?”

  She hugs the covers tightly over her breasts, looking around at her father’s guards and registering the scene around us.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” she demands. My whole body is tense, ready to follow Madison’s lead. I’ll do everything in my power to keep her from being dragged back to Tevera against her will.

  “SILENCE!” he practically roars at her.

  “Watch your tone!” I command the Warrior King.

  His golden gaze cuts to me and his nostrils flare in rage, but he answers Madison nonetheless. “I am here to take my daughter, the crowned princess of Tevera, back home to her mother.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you!” she says, practically growling back at him.

  “You’d rather stay here?” he gestures at the crude room we’re in.

  “I’d rather stay with Kethian if it’s all the same to you. Not that it’s any of your business!”

  “You will come back home and you will apologize to your mother for worrying her so!”

  “I’ve got nothing to apologize over! I’m an adult! I can go wherever I want!”

  “Madison is free to make her own choices. She’s your daughter, not your prisoner,” I agree, backing up the woman I love. Vazrium rips his sword from its sheath and aims it for my neck. Madison screams in response, huddling closer to me as if she plans to shield me from her father’s rage.

  The guards’ eyes roam the bed and they frown at the covers which have dropped low around my waist. And though she’s pulled the blankets high, it’s obvious that Madison is as naked as I am. I cringe for her, knowing that everyone in the room is keenly aware of what she and I have been up to.

  At the same time, Vazrium’s blade bites at my neck. This is the Warrior King. He’s killed men for far less than taking his daughter’s virginity and I wonder if he’s callous enough to kill me right in front of her.

  “She is not my prisoner!” he rages. “But you are! Kethian Indera, Prince of Atana, I place you under arrest of the Teveran Empire, where you will stand trial for violating an order of protection against the planet Earth and for the kidnapping of the princess of Tevera!”

  The guards tug me roughly from the bed, ripping me away from Madison. She fights to keep me close, but it’s a losing battle. “This is so stupid!” she shouts at her father. “Kethian isn’t a prince and he sure as hell didn’t kidnap me! He’s a guardsman from the Atana army and he rescued me from Chancellor Prett’s dungeon! All this time he’s kept me safe and done nothing that I didn’t order him to do!” she defends fiercely.

  “I see how he has kept you safe,” Vazrium growls angrily, gesturing at the bed with disgust before turning to me. “My daughter has been with a devious male indeed, if this is how he pretends to care for her. You have shamed your kingdom Prince Kethian and forever tarnished the relationship between Tevera and Atana. You and your brothers—”

  “I take full responsibility for what has happened since Prett’s dungeon. My brothers had nothing to do with any of it,” I interrupt. “I saw the princess was in need and I could deny her nothing.”

  One of the guardsmen scoffs, and I jerk in his direction, wanting to pummel
him—wanting to pummel something—right into the ground. This is happening all wrong. I expected to be able to bring Madison home to Atana, to hail ahead and call for a delegation to meet and negotiate what she wants for her future with the King and Queen of Tevera. I expected to have time for us to work this out rationally and on neutral ground. I never wanted Madison to be put under the spotlight. I never wanted her to traverse this path without a sense of power—and here she is, facing the king nude and unprepared. And…I had wanted to be the one to tell her who I am—who my family is.

  “The King of Atana was a trusted ally of mine throughout his life. He would be ashamed of all you have done to damage the ties between our worlds,” Vazrium tells me, venom lacing his tone.

  “Stop it! You don’t know what you’re talking about! Kethian isn’t a prince! He’s a guard and he rescued me. Let him go!”

  Vazrium’s eyes narrow at me. His gaze grows ever more deadly. “Are you going to stand there, after crawling from my daughter’s bed, and tell me that she does not even know who you are?”

  I turn to Madison. My lovely Madison. There isn’t even a question in her eyes. She trusts me over her father and I fear what I have to tell her is about to shatter that trust forever.

  “Madison.” I pull her attention away from shooting daggers at her father. “You know me,” I assure her. “I am Kethian. I am yours and you are mine.”

  “I know that,” she tells me, giving her head a small shake as if my tone is frightening her.

  “I would take you from this galaxy to the next—all you would have to do is ask. I’d even fight a war if it pleased you.”

  “I don’t want any of that—” she starts, her voice cracking.

  “Being a prince changes nothing, I’m still me. I’m still yours.”

  “You’re not a prince,” she says…but her voice sounds hollow now, hollow and unsure.

  “I am whatever you need me to be.”

  Her brows draw down and despite the hands restraining me, despite the angry glare of her father, it feels as if we are the only two people in the room. “You lied to me?” she asks. “All those times we talked about life, after everything I told you? You just kept on lying?”

  “Madison,” The Warrior King interrupts, “you know Kethian Indera—and his brothers. You have been announced to them at countless balls.”

  “Indera,” she echoes. “The Princes Indera.” Recognition seems to dawn on her. Somewhere in the back of her mind I’m sure she sees juvenile versions of my brothers and me from across a brightly lit ballroom. “Of course…how stupid of me…”

  “Get him out of here,” Vazrium growls. Madison’s eyes fall to the sheets still tangled around her legs.

  “Madison, you have to understand, I wasn’t lying to you—”

  “Seems like you were,” one of the guards growls in my ear as they force me toward the door. I struggle against them, but Madison doesn’t look up.

  Chapter 33

  Madison

  “Shall I send in a servant to dress you?” my stepfather asks.

  I look up, my lip curling in disgust. “No. Of course not.”

  He gives a curt nod and scans the room. He no longer looks like the big, imposing hulk of a beast he seemed to be when staring Kethian down. Now he looks…a little lost. He finds my clothes on the floor and retrieves them, trying to set them gingerly on the bed with his long and curved claws. He turns his back to me and presses close to the door to give me privacy while I dress. Angrily, I yank my shirt over my head.

  “Your mother has been very worried,” Vazrium says quietly. I scowl in his direction. The last thing I need is a guilt trip. “We have all been worried,” he admits.

  “I sent a comm.”

  “And after your abduction, do you think we could trust anything? We had no way of knowing if that was a forgery, or if you had been manipulated in some way.”

  I scoff. “Apparently I was.” I dress quickly and tug on my shoes. I’m ready for this nightmare to end.

  “Let’s go home,” Vazrium tells me, holding out one of the fancy cloaks from my wardrobe back on Tevera. Numbly, I go to him and I allow the heavy material to slip over my shoulders, adding physical weight to my emotional burden.

  Before we step out the door though, Vazrium looks back at the awful little motel room. “Is there anything you wish to bring? Anything sentimental?” I turn back to frown at the space. As ugly as this place is, I shared it with Kethian. In a way, I’m sentimental about all of it. Still, if everything was based on lies…is any of it worth a damn?

  I sulk over to the kitchen counter and grab the box of cold pizza. “Let’s go.”

  I eat the whole pizza. Unlike the root beer float, I don’t end up barfing my guts up—but damned if I don’t want to. The food is heavy in my stomach and I sit on the floor, hugging myself and thinking morose thoughts.

  Despite the hurt I feel; I can’t help but wonder where Kethian is. He’s somewhere on this ship, but the question is—which part? Probably the brig, I assume. I can’t imagine my stepdad giving him luxury guest quarters after the way he found us together.

  God! I clutch my head. My freaking stepdad caught me in bed with a man. I can’t imagine anything more embarrassing than that. He’s going to tell my mom too. And the shame isn’t the fact that I was intimate with a man—the shame is in the fact that they’re both going to know I let myself be intimate with a liar—a manipulator who’d have told me whatever I needed to hear to trick me into thinking we had something special.

  How stupid and naïve can a girl get? I should have known he was trouble when his cocky ass came strolling into Prett’s dungeon. I was just so hungry for love. Kethian saw that and he took advantage of it. But I let him. I gave myself over, entirely—blindly. The second he promised to take me to Earth he could have had me. Hell, he did have me. It only adds insult to injury that he spent all this time toying with my heart and making me fall in love with him.

  I hang my head and let the tears fall—big, wet, ugly tears that come with pained sobs from deep inside my soul.

  There’s three days of crying as I hide out in my room. Three days of wallowing in heartbreak. It’s just one more thing I would have had before the age of 22 had my parents not taken me from Earth. Yet here I am—nursing my first broken heart.

  On the third day of my self-imposed isolation, the door chimes.

  “Go away!” I shout, my voice muffled by the blankets I have pulled over my head. But the door glides open anyhow. I lift myself up just enough to glare at the intruder. Vazrium, I should have known.

  “What do you want?” I grumble, pulling the blankets back up, casting myself into darkness once again.

  “I brought tea,” he offers.

  “I don’t want anything,” I tell him. “I never did…”

  “Still, you will have this tea.”

  I frown and sit up in the bed. “Fine.” I grab the drink from his outstretched hand and chug the contents of the mug until it’s empty. “There. Now please, I just want to be alone.”

  “Why?” Vazrium asks with a heavy sigh. He sounds surprisingly tired.

  “What do you want me to say? You want me to admit I have a broken heart?”

  “I want you to tell me what burdens you so that I may help.”

  “How can you help me, Vazrium? You’ve done enough already! Just leave!” I’m surprised when my shout makes the Warrior King stagger. He frowns and makes a movement to head for the door, but he stops just short, his fists clenched at his sides.

  “Do you truly hate me so much? Your own father?”

  “You’re my stepfather,” I correct before I even bother to think about the impact of my words. And impact is certainly what they have. When Vazrium turns to face me he looks as if I’ve struck him—or maybe more like I just stabbed him in the gut.

  “You are my daughter, Madison. My only child. You may not have my blood, but you and your mother are the only ones in this life that have my heart. You might hate me—
but I love you.”

  I grumble and hang my head, mustering the energy to rise from my bed. “Look, I don’t hate you.” I think about all the reflecting I’ve done on this journey. Even if everything between Kethian and me was a lie, the perspective I’ve gained about my life on Tevera was not. “I’ve been angry for a long, long time, Vazrium. I’m sorry. I know I’ve been taking that anger out on you and Mom. It hasn’t been very fair of me.”

  “All we want is your happiness, Madison. It is the only thing we have ever wanted.”

  “That’s a lot of pressure,” I point out.

  Vazrium shakes his head. His thick mane rustles with the movement, making him look all the more wild. “It was never meant to be.”

  “I know that now.”

  Vazrium steps closer. He seems so eager to have this talk—and, oddly enough, I realize that I am too. I’ve always closed myself off to my stepfather, unwilling to open up. Now it seems like a cruel and unnecessary punishment for the both of us. Could there have been a bond there that I’ve been denying all these years?

  “I’m sorry. I’ve spent a long time blaming you guys for my unhappiness… I’m only just beginning to understand what a waste it’s been.”

  Vazrium sighs and sits down at the foot of the bed. He’s a massive beast of a man and even when sitting, he’s still taller than me.

  “I saw your comm,” he admits, his gaze fixed on the ground. “After you escaped Prett’s dungeon and told us you were leaving.” Silence stretches between us and I watch him, waiting—because he looks like a man with something to say.

  “I remember the day I met you so perfectly. The day your mother and I finally made it back to Earth—after so much fighting, after so many tears. Stephanie’s joy was my joy. She would see her daughter again, and I would meet mine.

  “We stood outside your room, knowing you were in there, safe and sound. Knowing that we would finally get to be a family after the hell we’d been through.”