by Alexis Davie
“I sent Sebastian to protect you!” the king yelled.
“From what?! From drunk students and peer pressure?!”
“From the death threats, Kaia!”
Sebastian quietly gasped to himself. He had not expected the king to actually tell the princess the real reason he had sent him. He hadn’t thought he would lie, obviously, but it was one thing to lie outright and another to lie by omission. Then again, Sebastian had never faced an angered Princess Kaia before, though he supposed the king must have at some point.
The princess went silent and remained like that for a few seconds.
“Dad,” she finally said, and her tone was not impressed. It was as though the king had told her he’d sent Sebastian to protect her from a bug plague. “Are you serious right now?”
“Am I—” the king sputtered. “Of course I am! Do you think I would joke about this?”
“We’ve received death threats since I was born!” the princess cried. “Long before that, even! You once told me you and Mom used to receive so many of them, it was the most correspondence you got.”
“Yes, Kaia,” said the king, “but we had the Royal Guard protecting us here from any peril. You, on the other hand, have no one watching over you, and that makes you completely vulnerable to an attack from our enemies!”
“I’m sorry, ‘completely vulnerable’?” the princess echoed. “You do remember I was trained in self-defense, right? Besides, I almost stabbed Sebastian! If he hadn’t been a fae warrior, he might even have gotten seriously hurt!”
That’s true, Sebastian thought, smiling in spite of himself. He hadn’t just been complimenting the princess’s prowess and aim with her dagger. They had stopped training together many, many years ago, so he was truly happy to see that she had kept at it by herself, and her abilities had only grown better and stronger with time.
He could’ve backed up the princess’s statement, but he thought it wiser to stay out of the conversation unless his opinion and/or vote was specifically requested. If the princess already disliked having him here, she would most certainly not want him intervening.
“And that’s why I sent him!” the king said. “Kaia, my darling, it’s not that I don’t believe you can take care of yourself, because I know you can. But will it hurt you so much to let Sebastian watch over you?”
“Yes!” the princess nearly screamed. “Dad, we talked about this! I don’t want to be Princess Kaia of the fae, I just want to be Kaia Blackwood! And I can’t just be Kaia Blackwood when I’ve got a goddamn bodyguard following me around all day long!”
Sebastian heard the king take a deep breath on the computer’s speakers. He also recognized that tone; His Majesty was losing his patience, and not even his love for his daughter would keep that from happening.
“Kaia,” he began, and Sebastian was barely able to hold back a wince. Though the members of the fae royalty weren’t easy to upset, when they were angered, it was best to stay as far away from them as possible. “You are Princess Kaia of the Fae, and that’s not something you can change.”
“I’m not trying to change it!” the princess replied. “I know I am, Dad, but for once in my life, I don’t want that to be all that I am! Can’t you understand that?”
“I understand that we have a lot of enemies who would love to cause us harm, and one of them threatened my daughter’s life,” the king said. Sebastian could tell, just by those words, that the princess would not be getting her way with this. “And I understand what you’re saying, Kaia. But I’m afraid this is not up for discussion. I won’t have you unprotected if I can send someone to look after you in my place while you’re away from home.”
The princess slammed her hands down on her desk, making Sebastian jump. He knew she wouldn’t agree to the king’s orders, but he didn’t think she would resort to physical force, especially if she wanted to keep this conversation private. It would be a miracle if no one in the other rooms had actually heard that.
“We had a deal!” the princess shouted, standing up from her chair.
“And now we have another one,” the king replied calmly. “Sebastian will stay with you at Elite Magic University until we can identify the source of the death threats.”
“Father—” the princess said, a desperate last attempt for the king to listen to her.
“And until we can ensure that your life is in no danger at all,” the king continued, as though she hadn’t spoken at all, “he will be with you 24/7, accompanying you to your classes and to your dorm. I’ve already talked with the administration to make arrangements for Sebastian.”
What? Sebastian turned around and looked at the video call for the first time. He hadn’t been told he would stay in the princess’s dorm room! It… it should have been obvious, yes, but he would’ve liked for the king to tell him beforehand!
“Your Majesty,” Sebastian said, although he didn’t get far before the princess interjected.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” she exclaimed. “He’s not staying in my goddamn room!”
“On the contrary, Kaia,” said His Majesty. “He’s not letting you out of his sight.”
“But—”
“And that is final!”
The call disconnected before the princess could get another word in, and she slammed the lid of her laptop shut, growling in anger. She hit the surface of the desk with her palms again, with such strength that Sebastian was worried she would injure herself. Even if she did, though, he knew she wouldn’t admit it, much less to him.
The princess sat back down on the chair of her desk, slumping on it like all of her strength had suddenly abandoned her. She ran her hands through her hair and then leaned forward on the desk with her elbows, as if she were about to pass out on top of it.
“I can’t believe this,” she mumbled. “Of all the things my dad could have done…” She shook her head to herself. Sebastian thought she was going to add something else, but she stayed silent, maybe pondering the situation she found herself in completely out of nowhere.
“Your Highness,” he said quietly. “I must apologize. I didn’t know His Majesty would make arrangements for me to stay…in such close quarters with you. I thought he had sent me only to watch over you from afar and make sure your life was not in any—”
“Sebastian,” she interrupted him, looking up at him. “It’s…well, it’s not okay, because I still think that Dad should’ve told me what he was planning to do before supposedly agreeing to let me come here without any security or anything. But I don’t think any of this is your fault. I don’t blame you.”
“But you should’ve never known I was here,” Sebastian insisted. “I was meant to remain hidden, and yet I got sloppy and failed.”
“Look,” the princess said, crossing her arms over her chest. “You were never going to remain hidden for long, okay? If I hadn’t noticed you today, I would’ve noticed you someday in the foreseeable future—especially since you’re supposed to be living with me. My father shouldn’t have lied to me. Yes, yes, I know he didn’t technically lie—” she lifted a finger to stop Sebastian from talking when he opened his mouth to jump to the king’s defense, “—but he wasn’t being truthful, and that’s just as bad.”
“He’s doing this to protect you,” he said. “All His Majesty wants is for you to be safe.”
The princess smiled sadly and shook her head. “You know, I never thought you would become such a fae warrior. Just like all the other ones.”
Sebastian frowned to himself. Of course he would become a fae warrior like all the other ones under the king’s service. That was what he had been trained for his entire life, the reason why he had been assigned to the princess as her personal guard when they were children. What had she thought would happen to him?
“I’m…sorry, Princess, but I don’t understand.”
“No,” she said. “I know you don’t.” She took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. “Listen, if you’re going to stay here, you can’t keep
calling me ‘Princess’ and ‘Your Highness’, okay? I know Dad doesn’t expect you to be some sort of robot who never speaks, so if you have to call me anything, at least call me by my name, all right?”
“I—” Sebastian pressed his lips into a line. “I apologize, Princess, but I simply can’t do that.”
“You can’t?” The princess stood from the chair and walked toward him, coming to a halt right in front of him. “What if I ordered you to call me by my name? Could you do it then?”
Oh, no. Sebastian was surprised that he still recognized what each tone of the princess’s voice meant, and this was no different. This was her fighting tone, when she was ready to get into an argument and do what she had to in order to get her way.
“You… y-you’d be putting me in a very difficult position,” he stammered. “His Majesty—”
“I’m sure my father didn’t order you to call me by my goddamn title, Sebastian,” she snarled. “So there’s no higher authority to answer to, except me.”
She was only a few inches away from him, and Sebastian was reminded, all of a sudden, of how beautiful she was. She had inherited the king’s white-blond hair and the queen’s blue eyes, along with her iron will. Rulers of smaller fae communities, all of whom obeyed the king, had presented their children in attempts to arrange a union with Princess Kaia, but the king had sent them all away, telling them that his daughter would choose her partner when she wanted to. In all his years, Sebastian had never seen the princess even start to worry about that particular choice.
“I don’t need anyone to be the queen!” she used to say when they were children, especially when they sparred or trained together. “I will be a queen on my own, and I will be such an amazing ruler that I’ll be remembered as the best queen of the fae ever!”
Sebastian had absolutely no doubt that she would be. Whoever was threatening her life would have to go through him to get to her, and Sebastian would rather lose his life than let the princess come to any harm.
“I…will do my best, Princess,” he told her now, knowing that his instinct would always be to call her by her status rather than by her first name. He had never done otherwise. Besides, the princess hadn’t actually ordered him to do anything—it had just been a question.
If there was anything a fae knew how to exploit, it was specific wording.
4
Well. Kaia was screwed.
She’d had such a wonderful time at EMU, able to forget, for most of the time, that she was a princess. Back home, in her ‘giant mansion’, everyone other than her parents always called her by her title: ‘Princess this’, ‘Your Highness that’. She had met other royal fae folk and royal immortals from other species, at balls and parties and whatnot, but none of them had ever been her friends. Her only friend had been Sebastian, and then she’d realized that he could never truly be anything other than her personal guard, a warrior under her father’s service, sworn to protect her life at the cost of his own.
Kaia didn’t think she’d ever had any real friends until she’d met Carlie and Layla, because she didn’t have to worry about them wanting to get to know her just because of her status or her money or some equally stupid crap like that. They didn’t care about it—all they cared about was her, who she actually was, not what she was or what she represented. She could be herself with them.
Sebastian being here was a reminder of all the things Kaia had wanted to leave behind; he was a reminder of the shadow that would always be over her head, telling her who she had to be.
“Is this what you needed to check first?” asked Layla, glancing at Sebastian standing a few feet behind them, his back to them.
Kaia sighed deeply. After the conversation with her father, she knew it was useless to try to get around his plan, so she just had to accept the fact that she would now have a bodyguard, whether she wanted to or not. Layla and Carlie had been shocked to see a complete stranger fae walking behind her when she entered the library. In fact, the only one who hadn’t been shocked to see Sebastian was the librarian, who just raised an eyebrow at him and went back to work. Kaia assumed that the entire faculty of the campus knew about him already.
Dad certainly didn’t waste any time, did he? she thought to herself, fuming.
“I thought someone was stalking me,” she answered, sitting down at the table where her friends were. “Turns out it was just Mr. Fae Warrior over there. My dad sent him to follow me around.”
“What?” Carlie turned to look at him for only a moment. “So he’s just going to…be wherever you are?”
“Yep,” Kaia said.
“Even class?” asked Layla.
“Yep.”
Now it was Layla who stared at him. “Why?”
“Because apparently one of my father’s enemies wants to kill me,” said Kaia, rolling her eyes. “Maybe even more than one.” She couldn’t imagine what kind of ridiculous death threat had scared her father so much. All royal members of the immortal species had gotten death threats every now and then, and nothing had ever happened. Well, at least not in a few hundred years. And even if it did, Kaia could take care of herself, damn it! Contrary to what the king believed, she had never needed Sebastian’s help, not even as a kid.
“What the hell?!” Carlie nearly shrieked. “Someone wants to freaking kill you?!”
“Says my dad,” Kaia replied, leaning back against her chair and looking at the ceiling. “I don’t believe anyone’s out there actively wanting to kill me, it’s just a stupid death threat.”
“Kaia, it’s a goddamn death threat!” said Layla, sounding more concerned than Kaia had ever heard her. “There’s nothing stupid about it!”
“No wonder the king sent you a guard, you could be in danger!” added Carlie, sounding just as worried.
“Guys!” Kaia felt… flattered, kind of. Humbled. It was heartwarming, knowing that her friends cared so much about her. “I promise you it’s nothing! I’ve gotten death threats my whole life, and there’s never been any serious danger.” She looked at Sebastian out of the corner of her eye and sighed once more. “Unfortunately, it does mean Sebastian’s here to stay, as much as I’d rather he didn’t. Now, can we please go back to the assignment at hand?”
Carlie and Layla looked at each other. It seemed like they wanted to argue further, but Kaia was glad when they didn’t. She felt perfectly safe, and there was no need for her friends to worry. And if it turned out someone was truly seeking to hurt her, her defense mechanism would warn her of the danger. This whole thing was completely unnecessary.
She began to take her school stuff out of her backpack and put it on the table.
“Well,” said Carlie, quietly enough so that only Kaia and Layla would hear her, “at least the king sent you some eye candy.”
Kaia let her Magic History book fall onto the table’s surface as hard as it could so that it made both Carlie and Layla jump. Hearing Carlie say that Sebastian was ‘eye candy’ made the blood boil in Kaia’s veins. It made her want to scratch her nails against wood, curl her fingers, and grind her teeth. A little ugly voice inside her head whispered, He’s MY personal guard!
What did that matter? It wasn’t like Carlie was going to make a move on Sebastian. And even if she was, that made no difference to Kaia whatsoever! This was a free country—Carlie could compliment whatever fae she damn well pleased, regardless of Kaia’s opinion on the matter.
Her friends were staring at her, surprised at her outburst.
“Kaia?” Carlie prompted.
Kaia wasn’t sure of what she could say in response. How could she explain that she’d had a random jealous lapse over a silly, completely normal comment? She’d never had any reason to be jealous. She might’ve had a crush on Sebastian when she was a little girl, but she was a grown woman now.
Besides, Sebastian wasn’t even that good-looking.
“Dude,” Kaia said at last. “Can you please not talk about him like he’s a mannequin?”
“Yeah, Carlie,” Layla sa
id. “You should have more respect for the princess’s personal guard.”
Kaia gave her an unamused look.
“What, he’s hot!” Carlie cried. “Come on, Layla, back me up here.”
“Eh, he’s not really my type,” Layla muttered, and that ugly little voice inside Kaia’s head made itself known again.
You should be so lucky to be his type, it said, with so much venom in its tone that Kaia had to shake her head and tell herself to get a goddamn grip.
What the hell is wrong with you? Why this sudden possessiveness about Sebastian? Just because he’s going to be around you day and night now? No. Kaia wouldn’t let Sebastian’s presence ruin her time at EMU, especially not because of petty, childish concepts like jealousy. What did she even have to be jealous about? Nothing!
“Okay, yeah, I know your type is girls and not guys, but you’re not blind, are you?” Carlie went on. “Even if he isn’t, you can still notice he’s, like, really sexy, right?”
“Carlie,” Kaia stopped her. “Seriously, can you not?”
For a moment, she chided herself for letting her friend’s words upset her so much. It was just a comment. Nothing more. Kaia had no right to snap at Carlie like that.
Carlie, though, didn’t seem to take it too seriously. She raised her hands in surrender with a mischievous smile on her face.
“Fine, fine, I’ll stop,” she said. “But you both know I’m right.”
Did Kaia know, though? Did she think Carlie was right?
She glanced back at Sebastian at the same time Sebastian turned his head to the side, probably scanning the library for any danger amongst the students sitting at the tables, and she caught the view of his profile.
Okay, fine, she supposed that he wasn’t ugly. She could see where Carlie was coming from, but her reaction was still a little bit over the top for Kaia. His blond hair had grown a bit since the last time she had seen him back home, and it was just long enough for him to pull it back into the tiniest of ponytails. A few hairs were too short, so they fell around his intense green eyes.
