by James Tate
The Royal Trials: Seeker
Tate James
Contents
STAY IN TOUCH
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
AUTHORS NOTE
Also by Tate James
THE VIXEN’S LEAD - CHAPTER ONE
Title: The Royal Trials: Seeker
Series: The Royal Trials Book 2
Copyright © 2019 Katrina Fischer
Cover design © 2019 Amanda Carroll
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. If you have obtained this book via piracy, or suspect it has been duplicated illegally, please do the right thing. Advise the author and purchase your own copy. No one likes a pirate, unless he’s Jack Sparrow.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
STAY IN TOUCH
Stay in touch with Tate.
www.facebook.com/tatejamesfans
www.facebook.com/groups/tatejames.thefoxhole
website: www.tatejamesauthor.com
newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/cd2e798d3bbf/subscribe
To Felix.
It’s been wild but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
1
I don’t know how long I lay there screaming as blood slowly drenched my naked body. All I know was no one came to help.
Not when my voice cracked and broke.
Not when my wrists began to bleed.
And not when Zan’s heart stopped beating against my chest.
I felt it when it happened. It had been growing slower and slower as I frantically tried to free myself, to wake Zan, to scream for help. And then… nothing. It was just gone, and his body lay still and heavy on top of mine.
It was that sudden, gut-wrenching absence of rhythm that caused something in me to just… snap.
A primal cry tore from my throat, and heat flooded through me, burning hotter and hotter until I was certain my skin must be blistering and melting off my bones. Right when I thought I couldn’t handle any more, that my heart must be about to join Zan’s in deathly silence, a convulsion wracked my body.
When the fit ended and my vision cleared of stars, the heat was gone. So too were my restraints, leaving nothing behind but bloody wounds and a dusting of ash.
“Zan!” I sobbed, my numb hands flying to his face as I desperately prayed I was wrong, that his heart hadn’t stopped. That he wasn’t dead.
As carefully as I could, I rolled him to the side, then yanked the blindfold off the rest of the way. It didn’t change the horrifying scene before me though.Zan’s bare chest was crusted with drying blood, and his face was a mess of dark red. Blood had come from his eyes, his nose… even his ears. Could anyone survive that?
“This can’t be happening,” I whispered in horror. This was the result of breaking an oath? It had to be. That was the only logical conclusion to this insanity. The royal princes had been masquerading as tutors—as servants—all the while keeping their true identities secret. Given the consequence for Prince Alexander revealing his face, it could only have been a broken oath.
What kind of sick and twisted magic caused this kind of damage?
“You Zryn-damned idiot,” I cursed at Zan’s lifeless form as I stroked the side of his bloodied face. My tears had long since dried up, and I was settling into a strange calm that I knew to be shock.
Even in death, he was a handsome bastard. Zan, my etiquette and politics tutor. Prince Alexander. One and the same.
Belatedly, my brain made the next logical steps on what his secret identity must have meant.
“Those lying-ass motherfuckers,” I snarled, scrambling off the bed with every intention of hunting Lee and Ty down and roasting them over open flames. Sorry, I meant Prince Louis and Prince Thibault.
But no sooner had my bare feet touched the carpet than I collapsed.
Zan was dead.
Their brother was dead.
And it was my fault…
A shocked gasp echoed through the room, and my head snapped up.
“Sagen,” I croaked, meeting the raven-haired princess’s horrified gaze. I was still on the floor, my hands and knees barely keeping me from total collapse, but at the sight of her, I pushed myself up to stand. I needed to cover Zan’s face. Even though he was dead, I needed to hide his face, didn’t I?
“What in all the gods’ names happened?” she exclaimed in a hushed voice, stepping farther into the room and quickly closing the door behind her.
Her wide eyes surveyed the scene, not missing anything. The disheveled bed, the lifeless prince, and finally my naked body covered in Zan’s precious blood. It was too late to do anything. Too late to disguise him.
My lips parted to explain, but no sound came out. How could I possibly explain this?
Not waiting for a response, Sagen hurried across the room. Her heavy skirt swished against the floor as she brushed me aside and hunched over Zan’s body.
Wait. Why wasn’t she surprised? What the hell?
“He’s not dead,” she declared after a moment, and I collapsed again. This time it was just to my knees as I clutched the bedcovers and tried to visually confirm her claim.
But she was wrong; I knew she was wrong. “His heart stopped beating,” I told her, my voice a hoarse whisper after all my screaming. “I felt it. I felt it stop.”
Sagen turned to me with a condescending look on her face. “Well, clearly you’d make a shitty healer because his heart is beating just fine. Here, feel.” She grabbed my hand and slapped it onto the side of Zan’s neck, pressing my fingers against his pulse.
Holy Zryn’s balls. He had a pulse.
It wasn’t strong by any means, but it was there plain as day.
“But...” I blinked, frowning down at my bloody fingers against Zan’s skin. “He was dead. I’m sure of it.”
Sagen shrugged like she really didn’t give a shit. Come to think of it, she didn’t even seem the slightest bit shocked to see our etiquette and politics tutor in Prince Alexander’s bed. “He’s not now, so what does it matter?” She flicked a judgemental look at my nudity. “Are you going to clean yourself up and put some clothes on? Or are we just going to pretend you’re not totally naked and covered in blood?”
Suddenly feeling uncomfortable, I grabbed Zan’s shirt from the floor and tugged it over my shoulders, holding the edges closed with one hand. I needed a damn good shower, but it would have to wait. Now that Zan wasn’t dead, I had a bucketload of questions. Starting with...
“What are you doing in Prince Alexander’s bedroom before dawn, Your Highness?” I crossed my arms over my chest and straightened my spine. My hands were still trembling and my heart was thundering, but I was starting to get my strength back. It certainly wasn’t the first time I’d seen someone die—or almost die—but it had been the first time that person had been someone I cared for.
Shit. I cared for Prince Alexander.
No, that wasn’t true. I cared for Zan. His Royal Highness Prince Alexander of Tiech could go fuck himself, and I’d be telling him as much when—if—he woke up.
Sagen smirked at me, flipping her silky black hair over her shoulder. “I don’t have to explain myself to you, Callaluna.” She sniffed and cast another look at Zan’s motionless form. “You might want to get him checked out and clean this mess up before anyone else sees it. I’m sure you have plenty of secrets you’d rather not explain to Lord Taipanus under inquisition.”
With that ominous warning, she whirled out of the room in a flurry of skirts and closed the door softly behind her, like she’d never been there.
For a long moment, I stared at the closed door. Too many things weren’t adding up. She hadn’t been even remotely shocked to discover who had been hiding behind Prince Alexander’s mask, and she had let herself into his bedroom as though she had been expected. Like she’d been there before.
Turning back to Zan, I sighed heavily and ran a hand over my face. “You have got so much fucking explaining to do,” I muttered, pressing my shaking fingers back to his pulse. It was still there, but Sagen was right. He needed to get checked out, and I knew just the person.
Leaving Zan on the bed, I crossed the room to where I’d left my beautiful blue gown the night before. Sure enough, tucked between the folded fabric were the other two keys that I’d been given. One for Prince Louis and one for Prince Thibault. Lee and Ty. It seemed so painfully obvious now.
Fuck, I was going to kill them for lying to me.
But not until I knew Zan was okay.
Grabbing the key with an “L” engraved in the handle, I cracked open Zan’s door and peered out into the corridor. Thankfully, the guards were positioned at the entrance to the royal wing, not directly outside the door.
The night before, when I’d been named winner of the first trial and given my reward of spending the night with a prince of my choosing, a maid had pointed out all three bedroom doors to me. So I was confident as I hurried across to Lee’s door and inserted the key.
The heavy lock turned with an audible click, and the door swung open easily.
Standing there in the threshold to Lee’s room, I hesitated. He was fast asleep in his huge bed, his blond hair tousled and one hand thrown up above his head. His sheets were a tangled mess around his waist and legs, but his upper body was bare, and my breath caught at the sight.
Fuck me, he really was gorgeous.
Zan needed help, though, so this was hardly the time to drool over a lying, two-faced dickhead who’d tried to seduce me under the guise of a well-mannered gardener.
“Lee,” I hissed, reaching out to shake his shoulder. As my fingers met his warm skin, his eyelids snapped open, and he sucked in a sharp breath like he was startled.
“Calla,” he breathed in a long exhale. “You came.”
“Uh, not exactly.” I shifted from foot to foot and folded my arms across my body again, hiding the tremble, which only seemed to be getting worse. It was like I’d stuck my finger in an electrical socket and it was slowly frying my nerves.
Lee frowned then, blinking sleep away and inspecting me. “Why are you covered in—” He broke off with another sharp breath, his eyes widening in horror. “Which one of those reckless bastards broke the oath?”
“Zan,” I croaked, swallowing several times to try and mend my broken voice. “Is it that obvious?”
He sat up, throwing the sheets off without warning and giving me an eyeful of everything below. Lee, of all people, apparently slept nude. Had the circumstances been any different, I would have revelled in this display, but I was too numb. Too shell-shocked.
“Even without the way you look?” he indicated to my bloodied state as he pulled on a pair of pants and shirt. “Yeah, the fact that we’re face-to-face right now and my head isn’t exploding sort of gives it away.”
He seemed to know why I’d come to him and rushed out of the room and through to Zan’s with me following silently on his heels. He had a point, I guessed. Zan had already broken the oath and clued me in on who he was, so it hadn’t been a huge leap to work out that his brothers were, in fact, the same men I’d been spending all my free time with over the past week. Once I knew, Lee wasn’t breaking any magical rules by letting me see his face.
“Zan,” Lee said, patting his brother’s face lightly. When he got no response, I watched as he pressed his fingers to Zan’s throat, just like I’d done, checking his pulse. “How long has he been like this?”
“Too long,” I replied, bile curdling in my stomach. “I was tied...” I waved a hand at the bedhead and the dusting of ash that represented the silk restraints. What the fuck had happened to them, I had no idea.
Lee’s sharp gaze locked onto the wounds around my wrists, and his mouth tightened. Jealousy? There was really only one reason I’d be naked and tied to his brother’s bed, and it wasn’t platonic.
“I need to...” He released a long sigh, scrubbing his hands over his face. “Sorry, I’m still half asleep and this isn’t really how I’d thought tonight would play out.”
Somehow I knew he was referring more to the fact that I hadn’t chosen his key to use, than to his brother being on the brink of death.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, hating myself and all the choices I’d made up to this point.
What an absolute clusterfuck.
Lee shook his head and shrugged. “Doesn’t matter now. I need to heal him or else our father will find out what happened here.” He perched on the edge of the bed to get closer to where I’d left Zan sprawled. He still had his pants on, having not taken them off before removing my blindfold, but his chest was crusted in red-brown.
“Would that be bad?” I asked with a small hesitation. I had no way to know how they truly felt about the king and whether they suspected he may not be all he seemed. The last thing I wanted to do was cast accusations and end up being hanged for treason.
Lee grimaced. “Worse than you know. He’d kill you for starters, and I have a feeling Zan would miss you.”
“Just Zan?” I couldn’t stop the words before they left my mouth. When Lee didn’t immediately reply, I shook my head and rushed to change the subject. “I’ll get some water and cloth to clean him up. Will the healing take very long?”
Lee watched me a moment longer before turning his attention back to his brother. “It could. Why don’t you take some time to shower? I hate to think what your maid would say if she saw you like this.”
His mention of my “maid” made me bite my lip. I guessed they weren’t the only ones lying about who they really were.
I opted to say nothing, instead just retreating into the attached bathroom, and left Lee in peace to do whatever he needed to do. Knowing now that he was royalty, his “magical” healing creams made a hell of a lot more sense. I suspected he’d boosted them with his own real magic, as the royals were the only ones who could use magic these days.
The decline in magic hadn’t been immediate after Queen Ophelia’s death, not like the Darkness or the storms. The magic had just faded from our land, bit by bit, until it was all but gone. No one had even so much as heard rumor of magic users outside the royal family in years.
So what the hell had I done to free myself? And why the fuck had no one heard me screaming?
2
It was with great reluctance that I kept my shower brief. The sheer joy hot running water could bring would never get old for me. Not when I’d grown up in the flooded slums where we were lucky to get running water at all, let alone hot water.
After forcing myself to turn the water off, I stepped out and roughly dried myself on one of Zan’s luxurious towels.
Excuse me. Not Zan. Prince Alexander.
Ugh, those lying, cheating bastards.
Not that I was really much better.
They’d pretended to be servants to the crown, disguised themselves as tutors, probably in
a bid to get to know their future queen without any of the girls noticing. Was that really so different from me pretending to be Lady Callaluna when I was really an orphan girl from the Pond?
Gut churning with guilt, I tried to avoid my own reflection in the mirrors. It was a fruitless effort, though, as there were more mirrors inside Zan’s bathroom than I’d seen in my whole life.
The girl in the reflection was barely even recognizable to me any more. The past week of rich food had already made an impact on my appearance, filling out my body and making me look less like the half-starved street kid I was.
My blond hair hung in wet tendrils over my shoulders, barely disguising the evidence of my night with Zan. Discoloration dotted my neck and breasts where his teeth had marked me.
Before he’d died, that was.
Despite feeling his pulse for myself, I knew I hadn’t imagined it. His heart had totally stopped beating, right up until... Until when? I hadn’t checked for a pulse after my restraints disintegrated, so had it been then? Or when Sagen touched him?
My breath sucked in with a sharp gasp.
Princess Sagen. She must have done something when she touched him! She was a royal, after all, even if she was the youngest daughter of a weak kingdom. It was entirely possible her family might still retain some magic that they just weren’t letting on about.
But why the hell would Sagen help me? She could have just as easily called the royal guard and had me executed for murdering the prince. Wouldn’t that have worked more in her favor?
