by Maisey Yates
But the forest had swallowed him whole.
The magic had not been with them after all.
She had been so sure that things between them would be different. And then she had been ready to spend the rest of her life... Well, not alone. She had friends. She had a calling, more than a job. She had found a niche. She had found some happiness.
Alexius had come in and upended it.
It’s your father’s will...
She couldn’t even take that on board.
Alex was also sadly right. Of course there were any number of aristocratic men who would be happy to have a distant relationship with their wife. Who would expect to continue having affairs in the way that they saw fit. Who would maintain cordial politeness, and allow her to use their money and her money.
“I fail to see how that’s me being taken care of. And I feel certain that if my father were alive...”
“I cannot negotiate with a dead man, Tinley. This document is written as law.”
The car stopped, but it wasn’t the driver who ended up opening the door for Tinley, but Alexius himself. She moved slowly out of the vehicle, staring up at him. He was more than a head taller than his brother had been, and much, much broader. Dionysus had been a manageable fantasy with an easy smile.
Alexius was not a fantasy. He was a mountain.
One she had no desire to be standing at the base of.
She moved quickly, clutching Algernon’s carrier to her chest.
“Wait,” he said, his voice weighted with authority. And she had no choice but to stop.
There was something about that voice. It traveled down her spine like lightning and immobilized her.
“I will accompany you.”
He held his arm out to her, and she, out of force of a long forgotten habit, looped her arm around his, and allowed him to lead her toward the front doors of the palace. She felt ridiculous. She was wearing trainers, leggings and a sweatshirt, next to a man in a bespoke suit. She was holding a cat carrier.
And this had once been her life. This place. There was a time when she had been the presumptive Princess and...
She could hardly reconcile it with who she was now.
The palace loomed before them as they walked up the brick path, and the wind picked up, wrapping her in a breeze that seemed to be full of memory, grief and a strange longing that seemed to well up from deep inside of her.
She wanted to hide. She wanted to jump in the cat carrier with Algernon.
But she didn’t. She kept her gaze steady, and she kept walking. Like she didn’t look a ridiculous mess. Like she wasn’t a frizzy-haired woman walking with a polished king.
She felt like she was living in an alternate moment. And when the grand doors opened wide, and they entered the great antechamber that she knew led to the throne room, her heart squeezed so tight she thought she would choke.
“Welcome back,” he said.
She looked around the space, and she felt decidedly...
It was a strange feeling. It wasn’t bad or good.
“Charis,” he said, as a woman entered the room. “Please show Tinley to her room.”
The momentary relief that she felt over being out of Alex’s presence was completely replaced by the disquiet that she felt moving through the once familiar hallways.
She could see her father everywhere. She could see King Darius.
She looked up at the walls, and she saw portraits of the family. Hanging on those marble walls.
She had never known Lazarus. He had died long before she was born.
But oh, she remembered the rest of them.
The Queen had been beautiful, but frail. And everyone said that she wasn’t the same after Lazarus disappeared.
They had also said that it was a blessing she had died before her youngest son.
Before her husband.
Because the grief would have just been a cruelty she could never have borne.
As she moved down the hallway, looking at all the portraits, her gaze kept landing on those of Alexius. He was intense. Dark and brooding, even in these depictions. He was so different than Dionysus. And she had never really felt like...
Not that either of them had ever been her playmates, or anything of the sort. She had been an inconvenience, underfoot to them. Dionysus had been kind to her, likely because he knew that she would be his wife someday. Kind, a bit indulgent.
Alexius had always been...remote. Distant.
In fact, he reminded her of the wood.
And it seemed fitting, because it was the wood that had consumed the man that she was meant to marry.
And it was the man who seemed like a personification of that dark, demonic place that had brought her here.
The room had a familiar feel to it, but she couldn’t quite be certain that she had ever stayed in it before. But it had a massive canopy bed. And it overlooked the lake, not the forest. For which she was grateful.
“Charis,” she said to the woman, as she retreated. “Can you please make sure that my... That my other animals are brought to me.” She paused for a moment. “And my yarn.”
“Of course,” she said.
When the woman retreated, Tinley put the cat carrier down on the bed and opened the door.
Algie did not come out. In fact, he seemed peevish over the change in scenery. “This is a palace,” she said, keeping her voice soft. “You’re supposed to like it better than the cottage.”
He meowed plaintively.
“I know,” she said softly. “I don’t either.”
When her things were brought to her, she was all ready to settle in for the evening. But before Charis left her with Nancy, Alton and Peregrine, she paused at the door. “I’ll be back in a moment with your dress. We are going to have to get you ready for dinner.”
CHAPTER THREE
SHE WAS LATE. And Alexius did not like to be kept waiting. At least, he didn’t think he liked to be kept waiting.
No one had ever dared do it before.
If he were not so angry, he might find it extraordinary.
Of course for Tinley it was par for the course.
She always dared.
His mind flashed back to her pushing him. Her hand on his chest...
The door to the dining room opened, and the creature that appeared there was nearly unrecognizable. That cloud of carrot hair had been tamed into something sleek. He could not see her freckles, smoothed by some sort of makeup. Her lips were painted a pink color that should have clashed with her hair, but somehow didn’t.
Her gown was much the same. A daring shade that went off the shoulder and revealed far more creamy skin than he was comfortable seeing on her.
He hated it.
It was not Tinley. And yet it was. Her voluptuous figure on display, her full lips dewy from some gloss that verged on pornographic.
She was a nightmare. Tinley made visually acceptable as if to mock the fact he found her attractive even when she didn’t. And to present to him a vision of her as the sort of sleek trophy he was seeking in a queen.
She couldn’t know, and yet there was a light in her green eyes that spoke to him. That said: Where are your excuses now?
Not a girl.
Not dizzy.
Not frizzy.
“Good evening,” she said, edging slowly into the room and taking a seat a comical ten chairs away from him.
His body relaxed into the relief of the distance and he tightened his fist. Unwilling to cede that he needed her to keep distance.
“Tinley,” he said. “We will not be able to discuss anything if you are half a league away from me.”
“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know the appropriate distance to keep from a king.”
He thought of the times they had all been forced to dine at one end of the ta
ble, with their fathers down at the other talking about matters of state.
She knew well enough.
“When you are dining with a king you must sit close enough to converse with him,” he said.
“Well, your voice does carry.”
“It shouldn’t have to.”
She stood, hardly the picture of lithe grace and dignity. No. She was nothing half so basic.
You want basic. You need it.
She walked slowly over to where he was. And then she sat, her posture remaining comically rigid.
“I’m surprised you didn’t bring the cat.”
She rolled her eyes at him. Like a bratty teen. “I’m not ridiculous.”
“Good to know.”
Those same eyes now narrowed at him. “Was that a joke?”
“No. It really is helpful to know that you’re not ridiculous. It’s valuable to know exactly what it is I’m working with.”
“It may have escaped your notice,” she said, folding her hands in front of her on the table and staring him down. “But I am not eighteen. I’m not eight years old, either. I run and coordinate a charity. I manage events, fund-raisers. I’m not going to bring a cat to the dinner table.”
And in those words he saw a spark of something. Not just the dizzy, frizzy hair that he had noticed earlier. But the light deep down inside of her that he was certain she must show in other areas of her life. She had to. If not, then how could she run a charity.
When he had arrived at the cottage and seen it in disarray, when he had taken a look around at all the homey things that—in his opinion—were a study in superfluity, he knew that many people saw the life of a Royal as one of potential excess. Of privilege. And it was true, there was a great deal of power and privilege to be had when one was royal.
But in Liri, at least, the tradition of royalty ran much more toward stark. The King was the protector. Liri had mountains to the north, the sea to the south, and thick forest to the east and west, guarding the borders, with Italy on one side and Slovenia on the other. They were small, but they were powerful. And the ruler of the country had always been a part of that power.
It was not power to be taken lightly.
His father had taught him that a king must rule with a firm hand.
He and Dionysus were different people. He had always been more serious than his brother. And it was entirely possible that... Perhaps his brother would have brought some much-needed lightness to the country.
His father had been an only child, and Alex knew it had been his hope that his sons would help one another. That they would not have the competition seen in family generations past, but that Dionysus would be the piece Alexius might be missing on his own.
The world was not as it had once been, after all.
The Lion of the Dark Wood had been necessary across the history of Liri. They’d had conflict with other nations. They had struggled financially in the beginning. War, famine.
These things were not so in the twilight of his father’s reign, and they were not so for Alexius.
But he was what the people had gotten. Even if he was not what they deserved.
And he was what Tinley had to contend with as well. Whether she liked it or not.
“It is true,” he said, “that you have managed to tame yourself into an image that will be easier for me to pass off to another gentleman.”
“That’s very sweet that you think of yourself as a gentleman.”
“A figure of speech, more than an actual commentary on my beliefs regarding myself.”
Her eyes glittered.
She was a strange and fascinating creature. She seemed hapless, and yet he could see that wasn’t the case. Her choices, her animals, her hair...
There was a deliberateness to her. To the hodgepodge of her house and the whirlwind of her movements. And he realized she wasn’t dizzy at all.
She was like a carnival ride, flashing and spinning and lighting up the night. Seemingly random and reckless, but in fact spinning in perfectly calculated time.
It was like he was seeing her for the first time. Not as he wanted to call her. It was easier to just see her as accidental, for that made her less than she was.
And she was already far too much.
But she was right. She could not do the job she did, couldn’t have graduated from University, if she were truly haphazard.
“Tell me,” he said, the command in his voice like iron. For his every command was iron. “What was it like to grow up with your father?”
She blinked. “Why?”
“Because I’m intrigued. I’m interested in what exactly has made you...this. You were raised practically in the palace, as I was.”
“As was Dionysus,” she said. “But the two of you could not be more different than... Well, a Ferrari and a lion.”
“Those comparisons have nothing in common.”
“To my point,” she said, dryly mimicking something he’d said to her earlier. “You know, one is machinery. Modern and sleek and shiny. The other is a bit toothy. Dangerous. Ancient.”
“If that’s a joke about my age...”
“Oh, no.” She waved a hand. “It’s definitely about your personality.”
“So tell me. How is it you managed to grow into...what you are?”
“You saw me grow up. I was here most of the time.”
“And when you weren’t?”
She blinked. “I don’t know. I guess... It was difficult with my mother. Always. I think she loves me.”
She looked away, her eyes downcast.
“You think?”
She looked back at him, her expression defiant. “Yes. I think she withheld her praise because she thought if she gave it I might not try. And in her opinion I never tried hard enough.”
He felt...he didn’t like it, for he felt. But he knew what it was to be denied your mother’s love. He knew.
“Tried hard enough for what?” he asked.
“To be... Well, to be her, I suppose.”
Her mother had always seemed spoiled and selfish to him. Certainly nothing like Tinley. And nothing she could ever want to be.
“If I remember correctly. You really are nothing like your mother.”
She shook her head. “No. And I also think she was very disappointed that I wasn’t... Well, that I wasn’t asked to be your wife.”
“My wife?”
“Princess is a bit below Queen, particularly in the estimation of my mother, who I think believed that our fathers’ connections would benefit us more than she believed it did in the end.”
“So my brother wasn’t good enough for her?”
“Mostly, I’m not good enough for her. But the thing is, I was more than good enough for my father. I loved him so much. And he loved me.” She looked down at her plate. “Your father picked me for Dionysus just like I was. It was much easier to be more of that person than the woman who could never be the Queen my mother wanted me to be.”
He knew what it was to disappoint a mother. More than disappoint. He might as well have taken a knife and cut his mother open.
He should have been the one to be keeping an eye on his brother.
They had been outside playing on the palace grounds, and it wasn’t until he realized he no longer heard his brother laughing that he realized something was wrong. He had lifted his head to see the back of his brother as he disappeared into the Dark Wood. As the trees seemed to swallow him whole. He had run after him. With all of his speed and might, but he was nowhere to be found.
Not a trace of Lazarus had ever been found.
He had only been seven years old, but Alexius had searched for his brother in the wood with the men until he had nearly fallen off the mount with exhaustion.
And then, he had gone back out the next day, after forty-five minutes of sl
eep, to continue searching. He had gone into the wood, and no harm had become of him.
The Lion of the Dark Wood. Or, a failure who had allowed his brother to die.
Opinion was divided.
Not with his mother, though.
He was thankful yet again that she had not lived through the death of Dionysus, for her opinion would’ve been confirmed then.
“And you...you were born a mountain?” She asked.
“I was born to be King. But time changes us all.”
She shook her head. “You’ve always been like this.”
“Regretfully, I cannot speak to the way that you’ve always been.” But he could. For he could remember her, a ball of energy and light and noise.
And could remember her as she grew older, watching the energy shift and change into something that shone from her eyes, rather than exploding into uncontrolled movement.
That was when the feeling in him had begun to shift. From a fascination that verged on horror that his father had chosen her as wife of the spare, to an attraction that felt like an abomination.
It felt no less so now.
“Why should you?” she asked. “I was nothing more than a child to you. But of course when you’re seventeen or so you don’t think you’re a child, do you?”
He locked his jaw tight. “I wasn’t.”
That truth stood stark between them. “I don’t suppose you were.”
“We do a great deal of supposing between the two of us.”
“No need,” she said. “We can confirm. That’s my origin story. A girl who was told she would be a princess at eight. Whose mother found that to be a disappointment. Who was frizzy and loud, and still is.” She reached up and touched her sleek locks. “Your staff did sort of an amazing job fixing me up. I can’t take credit for it. I’ve never known what to do with my hair.”
“Well, if you marry wealthy enough you shall never have to. You either hire the appropriate staff who will enable it to look however you wish, or you’ll be able to keep it as is and call it a trend, as your husband will be influential enough that you will command such public opinion.”
“Not a dream that I’ve ever had. But I would like very much to command influence to help with my charity.”
