by Maisey Yates
The King would do what he willed.
And there would be whispers. For there always were.
He was done trying to silence whispers.
He was done denying that which he desired.
He came around the corner, toward the ballroom, just as Tinley came around the curve of the sweeping staircase that led to the antechamber.
His heart stopped in his chest. And then raced forward, as if it was on the verge of exploding.
Her red hair was loose, save for two small strands which had been woven back, and twined together. It was full and curling, and devastating. Her body was wrapped in a gold gown, which made her curves look gilded.
She had barely any makeup on her face, gloss on her lips and something shiny on her cheeks, but her freckles were still clearly visible. She looked like a nymph, a fairy. Something that had come straight from the Dark Wood.
An enchantment.
Or a curse.
She tilted her chin upward, her expression proud.
“You look beautiful.”
She stopped. “I do?”
“You know you do. You’re a triumph.”
He took her arm, and he could feel her resist his hold.
“We will go in together.”
“All right.”
There was a determination about her, that light in her green eyes that he knew well, and he had the feeling that she had a plan of her own.
Whatever it was, it didn’t matter to him. For his course was set. And he was the King. And so his course was the course for Liri.
They walked into the ballroom, which was already filled with guests. It was customary for the King to arrive late, as a formal presentation of his royal personage.
But he had a feeling that what Tinley did not understand was that she was being formally presented as well. And not as a mere ward of the crown.
When the double doors opened and they walked into the room, everything stopped. He looked out over the crowd of people. “Good evening. On behalf of the royal family of Liri, I welcome you.” It was a customary greeting, but one that was grim these days, considering he was the last remaining Royal.
“Tonight is very special indeed, as I am presenting to you my future Queen. Ms. Tinley Markham of Liri.”
* * *
Tinley could hardly believe what she had just heard. The future Queen? There was no way. She had been about to tell him that she was going to marry no one.
That she would be presented to no one. That she would go off on her own and start afresh. And he was engaged to someone else. She turned her head sharply, and met fierce, dark eyes that invited no argument at all.
And she had no idea what she was supposed to do. What she could do. For he was the King, and she could hardly defy him openly in his own ballroom. And soon, they had been swept away from the staircase that acted as a stage, and he drew her out to the center of the room. To the dance floor. He looked at her, his gaze uncompromising. And it reminded her of that moment in the baths.
They had not seen each other in the hours since, much less touched, and now she was in his arms. And any ferocity or resolution was quashed by the fact that being in his arms stole her ability to think.
Have courage.
That voice echoed inside of her, and she had no idea where it came from, or how it applied now. What courage was there to have? She was in the arms of a king, held prisoner in a room full of hundreds of people, all who glittered. It was a spectacular, gilded show of imprisonment.
And it wasn’t fear of reprisal that stopped her. For part of her sensed that it would be easy to speak up now and burn it all down.
To shout that she had no intention whatsoever of becoming the wife of Alexius. That she was not going to be Queen.
Oh, the idea of being Queen.
Of being paraded around in front of people at all times.
Influence.
The power to make change.
A queen had that. She also would have the eyes of the world on her.
Yes, it would be easy to run away. It would be easy to defy him, as she did it at every turn. She knew Alex well enough to know that it wasn’t exactly like he was going to shift her off to the dark forest and have her executed by a wolf.
No, he wouldn’t do that.
The much more terrifying thing was seeing where this might go.
As she had done in the baths.
For she couldn’t run then. She could have told him that she didn’t want him. That it was a lie. That whatever he thought was happening between the two of them, it wasn’t.
That she was naked by circumstance, and not because she had chosen to come down there and seduce him.
And she hadn’t.
But she had taken a step toward him because that step put her on the path to a different life.
And this one...
She looked up at him, at this man that seemed as if he were carved from granite.
He was the more dangerous choice. Not defying him. Staying with him.
And when they began to dance, she didn’t feel clumsy. She didn’t feel awkward. And she didn’t know if she was truly skilled all of a sudden or not. It was entirely possible that the sensation she had that she was flying had nothing to do with reality, but only the fact that she was in his arms.
She hadn’t the faintest idea why that suddenly made a difference.
Hadn’t any idea what it might mean.
That she suddenly felt right, in place, in his arms in spite of the fact that everyone was staring. In spite of the fact that, to an extent this was adjacent to her worst nightmare.
And so they danced, with all eyes on them, but she didn’t feel it at all. She felt nothing but the strength of his hold, the warmth of his body.
“Alex,” she whispered. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why would I?” The question was spoken with such finality, such authority. And there was a faint undertone of...wonder. As if it would never occur to him to consult her on the subject of marrying him.
It was so very Alex.
“To give me some warning.”
“And to give you a chance to leave?”
“What if I wanted to leave? Would that matter to you?”
“I am not a man who makes decisions lightly.” As if the very fact he’d made a decision was the only thing that truly mattered.
He didn’t care what she wanted, only what he thought was best. She thought of the other woman he’d told her he was going to marry.
“What about Nadia?”
He twirled her, and then brought her back close to his body. “She has been informed. Our arrangement was only ever one on paper. It was not a matter of the heart.”
She moved her hand from his shoulder, down to his chest. He looked at her, the glint in his eyes sharp. She wondered if she had gone too far. If touching him this way in a room full of people was too...
But the spark in his eyes smoldered, and she leaned into him, into this.
She could feel his heart thundering beneath her palm.
“Ours is a matter of passion, don’t you agree?”
Not the heart. His heart, which she could feel even now.
“What does that have to do with the royal marriage?”
“There are certain things that are unacceptable to me,” he said. “Certain things I will never be able to reconcile. I could never condone infidelity, not in a marriage. Though I considered making the arrangement. Once.” That last part was spoken softly, deadly. And the way his dark eyes settled on her made her feel...
“Me?”
“I wanted you when you were his. And I could’ve taken you. I could have.” There was an intensity to his tone that echoed inside her. In her soul.
She knew that it was true. For he was the future King, to Dionysus’s
future Prince, and Alexius’s authority would always be superior. And she...she would have been unable to resist the temptation. She knew that now. For all the simmering fire inside her when she looked at him wasn’t hate and it never had been.
In her innocence, she’d thought that discomfort had to be anger. But no. It was desire. Desire for a man she knew she couldn’t have. And what would have happened if he’d made it known he wanted her?
The same thing that was happening between them now, and there was no use denying it.
“I was tempted,” he said. “But fate...had other ideas. And I’m not the man I was then.”
The little bubble of hope that had welled up inside of her fizzled out. It didn’t die, because she was much more resilient than that. If she were so fragile that mere words could kill every ounce of hope inside of her she would have lost it, all of it, long ago. At the hands of her mother. Who had been nothing but scathing about her and her accomplishments ever.
Alexius didn’t love her. He didn’t care for her. If he could have justified sex without marriage he would have done so.
But he couldn’t.
So here she was. Not subject to the whims of fate, but to his medieval code of honor.
And as small as it seemed, in this moment, the worst part of all was that her mother would win, her mother would get what she had always wanted. Her daughter as Queen. But under the worst circumstances possible. Her mother, who wasn’t even here. Who Tinley hadn’t seen in years. Because her father had died, the King had died, Dionysus had died. Every link her mother had to power in Liri was gone, and so she had just... Well, she’d gone off and made another life. A better one.
For Tinley, enough on her own wasn’t enough.
And now, by default, she would become the thing that her mother had always wanted.
She wanted to reject it. She wanted to turn away from it. She didn’t want to give her mother the satisfaction.
But she also didn’t...
She didn’t want to live for her mother. Or against her.
She wanted Alex, but she couldn’t explain what that meant or why.
It wasn’t just sex, but a threat that seemed to bond them together, deeper than she could explain even to herself.
She searched his dark gaze, looking to see if she might find something she recognized there. Something she felt echoing inside of her own chest.
She saw nothing but darkness.
Like standing on the edge of the wood.
“You know, usually a man asks the woman if she wants to marry him,” she said softly.
“That implies you have a choice.”
“I could leave. You act like I’m more afraid of having nothing than of all this. And that isn’t necessarily true.”
“And will you leave? You’re right. I would not stop you. I would not imprison you. Walk out the door. Tell everyone here that you will not be my Queen.”
“No,” Tinley said. “I will be your Queen.”
Something shivered inside of her. It terrified her. Unto her soul.
“I’m glad we could come to an agreement.”
“Good. Think of it as an agreement. Because you should understand that I do have a choice. I had a choice when I went to you yesterday. It was my choice to stay there. It was my choice to take a step toward you, rather than run away. Just as this is my choice now. Don’t mistake me, Alex. I’m not afraid of being left with nothing. There are things far worse in the world.”
Like trying and failing. Wanting to live up to the standards of another person, only to find that it was impossible. And this put her square in the path of all those fears.
But deeper than her fear she wanted... What she wanted was to explore the dark link she felt with Alex.
It was something new and exciting and magic.
Or perhaps it was old magic.
That truth echoed inside of her.
This thing between them wasn’t new at all.
He’d said that he’d nearly claimed her. Taken advantage of his power and taken her back when she’d been with his brother.
And what she had always deemed to be dislike felt like it was something else altogether.
She had been so convinced that she loved Dionysus, but here she was agreeing to marry his brother.
His brother who was different from him in every way.
She did not understand herself.
And she needed time to understand herself, and running away wouldn’t help.
She’d been running for years now.
They finished the dance, and the rest of the evening went by in a strange blur.
They were on the receiving end of many congratulations, though some of the interactions were with men, and they were quite strange.
“They thought they were coming here to view you as a potential bride,” Alex said at one point, as he handed her a glass of champagne.
The glass was crystal, the stem a tree, the branches wrapped around the cup. It reminded her of the wood, encroaching on her.
“And you announced that you were going to instead.”
“Yes.”
“What must it be like, to wander through life without fear of reprisal. Most people would never be so bold.”
“I am not most people.”
“No indeed. Sometimes I wonder if you’re a man at all.”
His dark gaze burned into her. “Do you? Perhaps I have not made it sufficiently clear.”
A thrill raced down her spine. She was frustrated with herself. That she would be consumed with his brand of sexuality while there were much larger things at stake.
But there was only so much that could be spoken about here, in a ballroom full of hundreds of people. There was only so much that could be said.
For she had discovered more about herself and more about him and the time they had spent with no words at all.
Everything that had happened after they’d had sex had been... Wrong. It had driven a wedge between them.
She had felt vulnerable and hurt, and small because of what he had said. And then he had surprised her by declaring that she would be his Queen.
She could not join up the two moments. But she had a feeling that the truth, the answer, was somewhere in that physical connection they shared.
It had to be.
For there was something between them that burned hot and bright, and there was no explaining it. No untangling it with mere words.
They had known each other for years. They had not managed it.
And when the evening wound to a close, she did not know what to expect. For it was late, and there were so many unspoken things between the two of them, they could fill a novel with it.
“I’m hungry,” she said.
“You’re hungry?”
“I never got a chance to have anything during the ball. People kept talking to me.”
“Something we will solve,” he said.
He strode toward the dining room, and she lifted her dress up off the floor so she could try to keep up with him. He sat at the head of the table, and she took a seat next to his right.
“Food will arrive soon.”
“You didn’t...ask for any.”
“I am here,” he said. “Seated at the dining table. My request is clear. And it will be met.”
He wasn’t wrong. Moments later, trays of food were brought out before them, savory and sweet, more than she would have ever thought to ask for.
“This is... This is a bit much.”
“This is what it is to be royalty.”
“Yes. I’m seeing that. I spent a lot of time in the palace but not... There’s so much that I don’t know. Alex, I’ve known you for years, but I don’t know you.” She put her hand on his arm, and his gaze burned with unspoken things. “I want to know you, Alex.”
; CHAPTER TEN
“A KING IS not meant to be known.”
“But I can’t live that way. I can’t live not knowing you. We are going to be married, and I need to understand you.”
He frowned. “There’s nothing to understand. I’m a king. You will be my Queen.”
“Those are both labels, not personalities.” She looked at him. Hard. “I’m Tinley. You think that I’m too loud, and a bit clumsy. I like to knit. I enjoy baking. I hope I’ll be allowed to do some of that even after we’ve married. I like animals. The charity that I’m affiliated with is very important to me.” Her heart squeezed. “Because I know what it’s like to have my mother look at me and think that there’s something wrong with me. And the children my charity benefits live in a world that isn’t made for them. And in every way, big and small every day, they are made to feel like they’re wrong. Because they have neurological differences. Because they have different ways of thinking and learning. Because nothing in the world, in their school, is made for them. And I’m passionate about creating ways for them to be able to feel like they belong. Because all I have ever wanted is to feel like I belonged. It isn’t the same. I don’t have the same challenges they do. But I understand the feeling. And if I can help spare even one person a measure of that, then I will. I hope in my position as Queen I can further that.”
“Undoubtedly,” he said, visibly unaffected by her speech. “As Queen of Liri you will have money and influence at your disposal. Invest in whatever you like. You will be able to raise the profile for your convictions with ease.”
“Well. Good.”
She studied him, trying to see if what she had said had... Meant anything to him. Sunken at all. Because it felt important that he understand. She was... She was so tired of being alone.
A feeling...
Nobody knew her. Not really.
She’d made decent friends when she’d gone away to school, but none of them could really understand what her life had been like. Many of them were from privileged backgrounds, it was true, but none of them had been engaged to a prince.
