My chest compacted, making breathing impossible, and my mark pulsed uncontrollably, until my vision blurred, which panicked me because I didn’t want to stop looking at her. From what I’d seen, she’d been so pretty, all her thick, blonde hair swept up in a large bun to display the curve of her jaw, her pointed chin, the length of her graceful neck. Her eyes had been dark and soulful and her nose pert and short.And she’d been mine. My one and only. My mate and one true love.I blinked rapidly until, ah…there. She came back into focus. Thank God.My happily ever after rested on the shoulders of this very woman… Who was quite obviously full with another man’s child.At first, I didn’t understand that part. Because, really, what?My one true love was pregnant? That didn’t make sense. I hadn’t even met her yet. I mean, the need for her was strong, but not strong enough to impregnate her from across the room with my desire alone.Or was it?Shit, this was just all wrong.How could sh
“Oh, Vienne.” Princess Nicolette draped herself across the empty seat next to me and sighed wistfully. “Don’t you think Prince Urban is the dreamiest, most handsome man you’ve ever seen?” Tucking her hands beneath her cheek, she batted her lashes my way. “I certainly do.”I furrowed my brow. Personally, I’d been thinking I was going to lose my mind if my back didn’t stop aching. I hadn’t been able to get comfortable in the last three weeks, no matter whether I was standing, sitting, or lying. So, yeah… No. Thinking about the attractiveness of princes from foreign lands hadn’t even registered with me.“Hmm,” I answered, frowning when I messed up a stitch on the booties I was sewing and had to undo it. I shifted in my chair, relieving an ache in my spine only for my side to cramp. Drat. There had to be some comfortable way to arrange myself.Nicolette was still waiting for an answer, so I distractedly said, “Yes, well… He didn’t seem disfigured from what I could tell.”“Disfigured?”
In the Iron Castle, the dining hall’s royal table was shaped like a large L, as if fitting two tables together. The king sat at the head where the corner met, and the parties seated on either side of him angled out so they were nearly facing each other. Yasmin sat directly to Caulder’s right with me at her right and Soren at mine. To the king’s left sat Nicolette, and next to her was where Brentley usually seated himself. Except tonight, Prince Urban sat there instead, nearly directly across from me. Next to him was his sister, and then Brentley had moved himself next to Princess Allera at the end.At Nicolette’s question, the prince of High Cliff looked at her, sending her a confused smile as if amused but puzzled by her query. “My…what mark?” he asked, shaking his head to let her know he didn’t understand.“Yes. This thing right here.” She swept her hand close to his eye where everyone could clearly see the black tattoo of a heart inside a circle.The prince chuckled, the sound pl
The next morning, I sat alone in the East Salon, breaking my fast and watching the sun rise.The baby had hiccups. I laughed and patted my belly with every start. The precious little bundle wasn’t even born yet, and she still managed to utterly fascinate me.It was strange how much I loved her already. Hoping everything was okay in there, I took a sip of my morning tea and stroked my stomach again, trying to comfort her. She was so active today, as if she were already curious to meet the world and start exploring. I couldn’t wait to hold her in my arms and kiss her forehead, then rock her against my chest.And I really should stop thinking of her as her, I suppose. She could very well be a he. Except something in me screamed girl, and I couldn’t vanquish the notion, no matter how hard I tried. Truly, the gender wouldn’t matter to me either way. She just felt like a girl for some reason, and thus I kept thinking of her that way.“There you are,” my sister’s voice called right before
“Grumpackers,” I murmured quizzically to myself as I stole down the hall away from the door to the chamber that everyone was calling the East Salon.Allera might’ve told me to keep my distance, but she was insane if she truly believed I could actually follow through with such an idiotic command.Because, really? Stay away from my one true love? Ha! The idea was pure madness.And what the hell were grumpackers, anyway?I didn’t have a clue but I was about to procure a shitload of them.In the few hours I’d been in Donnelly, my life had taken a vast change in direction. A day ago, I had thought my biggest obstacle would be adjusting to life in a new kingdom and keeping my sister and myself alive. But today? Survival? Assimilation? Who the fuck cared about those things?Today, everything revolved around her.Lady Vienne.After pleasuring myself last night before sleep and again this morning when I woke, that part of me felt appeased enough to help me realize it wasn’t even exclusi
I had two bushels of grumpackers bought before Brentley found me again.As I handed over my coin to pay for them, he shook his head. “Grumpackers? That’s what you came here after? You should’ve told me that was your goal before we left on our jaunt. There are plenty of them at the castle if you wanted some, you know. All you needed to do was ask; we would’ve supplied them for you. There was no need to travel all the way down here to procure them.”I shrugged and refrained from explaining that they were supposed to be a gift, a gift I’d felt the pressing need to purchase with my own gain. I mean, if a man couldn’t claim his one true love and be with her in every way he dreamed possible, then the least he could do was buy all the presents he gave to her in secret from his personal funds instead of having them given to him first. Right?Curious, I took one of the grumpackers from its basket and studied the odd thing. “I wanted to explore the area, anyway,” I said aloud to Brentley, set
For the remainder of the day, I stayed in my room, brooding, and not sure what I was supposed to do with myself.I almost regretted not accompanying Allera and Brentley on their walk. Then again, I also didn’t. Who would want to tag along for that kind of awkwardness?But it all left me distinctly alone.A servant brought lunch to my room. I ate it by myself, not knowing the name of any dish on my tray. The food here didn’t taste the same as it did in High Cliff. It wasn’t worse, but the flavors were definitely different, rich with foreign spices. If I were in any other frame of mind, I probably would’ve enjoyed the explosion of new flavors. But I mostly just picked around with my fork, shifting the meal from one side of my plate to the other. It was hard to concentrate on food when the urge to seek out my one true love took up so much of my thoughts.When dinnertime came, I planned to do much of the same, moping around my room, but the servant who showed up at my door didn’t bring
After I was able to keep Nicolette and Yasmin from having a cat fight right there at the dinner table, Caulder and Soren began to discuss trading regulations with our neighbors.“All I’m saying,” Soren argued, lifting his hands, “is that raising taxes a single pence on the pound won’t make that big of a difference.”“Except it does when the kingdoms ordering from us are requesting thousands of pounds at a time,” Caulder shot back. “Far Shore is already complaining about the prices we do charge, and we charge them less than any other realm.”“Pfft.” Soren shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Then I guess they can buy their clear rock from someone else. Oh, wait.” He dramatically slapped the palm of his hand against his forehead. “That’s right. No one else makes clear rock, so they’ll just have to suck it up and keep paying what we quote them if they truly want it that bad, which they do. Everyone wants what we have. We should profit from that.”I opened my mouth to respond, only to