Chapter 2

I laughed once. "Are you afraid of me?"

"I wouldn't dare."

"Wouldn't dare, or don't want to?"

His face went red in an instant.

Watching that small, telling shift in him, I felt a flicker of amusement stir in my chest.

So he wasn't made of wood after all. No one had simply bothered to notice what was going on in his head before.

I waved Helen out of the room, and once the doors had shut behind her, I said quietly, "Your younger sister is recovering from an illness in the southern district. She's living off one dose of medicine a month from the Royal Infirmary, isn't she?"

Connor's expression changed instantly.

"Your mother died young. Your father gambled away everything, and it took the sale of your family's ancestral home just to buy your way into the King's guard. Most of the pay you've earned with your life these past years has gone straight into that bottomless pit."

I rose and walked slowly toward him, reaching up to smooth the front of his collar.

He went rigid as stone.

I smiled, gentle as anything. "Connor. Tell me. What happens to a guard caught in an affair with a royal mistress?"

His throat worked. His voice came out tight. "What is it my lady wants to say?"

I pressed a fingertip lightly along his collar. "Don't worry. I don't want your life."

"If the King can use your sister to threaten you, then I can save her just as easily."

His breath went heavy.

"There's something else." I lifted my eyes to his. "Since you've already been in my bed, changing masters isn't such a difficult thing to arrange."

The bluntness of it made the tips of his ears go red.

"You'd do well to think of your own future. The King isn't a man who remembers old favors.

"And what if Doctor Saylon decides to get rid of me one day by accusing the two of us of an affair? Do you think the King would spare you? That's the kind of treason charge that wipes out a whole bloodline."

Sure enough, Connor fell silent for a long while before finally dropping to one knee.

"What does my lady want of me?"

I bent down and lifted his chin with my hand.

"From today on, I want your loyalty. Only to me."

The glowing words in front of me, the ones that called themselves "the comments," suddenly shook wildly.

[Forget switching masters, this is switching husbands! Devoted guard and ruthless beauty, I am SO into this ship.]

[I came here for the leads breaking free of court rules for true love, but honestly, the King's mistress's storyline is the one that's got me hooked.]

I paid the words no mind and let go of his chin. "Tell me about Doctor Saylon first. Who is she, really, and how does she know the King?"

The room went quiet for a moment.

Connor finally spoke. "Her name is Rose Saylon. She's from Vosvale. Two years ago, the King was attacked during a trip south, near Summerton, and she took a blade meant for him. Afterward, he brought her back to the capital, meaning to bring her into his court as a mistress, but she refused."

"Refused?" I laughed softly. "That does take some nerve."

"She said she'd rather be a shadow at the King's side than a mistress trapped in the back halls."

Connor paused. "The King indulged her completely. He fabricated a new identity for her, borrowed from the deceased young son of the Infirmary's Head Physician, a man named Saylon, and used it to place her inside."

To anyone else, she must have looked like a legend: a woman who wanted nothing but the King's true heart, not a title.

But if she'd truly been above such things, she wouldn't have come to my chambers day after day just to poison me out of her own jealousy.

"Is she actually skilled as a physician?" I asked.

"Somewhat," Connor answered. "The King worried she'd be found out, so he only let her move through the court under the excuse of checking pulses and delivering medicine."

I nodded, then asked, "And the poison. Was that the King's idea, or hers?"

Connor's head snapped up. "The King only told her to switch the fertility tonic for an abortifacient. He never ordered her to poison you."

His face went pale. "But she was the first one to suggest my lady shouldn't be carrying a child at all. And after all, it's been me with you every single day..."

I smiled.

So that was how it was.

The King couldn't bear to give up the Krenion family's military power, and he couldn't bear to give up his beloved either, so to stay faithful to her, he'd sent Connor to give me his "favor" in his place.

Rose Saylon wanted the King all to herself, and to make sure his little act never turned real, she'd gone ahead and poisoned me through the very medicine meant to end a pregnancy.

One playing the villain, one playing the saint.

One handing me favor, the other handing me poison.

Truly, they were a match made in heaven. Two rotten scoundrels, perfect for each other.

I touched the sapphire bracelet on my wrist. "I want you to report to me every single meeting between the King and Rose Saylon, down to the hour and the place."

"And one more thing." I looked into his dark eyes and smiled slowly. "From now on, on any night the King is meant to be staying here at Larkspur Hall, you'll still come to me, exactly as before."

Connor's pupils contracted.

I spoke as if I were discussing something perfectly ordinary.

"I want a child.

"It doesn't matter whose child it really is.

"What matters is that he comes out of my body, that he has a mother like me, and that means he'll have every advantage a future could offer."

Connor stared at me for a long moment before finally rasping, "My lady, you have quite the nerve."

I let go of him and straightened.

"Only just noticing?"

The words in front of me scrolled by in a blur.

[Wait, what? She wants to have a baby with the guard?]

[Holy hell, is the King's mistress staging a coup? Why does their whole storyline suddenly feel so deliciously forbidden?]

[Sorry, it took me exactly zero seconds to accept this pairing.]

[But that's not even how the story's supposed to go. Aren't the King's mistress and the King's guard supposed to get caught in bed together in six months? Then she would feel so guilty toward the King that she sets herself on fire at Larkspur Hall?]

Looking at those words, I could only find the whole idea absurd. Set myself on fire?

That wasn't the kind of thing a general's daughter like me would ever do.

Soon enough, I'd make sure they all learned exactly what happened to anyone who tried to scheme against me.