by Rachel Angel
Chapter 7
Kaz
The guys and I cleaned up well in our K3 Kingsbury Prep uniforms. It felt good to be the K3s. It felt good to walk into the cafeteria to our special table while the rest of the student body act in awe of us.
But that was where all this school royalty shit stopped. I had to get the student body under control before Veronica pulls her shit and tries to win them over to her. Sabrina was still a student here as the only member of their so-called elite Queendom, the Q2, although Veronica was taking a “break” from school, having to be called back to her country to deal with some issues there. She was so off and on at Kingsbury that she may have to repeat a year or two before she could catch up on her school work and graduate.
As it was coordinated, I walked into the cafeteria from the special door through the patio, followed by Hunter to my right and Ori to my left. Head held high and hair flying behind us. Like the crown princes who owned the school that we were.
All the girls were swooning, while the guys looked on in awe. We walked with a swagger past them lined up in our path. Then we stopped.
I looked around. Every student was in the cafeteria today except for Veronica and her cronies. Except for Tempest.
As much as I missed Tempest strolling in with the K3s and sitting with us at the table as our girl, I had to grin and bear not having her here beside us. She had become my life, my existence in a short period of time, and I almost couldn’t breathe without her. I started breathing hard. Almost heaving.
Hunter put a hand on my shoulder and leaned in to whisper in my ear. “Are you okay?”
I took a deep breath and said, “Yeah, I will be. Give me a second.”
“What is it?” he asked.
“K3 feels incomplete without her,” I said.
Hunter nodded. “I was thinking the same thing.” He looked around, as though trying to find her amongst the crowd of royals. “Where is she?”
“She ran out of my room after we made love, and I told her I wanted her back.”
Hunter grimaced and said, “Why? Didn’t she want that…for us to get back together with her?”
I shook my head quietly, feeling the blow to my stomach her psychological punch dealt me.
“What did she say?” Hunter asked eagerly.
“She told me, ‘It won’t happen.’ She can’t be with me.”
“Fuck! Why?” Hunter said, in an unusual burst of emotions out in public. He normally would hide anything he felt when he could be seen by anyone at the Academy.
I tried to keep my composure. I had to announce my decree after all, didn’t I? That was the point of the K3 making an appearance…our first appearance since we were attacked by the townspeople of Arcadia. “I don’t know why, but I’ll change her mind, Hunter, if it’s the last thing I’ll ever do at Kingsbury Prep.”
“Speaking of which,” Hunter said looking at all the students who were now facing us, standing, focused on us standing in front of them as their student leaders. “Showtime,” Hunter said.
I looked to Ori and to Hunter and began my speech.
“Thank you all for being here,” I began. “Thank you for the flowers and the Get Well Soon messages that flooded our inboxes. For those of you in the dark, this is what I’m referring to…a day or two ago, the K3 and our staff worker in the kitchen was attacked by a mob of people from the town.”
A gasp was heard amongst the crowd as I looked over at them.
“We don’t know why, but there had been a growing anti-royal and anti-Kingsbury Prep sentiment in town.”
There were more rumblings in the crowd of royal-blooded students.
“Who here are of royal blood?” I asked.
All the students standing in front of us raised their hands.
“Everyone here,” I said. “Well being a royal means something else, if you haven’t learned yet at Kingsbury Prep. It took me a good beating and the loss of someone I love, a deep heartbreak by the woman I can’t have, to finally realize what it meant to be of royal blood. We must be kinder, more benevolent, and fairer to those who look to us to be the sovereignties of our countries. We must use the powers vested to us to do good and take care of our people. I thought I could do whatever I wanted because I was the crown prince. But I learned that if you do whatever you wanted using the powers people have bestowed upon you, then you could lose the right to have those powers.”
Ori and Hunter were looking at me with an amused but serious expression as though they could not believe I was giving such a speech. I didn’t care. Something was terribly wrong with the way Kingsbury Prep had been running that it took a woman like Tempest to make me see there had to be some changes.
If I didn’t make those changes now when I had the chance, I would lose Tempest forever. I would lose the crown. And if I lose control of Kingsbury Prep, the school would get shut down. The Kingmaker’s legacy would cease.
“So, you should know you must be at your best behavior, representing your kingdom as well as you can at all times. Especially when you visit the townspeople at Arcadia or anywhere else in the world.”
I watched the students in front of me nod their heads.
“Most of all, you represent Kingsbury Prep. When you wear your school uniforms, you represent us everywhere you go. How you act, dressed, interact with people will reflect on us. Do you want people to see Kingsbury as a place of pride and respect? Then treat people no matter what station in life they were born into or worked themselves into, the way you want them to treat you.”
From the corner of my eyes, I noticed the kitchen staff and cafeteria wait staff standing and listening to my speech. More staff members who came from town to work at Kingsbury Prep walked into the cafeteria, including the Administrators and teachers.
“I myself am guilty of being forgetful in my manners when I am visiting the town. I am guilty of bad behavior myself,” I said. “Misuse of my responsibilities as a Trustee of Kingsbury by invoking the Black Envelope on an innocent student who didn’t deserve it.”
I looked everywhere but didn’t see the one face I wanted to see in the crowd. This was for her to hear, but in my heart, I felt it was too late. Tempest told me she would never be with me. My heart was breaking as I thought about that moment when she couldn’t wait to get away from me, from being in my house, from being here at Kingsbury.
From what I was about to announce, maybe it was a good thing Tempest wasn’t here to hear it. She would try to stop me from it, knowing how she cared more about what was good for me and everyone else over what was good for herself. Damn I didn’t deserve her.
“Because of my poor judgment and poor treatment of a student just for being a commoner instead of a royal, I do not deserve to be in the position the people of Arcadia, the Administrators and Staff at Kingsbury Prep, and even the student rep – Hunter, wanted for Kingsbury Prep. Therefore, I am stepping down from being a Trustee of Kingsbury Prep,” I said. “I am stepping down from being the Head of your Student Body and of K3. In my place as Trustee and Head of the Student Body will be K3’s own Crown Prince Ori.”
Ori couldn’t be more surprised than anyone in the room. He gulped and whispered to me, “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I said, looking at him directly in the eye.
And as I anticipated as the crowd started talking and scattering, someone in the crowd seemed like they were having a hissy fit over the announcement. Someone dressed incognito in a gardener’s outfit with a cap and overalls.
I almost laughed at the ridiculous outfit she was wearing to fit in with the staff at Kingsbury.
Hunter was grinning, patting me on the back while shaking Ori’s hand. “Well-played, well-spoken, Kaz,” he said. He took out his phone and showed me the speech I just made, recorded and already uploaded to the Kingsbury Prep insider news site. Already, the comments were exactly what I had planned it to be.
People were praising my decision to step down as the noble thing to do.
On another site, which
was a secret site for Arcadia town gossip about the going on of royalties especially at Kingsbury Prep, people were commenting on how I had changed. They were commenting on how I now had the compassion and the maturity of someone they can see as ruling their kingdom one day.
Ori raised his brows, “You really intend for me to act as Trustee and Head of the Student Body here?”
“I have to tend to things for my father,” I said. “I can’t be doing that while being the Trustee here,” I said.
“Don’t you see how brilliant this is?” Hunter slap Ori’s back. “You’re the only one of us whom Veronica and her country has no leverage over. She can’t use Kaz to have any influence at Kingsbury Prep. She can’t threaten his country by war just so she can be Queen at Kingsbury.”
Ori nodded. “You’re right. My father and his minister of war couldn’t give a shit about Veronica’s threats. We’d welcome the chance to go to war on them just to shut her bitchy mouth up.”
“Speaking of BrillVill,” I said. “She was right there listening to the speech. Right on campus, dressed in a gardener’s outfit.”
Hunter swore under his breath, “What the hell? Why is she back?”
“To continue trying to kill Tempest, trying to blackmail Kaz into marrying her, and whatever crazy plans she intended to carry out at Kingsbury,” Ori said. “We’ve already determined that she was crazy. When you’re crazy you don’t need an excuse to try to create trouble everywhere you go.”
“Speaking of trouble…” I said, spotting Jordan walk into the cafeteria causing some of the girls to swoon while the guys nudge each other to see who he was. Unfortunately, Jordan had that effect on people.
“Kaz,” Jordan said, wearing a black Armani suit and a blue tie that matched his eyes. I could see how Tempest could be attracted to him. He looked like an older version of me, and he carried himself like a king. He was like an older, more experienced or rather more grown up version of me. “Have you seen Tempest?”
I clenched my fist. “Wouldn’t you know where she is? Didn’t she go looking for you after she left my room?”
The memory of seeing her with him nearly made me want to punch him and then pummel him until he couldn’t even lift up his dick anymore to try to fuck my woman.
“No,” Jordan said.
I almost let out a deep breath in relief.
“By the way,” Jordan said, “Don’t think you stepping down from being a Kingsbury Prep Trustee means I won’t think twice about taking over Kingsbury Prep and running it my way.” He looked over at Ori and Hunter. “Technically, the King of Islandia owns Kingsbury Prep, and he had entrusted me to manage things here as well as all of the kingdom, when I’m King.”
“I’m still the Crown Prince,” Kaz said. “Father hasn’t officially announced anything yet.”
Jordan’s face darkened with anger. “It’s about time you knew the truth, little brother.” He grabbed my shirt and pulled me to him, whispering into my ear. “Father has lapsed into a coma. For the past two years, he was bedridden, and had me running the country for him. If you must know, he made a new will that would be effective upon his death or when he was incapacitated. Which is now.”
My heart sank as I heard the news about my father. “Why didn’t I get notified about all this? You’re making this up!” I cried out.
Jordan pulled me out of the student body’s view and into a private enclave along the corridors. “Your mother didn’t tell you so you could finish school. I didn’t tell you to protect you. There was no way you could be ready to run the country.”
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” I muttered under my breath. My father was in a coma. He was incapacitated, and I didn’t even get the chance to see him. Without thinking, tears rolled down my cheeks. I swiped at them before anyone could see me.
Jordan handed me his handkerchief and said, “And it’s important to keep this between us. There was a lot of unrest before he had a stroke and ended up bedridden. We’re at the brink of war.”
“I didn’t know it was that bad,” I said.
“Well, it is,” Jordan said. “The country needs a strong leader, and you…weren’t it.”
I wanted to prove him wrong, but I didn’t say anything. I didn’t even know what was really going on outside of Kingsbury Prep. But I was the crown prince, not Jordan. I was supposed to rule.
“So you think you’re a better King than me?” I asked, challenging Jordan.
“I know I am,” he said. “I have been the one son Father entrusted to rule by his side when he became bedridden. I am the one he had intended to crown King when he could no longer rule,” he said. “The only stipulation is that I get married. That I have a bride when I get crowned King. The country wants someone stable and steady for a new King. And with the beautiful luscious heir-producing Tempest by my side, a commoner who understands her people…her mother is Arcadian after all, who came from the legendary Kingsbury himself, the people would accept me as their new King.”
I wanted to punch him then. “Tempest will never marry you,” I said.
“I proposed, and she hasn’t rejected me yet. She’s thinking about it,” Jordan smiled. “From the way we fucked afterwards, she will say ‘yes’ like the way she was saying ‘Yes! Yes! Yes! Oh Jordan keep fucking me like that…Yes!’”
I punched his jaw then, causing his head to swing back.
“You’re a disgusting pig,” I said. “I’d never talk about Tempest like that.”
“No, you’d bully her and mind-fucked her instead,” Jordan said. “No wonder why she would never be with you.”
“Fuck you!” I cursed at him. “I’m not staying here to listen to you any second longer.”
I rushed out of the corridor to try to find Ori and Hunter. Now that I knew how bad it was back home, I needed to act quickly.
Chapter 8
Tempest
I made it to Ricky’s home in town just before I saw an instant message pop up about Prince Kaz making a speech during lunch at Kingsbury Prep.
But I didn’t have time to open the message to watch the video of Kaz making that speech.
Ricky was already at the door, pulling me in for a tight hug before shutting the door. He was immediately kissing me, my lips, my eyes, my cheeks.
“God, Tempest,” he panted. “I was so worried. I didn’t know what was happening. You were gone for so long, but you wanted me to stay here. What happened?”
“Nothing to worry about,” I said, kissing him back and rubbing his hands. “I was just talking it out with Jordan, and he was very close to convincing me he had the best interest of Kingsbury Prep and of Arcadia in mind.”
“For when he takes over the country?” Ricky asked.
“How do you know?” I shook my head.
“I have my sources,” Ricky said. “And it’s no secret Jordan would want to be King one day. He is the eldest son to the King and Queen of Islandia after all.”
“Speaking of the King and Queen of Islandia…please tell me about how the Kingmaker fits into their kingdom and their history together…I keep having dreams and visions, and…now I’m so confused because even Jordan was saying I’m the Kingmaker and I will need to choose the King.” I wanted to tell Ricky that the time to choose is now because the King has fallen into a coma, but I couldn’t.
“Come sit at the table, Babe,” Ricky grinned. “I made you stew and chicken pot pie, and lots of yummy foods to feed my girl.”
“Oh Ricky,” I said kissing his cheeks, “You’re so thoughtful.”
“It’s because I love you so much, Tempest,” he said pulling me close to rub his cheeks against mine. “I can’t even explain it. When I first saw you, it was as if I knew you all my life. That I cared so much for you, that I would protect you with my life.”
“Ricky,” I said. “I’m beginning to care so much for you, too.”
“Ditch these royals and marry me, Tempest. I know we’re still so young, but I can’t imagine being with anyone else but you forever, Tempest.”
“Ricky…” I began.
Ricky sat me down before I could say anything further, and he spooned some stew into my mouth. My eyes widened, and I gave him a thumbs up.
He laughed, “I knew you’d like it. It’s an ancient family recipe…from the Kingmaker’s time period. My mother said that our ancestor Rosie, once was the Kingmaker’s special cook, and she would make this stew that the Kingmaker always ate before he had to choose a king.” Ricky fed me more stew while he talked. “It was said that my ancestor Rosie knew alchemy and with the stew, helped sharpened the Kingmaker’s sight to see the future or the present clearly.”