by Alyssa Cole
The room spun around Nya a little and she sat on the floor again.
“Maybe he thinks that. It’s been thirty years, and maybe he’s completely forgotten what she was like.” Ledi sighed. “Maybe it hurts to remember. But the bottom line is that he’s wrong. Even if he wasn’t wrong, you aren’t your mother. What she was like has nothing to do with who you are now.”
“He completely erased her,” Nya said. “He created this fake version of her just so he could manipulate me.”
It struck her then, the true heinousness of her father’s crimes against her. It wasn’t just that he’d manipulated her, poisoned her, made her think she was weak—he’d stolen her mother from her. He’d turned his wife’s memory into the same fragile, hollow figurine of a saint that he’d wanted to nest his daughter inside of.
Anger surged in her. Nya would shatter that false idol.
“I hope—I hope he does die! I hope he dies alone and that when he passes on, Mother’s spirit denies him and he is forever alone!” She squeezed her eyes shut against her tears, her face frozen in a grimace. Her words were miserable and phlegmy but she wasn’t ashamed because she knew Ledi understood. Ledi was the first person who had reached out a hand through the bars of her cage. And though Nya had grown tired of people asking her if she was okay, Ledi was the first person who had asked and hadn’t simply gone along with her when she said she was fine.
“It’s okay,” Ledi said. “You’ve earned the right to be angry. Just remember this anytime he tries to fuck with you, okay? He’s a damn liar.”
“Yes,” Nya said softly. It was the same thing Lukas had warned her about with Johan, and the same title Johan had proudly claimed.
Johan had pushed her away yesterday with his talk of the dating reality show—like her father, he was an expert at finding the soft spots where even the most glancing blows would hurt like hell. But unlike her father, he seemed determined to please her. To make sure that no one hurt her, including himself.
Still, she would have to be careful. She’d started this with the idea that she was playing a real-life dating simulation game, but it was more than that now. He’d been right about relationships being a battle, and hers was mostly with herself. Could she trust her instincts? Was she just moving from one man who would control her with his lies to another?
She didn’t think so, but part of her own battle was being sure that she didn’t fall into any traps, even if they were ones laid by her own past.
She hurriedly got ready and then left to meet up with Greta, who would be taking her to the artisan village.
When she got to the lobby of the castle, Lukas was there instead. He was dressed in a peacoat over his conventional suit, but his lips had a diamond glint to them.
“Hallo.” He waved a little shyly.
“Hey,” she replied. “Where is Greta?”
“She apparently has to look into some threats? Which is kind of frightening. But I’m to go with you instead, if that’s okay.”
“Are you sure you’ll be safe? If there are threats, maybe we should hold off.” She gave Lukas a measured look. “After all, your brother won’t be there to help this time, though you didn’t seem to appreciate it.”
“I don’t think the threats are physical,” Lukas said. “And besides, we’ll have bodyguards. Also—” he shifted from one foot to another “—I kind of need to get out of the castle. I’ve been pretty much on lockdown since I was brought home from school, and yesterday I couldn’t even leave my wing because of the Arschlocher incident. I go back soon, until the referendum, but I thought it would be nice if we could take this trip today? Together?”
Nya was still calming herself from her father’s letter, but she liked the boy, and she wasn’t the only one in turmoil.
“That would be fun,” she said. “It will be good to have someone I know with me, and I like spending time with you.”
“Really?” Lukas blushed a bit as he opened the door for her to pass through. “Even though I steal your makeup and yell at my brother?”
They hopped into the backseat of the car and the driver pulled off.
“Well, I gave you that makeup, and I think maybe that’s related to why you’ve been yelling at your brother.”
Lukas’s expression was completely calm, except for his eyes—he wasn’t as good at this as Johan. Nya had remembered something one of her fellow students at her grad school program had told her and decided to put it to use. She didn’t want to meddle, but she didn’t want Lukas to think she’d forgotten what he’d told her by accepting the lip gloss.
“By the way, not to be awkward, but my pronouns are she/her. In case you were wondering.” She pulled her phone out from her pocket to check the time, giving Lukas space to answer but not pressure.
“Interesting,” Lukas said. “Actually. Now that you’ve awkwardly mentioned it. I got into a fight at school. There was this smug American kid, Jaden, and he kept going on and on in our gender studies class about how pronouns other than she and he were fake news, or something. And I disagreed. And after class he kept getting on my case about why I even cared so much, so I punched him.”
“Well, violence is not in good taste, but sometimes punch is what’s on the menu.”
Lukas burst out laughing at her terrible joke, and Nya could feel the relief in his laughter. “It was really cool because after I punched him, my teacher asked if I’d been so upset because I wanted to go by they. And I said yes.”
Lukas glanced at her.
“Okay. So they/them?”
Lukas’s eyes were wide and they gave a hard nod.
Nya smiled. “Done. Do you want me to share that with others or . . . ?”
“No! No, it’s fine if at home I go by he.”
Nya took a deep breath, remembering when Johan had called her Naya and how it had upset her. This was very different, and she was sure more hurtful than Lukas was letting on. “It’s fine if you say it’s fine, but you might feel better being called what you want to be called.”
They waved their hand. “I’ll tell my father and Johan soon. When the time is right.”
Then the car pulled up to the artisan village and Lukas jumped out to run around the car to open Nya’s door. “Seriously. Please don’t tell Johan.”
Stresslines had formed around their eyes and they gazed at her intensely, as if wondering whether she could be trusted.
“I won’t,” she said. “But I think that when you do, you might be surprised at how he responds. He’s not close-minded.”
“You saw what happened the other day,” Lukas said. “He was so mad. He’s never been mad at me before.”
“Have you ever yelled at him before?” she asked gently.
“No.” Lukas’s mouth was pulled down in a frown and she could see the slightest tremble of their lips. They were still a child, really, and they were facing pressures she could never imagine.
Nya stepped out of the car and placed a hand on their shoulder. Lukas sighed at her touch. “I’m sorry. I know what it’s like not wanting to disappoint your family. But . . . if you tell Johan outright and he still gets mad? He’s not the man I think he is. And that will be his problem, not yours. Now let’s go look at clay pots.”
Lukas seemed relieved at the change in subject, and Nya made sure to keep them entertained during the visit. When they’d both made their rounds and been photographed by Hans, Phillippe, and Krebs, Nya even managed to get Lukas to take a selfie.
“Can you AirDrop it to me?” they asked when they were safely back in the car, and Nya handed the phone over without even pretending to know how to use the AirDrop function.
She wondered what Johan was doing. She hadn’t texted him all day, and he’d only told her that his day would be busy. It didn’t matter, she supposed, but she didn’t look forward to spending another night alone.
“I hope my brother is as good as you think he is,” Lukas said as they handed back the phone.
“Do you really think he’s not?” Nya
asked.
“I think . . . sometimes he forgets that he’s not Jo-Jo. And that not everyone wants to be a Jo-Jo. I feel like he’s stopped being Johan, even with me,” Lukas said quietly. “Maybe it’s different with you. I hope so.”
Nya wasn’t sure what she hoped anymore. So instead of hoping, she pulled up Portia’s Instagram account and showed Lukas the new eyeshadow Portia had been sent to try out, and promised she’d get Portia to send them a sample packet at school.
Chapter 20
Phokojoe the trickster god was observant, in the way of foxes. He had great big ears to hear all, and eyes that saw in darkness or in light. He would watch the people of the village near his lair from afar. He watched as the village grew, and more humans arrived. He watched them for many moons, creeping closer every night. They intrigued him; he had been alone for so very long. One evening, he saw a man walking on the road that led through the village, and stepped out in front of the human, hoping to become friends with one of the strange creatures he’d grown so fond of. The man shouted and waved his walking stick, telling Phokojoe to leave him. This happened again and again, every time he encountered one of the humans, until one day, Phokojoe asked, “What is it that you desire most in the world?” The human stopped yelling. He answered, “A fine hat.” Phokojoe turned himself into a hat, and the man forgot his fear as he picked up the hat from the road. Phokojoe understood then that the only way to end his loneliness would be to change himself without cease.
—From Phokojoe the Trickster God
After a day spent making the rounds with journalists to explain his fight and an evening in meetings with Greta and the royal security team, Johan showered and collapsed into bed. His public displays of Jo-Jo-ness were usually short-lived, but he’d been on a charm offensive for days, and his outburst and scuffle had taken more out of him than he’d realized—and so had not spending time with Nya. He’d felt off all day, and then he’d received an ominous email from Portia.
Hey!
Glad to hear Nya is being treated well. Keep it up! You seem a decent friend, and I’d hate to kill you. I checked out this FloupGelee person and the IP address is coming from Lukas’s school. I’m guessing it’s some kid he doesn’t get along with? Maybe the kid he got into a fight with? I guess you can look into it more, but that’s as much info as I could get. A few of the other accounts had the same IP address, so they were probably sock puppets for this same loser.
That comforted Johan a bit, knowing it was just some teenage brat, but something about it still bothered him.
There was a knock at the door connecting his and Nya’s rooms and he rolled onto his back, trying to muster up another burst of suave playboy prince.
He came up empty.
“Come in,” he croaked. He’d been planning on going to her, but frankly, his head was a mess and he’d been worried what he’d say, since the only thing he could think of when it came to her was I want you so badly it hurts, which for him could easily turn into I want you so badly but I won’t be hurt again. Not exactly casual and low-key to match the current tone of their fake engagement with benefits. He’d also wondered if maybe she wouldn’t want to see him; she’d stayed in her room the past two nights, the chimes of her phone going off.
The door swung open harder than usual, slamming into the wall.
“Sorry,” she said, cringing a bit as she closed it slowly, as if to compensate for her entrance. And what an entrance; instead of her usual T-shirt and shorts, she was wearing a silky knee-length black negligee with lacy bits at the décolletage.
She stood against the door after shutting it, apprehensive.
Johan brushed his hair from his eyes, the better to see what she needed from him. Her chin was up and her hands were on her hips, as if she were presenting herself to him for inspection, the desire for validation as transparent as the lace on her lingerie. He ran his gaze over her body appreciatively before letting out a low whistle.
“Madame Flemard?” he asked.
“Ouay,” she replied with a curtsy, and Johan grinned.
She came to the side of his bed, holding on to one of the wooden posts instead of sliding under the sheets.
“How was your day?” he asked.
“It was good. I talked to my grandparents. Got in contact with some people about jobs.”
Something inside of him crumpled, but he flashed her a blinding smile. “Oh. Good! Good. Jah.”
“I’m tired of things being weird,” she said. “I don’t like being mad at you.”
“I don’t like it either,” he said. “So I’ll stop acting like an ass and making you mad. Problem solved.”
She smiled, a tentative tilt of her mouth that wasn’t what he’d grown accustomed to, but was a start.
“Do you want company tonight?” she asked.
Johan lay back on the bed. “Well, that depends. Is it you, or is a reporter waiting on the other side of the door to ask me about the fight for the hundredth time?”
“Silly. It’s me. Just me.” The soft lamplight cupped the curves of her body, and the curve of her shy smile, and Johan felt that lurching pain in his chest once again. For an instant he considered telling her no, telling her this was all over.
He didn’t bother. He was already going to be hurt; anything that he told himself otherwise was simply damage control, an inability to comprehend the depth of the hole she would leave in his life.
Ridiculous. He’d spent so long running from love at full tilt that when he’d finally tripped and fell, his momentum made it swift and unstoppable. She was right. It was her. Just her.
“I’ll go,” Nya said and began to turn away from the bed. Johan had been so caught up in his thoughts he’d never responded to her.
“Wait!” He sat up and held his arms out to her. “Sorry, I’m a bit out of it. I want your company tonight and I wanted it the last two nights, too. Come here.”
He beckoned with both of his hands.
Her teeth showed as relief shaped her mouth into a smile, and then her knees were on the mattress, then her hands, that lacy décolletage cupping her swaying breasts and reminding Johan that he should have moved closer to her instead of making her crawl across the bed to him.
There was a particularly determined look on her face as she approached, and finally the negligee and her shyness and her heated looks clicked for him.
Oh là là.
“Are you here to seduce me, Nya?”
She gave him the look she’d practiced in the back of the car in Njaza, the one that meant I want to climb you like a redwood. “Ouay.”
Johan was only able to get out a deep “hrim,” and then she sat up quickly and tugged down the top of her negligee, revealing the beautiful globes of her breasts.
He swallowed hard. “Nya?”
“We’ve only been focusing on me during our time together. I’m not going to look a gift fox in the mouth, and I appreciate you taking things slowly, but . . .”
Her hands went to cup her breasts, and he thought she was hiding them, but no. She teased her own nipples as she arched her back, as if in offering, and desire slammed down onto him like an anvil dropped from the sky.
She’d been sure of what she liked and didn’t like from the first time he’d touched her, but this was a new directness in her.
She gave him that smoldering look as she lay back down and began shimmying to tug up the negligee, but then her hands stopped moving and she threw back her head, giggling.
“This played out much more seductively in my head. I don’t really know what I’m doing,” she said, tears of helpless laughter in her eyes. “This always goes so much more smoothly in films. I feel kind of ridiculous.”
The sound of her laughter wound around Johan’s heart, and his cock, too, and squeezed. There was no fear in her—a bit of awkwardness, yes, but she met his eye as if she knew that he would never make fun of her. That he would share in the moment with her.
She trusted him, as she had from the start.
“You’re doing just fine,” he said, his grin wide and real despite his fatigue.
“I’d be doing better if you helped me,” she said, and Johan didn’t need any further prodding.
“What do you want me to do?” He asked because he needed to know, and because he was selfish and what he wanted was to hear her say naughty things.
Her gaze dropped to the bulge outlined by his sweatpants. “I’ve only felt you. I want to see you. Hold you.”
Oh là là là là.
“We’ll get to that.”
He reached out and gripped her leg just above the knee, then smoothed his hand up her thigh. When he reached the hem of her negligee, he pushed up, gathering it with a hook of his thumb and carrying it up as his hand splayed on her stomach.
He could feel the flutter of her quick breaths against his palm and her heartbeat against his fingertips, but in her eyes there was nothing but certainty—and he’d give her nothing but pleasure.
It struck him then, that he’d never told her something.
“You’re beautiful, Nya.” He let his other hand trace over the negligee, then up through the valley between her breasts, seeing how she shivered as they grazed her neck before cupping her face. “I don’t think I’ve said that before because, well, sometimes I forget to say things that are obvious.”
The certainty in her eyes dimmed and she looked away, but then quickly met his gaze again. “Thanks. And you’re nice.”
This was why he’d made the biggest mistake of his life in inviting her this close to him. He’d expected her to talk about his looks, too, if she returned his compliment. It was easy for people, the go-to, and she clearly thought he was attractive, but that wasn’t why she was in his bed. She thought he was nice, and she wouldn’t let him or anyone else think otherwise.
“I can be,” he admitted. “To people I care about.”
Her eyes widened and before she could ask him anything he leaned down and kissed her. He licked into her mint-sweet mouth, his right hand sliding down from her stomach to the V of curls and his middle finger seeking out her slick clit. She gasped as he began to rub, her hands coming up to his shoulders and gripping him hard and her hips lifting upward.