“You would have ignored me! You were always so stupid and noble like that. If I’d told you, you would have shoved your own future aside and we would be raising horses in Montana.”
“And would that have been so awful?” he asks brokenly.
“You wouldn’t have ended the war at Badon. We wouldn’t have Greer.”
At the mention of Greer, his face clears. Even in the midst of all this, his love for her burns clean and bright like a hungry flame.
“It wasn’t your choice to make,” he says, looking up at me. “I don’t need to be protected, I never asked to be lied to. Jesus Christ, Embry, all those years I thought—I thought you didn’t love me as much as I loved you. And it hurt, God, it hurt so much that I couldn’t breathe sometimes. It was like trying to catch my breath underwater. I lived with that for years. Years.”
This is not what I ever expected upon this revelation. In the loneliest moments of the loneliest nights when I fantasized about telling him the truth of why I said no, I never imagined this.
“A thank you might be nice,” I say, a bit sullenly.
“A thank you?” he demands, rounding on me. “You want a fucking thank you for breaking my heart? For keeping me in agony for years?”
“I was in agony too!” I say, my voice edging toward anger. “It killed me to do it, but I did it for you!”
“I never asked you to! You can’t blame me for something I never would have wanted you to do—a secret you never should have kept!”
I stare at him, real anger swelling my veins now. “You don’t even know what kinds of secrets I’m keeping for you, President Colchester, so you should be real fucking careful.”
He stares back, a muscle jumping in that perfectly chiseled jaw. “There’s something else you haven’t told me?”
Well, what the hell? In for a penny, in for a pound, right? Abilene be damned, Morgan be damned, all the sacrifices I’ve made over the last two months be damned. It’s worth throwing it all away to hurt Ash now, to hurt him the way he’s hurt me.
“Abilene is blackmailing my sister and me—to hurt Greer—but she’s blackmailing us with a secret you don’t even know you have.”
He waits.
I don’t make him wait long. “You have a son, Ash. With Morgan. His name is Lyr, and he’s fourteen years old. He has green eyes and black hair and a pretty face—he should, shouldn’t he? Since he gets it from both sides, after all.”
Ash buckles. Actually buckles, barely catching himself with a hand on his desk. He’s hunched over the top, his eyes closed. “No, I would have known, she would have told me, there would have been something…”
I’m shaking my head even though he’s not looking at me. “She was on birth control that week in Prague, but she got sick that one night, remember? It was enough. And when she came back to Carpathia, she was coming back to tell you. She was three months pregnant when you chose to let her burn in a church. Can you blame her for not telling you afterwards? That you had almost killed your own child too?”
His breath catches on that old guilt, and I see I’ve opened a fresh wound. Good.
I continue. “My mother convinced Morgan to let our aunt Nimue raise the boy as her own, and Morgan agreed. That’s what Abilene threatened us with. She was going to go to the press with it all—that you planted a baby inside your own sister and then nearly killed them both. Morgan couldn’t bear the thought of Lyr being so publicly shamed by all this, and she begged me to help. So I accepted Abilene’s deal: her silence for my part in her quest to hurt Greer, because I knew the truth about Lyr would cause so much more damage than a few months of Greer thinking I actually liked Abilene. See, I, unlike you, am capable of making difficult decisions in order to protect her.”
Ash sits down in a nearby chair, heavily. “I have a son,” he says numbly.
“Yes.”
“With my sister.”
“Yes.”
He buries his face in his hands, and the sense of satisfaction I felt earlier ebbs away watching him. Watching those strong shoulders slumped, that proud head bowed. And suddenly I feel nothing but exhaustion. For the journey behind us and the journey ahead. For the weight of all the poisoned love and spilled secrets I’ll have to carry with me along that journey.
I walk forward and run my fingers through his hair. It’s so thick and black, his head so large and his neck so strong. His skin is warm and alive, even as his breaths grind in and out with barely contained pain. It’s been fourteen years since I met my king, but fourteen years will never be enough to learn every facet and turn of his deep love and strength. An eternity wouldn’t be enough.
I lean down and drop a kiss on the top of his head. “Goodbye, Achilles,” I whisper, and I leave Maxen Ashley Colchester alone with his head in his hands. I leave and get in my car and go back home, remembering the feel of his hair on my lips.
I will break from loving him, I think. I will split with it, burn with it.
And yet, for the first time, I know what I have to do. I know that I’m a good man, I know that I’d be a good leader. I know that I can stop Melwas and keep Greer safe. I know how to do it.
I have to become more than a prince.
I have to become a king myself.
Ready for Ash’s turn?
They say that every tragic hero has a fatal flaw, a secret sin, a tiny stitch sewn into his future since birth. And here I am. My sins are no longer secret. My flaws have never been more fatal. And I’ve never been closer to tragedy than I am now.
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I am a man who loves, a man whose love demands much in return. I am a king, a king who was foolish enough to build a kingdom on the bones of the past. I am a husband and a lover and a soldier and a father and a president.
And I will survive this.
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Long live the king.
Find American King here!
Acknowledgments
Laura, we are death process. One of these days we’re going to figure out how to write easy books, okay?
Kayti McGee and Melanie Harlow, my petals, thank you for enduring all my Abed-screaming during this one. I wouldn’t be able to make it without your trenchant humor and excellent gifs.
Jenn Watson and the Social Butterfly team, thank you so much for working in such tight corners to make sure my books put their best face forward. You blow my mind. Every time.
To Rebecca Friedman, agent extraordinaire, thank you so much for all your guidance and advice and for doing all the boring stuff so I don’t have to think about it!
To Ashley—just, I’m sorry that I’m always such a bucket of fusses. Fuss fuss fuss. I love you!
Candi, Serena, Melissa—thank you so much for handling all the daily tides of work and promotion so I can disappear into my tortoise enclosure and write.
To the No Shadow Bitches, who still love me even though I’m frequently at Peak Fuss and I don’t like vegetables, and to all the authors who’ve answered questions, looked at data for me, encouraged me, given me hard words, or let me tire myself out when I needed to rant for a while, and then put me to bed like a fussy toddler. It takes a village.
And finally, thank you to my kids and my husband, even if no one ever respects the sanctity of a closed office door. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
About the Author
Sierra Simone is a USA Today Bestselling former librarian (who spent too much time reading romance novels at the information desk.) She lives with her husband and family in Kansas City.
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www.authorsierrasimone.com
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Also by Sierra Simone
The American Queen Trilogy:
American Queen
American Prince
American King
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The Priest Series:
Priest
Midnight Mass: A Priest Novella
/> Sinner (2018)
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Co-Written with Laurelin Paige
Porn Star
Hot Cop
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The Markham Hall Series:
The Awakening of Ivy Leavold
The Education of Ivy Leavold
The Punishment of Ivy Leavold
The Reclaiming of Ivy Leavold
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The London Lovers:
The Seduction of Molly O’Flaherty
The Persuasion of Molly O’Flaherty
The Wedding of Molly O’Flaherty
American Prince Page 30