by Megan Derr
"East wing, third hallway, second to last on the left, Highness."
"Thank you," Benedict replied. He strode through the hallways of the palace, ignoring everyone that called to him and snarling at those who tried to stop him. Mercifully, the number of people dwindled as he continued, and when he finally reached Rae's room, there was no one to bother him. The door was unlocked and he threw it open—but his words died on his lips as he realized the room was empty. Rae was not there.
Benedict started to leave, but fury and curiosity drove him inside. It was absurd. There was no way his Hunter could be his insufferable secretary. He tried to overlap the two, see where they met…and drew a sharp breath as he realized that it wasn't as inconceivable as he'd thought. They were the same height. Hair and skin could easily be darkened. They shared the nearly too-skinny build. Even the personalities: confidence, arrogance, a determination to do precisely what he wanted…
Benedict wandered the room. It was simply decorated—dark leathers, deep red rugs, and a few landscape paintings. He paused in front of the bureau, his attention immediately captured by three perfume bottles. They were made of dark red glass and trimmed in gold, each one with a different gold mark to differentiate the scents. He picked up the first one and pulled the stopper. Immediately, the scent from the first night washed over him—musk, red rose, apple, vanilla, and teak. His hands trembled as he replaced the stopper and carefully put the bottle back down.
Rae was Hunter. The secretary he loathed was the man he'd wanted to never let go. Pain lanced through him as he wondered why Rae had done such a thing. Had he known the entire time that the 'pretty bird' he'd chased was Benedict? But if he hadn't known the first night, he had definitely known the second. And returned on the third. He'd seemed to care. Benedict swallowed.
Where was he? Benedict had finally dismissed him, so why wasn't he here packing his belongings? Benedict frowned as he though—then his head jerked up as an idea came to him. Surely not…
Benedict blazed through the halls and into the gardens, weaving his way through the winding paths and cutting off sharply to the right as he moved beyond the maze and—
There he was. Benedict realized that he was holding his breath; his chest was heavy, aching.
Rae sat on the bench where they'd both been last night, his face buried in his hands and spectacles neatly tucked away in his jacket. His hair was completely mussed, as though he'd run his hands through it at least a dozen times. He looked every bit as miserable as Benedict felt.
Except Benedict was supposed to be angry. Yes, angry. Focus on that. "Rae."
Rae's head jerked up and Benedict tried to take pleasure in the way his face went stark white. "Highness," he said roughly, then cleared his throat. It was startling to see Rae stripped of his composure and rage. "Highness. Did you need me to sign off on my dismissal?"
"I would rather know how you came to be here, Hunter." Benedict hadn't thought it possible for Rae to get any paler, but he did. "Why did you do it, Rae? Was it some sort of game?"
Rae looked at him briefly, then his eyes skittered away to focus on the grass. "It started that way, I'm ashamed to say. Then everything changed."
"Changed," Benedict repeated scornfully.
"Yes, damn you!" That temper he knew so well finally sparked. "I wanted to humiliate you, show you what it was like to be treated the way you treat people—but then you didn't act like you were supposed to. I half-thought I had the wrong person that first night. Why couldn't you remain an obnoxious prick?"
Benedict frowned, rather more at a loss for words than he liked. He could see what Rae had been intending: furious with Benedict and given to vindictiveness, he'd set out to play Benedict as easily as he thought Benedict played others. That first night, looking back, Rae had indeed played him perfectly. It made him feel sick to think how easily he'd fallen right into Rae's hands.
Sick, and vastly disappointed, because of course Hunter did not really exist. He'd been too good to be true, and Benedict should have listened to himself.
But that voice, those kisses, the beautiful colognes… "Since when do you know anything about perfume?"
Rae laughed bitterly. "My family owns a perfumery along the coast, and my sister a little shop here in town. They're not extremely well-known, but they do well. I chose to follow in my mother's footsteps, despite having the acumen for perfume." He glared at Benedict. "When I was assigned to this post, Highness, part of the reason your father chose me was our common interest in such things. You, of course, never gave me a chance to say that. You were too busy ignoring me, then later taunting and ridiculing me."
Benedict opened his mouth, and then closed it with a snap. "So why do you wear that obnoxious pine stuff?" He knew the answer, though—Rae wore it to annoy him. "I found you out through your perfume, you know. Matthews ferreted out your sister."
"Leave Anna alone!" Rae snarled. "Confound that girl; she was not supposed to go blathering about it."
"I gave her very little choice," Benedict said. "So far as leaving her alone—too late. She's already been hired to work here. I'm not wasting talent like that on some forgotten shop at the edge of the city."
Rae snorted. "You think my sister will just do whatever you want?"
Benedict shrugged. "I told Matthews to handle matters." He shook his head, realizing that they'd wandered completely off-topic. "That doesn't explain you, Rae! I can't believe—" It twisted his stomach; he'd actually thought that maybe, just a bit, Hunter had cared. He'd had no reason to return that last night, so Benedict had hoped…
"Wine," he said suddenly. "That's what nagged me before in the office." He stepped closer, but stopped just short of being close enough to touch. "You knew I'd drunk too much wine. No one saw me last night—you could have guessed, but most often I drink brandy, which you also well know." Rae recoiled. "So everything… you were just toying with me?" He laughed bitterly. "You must have loved hearing all the stupid things I drunkenly confessed to you. Loved seeing me so pathetic, learning—"
"No!" Rae burst out. "I didn't enjoy any of that. I—it wasn't supposed to be like this. I should have stopped after the first night, and I definitely didn't intend to go back the third."
"Then why did you?" Benedict asked bitterly.
"Confound it, I don't know!" Rae stormed to his feet, eyes blazing as he met Benedict's stare. "We hate each other! The whole palace knows it. People have been placing bets for months on whether I would leave or be dismissed. A few have declared blood would be drawn at some point. I planned to seduce you to throw it in your face, I admit that. It was stupid, selfish, and mean, and I'm sorry. But the whole damned plan was ruined from the first night, when you proved to be nothing at all like I've always thought you were. Why couldn't you simply stay a cad? Why did you actually have to be—" He broke off.
Benedict wanted him to finish the damn sentence. "You were certainly good at seducing me for a man who claims I'm nothing like he thought." His chest ached, and if were not so inured to the pain of betrayal, he might be maudlin enough to cry. "I'm surprised you're out here hiding instead of crowing your victory. There are people who would love you for so successfully putting me in my place."
Rae looked like he'd been slapped, and like he might cry himself. "I don't want to put you in your place, Highness. I regretted my decision minutes after finding you. That's why I didn't want you to discover me. Better to think I'd run off than know who I was." He looked away, his eyes boring into the nearby rose bushes.
Benedict could not figure out what to say next. He should leave, order guards to throw Rae out of the palace.
As if sensing his thoughts, Rae turned to look at him again, not quite meeting his eyes. "I have no intention of repeating anything said to me, Your Highness. Above and beyond all else, I'm your secretary—or was. I would never break your confidence, even if I've been quite the bloody bastard in many other ways. I'll go pack my things and be gone in a couple of hours."
"Was it really all a far
ce?" Benedict asked, as Rae drew even with him. He kept his eyes on the bench, unable to look at Rae. "How can you be such two different people?"
"I could ask the same of you, Highness," Rae said cautiously. "The bastard I set out to humiliate was hardly the man I encountered."
"It seems we excel at deceiving each other." Benedict laughed, the sound tired and sad. "Too well, it seems."
Rae sighed softly. "We also excel at accepting each other at face value, even though we both theoretically had the sense to look deeper."
Silence fell again for a long, terrible moment, and then Benedict asked, "Why do we hate each other? I am struggling to remember now. It all seems…"
"Stupid," Rae finished. "I hated that you could never be bothered to tend to your duties or even thank me for handling them. You're constantly late, foist everything on me, and are forever adding extra sugar cubes to my tea."
Damned if Benedict knew why the barest bit of smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. "You're uptight and unbending and have no sense of humor. I don't think you do anything but work, and instead of greeting me or asking how I am, you immediately start in with the yelling and chastizing." He finally met Rae's eyes. "As to the sugar, it's ridiculously obvious you hae a sweet tooth, but constantly deny yourself. You're too skinny, Rae."
"I have to meet the standards of the court. Secretaries must be good looking in addition to everything else." Rae's face burned, and he looked like he'd rather die than continue talking, but after a moment said, "I was… plump as a child. And even though it's a tiresome belief that fat people enjoy their sweets too much, in my case it's true. So I abstain." He looked down at the grass. "Not all of us can be as beautiful you, Highness, and eschew fashion."
Benedict wanted to kill someone—someone not Rae, for once, but for him. And wasn't that the strangest thought he'd ever had. "As scathing as you are, I'm surprised you'd tolerate such a stupid 'fashion'. Only the entitled would ever boast about being something the poor often give everything not to be."
Rae's head jerked up, eyes wide, and Benedict could see his throat work. "That is a good point, Highness."
Highness. He was beginning to truly hate that word when it came out of Rae's mouth. The more he looked, the more he saw Hunter in Rae—except for subservience, the meekness. And the fact he did not, for once, smell of cheap pine cologne. "You don't smell like a burning forest today."
Rae grimaced, looking up, but not at Benedict. "It's truly appalling stuff; I could not bring myself to wear it today." He closed his eyes, throat working again, then finally opened them again and met Benedict's gaze. "I'm sorry, Your Highness. Truly I am. I wish I'd simply gone to the Masque and chanced upon you."
"Chance upon me?" Benedict asked, licking his suddenly dry lips. "What does that mean?"
Face burning, Rae said, "I wish—I wish I'd acted honestly, simply for the pleasure."
"So everything you did was a lie?"
Rae shook his head. "No. But my actions, however honest on their own, were borne of a mean deception, and I can't undo that." He hesitated, then gave a brisk nod. "Farewell, Your Highness. I hope your next secretary better suits."
Benedict moved before he thought, grabbing hold of Rae's wrist to stay him, and dipping his head to Rae's throat. He inhaled the smells of silk and linen, and beneath it all, a salty-sweet scent that he would never forget. "It really is you," Benedict breathed.
Fingers sank into his hair, the gesture painfully familiar. "Highness, what are you doing?"
"What does it look like?"
"You should cease. What do you expect to come of-of this. It would take us mere hours to kill each other." Despite his words, Rae's grip did not ease.
"Hours?" Benedict laughed. "It usually only takes us minutes on a good day, mere seconds on most." He gave in to the impulse to taste Rae's throat, still not quite believing that Hunter was Rae.
Rae started at the sharp nip, fingers gripping Benedict's hair painfully tight. "Highness," he said, voice strained. "This is foolish. Leaving aside how terribly I've behaved, your parents would forbid us, because I do not share. I won't tolerate you carrying out their abhorrent orders anymore."
That they were even considering the idea made Benedict dizzy. If someone had told him four days ago that his damnable secretary would become his lover, Benedict would have laughed and ordered the speaker from his presence. Nor would he have ever thought that Rae would be the reason he started defying his family.
Fingers once more tightened in his hair, tugging his head up, and then Rae was kissing him and Benedict was really and truly convinced, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Rae was his Hunter.
"Where did someone as uptight as you learn to kiss like that?" he asked when Rae finally let him go.
Rae rolled his eyes. "I haven't spent my entire life trapped in offices by insufferable princes."
"The way you behave, I'm certain much of it was spent in cells," Benedict replied, unable to resist.
Dark eyes flashed, and then that too-pretty mouth curved in a familiar smirk. How had he never noticed Rae's mouth? How had he missed Hunter was Rae?
"I have been in a cell or two in my life, but I did not start the fights."
Benedict chuckled and lowered his head the barest bit. "What did they do to deserve it?"
"One was a man who did not listen when I told him 'no,' and the other was a man who cheated on me, then had the temerity to get angry when I severed our relationship." His eyes blazed. "Like I said, I do not share, Highness. If you cannot handle that…"
Benedict hesitated—but if they were really going to try this mad thing, then it was time for all the masks to come off. "It's a family tradition, you know."
Rae stared at him blankly—and then a white hot rage that Benedict had never seen before filled his face. It left Benedict breathless. Rae had always been angry at him; what would it be like to have Rae angry for him? The idea caught in Benedict's throat and left him feeling maudlin again.
"What do you mean it's a family tradition? Who in their right mind makes a tradition out of whoring out family members?"
"The royal family," Benedict said dryly. "I'm the latest, because I have the necessary combination of beauty and social aptitude. Before me was my aunt, and before her was my great uncle." He turned away, the back of his neck burning with shame. "I started learning at fourteen, and I was barely turned sixteen the first time they put me to work."
"I'm going to kill them all," Rae snarled. "Why didn't you—"
"Leave?" Benedict asked. "At first, it didn't bother me so much, past of course overcoming initial shyness and awkwardness. I thought it made me important. Sometimes I felt powerful." He laughed bitterly. "I was very, very well-trained. Later, it felt like running away was futile. They'd just drag me back. My mother would never allow me to rescind my title. Pretending she did, I'd be left destitute, and I'm not you. I'd have no idea what to do when I'm not a royal whore. And—" Benedict broke off, because the last part was too painful to voice. Who would want him, when he was nothing but a penniless, retired whore?
"And you're an idiot, that's what!" Rae snapped, grabbing hold of his shoulders and jerking Benedict back around to face him. "You are going to tell them to bugger off, and you are never again going to prostitute yourself!"
Benedict smiled genuinely then. "Never again? I thought there might be some merit to a bit of playacting with my new lover."
Rae glared at him. "You're not funny."
"As my secretary, it's your job to tolerate my humor and tell me I'm funny."
"If Your Highness will recall, you dismissed me," Rae said, but Benedict didn't miss the slip of smile on his mouth.
"I recall no such thing." Benedict cut off Rae's scathing reply with a kiss. It was a bit disconcerting how easy kissing Rae was becoming.
Rae quickly took control of the kiss and broke it only when the need to breathe took precedence. "You are insufferable."
"You are unbearable."
"So long as we'
re agreed, Highness, that this is a terrible idea."
Benedict nodded. "We're definitely going to kill each other—especially if you're still calling me 'Highness' after all of this. You're stuffy to a fault."
Rae's lips curved. "If you insist, pretty bird."
Shivers ran down Benedict's spine to so blatantly see Hunter in Rae. He wrapped his arms tightly around Rae's waist, pulling them flush together, and kissed him again. Rae's fingers sank into his hair, and Benedict was more than happy to let himself be devoured—claimed.
"Come to my room," Benedict said when they eventually paused.
Rae's brows rose. "What's wrong with my room?"
"Your bed is too small."
That got him a look that had once infuriated him, and now just made him shiver. "How would you know that?"
"After I spoke with your sister, I went to your room. And no, I didn't know where it was, I asked someone."
Rae replied with a sharp, toothy kiss. "Fine. Your room. But we'd better not be interrupted."
Heart pounding in his ears, Benedict led the way through the palace, scowling down everyone who tried to waylay him. Though he had a sneaking suspicion they were all more afraid of the man walking just a pace behind him.
When they finally reached his room, Benedict left orders with a passing servant to spread that he was not to be disturbed for any reason, until he said otherwise. When she'd gone, he opened his door, yanked Rae inside, and shoved him against the door as he closed it.
But it was Rae who grabbed him and hauled him in, taking his mouth like a man storming a keep. Benedict moaned, more than happy to surrender, even if he still could not quite believe it was Rae who'd captured him.
After several minutes of hungry, bruising kisses, Rae shoved him away. Benedict's chest heaved, face flushed, and if this was the effect that mere kisses had on him, he wasn't going to survive the rest of the day.
"Off with the clothes," Rae said, and pushed away from the door, working on his own clothes as he looked around the room. "All the years I've served you, I've never seen your chambers."