by Juniper Hart
“Not everyone ends up with their mates, Allegra.” There was a bitterness to Mira’s tone that Allegra didn’t like.
“I just don’t think this is going to work out the way you think,” she explained. “We should consider another plan. Maybe you should just revoke the wish and put Wilder back in power.”
“Have you lost your damned mind?” Mira exclaimed. “Wilder is the strongest of them all! There is a reason we picked Lennox. He is by far the easiest to overcome. He’s been in control for a month and he’s already having himself overthrown! No, we continue with our plan. In the next days, the brothers will be too busy squabbling amongst themselves to notice we are infiltrating the palace and ready to overtake it. We have succumbed to their dictatorship for far too long!”
Allegra didn’t respond, her mind floating back to a time when the dragons had terrorized the Hollows, instilling fear and destruction against all who defied them. That had been so long ago, though. Now they had built an economy, and their reign of fire was only a distant memory.
How had Mira sold her on the idea of doing this in the first place?
Mira is not the only one who wants change, Allegra realized. She has an army of others who back her up. I am only one small piece of the puzzle. If I don’t help her, the scheme will still go forward, and if the others win the battle in the end, I may be in trouble.
While Allegra held more power than Mira from a magical standpoint, she was not nearly as devious in thought. An incensed pixie was not someone Allegra ever wanted to fight.
“Are we going to have a problem?” Mira asked, shattering Allegra’s reverie. “Are you going to have a hard time convincing Gia to be with Lennox?”
“No,” Allegra hurriedly said, shaking her head. “I think she’s already leaning that way, anyway. It won’t take that much convincing on my part.”
“Good!” Mira grinned widely and happily as she skipped back from the edge of the cliffside. “You should get home to bed. You need to be at work in a couple hours.”
“I don’t need sleep,” Allegra reminded her, though she also rose from her spot on the mossy rock. “But you’re right. I should head home.”
“Stop looking so glum, Aly,” Mira chirped. “Just think, in a few weeks, you’ll have your very own suite in the palace. Maybe you can take over one of the princes’!”
“I imagine you’ll be taking Lennox’s suite?” she asked dryly.
“How did you know?” Mira cooed as they sauntered back toward the road where they had parked their scooters.
After they parted ways, Allegra glanced over her shoulder one last time, chewing on her lower lip in concentration. She had still not told Mira the truth about what had happened the night of the gala. It was supposed to be simple, catching Lennox and Gia in the act of making love and calling them out to the world.
Even though Allegra had known Gia had fallen for Lennox on sight, she couldn’t bring herself to betray her. That was why she had snuck her from the palace before anyone else could expose their tryst.
It wasn’t fair to do this to Gia. She hadn’t done anything wrong. No matter what Mira said, if she lost her mate, she might never recover.
I have to find another way to ruin Lennox without hurting Gia, Allegra decided. I’ll tell Mira I’m doing what she asks while I try to keep Gia safe.
She knew she was playing with fire, but she couldn’t bear the thought of betraying her new friend—not when Gia had done nothing to deserve such treatment. There had to be another way; there had to be. Allegra simply hoped she found it before Mira caught her lying through her teeth.
12
A strange tension had fallen over the palace seemingly overnight, one worse than the usual heaviness Lennox was accustomed to. He felt as if all eyes were upon him when he descended the twin staircase onto the main floor for breakfast that morning.
“Good morning, Your Highness!” the staff called out, and he nodded curtly to them, his eyes narrowing as he entered the vast dining room. He paused at the doorway, hearing loud voices rising to an almost feverish pitch.
“I don’t give a rat’s ass! He’s gone too far this time!” Reef yelled. “If you won’t do anything about this, I sure as hell will!”
“You need to calm down,” Keppler said in his typical stoic manner. “Having a temper tantrum won’t do anything.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Owen retorted. “You’re never around! You spend all your time in San Francisco, ignoring the fact that he’s down here.”
“He’s got just as much pull in Sunside as he does in the Hollows,” Keppler reminded him. “I just choose not to let Lennox’s antics bother me.”
Lennox tensed. They were talking about him. What antics of his was Keppler referring to?
He strode inside the dining room, having heard enough. Instantly, his three brothers fell silent, all shifting their eyes away from him as he slid onto the head of the table. Wilder was also there, though he had remained silent during their argument.
“Good morning, brothers,” he greeted them. “I trust you all slept well?”
No one bothered to answer him, and Lennox felt a stab of annoyance. They had absolutely no reason to treat him that way. He had been a stellar ruler in the short month since Mira had granted him his wish.
“I’m glad you’re all here,” he continued. Finally, his brothers turned their eyes toward him.
“I wish we could say the same about you,” Wilder mumbled. Lennox ignored him, though his hand closed into a fist beneath the table.
“I have a palatial matter to discuss with you,” Lennox explained. There was a low round of snickers about the table. “What’s so funny?” he demanded, his face growing red. His brothers didn’t even know what he wanted to say, and they were ready to fight him on it already.
“Let me guess,” Reef snorted. “You want to change the bylaws somehow.”
Lennox sat back against the high-back throne chair. “As a matter of fact…”
“We’re not changing anything,” Owen piped up. “Not a word. Why do you always bring this up when you already know what we’re going to say?”
Lennox gritted his teeth. Had he asked for changes in the past? He certainly didn’t remember them, but that could simply be a side effect of the wish.
“It’s about the morals clause,” Lennox went on. “I want to change—”
“The part about banging the employees?” Reef finished for him. The rest of his brothers whooped with laughter as Lennox gaped at them.
“I wasn’t going to be so crass,” he said, “but yes. So what if it is that part? It’s a stupid issue to have, and—”
“And you bring it up once a month like clockwork,” Wilder interjected. “And every month, we tell you that you’re going to have to leave your sex life outside the palace walls. There’s a reason for that clause, and you know it. It complicates the business relationship if you go around being you and sexing everything in a skirt.”
I don’t want everything in a skirt! Lennox wanted to yell. I only want Gia! But he steeled himself from blurting that thought out.
“It’s a dated concept,” he insisted. “No piece of paper should dictate who we can date!”
“And yet you’re the only one who has a problem with it,” Keppler said. “Why is that? Is there something you want to tell us, Lennox? Have you been seeing someone employed here?”
“No!” he cried, his voice laced with too much indignation for his liking. “Of course not!”
“Lennox,” Wilder said, “you know you’ll be thrown off the throne—”
“I know what will happen!” Lennox snapped hotly, interrupting his brother. Wilder was smirking like he knew why he was so adamant about changing the bylaws, and Lennox wondered if pressing the issue might give it away to the rest of his brothers.
He couldn’t just go and change the bylaws, even if he wanted to do it. Vextor had told him that he needed a majority vote, and by the looks of smugness in his brothers’ expressions,
it was safe to say he was outnumbered.
Lennox glanced around the room. What had happened to them? He could still remember a time when he and his brothers had been close, had been not only friends, but best friends. Now they were enemies, hell-bent on making life miserable for each other.
Keppler, always rational, took a deep breath. “Should we take a vote?” he asked. Lennox appreciated the support, even if it came from Keppler being reasonable rather than him being on his side, but he knew it was a lost cause.
Lennox got to his feet and stormed out of the dining room.
“I guess not!” Wilder laughed, his guffaws following Lennox out the south exit.
If they won’t help me reverse this bylaw, he thought with grim determination, I’ll just have to find someone who can.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
What Lennox saw in Mira’s black eyes as she stared at him was not just shock; it was nearly panic. She looked over her shoulders, as if she expected someone to be behind her.
“Is that any way to talk to your ruler?” he asked sarcastically. “Can I come in?”
Mira stepped back reluctantly, and he pushed his way into her spacious condo while she stood nervously near the door. “I—I just wasn’t expecting you,” she offered as an explanation.
Lennox had never seen Mira like this. Why did she look so scared?
“You know, you could have warned me,” he said, flopping onto her suede white loveseat.
Mira’s brow furrowed like the question confused her, but Lennox got the distinct impression she knew exactly what he meant. “About what?”
“Never mind,” he sighed. “I need you to do something for me.” This time, Mira frowned with annoyance at him.
“Like what?” she asked. “I already granted you a wish, Lennox. You know I was pushing my luck doing even that.”
“Yeah, well, you could have prepared me for the animus and red tape involved with being ruler,” he grumbled.
“My way is not to question your wish,” she replied sweetly, nonchalantly shrugging her shoulders. “You ask and I grant.”
“Well, I need you to undo a bylaw at the palace.”
Mira’s face went perfectly still, almost as if she had suddenly turned to stone. Her eyes, unblinking, remained fixated on him, and Lennox almost felt like she had left the apartment, leaving behind an empty shell of herself.
“Mira?” he called out to her.
Lennox didn’t see her lips move, but he still heard her answer, “I’m here.”
“Well? Can you do that?”
Her entire body shuddered slightly, and now Lennox saw her eyes blink and her chest move with the air she breathed. A slow, almost cruel smile formed on Mira’s mouth.
“Of course I can,” she answered. “But I won’t.”
It was Lennox’s turn to frown at her. “Why not?” he demanded. “It’s a small thing.”
“I already granted you a wish,” she said smugly. Her tone reminded Lennox of his brothers when they had been congregated around the kitchen table, cackling at him like witches in a coven.
“I know you did,” he retorted hotly. “And now I’m asking you to grant me another one.”
“No can do,” Mira replied with a shake of her head, a taunting note in her voice. “You get one wish and one wish only. That was our deal.” Lennox pressed his lips into a thin line of annoyance, and he narrowed his eyes at the pixie.
“Did you know the problems I was going to have when you granted me my desire?”
Mira was subtle about it, but Lennox still caught a glimpse of the way her shoulders tensed. “Like I told you, Your Highness, it is not up to me to question what you want.”
“That wasn’t what I asked,” Lennox said. “I asked if you knew what was going to happen when you granted my wish.”
She seemed to choke back a smile as she darted her eyes away from his angry glower. “Maybe. Maybe not,” she sang.
Lennox lunged out of his chair, his face transforming into a wide face of leathery dark blue skin. Fear overtook Mira’s expression as he advanced toward her, his massive tongue lolling out, puffs of smoke emanating from his circular nostrils.
“Why did you grant me that wish without forewarning me?” Her ebony eyes grew large and scared.
“You can’t blame me, Lennox!” she yelled, backing up toward the wall. “I gave you exactly what you asked for: absolute power both here and in Sunside! But with great power comes great responsibility.”
“Fix it!” Lennox hissed, his chest expanding to tear through his shirt, exposing his huge wings. The webbed spanning knocked down all the furniture in its path.
“I wouldn’t know how to start!” Mira squealed.
“Start by changing the morals clause!”
“I can’t!” she cried, despite her earlier statement that she could. “That’s something only the princes can override amongst themselves!”
Lennox stared at her with glittering, furious eyes. He supposed he could find another pixie to grant him another wish, but the pixie might not be as willing to help him as Mira had been. Him asking for another wish could lead to the pixie asking a lot of questions, and those questions could potentially get back to his brothers, who were already looking for ways to undermine him.
They were probably watching him like a hawk. Lennox couldn’t give them any reason to be suspicious of him.
“Please, Lennox, you’re freaking me out!” Mira screamed. Lennox had forgotten how close he was to her, and he backed away, his claws digging into the thick carpeting over the hardwood.
“There has to be something that can be done,” he mumbled to himself.
“Well,” Mira volunteered, the snarky bite back in her tone. “You can start by being careful what you wish for.”
“What the hell does that mean?” he snapped.
“It means you wanted what Wilder had,” she responded, “and now you have it. All of it. You thought your brother had it so much better than you, but did he really?”
A burst of flames shot from Lennox’s mouth to singe the wall behind Mira, his body enveloped in anger and frustration. Mira jumped, startled, and she immediately looked contrite, but she didn’t say another word. Lennox assumed she was done talking and taunting him.
She had granted him his wish on purpose, knowing it would backfire on him somehow. It was most likely retribution for the fact that Lennox had never called her again after their little affair, or something equally stupid.
Still, it seemed too petty a reason to grant him such a powerful wish, and Lennox couldn’t help feeling like things were about to get worse.
He thought back to breakfast that morning, his brothers talking when they thought he couldn’t hear. There had been so much anger in their voices, so much venom in their words. Keppler had mentioned something about his antics, hadn’t he? What antics? What else would they have said if Lennox hadn’t walked into the room?
What had they said before he started eavesdropping on them?
The morals clause was starting to look like the least of Lennox’s worries. He had a grim feeling that his brothers were plotting something much worse than dethroning him.
13
Gia was second-guessing being in the palace. Well, not being in the palace per se, but slipping incognito into an unused suite in the east wing. Lennox’s instructions had been very specific, though.
“You can’t tell anyone you’re coming, and you can’t be seen. It’s extremely important, and timing is everything,” he had warned her.
The offense she had taken to sneaking around was mildly shadowed by concern. Then again, she was starting to see that, if she was going to be in a relationship with the ruler, she was never going to be anything but a clandestine girlfriend.
Maybe ‘girlfriend’ is pushing it, Gia thought.
Perhaps she shouldn’t have been so naïve as to listen to the voicemail he had left her. One minute, he was asking her to move into the palace with him, and the next one, he
was telling her not to be seen. Gia was getting tired of these head games.
Part of her longed to tell Allegra what Lennox had asked of her. She probably would’ve done so, except the strange encounter with her and her pixie friend, Mira, had left Gia feeling wary about her friend. She felt as though Allegra were hiding something.
That’s ridiculous, Gia told herself. Allegra has been nothing but a true friend to you.
Still, she had promised Lennox she wouldn’t say a word to anyone.
As she paced around the front room of the bedroom suite, the marble fireplace crackling with a freshly lit conflagration, Gia considered walking away and never looking back. The way she felt about Lennox couldn’t be real. She didn’t know him well enough. In fact, she didn’t know him at all! But as hard as she might try, she couldn’t deny how overwhelmed she felt when she thought about him; the way her pulse raced and her cheeks flushed.
Gia groaned out loud and buried her face in her hands.
“It’s not that bad, is it?”
She jumped and spun, seeing Lennox leaning against the doorway to the bedroom, smiling at her softly. “How did you get in here? Through the window?”
Lennox laughed and shook his head, his green eyes boring into hers. When their gazes met, a now-familiar sensation of being lightheaded swept through Gia. Before she could realize it, Lennox’s arms were wrapped securely around her, and she leaned her head into the crook of his neck.
“I missed you,” she heard herself say, surprised at her own words. Perhaps Allegra had been right about her becoming bolder. Or maybe Lennox just had that effect on her.
“I missed you, too,” Lennox said gruffly. “I can’t stop thinking about you, no matter what I do. You’re constantly on my mind.”
Gia exhaled deeply. His words resonated inside her, but she didn’t know whether to believe him.
“I need to talk to you,” he continued gently, pulling back to stare down at her. “I learned something over the past days that I didn’t know when we first met.”