by Pippa Grant
Six of them have weapons drawn.
The knight—in full plated body armor—stomps once more, rattling the metal as it lifts a saber precariously.
“Your Majesty, stay back,” one of them barks in German.
“Get back!” Peach yells again.
“Stand down,” I order, striding into the room.
The knight is about to take Peach’s head off.
“Your Majesty—” another guard yells as they circle tighter around Peach and her knight.
Which trips, wobbles clumsily, and yanks at Peach’s arm as it topples over. There’s a mighty metallic crash, and Peach makes a strangled cry as she lands on her hip on top of the knight.
“Stand down,” I repeat.
“I swear to sweet baby Groot, if any one of you shoots, I’ll have your head on a platter and serve it up to your mother before she can say boo,” Peach yells despite her wince and her struggle to regain her composure. “And Papaya Mango Maloney, you are grounded until the end of time, and then you’re grounded again after the next Big Bang happens, and then you’re fucking grounded into infinity.”
I disarm the first guard with too much ease and turn the weapon on the guard beside him. “Stand. Down.” I snarl the order first in German, then Italian.
The remaining guards drop their weapons and back up. I kick Papaya’s sword out of the way and help Peach to her feet. “Are you hurt?” I ask.
“Other than having about eighteen heart attacks and four strokes, I’m just fine.”
“Quite peachy, then?”
She slugs me in the arm.
I stifle a smile.
And Peach bursts into tears.
Peach.
Crying.
Bloody hell.
She drops back to the ground, sobbing, and yanks at the helmet on Knight Papaya, which doesn’t move, all the while ranting about my guards being spooked by a bloody knight in rusty armor and if my guards are afraid of ghosts, they’re useless, and they could’ve killed Papaya.
Who’s flopping about on the floor in full copper armor whilst Peach attempts to remove the helmet.
I’ve no idea how Papaya managed to get herself into the get-up, but it’s quite bloody enjoyable watching her clank and clink and remain utterly incapacitated, thanks to her own doing.
“You are dismissed,” I inform the guards.
“Why—ugh—won’t this—ergh—fucking helmet—aaarnk—come off?”
Were Peach not hysterical—which is truly terrifying and causing a rare panic to bubble out of my chest—I should inform Papaya she’d be staying on the floor until she had an urge to use the facilities, and then probably a few hours more.
But with Peach sobbing and grunting and pulling, I could no sooner stand still than I could stop breathing. I drop to the floor beside her and unhook the fasteners keeping the helmet tied to the shoulder armor, then the fasteners holding the front and back of the armor together.
It’s bloody worthless body armor.
Peach is still sobbing when Papaya fully emerges. She tackles the girl in a hug, right there on the floor amidst the scattered armor. “They could’ve killed you,” she gasps between sobs.
I swallow hard.
She’s not incorrect.
Fully understanding the drastic risk to the safety of my own person, I squat beside them and gently stroke Peach’s soft hair, which still smells mildly of polecat spray. “Had they fired, the bullets would have merely ricocheted,” I lie.
She doesn’t stop sobbing.
But she does let go of Papaya long enough to take another fist to my arm before pulling the girl—who’s now weepy-eyed herself—closer to me.
The slug is mild compared to the physical ailments I endured while being Manning Frey’s training partner in the hockey rink in the basement of the palace in Stölland for so many years.
Odd.
I miss the ice.
I miss having time for any hobbies, truth be told.
Alexander is right. I need to set some boundaries.
I hesitantly reach my arms around both women. “’Tis all safe now.”
And that’s apparently the wrong bloody thing to say, because now they’re both sobbing harder.
But Peach is leaning heavier on me even as the sobs rack her body.
I’ve never been quite so helpless in all my life.
Disarming a man, I can do.
Taking a bullet or a knife, I can do.
But soothing a terrified, sobbing, otherwise competent woman is not something I’ve often—ever—accomplished successfully, nor have I ever found myself in many situations in which it was necessary.
I stroke her back, and gradually, they both cry themselves out.
Which is good, because seeing a chink in Peach’s armor is bloody terrifying.
“Papaya,” she says, her voice thick and wobbly, “you’re on kitchen duty for the next four weeks.”
“What?”
“And if you get fired by the chef, you’ll be on maid duty. And if you get fired by the maids, you’ll be shoveling shit in the stables. And you don’t get to see Fred until your chores are done.”
I suck in a surprised breath.
Papaya gasps. “You can’t do that.”
“And if you don’t show up for kitchen duty, you won’t be going to Joey’s wedding next weekend.” She swipes at her eyes, which silences any objections I might have to keeping track of Papaya whilst Peach is away for a week. “You scared the ever-loving patootles out of me. I thought you were kidnapped. And instead, you’re here, spooking the daylights out of these poor guards who were trained on an invalid king who couldn’t even get out of his own bed to pee.”
Ah. I’m beginning to see from whom Papaya gets her creativity.
And it hasn’t escaped my notice that Peach is still leaning on me.
My knees are going quite numb from squatting, but I could crouch here for hours if that was what was required to make her feel better.
“You have two choices.” Her voice is growing steadier, more Peach-like. “You do your punishment, and we’ll find you a better outlet for all your creative energy, or we’re going to have one hell of a rough year.”
Papaya scowls. Her tears have also left her. “I don’t like those choices.”
“They’re what you’ve got.”
“I want to go home and live with my daddy.”
Peach’s entire body goes so rigid, I have to stop myself from grabbing Papaya and dangling her by the ankle for being such an ungrateful arse.
“He lost the privilege to keep you.” Peach’s voice wobbles again. “Meemaw and me and Viktor and Alexander and Samuel are what you’ve got.”
An emotion I cannot name blooms in my chest, swells into my throat, and renders me momentarily tongue-tied.
She’s just claimed us all as family.
“Get up. I want that armor shined and sparkling before it goes back where it belongs in the tower study, and don’t you dare give me any lip, or you’ll be shining and sparkling every single suit of armor in this whole entire castle if you so much as think at me wrong.”
I swallow hard, wishing my own voice were not so much more husky than I intend it to be. It seems emotions are going around. “I believe there are fifty more stored in the dungeons, my lady.”
My shirt is damp and cold where the tears from Peach’s cheek have soaked through, I’ve nearly watched a teenage girl outwit and terrify an entire team of guards who were quite ready to maim, if not outright kill her, and I’m playing parent for the first time in my life.
Being a team.
With Peach.
It’s disconcerting at best.
Irresistibly attractive at worst.
I’ve a kingdom to run. There’s no time to fall for my wife.
But I fear it might be too late.
24
Peach
By the time Papaya and I leave Amoria for Joey’s wedding six days after the infamous shower wall incident—and yes, I’d
rather remember that day for the near shower sex than for everything else that happened—the country is split over whether it’s wonderful that Viktor and I have such violent sex that we’re breaking the castle, or that it’s terrible that we have so little respect for the castle that we’re breaking it by having violent acrobatic sex.
The wall is almost patched.
Papaya has been doing her time in the kitchens, though she hasn’t been allowed to help prepare the food yet, only wash dishes, which means half my plan with her punishment is still failing, but I have hope Papaya will get a promotion so the palace food will be more edible soon.
And ridiculous faith in Papaya to not intentionally screw it up, but the girl eats like she has three hollow legs. She has to want to eat decent food again sometime.
And Viktor has been—
Well, he’s been Viktor.
Straight-laced. Refusing to mention my complete and total meltdown. Occasionally teasing me, but only when other people are around. He’s in bed asleep before I’m done catching up on Weightless paperwork—and I might’ve been spending extra time doing the fewer and fewer tasks left for me every day just so I’m not tempted to jump his bones if he says something snarky like Lovely frogs on your pajama pants, Peach—and I pretend to be asleep still every morning when he gets up to go take his daily runs.
Getting out of Amoria should be good for getting my priorities set straight again. For remembering that this is just a year to hit the reset button with Papaya and to pass stupid Judge Liverspot’s demands for signing the adoption paperwork and to let Viktor get settled as king.
But when we’re finally ferried to the private island in paradise where Joey’s double wedding is taking place—Zeus’s twin brother, Ares, is also marrying his girlfriend this weekend—I feel weirdly out of my element being back with Joey and Gracie.
Probably because I’m still lying to them.
Once Papaya, Meemaw, and I are settled in our room at the lodge, we change into swimsuits and head to the beach, were we find our friends hanging out in cabanas and watching a bunch of men pool jousting on unicorn floaties in a giant swimming pool complete with a rock waterfall at one end and a water slide at the other. Meemaw abandons us for the parents’ cabana right up at the ocean’s edge, far away from the antics going on in the pool.
“Oh my dog, Peach! You’re here!” Gracie leaps off her chair beneath the curtain-draped pergola, drops her fruity drink in the sand, and tackles me in a hug that could probably knock over one of the Berger twins, who each weigh something like 350 pounds.
And I hug her back with everything I have, because Thor, I’ve missed her.
“Forget the king,” Papaya says as she looks around the island. “I’m marrying a freaking billionaire when I grow up.”
“Fuck that,” Joey says. “Be the billionaire. Don’t wait for a man to buy an island for you.”
“Much better plan,” I agree.
I disentangle myself from Gracie and grab Joey, who tolerates my hug with a tight squeeze back.
As far as I know, she hasn’t done any wedding planning beyond asking Chase, our silent partner and Zeus’s best friend, if he knew anyone with a private island that could accommodate a casual wedding with two hundred guests.
And because Chase is a billionaire, of course he did.
And because billionaires are billionaires, they have people who do the planning for you.
Joey probably would’ve preferred a courthouse wedding, but she knew Zeus would want a party. And so a party is what they’re getting.
“You don’t look like you’re getting laid,” Joey says.
“I can hear you,” Papaya whines.
“Oh, how’s Viktor?” Gracie asks while she gestures me to sit in one of the loungers overlooking the pool. The ocean waves roll in with a soothing crescendo, sun sparkling off the endless water. “I miss him.”
“He’s good,” I say.
“Just good?” she asks with a brow wiggle.
“I can still hear you,” Papaya whines again.
“They fell through a shower wall. I think they’re great, Gracie,” Joey says.
“He was sorry he couldn’t make it,” I tell them both, though I really have no idea if he is or isn’t, but I’d rather not think about the entire world knowing about the shower wall. Damn palace gossips. Stupid country of love. Also, he hasn’t said as much, because Viktor rarely says anything personal, but I’ve heard enough stories to assume he would’ve gotten to know many of the Thrusters. And now I’m wondering if he has friends, or if he’s lonely, or if he misses Manning’s other guards, and fuck, I’m a terrible wife. “He has his hands full right now.”
Joey snorts, and I assume that’s because she’s most likely made a point to study Amoria and now knows everything from the political battles being fought to the state of the palace. “Over full, by the sounds of it.”
“Where’s Sophie?” I ask Gracie, because I want to enjoy every minute of this week with my friends.
And get some perspective back. And ignore the weird sensation that I forgot to bring something, when I suspect that something might be Viktor.
Gracie waves toward the pool. “Manning’s spreading the baby cooties. They’re contagious, you know.”
“No, they’re not,” Joey says.
Gracie merely smiles.
At the edge of the pool away from the unicorn jousting, Ares Berger is cradling a tiny bundle in a baby swimsuit. Even from a distance, I can tell her dark hair is thicker than it was when I left Goat’s Tit a few weeks ago, and if anyone but Ares—or Zeus—were holding her, she’d probably look twice as big too.
Ares’s fiancée is next to him, leaning her head on his arm—he’s too tall for her head to reach his shoulder—and smiling at the baby. They both have their feet in the pool, and I’m pretty sure they’re both ignoring whatever Manning is saying, which is most likely how many dirty diapers she has a day and which books are her favorites.
“He’s made every last one of his teammates hold her,” Gracie says. “He keeps telling them it’s for their own good, so they remember why condoms are important, but I think he’s secretly hoping she’ll get a few playmates.”
“He’s horrible,” Joey says.
“He’s perfect,” Gracie replies. “And he let me sleep in every day the last two weeks.”
“Maybe he’s only half horrible.”
“Are there any teenagers here?” Papaya asks.
“Zeus has a few cousins.” Joey points toward three massive boys pounding each other into the ground at the sand volleyball court. “He’s threatened all three with dismemberment if they look at you wrong.”
Papaya grunts.
“Yo, P!” Zeus himself yells from a unicorn floatie. “Get over here and knock Murphy off his unicorn, and I’ll give you fifty bucks.”
“Keep your filthy money,” I yell back.
“I was talking to the little P,” he replies.
“Best offer you’re gonna get,” Gracie tells Papaya.
“Are they all hockey players?” I ask.
“All but Chase and Knox and Dax,” she replies.
“Oh my god, is that Dax Gallagher?” Papaya shrieks.
The tatted rock god on a blue unicorn floatie lifts an arm and waves at her, and Zeus knocks him off and into the pool.
A dark-haired woman I recognize as Manning’s stepsister throws a bucket of ice at Zeus, and he falls off his floatie too.
“Don’t splash the ba—” Ares’s fiancée cuts herself off mid-sentence, covers her mouth, leaps to her feet, dashes to a trash can, and pukes.
“Like I said,” Gracie says smugly. “They’re contagious.”
“It’s food poisoning.”
“Believe the lies all you want. Time will prove me right.”
Papaya’s still staring at the pool.
“Go on,” I tell her. She’s in a black bikini top with boy shorts, which was our compromise when she picked out a white thong bikini. I’m pretty sur
e I got played, but I don’t care what she wears, so long as she’s not indecent. She still has slender teenager legs, but her boobs have ballooned, and I realize I should’ve gotten her a bigger top.
I eyeball the three Berger cousins again. Pretty sure I could take them. But only if I had to.
“They won’t touch her,” Joey tells me while Papaya shyly approaches the pool.
“They won’t,” Gracie agrees. “Zeus and Ares are their heroes. And Joey scares the shit out of them. Plus, Felicity—you’ve met Ares’s fiancée, right?—anyway, she’s a ventriloquist, and that freaks them out too. Papaya’s safe here.”
My body sags in a relief I didn’t know I needed.
“What about them?” I ask with a finger flick toward the hockey players and rock god in the pool.
“Taken, taken, taken, and the rest of them know she’s jailbait.”
I didn’t know I could get more relaxed. “Why is there a pool on an island?”
“Because billionaires have to spend their money on something.”
“So,” Joey says, stretching her thin, muscular frame on her lounger and tucking her hands behind her head, “how much alcohol are we going to need before you confess you really married Viktor because that asshole judge made you get a husband?”
I tense up so fast I go lightheaded. “That’s not—I didn’t—we—”
Joey pulls down her aviators and hits me with the don’t give me bullshit on my wedding weekend glare.
“That’s not fair,” I hiss.
“You told me you loved him. You lied.”
“I don’t not love him,” I sputter, which might not be a total lie now, but definitely would’ve been a few weeks ago.
“Joey. Knock it off. She did it for your own good,” Gracie tells her sister.
I turn a glare on her, but she holds her hands up. “I didn’t tell her anything. And I do think you’re an adorable couple. The only time I ever saw Viktor smile was when he was eating my cookies or tormenting you.”