by Angel Payne
You deserve a woman who will serve you and Arcadia. Who won’t put her entire foot in her mouth at some state dinner, before salads are even cleared.
You need a woman you can be proud of.
You need a woman who knows what family really means…
My stomach fought the boba as the memories hit like punches—of how I’d pummeled him with every damn syllable. Of how he’d pulled away a little more with every line I’d sobbed, his cheeks gaunt and his eyes like steel, having to accept the truth I already had. Another melodramatic oldie was right on the money.
Sometimes love just ain’t enough.
As the refrain haunted my head, my four-month-old note fluttered to the top of the stack once more.
Note to self. This really sucks.
“You’re going to stay there for a good long time, huh?”
My mind only answered with more of that damn song.
But there’s a danger in loving somebody too much…and it’s bad when you know it’s your heart you can’t trust…there’s a reason why people don’t stay where they are…
“Baby, sometimes love just ain’t enough.”
I sang the last of it in a whisper—vowing not to mix tears into my boba. The thing was salted already, dammit—and by the time I got done repaying the bank of self-pity, I’d be an old woman.
Determined huff. “Get your act together, Lucina Louise. You came here to enjoy the day, so fucking enjoy it.”
There was a lot to help with that. Mid-April in Ocean View Park was nothing short of awesome. The grass was fragrant, the Pacific air crisp, and there was even a bunch of kids on Spring Break, tossing Frisbees and flying kites on the rolling hills. Across the street and the beach, out on the ocean, a handful of surfers sat on their boards, waiting for the last sets of the morning.
I pulled in air through my nose. Released it slowly through my mouth. I could do this. I could look out on the waves and not ache for the oceans in Shiraz’s eyes. I could enjoy the breeze in my hair and not yearn for it to be his long, confident fingers. I could watch a red and gold kite dance on the air and be reminded of Palais banners.
I could sit for more than five minutes and not wish for a damn transporter switch, coordinates keyed in for Arcadia.
God, how I missed it.
All of it.
Every part of the fantasy, sometimes seeming just a taunting dream now, dangling out of my reach. The island that gave me so much. The week that had changed me for good.
Never to be again.
I set the boba down with a slam, scooping up my cell instead. Like an addict needing a hit, I went for the text messages. None from any unidentified numbers, born from the distant hope Shiraz would get lonely on his training adventures and reach out, but plenty from Crista and Jayd. Thank God. They were my willing suppliers, feeding my hunger for all images Arcadia. I stored everything carefully, according to categories—even some for parts of the island I’d never seen. The breathtaking cliffs and coves of Asuman. The majestic mountain vistas of Tahreuse. The sprawling ranches of the central valley and Faisant Township. And then my two favorites: Springtime shots from the Palais Arcadia and Endigoh Beach.
Each image seemed more extraordinary than the last. It was a travelogue of Technicolor flowers, cerulean waters, sweeping skies, and joy-filled people…
Except for one.
The one not in any pictures because he’d left Arcadia the same day I did. Cast me a stare the texture of stone as our paths had crossed on the new Sancti tarmac—his leading to a waiting troop helicopter, me to the twelve-passenger plane which would at last fly me to Athens.
Then he’d disappeared…into my dreams.
And every other thought I possessed. And every other breath in my lungs.
And every damn pang in my heart.
I darkened the screen. Swiped two more drops off my cheeks, making the boo-hoo bankers rejoice. Damn glad someone was.
This would get better, dammit.
It had to.
In the meantime, I was content to suck back the boba…and wallow.
“Yes, I may have hurt you,” I whisper-sung. “But I did not desert y—”
I stopped, half-puzzled and half-alarmed, as a shadow fell over the bench. The shade from a really big man, judging from the size 14’s filling out the lime green flip-flops stepping into my view. My stare climbed tree trunk legs attached to those feet, clad in green and pink board shorts. Then a massive torso on top of that, covered in a white wife beater. Prominent lips in the man’s bold Roman face released a distinct baritone.
“Any more seats left at this weep-fest?”
“Oh, my God.” I leapt up so fast, tackle hugging and boba drowning him in one elated surge. “Samsyn. Holy shit, how did you—why are you—what are you doing here?”
“Wearing your drink, apparently,” the prince grumbled while sitting down. Good thing the bench was bolted to the ground, since his weight creaked and shook the boards of the little wooden structure.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry.” I yanked a packet of tissues from my purse and shoved them at him.
Samsyn shrugged. “It smells nice, at least.”
“By the Creator, I’m just so excited to—” My own gasp cut it short. I pressed fingertips to my lips, stunned as if I’d invented a fun new profanity. Samsyn, even covered from hip to ankle in salted caramel boba, join me in the laugh.
“Excited little dinné,” he rumbled good-naturedly. “Check that box.”
As rapidly as my elation had hit, it drained away. I gaped at him, literally shivering in the warm morning. “Wait a second. Should I be excited?” My gaze narrowed. “Why are you here?” I gulped hard. “Shit. Is it…Shiraz? What happened?”
“Okay, chill the hissy, little wahine.”
“Huh?”
“Your broheim Ezra gave me the skinny on finding you here. Says you like checking out the scene. He says it is off the Richter.”
“Huh?”
He jerked his head at the parking lot that paralleled the water. “Was just hanging with some surfers and picked up the vibe. Ripping cool, eh, beach bunny?”
I pretended there was something on my nose. “Yeah.” I hid my grin behind my hand. “That’s—ummm—special, Syn.”
I didn’t have the heart to break the news that surfer slang and a giant Arcadian in a wife beater weren’t a “ripping cool” mix. Later, I promised the universe. Right now, I needed him focused on the only subject that mattered here. Shiraz. At least if Samsyn was cutting loose with the “hang ten”s and “let’s shred”s, I took heart that his little brother wasn’t lying in a ditch somewhere, mortally wounded.
“So…Shiraz is okay, then,” I finally prompted—only to endure another shiver as Samsyn’s features crunched into a guarded frown.
After pulling in a long breath, he murmured. “Define ‘okay’.”
I kept my ass perched on the edge of the seat. Coiled my hands in my lap, working them nervously into each other. “Define ‘not okay’.”
A pair of Ray-Bans were hiked up behind his ears, holding back his dark chestnut mane. The thick stuff tumbled free as he dropped the shades over his eyes, fixing his regard out toward the ocean. Weirdly, he reminded me of Tom Skerritt in Top Gun, giving a paternal pep talk to Tom Cruise’s wigged-out Maverick. Hmm. I’d always wanted a bomber jacket.
“Operationally, Shiraz is one of the best comm techs I have ever seen in the field. He is a born natural for the task and has earned the respect and admiration of everyone who works with him. I am fucking proud of him, as his commander and as his brother, and damn glad we shall be able to call on him during times of crisis in Arcadia.” He touched a forefinger to the space between his brows then lifted it above his head and circled it twice. “Which, the Creator willing, shall not be often.”
“That all…sounds good.” I dipped my head, openly questioning him with my stare. “So what’s the problem?”
Samsyn’s nostrils flared. He leaned his head back a little, exposi
ng the tension of his jaw to the full light of the sun. “The man can guide a team of snipers down the side of a volcano and through a village full of hostiles, but his own heart is as lost as a glass shard in a lake.” Up went the sunglasses again—as he turned the full power of his silver-blue gaze on me. “And I have been told, by some helpful little birds back home, that you might be that very special glass.”
Openly, I fidgeted. Privately, I tried to breathe away the wild thunder in my chest. No good. With tight teeth, I dealt with the tumult. Finally muttered, offering him a wad of tissues from my purse, “Helpful little birds, my ass.”
“Jayd and Crista are as worried about him as I am,” he rebutted. “We all are—except, perhaps, for my parents.” His expression discernibly tightened, though I couldn’t tell if the cause was the subject of his parents or the mess along his leg. “Sometimes, leaving them out of this kind of shit is better for all concerned.”
Okay, it was about Ardent and Xaria. “And sometimes, maybe they can help.” I jerked a little at the new intensity in his stare—bordering now on a glare—but squared my shoulders a little higher. “Maybe you should enlist the queen mother and king father to help talk some sense into your hopeless romantic of a sibling.”
Inside an instant, the Syn scowl was gone—overtaken by a laugh so hard, his head fell back. “Ohhhh, Lucina. That made up for turning me into a walking sweet stick.” He cocked a broad smile back my way. “Over the years, we have used many words with which to identify Shiraz Noir. ‘Hopeless’ has never been one of them—and neither has ‘romantic’.”
“Then perhaps you all need to remind him of that?” I arched peeved brows. “Because he sure as hell wouldn’t hear it from me.” Recognizing I’d all but admitted to what happened with Shiraz now, I lunged to my feet, needing to pace out my frustration. The warrior had gotten me started; he was sure as hell going to hear my side of the story now. “We shared…moments, okay? And they were amazing, incredible, astounding…”
I stopped, watching a flurry of dandelion stars swirl by on the breeze. One of the stems stopped, caught on a crosswind.
Suspended…in a moment.
“Perfect,” I rasped, before the wisp as well my senses tumbled back to terra firma. “Anyway.” I cleared my throat. “You get the idea, yeah?”
Samsyn huffed out a laugh. “To be honest, Lucina, I do not.” He answered my scowl with a slow shake of his head. “Moments,” he repeated, chuckling again. “Are you certain it was actually my brother Shiraz with you? A little leaner and prettier than me? Dark blue eyes, smells fairly nice”
He had to remind me.
And confuse me.
I plunked back down. Flattened my lips. “You’re missing the fucking point.”
“Which is?”
“That they were just moments, Samsyn—and no matter how axis-altering they were, we can’t spin them into anything more.” I gazed out toward the sea, wishing the clarification for all of this would just get farted across the sky in wisps out the back of a skywriting plane. “I’m not right for him, dammit.” Just. Say. It. “I’m…not good enough.”
He let me sit with that disgusting tidbit as he rose and walked the tissue to a trashcan. When he returned, he didn’t sit again. Faced the bench with both hands jammed into his pockets, stance deceptively casual. His gaze studied every person in the park. “That was a sincere admission,” he offered. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Now I shall ask for another.”
My hands twisted together again. “Go for it.”
He tilted his head so our gazes fully met. “Do you love him?”
Half a second—if that—clicked before my reply. “With all my heart and soul, Samsyn.”
He looked back toward the grass. “Well, that is bloody good enough for me.”
I let a rough sound rush up my throat. “No, dammit.” I shoved back to my feet. “It’s not good enough. Shiraz can’t see it, but I need you to, okay?” I grabbed him by the sturdy crook of his elbow. “Samsyn, he’s a prince—”
“That has not escaped my attention.”
“—and he needs a woman by his side worthy of being called a princess,” I powered on, ignoring his sarcasm. “A princess, okay? He doesn’t get that right now because he’s thinking with his dick instead of his brain, but one day, he’s going to wake the hell up and remember it—as well as the duty to his people that he holds so high.”
Somewhere along the line, the man had cocked a noticeable brow at me. Now the other jumped up, making it a matched set. “And that is when you think he will gravitate back to Ambyr Stratiss?”
“Maybe,” I murmured, not really meaning it. Picturing Shiraz with the woman, complete with her entitlement issues, brought on a fresh shiver. “Or maybe not. It doesn’t have to be her. There are lots of other fish in the Arcadian Sea, right?”
Samsyn pivoted. Planted his feet a little wider apart. Sheez. Even here, a few miles up the coast from Muscle Beach, the guy was a formidable sight when he hit confrontation mode. Nevertheless, his answering tone was mild. “I believe you might be missing the point.”
I rocked back, jabbing a finger. “Good try but no dice. You’re missing mine. Time is going to take care of this; you’ll see. A couple more months out in the jungle, or wherever the hell you’ve sent him, and your little brother will come home ready to settle down and think logically about an acceptable bride.” My dropped gaze fell on my spilled boba cup. As I retrieved it and headed to the trashcan myself, I continued, “And this is the part where your parents can be important.”
“My parents?” His head whipped like I’d said terrorists. “Why the hell—” He pinched it off, clearly deciding on a different tack. “My parents have nothing to contribute to this subject.”
“Are you kidding? They have everything to contribute. What the hell with the glare? You hate saying I’m right?” I refrained from adding asshole, but in another minute, he’d be sticking a perfect landing there without my help.
He sat back down, again with a pretense of relaxation. “I am saying you might not have all the facts.”
“Facts,” I shot back. “Like how Xaria and Ardent are a walking, talking example that pre-arranged marriage can work? That mutual respect and friendship can, over time, become love?”
His pose, with one elbow draped over the back of the bench, hardly shifted. “Who told you that?”
“Shiraz,” I supplied. “On the first day I was in Arcadia. There’s a photo of your mom and dad on his desk. He told me all about the old tradition of The Distinct, and about how the two of them made the situation work.” I sat back down too. “They’re happy, Samsyn.”
“They are a sham, Lucina.”
My turn for the snapping head. Not that my glue gun of a stare altered his granite mien. “Excuse the hell out of me?”
He let his elbow drop—all the way to his knee. Parked his other one the same way, then steepled his fingers. “What I am about to tell you cannot leave this conversation. Not even Shiraz can know.”
“Sure. I mean, fine. Okay.” Since I’d only see Shiraz again on the covers of gossip mags, that was a no-brainer.
His fingers visibly pressed harder to each other. His jaw tautened. “My mother and father…can barely stand being in the same room together.”
“Huh?” Another brainless reaction—though pretty fucking justified.
“They have not slept in the same bed for over ten years,” he stated, keeping his voice low. “Perhaps before that. There have even been whispers that Jayd is not truly of my father’s seed.”
“Shit.” My voice was just as soft. “Are—are you sure?”
“About Jayd’s heritage?” His nostrils flared. “Of course not. I personally discovered my father’s infidelity by accident, when I was eighteen. Not long after that, I learned that her own adultery was just as extensive. After then, I was more aware of the court whisperings, but it was several more years before I had knowledge of that particular
gem.” He pushed his hands fully together, stabbing them against the tense line of his lips. “By then, Jayd was starting college, a young woman, and I was running kingdom security. I could only make sure the gossips were bribed into silence and that any evidence of her illegitimacy was found then destroyed.”
“Did you find any?” I leaned forward to ask it.
“No.” The stress in his jaw spread across his face. “But that does not stop me from dreading the day something surfaces.”
“Or from dealing with that daily backache.” I jerked up half a smile in response to his baffled glance. “From hauling the weight of keeping it from her?” I added, with new revelation, “And Evrest and Shiraz too, right?”
He picked up on the allegation in my voice. “She is their sister through and through, in the fabric of their hearts, just as she is in mine,” he explained. “But when secrets fill more ears, they are more at risk of being spilled.” He tugged at a caramel-stained corner of his shorts. “Even when the intention is innocent.”
I nodded, however reluctantly. One look toward the western foothills, where a collection of white letters spelled out H-O-L-L-Y-W-O-O-D, provided all the back-up his statement needed. In this part of the world, no secret was innocent. A lot of intentions weren’t, either.
I finally sat back. As I got busy collecting my jaw off the ground, Samsyn had the nerve to grin through a huff. “You look like a woman enlightened.”
I rolled my head in a figure eight, going for my mental comfort food of snark. “You could sure as fuck say that.”
“Good.” His military precision was back in full glory. “Now you have some accurate intel to inform your decision for a change.”
I unleashed a new glare on him. “Inform what decision? Samsyn, this changes…”
Nothing.
Oh, hell.
It changed everything.
My fade into amazement was filled by his cocky chuckle. “You were saying, Miss Fava?” He waved a regal hand. “Go on. I need to hear this. You were saying, as before then—about not being ‘good enough’, even after learning about all the colorful closet skeletons of our family? Was that the part that did not change? Or maybe it was the story about my parents being the walking advertisements for the success of arranged marriage. Do not leave that shit out. It is my favorite.”