“That’s correct. If you’re still here in the winter, I’ll consider sharing the details with you under the same terms. As I can’t shift at will, it’s a non-issue.”
“That’s fine. I was informed your talent is linked to your future wife. This is something I can work with. I trust you will notify me if you believe it becomes an issue.”
“If it becomes an issue, I’ll notify you,” I promised.
“Thank you, Your Highness. I can work with this. Now, onto business. I’m significantly concerned about your interest in covertly training with the RPS. However, an experimental program where the principal openly trains with the agents may work. To begin with, I’m willing to set up an intensive one-month session. During this, you will remain with your detail at all times. You’ll be expected to also attend to your full duties. This is to train your agents to identify and deal with royal fatigue. It’s expected you’ll succumb to general exhaustion and stress within one to two weeks.” Meredith’s mouth twitched, then she smiled. “It may be embarrassing.”
“I’ll pay you if you plan a relocation scenario meant to antagonize my father.”
She arched a brow. “While the offer is appreciated, I’m already paid to plan all types of scenarios. Your team will be expected to protect you from numerous relocation scenarios.”
“My grandmother will be visiting the kingdom and would enjoy helping.”
“I’ve been briefed about Illinois’s unique relationship with South Dakota’s royal family. I’ll inquire.”
“What do you need from me for this?”
“During training, act as you actually do. If you’d indulge in cat-like behavior because of your father’s contribution of genes, do so. Behave normally. Anything else will hurt your team’s ability to protect you and monitor your whereabouts.”
I thought about it. “If you run me into the ground, I’ll probably try to run away when I finally snap,” I admitted.
“Then please do your best when you run. It’s a good training exercise.”
“If I start drinking, I expect an immediate intervention. I drink twice a year: Christmas and my birthday.”
“No other holidays?”
“No. I’m the adult supervision the rest of the year.”
“Consider it noted. You’ll be expected to get drunk once for training purposes.”
I wrinkled my nose. “When you’re stocking the drinks for this party, I like girly drinks because they taste better than the straight shit and get the job done faster.”
“You’re not a fan of the taste of alcohol, are you?”
“Not at all. I just like to pretend I’m an adult of legal drinking age every rare now and then. What do you think of Evangeline?”
Meredith’s smile worried me. “I wish you the best of luck, Your Highness. You’ll need it.”
Every year, the candidates to join the RPS were similar. Young men used to being the best applied to continue being the best. Meredith observed from beside the door, which put her in the best position to take out anyone who might come in. My desk would act as a barrier to slow intruders down, buying my agent sufficient time to protect me.
All in all, I was torn between relief I had an agent again and annoyance that I needed one.
Complaining about it wouldn’t do me any good, so I did the only thing I could. I directed my attention back to the problem of finding agents who’d stick around for a change. “Have you gone through these, Meredith?”
“I have, sir.”
“Do any of these actually have potential? Don’t get me wrong, they look like the cream of the crop, but this is the same type who can’t deal with my yearly transformation in the spring.”
“I have my doubts.”
“Do we have candidates with promising talents and skills from the lower castes?”
“I have a foot-tall stack of such applicants, sir.”
“And these are applicants who’ve already gone through base review?”
“Yes, sir.”
Interesting. I’d have to remember there were far more viable applicants than I’d believed. “Take the best five from this pool and fill out the rest of the roster from the lower caste applicants. To make it clear they’re here on merit, we’ll ban all caste badges from trainees. Washouts will be replaced by random draw.”
“Random draw, sir?”
“They wouldn’t have gotten to this stage if they didn’t pass muster with someone. They’ve been reviewed, which I assume means they’ve passed their background checks and basic competency checks. Random draw is a fair method of picking replacements. I think I’ve already established that picking the best of the best won’t work in my situation.”
“Why include any of them, then?”
“The lower caste recruits need a chance to work with elites. It’ll take them time to figure out how to interact with them as equals.”
She smiled, and her approval startled me. “Any other requests?”
“I want the trainees to be a fifty-fifty split of men and women, even if it means we need to recruit from outside of the kingdom to find ladies willing to take on the job. My top requirement is that they must be able to work well with Evangeline.”
“You mean to train her detail along with yours. I would like to remind you that you’re not even certain if she’ll accept you as her partner.”
Partner was a good way to consider her; I wanted everything. But being her partner was ideal. I wanted to become her husband. I wanted to become her everything. I doubted I’d ever find someone like her again. The thought of losing my chance to prove I could be a good partner for her created a tight ball in my chest.
I inhaled, held my breath until the tension in my chest peaked, and released it in a sigh. “If they can work well with Evangeline, they’ll be able to work with anyone. We can run scenarios where agents take turns being the principal. Evangeline should excel in that role just from her experience living on her own and her skillset. She’s used to taking care of herself. She’ll have the same issues royals do working with their details. She’s headstrong. Should we be able to partner together, she’ll be ready to take her place as my queen. Better yet, her detail will be ready, too.”
“The agents may not approve.”
“If she’s playing the role of principal often, she’ll be perceived as a principal rather than a fellow agent. She’ll also be respected due to her skills and abilities.”
“That’s a gamble, sir. RPS agents are all the same breed; they are competitive and take their work seriously. Everything she does will be scrutinized when she’s working in the role of the principal. The agents will not forget she’s supposed to be one of them.”
While I acknowledged Meredith had a point, I also couldn’t force myself to agree with her. “Doing things the safe way hasn’t done me any good yet, so I need to gamble. I’m okay with gambling. I can deal with failure. I expect failure. I expect my attempts with Evangeline will result in an unmitigated disaster, and it’s entirely possible I’ll spend years trying to convince her to forgive me. Abdication might become a requirement, and it’s not just due to this issue.”
The real reason my father reacted as he had wasn’t because of Evangeline, it wasn’t even because of my lack of a stable detail.
The reality of what I faced likely sank in for him.
Meredith waited, her brow arched in silent questioning.
“There’s unrest in the congress. I can’t rule without a queen. This might work—and it might buy me time. Unfortunately, it might confirm I’ll live a cursed life.”
“Abdication is a serious step, Your Highness.”
“I can’t rule without a queen, and I’ve already made up my mind.” My next words might condemn me to a shortened, feathered life, one that would inevitably end in a forest unable to return to human form. “Where Evangeline goes, I’ll follow. My father’s crown means nothing to me if I have to rule his kingdom as part man, part beast. She knows me for what I am. If she can’t accept me for a
ll I am, I can’t expect anyone else to.”
“She knows your animal form?”
“Yes, she does.”
“That was not in her file.”
“Christian’s aware. I told him. I’d rather that information didn’t spread, so I don’t want it written down anywhere.”
“Is it true she marked you? And that you refused to have her brand removed?”
“It’s true.”
Her cheek twitched. “I’ll allow the brand to remain, but only because it’ll allow her to protect you better. Your circumstances are also a part of the reason why I’ll allow this. In any other situation, I would be having it removed immediately, even if I had to subdue you to have it done.”
After having subdued my father with my fist, I had no doubt Meredith would stoop to similar levels to have her way.
RPS agents were required to protect their principals, and nothing in their rulebook stated they couldn’t get rough if their royal put up a fight.
“Thank you.”
“Now, with that said, I need to disclose the potential consequences of a long-term brand. Depending on her talent, it could become a permanent bond. If she has any latent healing talents, it could form a life bond.”
I’d heard of leech bonds, but not life bonds before. “You’ve lost me. A life bond?”
“Should she die, you’ll die. That’s a life bond.”
Enlightenment struck me, and I fought my urge to laugh. My family’s curse came bundled with such a bond, or so I believed. I wondered if Meredith could confirm it, so I said, “My great-grandma is a hundred and thirty years old. She looks like she’s fifty. Is that what you mean? If so, we just consider that a part of the family curse.”
Meredith’s eyes widened. “Oh.”
“My great-great-grandparents are still alive, too.”
“You’re serious? They are? They weren’t in any of the paperwork.”
My great-great-grandfather’s fate would be mine by the time I was thirty if I didn’t get my act in gear and find someone to keep me human. Confessing the truth of the family curse hurt, but it offered a sense of freedom and release, too. “He’s no longer human. He hasn’t become a human since before I was born. He’s the start of our line, and a living reminder of what we face if we fail to control our magic.”
“And your great-great-grandmother?”
“She found a way to join him. I suppose he sacrificed his humanity to share his magic with her. If I don’t find my partner, that’s my fate. One spring, I won’t return to being human. I’m on a time limit, and if I get too close to it, I’ll have to abdicate. I can’t rule as an animal. I don’t even know if I’ll remember I’d ever been human.”
“Has it happened to anyone else in your line?”
“Yes, it has. I have between roughly two to five years. None have made it beyond thirty without shifting to their beast and remaining a beast for the rest of their lives. I’ll abdicate in the winter after I turn twenty-seven at the latest.”
I had two more years, and if things didn’t work out with Evangeline, my grandmother’s scheme to match me with someone would be my last hope of staying human.
“Christian implied this was a serious situation, but I hadn’t understood how serious. With this in mind, I’ll move forward with your idea to ease Evangeline into acting as a principal for the majority of your training. I’ll even look the other way if you win her over enough for some illicit activities to take place. However, I will expect you to keep me updated. If your relationship with her does develop, I need to know immediately.”
“I really don’t expect it will. Perhaps I can convince her to give us a try, but she’s a professional at heart. No, your initial rules and assessment were correct. If I want any hope of becoming her partner, I need to respect those boundaries and convince her despite them. I’ll be honest with you, Meredith. Until Evangeline, I didn’t think I’d actually have a hope of finding someone who might want me for me. I’m not like the rest of my family. They’re predators. They live for the hunt. I don’t.”
“You’re a prey species, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am.”
“This complicates things.”
“Welcome to my life, Meredith.” I sighed. “Welcome to my life.”
At twelve-thirty, I changed into a pair of sweats and stretched in my office, grimacing at the lingering aches in my muscles.
“Are you sure you’re up for this? She’s not going to hold back.”
“I expect she’ll attempt to knock the sense back into me. It’ll hurt, and next session, I’ll work harder so it hurts less. Eventually, I might escape relatively unscathed. I won’t improve unless I try.”
“This won’t be easy on you.”
I appreciated Meredith’s blunt honestly despite her words stinging my already battered pride. “I didn’t expect easy. If I thought this would be easy, I’d walk onto the mat, ask her to marry me, and be done with it.”
The new head of my detail laughed. “If you’re going to attempt that, I recommend you wait until right after a particularly hard hit, one that leaves you breathless on the floor. That might leave a positive impression. Otherwise, I’d recommend against it.”
“I will if you think it’s wise. As I said, I’m hopeless at this.”
Not only was I hopeless, I was running out of time. I had a guaranteed year or two left, and after that, it’d be the toss of a coin if I could return to my human life in the spring. No matter what I said to convince everyone I could approach the family curse at a leisurely pace, it was a lie—a lie everyone ignored because no one wanted to deal with the reality of my situation.
Christian had warned my father about testing his luck, but my father would lose his heir one way or another if something didn’t change soon.
“You’re going to receive a hard rejection if you ask her after she floors you, but she’ll remember you appreciated her efforts. It could also backfire. Why knows? Maybe it’ll work. But don’t hold your breath.”
“I won’t.”
“Good. Stretch your left leg more; you’re pulling your stride. You need it looked at after Evangeline tenderizes you on the mat.”
I obeyed despite the stretches bordering on being painful enough I wanted to crawl to my couch and give up for the rest of the day.
“As I thought. You’re really a mess, aren’t you?”
“There’s a legitimate reason I signed myself for torture sessions, Meredith. It’s not just because I’m interested in Eva.”
“I may have to reevaluate my training schedule if you’re still moving like a cripple in two weeks. I’d planned to have a tolerably healthy principal.”
“They don’t get to choose when I’m limping. Neither do I, really. It’s good practice for them. You’ll also be able to sift out the ones with too much of an ego. If they can’t deal with me when I’m out of shape and bruised to hell, they can’t deal with me when I’m healthy, either.”
“That’s an interesting way to look at it.”
I shrugged. “I may as well make the most out of my condition. It’s nothing new. I have these problems every year. In a few months, I’ll be all right.”
It had gotten a little harder each year to get back into shape, and I was prone to getting sicker and staying sicker for longer, but I’d try my best to keep my deteriorating health a private matter. The royal physicians weren’t concerned, and while I recognized there was something wrong, I couldn’t do much about it.
What they said went, and I could complain all day long without it changing anything. Ever since I’d turned fifteen, complaining about the yearly flu and general malaise earned me nothing but scoldings for whining.
It wasn’t worth making a fuss over, especially when I was already running out of time.
I’d be doing my father a favor if I abdicated; he’d be able to find a stable heir who had a few extra years before the family curse kicked in for good.
“And this is a yearly issue?”
“Indeed.” To appease Meredith, I did an extra full round of stretches. “I’m used to it. It’s everyone else who has a problem.”
“Have you seen the royal physicians about it?”
“Yes, of course. They know. They say there’s not much to be done about it. They deal with the myriad of viruses I bring home every summer. The bruising and soreness is my problem.”
“They’re being assholes because they can.” The anger in her voice made me pause, and I considered the situation.
Christian had found a perfect agent, and I didn’t get to keep her. Could my luck get any worse? I assumed so, and I assumed my family would have something to do with it.
“That, too. I inconvenience a lot of people. It’s not worth fighting.”
“It’s willful neglect.”
That someone finally understood would’ve made me a happy man in the winter before I’d shifted for my yearly stint as a white and silver turkey. “It’s okay, Meredith. I’m used to it. If I thought it was a serious issue, I’d recruit someone to help. I can take care of myself.”
“That’s unacceptable, Your Highness. You’re the heir. How can anyone expect you to fulfill your duties if you’re in a constant state of pain and illness? You’re moving like it hurts, and you’re moving in a way meant to hide that it hurts.”
Damn it. I’d have to be more careful around her in the future. “You’re definitely a more aggressive agent than I’m used to. I’m not sure what to tell you, Meredith. I’ve been dealing with this since I turned fifteen. It’s part of why I’ve threatened to abdicate. It gets worse every year. Add in the family curse, and I’m in a downward spiral. It’s best for the kingdom this way. I just need the excuse at this point.”
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