by Nora Flite
“To where, and why?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.
The young man gave me a conspiratorial look, his voice dropping low. “Please, Your Majesty. It’s about the queen.”
My headache vanished, replaced by my abrupt terror. “What’s wrong with Nova?”
“I can’t say here. Follow me, we’ll go quickly.” His furtive behavior clinched it for me; Nova was pregnant, and this guard couldn’t say it out loud in case someone else heard and confirmed the rumor. He was taking me to her.
When I nodded, he spun so fast that his short cape swirled. On the back of it was the red-and-black crown that matched the one inked into my own skin. I followed the guard down the hall, and when we reached a passage that split off, he turned down it. I was relieved he walked so quickly. My anxiety demanded I nearly jog—I’d have sprinted if it would give me answers faster. Instead I trailed behind the young man, obsessively checking my phone again, like Nova might respond to my text now that I knew something was wrong.
A short set of stairs led us deeper into the castle. I hadn’t been this way before. A cold tingle rocked up my spine when I spotted three more fully dressed guards standing along a wall. They looked at me, their frowns obvious.
“Where is this?” I asked, staring at the low ceiling, the bare walls. This part of the castle was much less adorned than the rest.
The guard stopped in front of a door, moving aside, waving me through. “This,” he said as I passed, letting me see inside the room for the first time, “is the royal family’s personal holding area.”
The small room held a flat bed in one corner, a rusted chamber pot in the other, and literally nothing else. I knew what this was: a prison.
“Hey there, Funny Man.”
Whirling, I spotted Larchmont where he stood just behind the door. Another figure blocked the light from the hallway as he sealed off the only exit: Richard Valentine. “What the hell is this?” I asked, backing up.
The guard who’d led me here said nothing. He shut the door, a metallic click echoing through the room.
We three were locked inside.
Larchmont smiled, swinging a long leg forward until he was shoulder to shoulder with his brother. The room felt smaller with them looming in front of me. “Relax,” he chuckled. “You’re acting like we’re going to kill you.”
“How do I know you aren’t?” I asked. Fuck fuck fuck. I didn’t have a weapon—could I call for help?
“Huh. I guess you’re right.” Shrugging, he flipped his hands palms up. His grin turned my stomach. “There’s no way to know what we’ll do to you.”
I flicked my attention to Richard, then to the speck of light beneath the door.
“No,” Larch said, reading my mind. “The guards won’t step in to assist you. I gave them some cash to turn their heads. It took less than I thought, once they learned what you’d done.”
Breathe. Think. You can get out of this. “I’ve done a lot of things that could make people turn away while I got a kick or two to the ribs. What exactly are you referring to?”
Richard slid a hand into his jeans pocket. I tensed up, fight or flight making me hyperaware. I expected him to reveal a weapon; he offered me a shiny photo instead. My relief didn’t last long once I saw what this was.
The photograph had been taken from the street just outside the church’s cemetery. It was mildly out of focus, but not so much that I couldn’t recognize my own face. Whoever had taken this had captured me as I screwed Nova from behind.
Stunned, I looked at Larchmont’s smug smile. “Thanks for the memento, I guess. But why would anyone care about this?” I asked.
“It’s a picture of our wonderful new king getting his rocks off with a prostitute in the sacred royal cemetery where his uncle had just been buried.” He tapped his chin. “Yeah, why would anyone in this monarchy care about that? What a damn mystery.”
Blood started to pump through me at max capacity. Prostitute? I looked at the photo again. From that angle, you couldn’t tell the auburn-haired woman was Nova.
“I was trailing you that night,” he said. “I saw you go to the red-light district. You threw me a curveball when you left and ended up at that old-ass ship, but when I spotted you again in the cemetery, I realized you must have asked that hooker to meet you there to throw me off your scent.”
My head was spinning. I heard something crackle; I was squeezing the photo so hard it had started to crease in two. “You took this photo, then hung on to it for weeks?” I asked in disbelief.
“Well. What good is ruining someone before you have everything you need from them?” He took a single step, bringing him chest to chest. “The real task was finding that woman you spoke to. When I told her that all she had to do was confirm what she’d done with the king, and we’d pay her handsomely and press no charges, she sang loud and pretty. Ten years is a long time to spend locked up. Can’t blame her for helping us out.”
That woman I spoke to by the club . . . she lied for some money? Fear, too. She probably thought it didn’t matter if it wasn’t her in the picture, who’d believe her?
With my eyes straining, I stared him in the face. Nova’s words entered my brain hard enough to make my skull ache. She warned me that what we were doing was illegal. I’d sworn I didn’t care. And at the time I hadn’t. I’d felt invincible.
Now I was paying for it.
But they don’t know that the woman who was with me was Nova. “Ten years,” I said, watching him closely. He was still wearing his sick-ass grin. “You’re saying I’ll have to serve a sentence that long? In here?”
“Not in here.” He waved around at the room. “This is just where you’ll stay until you’re formally charged. Then, when you’re stripped of your crown, you’ll rot for ten years in the Maurine prison. Of course, it’ll take around a year of back-and-forth to make your fall from grace official. By then . . . we won’t need you around.” He winked. “We’ll have someone else who can sit on the throne. Someone easier to control.”
Something whiplike bloomed up in me. It was too big, too hot, ready to burst out of my body. I knew, knew what he was implying, but I had to hear it from his smirking lips. Distantly I heard myself ask, “Who?”
Larchmont’s mouth opened wide as he laughed. I saw down to the back of his throat. “Didn’t you hear? Nova’s pregnant.”
His confirmation was like a tornado to my guts.
“All we needed from you was your genetics, Funny Man. I didn’t think this would happen so fast. I thought I’d have to hang on to these photos for months, if I’d known my little sister was such a slut, I could’ve—”
Thrusting forward, with just inches to prepare, I grabbed him by the throat and slammed him into the wall. Then I spun, throwing him into the bed chained to the other side. Richard shouted—I ignored him, my thumbs pressing into Larch’s windpipe. “Don’t you ever call her that!” I roared. “You piece of garbage! Fuck you, how can you, her own brother, be so cruel?”
I whipped my elbow back. Larch flinched, knowing I was about to hit him with all the rage that had coiled in my tendons. Before I could sock him in the mouth, a steel grip closed on my forearm. Richard yanked me back, hooking his arms around mine, restraining me with my spine against his massive chest. Fuck, he was big enough that my toes barely brushed the floor.
Straightening up slowly, Larch rubbed at his neck. It was red where I’d been choking him. His eyes were the same shade as Nova’s, but they were nothing like his kind sister’s. He trailed a glance at the door. I followed, noting what he was confirming: that no one had come to check out the noise. The guards outside really wouldn’t step in to stop them.
No one was going to help me.
“This,” Larch said, stretching his arms, swinging them lazily as he warmed himself up, “is something I’ve been itching to do for way too long.” He looked past my ear to his brother. “Hold him steady.”
Richard dug in harder—I expected my shoulders to pop from their sockets. “Read
y,” he grunted.
The first punch skated off my cheekbone. Crimson splotches swam in my vision, my head twisting to the side. It was a solid hit. So was the second, then the third. My world became a mushy ball of pain, everything in my skull weighted down by a sensation of saturated cotton stuffed inside the creases of my brain.
After every punch, I lifted my eyes so I could watch him.
Larchmont shook his hand, flexing his fingers. “What,” he asked, breathing hard, “not going to beg me to stop?”
A tiny laugh bubbled from my bloody lips. I grinned, even though it sent jagged pain through my face. “Nah. You look like you could use the workout.”
His scowl contorted his angular features, made him more animal than human. “How the hell are you so cocky?”
It took all the effort I had to swing my head up higher. My hair stuck to my forehead, my neck struggling to keep me stable enough to smile serenely at the man who’d done all he could to break me down. “I guess . . . I was just born this way. Something in my blood.”
That did it. His eyes flew wide, his knuckles connecting with my jaw. “Fuck you!” he growled, spittle flying on me and his brother both. Richard struggled to hold me still, not because I was fighting, but because Larch was hitting me so violently.
A solid knee to my guts made me cough. Blood spattered on the floor, some of it onto Larch’s shirt. He scowled, stepping back, eyeing the red stains with disgust. “I’ll need to clean up before anyone sees me. Great.”
Richard adjusted his grip under my armpits. “I think we should stop.”
“Don’t you want a turn?” his brother asked coolly.
I was broken on the outside. I still managed to skip my glare upward, through my sweat-stained hair, to survey Larchmont. All I tasted was my own blood as I gave a shaky smile. “Yeah, let him go for it. You look tired. Catch your breath, Larch.”
He grabbed me by my hair, wrenching my head back. “I wish I could fucking kill you. It would feel so good to be the one to end your waste of a life.”
“Larch,” Richard said, and I sensed hesitation from the man holding me. “That’s enough. Think about Nova.”
“I am thinking about her!” Larchmont snarled, releasing me. “She’d want us to get revenge for how he humiliated her in front of the whole world.”
His words gave me enough strength to lift my head and glare at him. “She would never want that.”
“Don’t kid yourself. Nova was always one of us.” He straightened his cuffs. “Put him down. Get his phone.”
Richard dropped me to the concrete. It didn’t even hurt, not compared to everything else. It was actually nice to lie down. I was so damn tired. I felt him search my pockets, taking my phone.
The door creaked open. I could see the light shining inside from the hall, their shadows as the two of them walked over the threshold. Larchmont paused, his heels holding still in the doorway.
He watched me closely. “Remember what I said. Don’t waste an iota of energy worrying about her. I’m telling you this for your own good, it’s my one act of kindness. Never say I did nothing for you, Funny Man.” Grabbing the door, he shut it behind him.
I was alone.
- CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN -
NOVA
My phone buzzed. Looking at it, I read Thorne’s message. Hey, how are you feeling today? Better?
My thumb skimmed over the keyboard. “Don’t,” Mom said. She fixed me with an intense look. “It’s best not to speak to anyone yet.”
“But it’s Thorne,” I said, showing her the screen. “My husband. The king.”
“Even more reason to stay silent.”
“I don’t understand. I cleaned up, I ate some food, I feel fine. I don’t want to sit in bed all day, I want to see Thorne.” I need to tell him what we’ve done. I cupped my stomach and my mother watched me.
Darla kept typing into her phone as she sat in the corner of my room. “Who are you talking to?” I asked.
She looked up at me, her face going pale. Then she shifted, showing me her back. “Nobody. Why don’t you worry about your own stuff, you’ve got a lot going on right now.”
Frowning, I turned toward my mother. “Can I please just get up and walk around a bit?”
Darla shot me a look and said, “I think Mom’s right. You should stay in bed. You know, for your health and all. And the baby.”
She didn’t sound sincere to my ears. My mom sighed, coming to sit beside me on the bed. “Nova, if you really, really want to walk around, you can. But think about this. Everyone in this city saw the newspapers this morning. It’s only been a few hours, do you really think it’s good for you to go on a stroll while everybody stares at you, wondering if the rumors are true? We need to keep this on the down low until we know how to present the news to everyone. You’re not the greatest liar, I’m afraid if some servant girl looks at you the wrong way you’ll spill the beans.”
Twisting my fingers in my blankets, I glanced out the window. “I’ll stay here until the evening, but after that I’m getting up and meeting with Thorne.” I checked my phone again, wondering if I should reply to his messages, even if my mother had told me no.
“This evening will be fine,” my mom said, giving me a benevolent smile. “Maybe you should try to get some sleep until then.” She got up and closed the curtains, darkening the room before I could respond. “You had a rough night from all this nausea, I’ll bring you some soda water to help your stomach. Close your eyes and get some rest. You and the new baby both need it.”
“I’ll come with you,” Darla said, hopping up onto her pink heels. Both of them shot me one more quick look, then they exited into the hall. Puffing air through my tight lips in frustration, I flopped back on the pillows and shut my eyes. I was a little tired, a nap wouldn’t hurt.
Shifting onto my side, I laid my cheek on the silky pillow. Later, I thought to myself, tucking my phone to my side protectively, I’ll tell Thorne the news in person. Thinking of how he would react, imagining the delight and excitement in his wide eyes and wider smile, I drifted off to sleep.
When I woke up later, no one was in the room with me.
On my bedside table I found a bottle of soda water and some slices of fresh bread. Stretching, I went over to the window to move the curtains and bring more light into my dark room. The sight of the setting sun made my breath catch. How did it get so late?
I went to the bathroom to clean up a bit and straighten my hair. I wasn’t feeling sick anymore; on the way back by the bed, I grabbed a piece of bread and took a bite. Gripping my phone, I checked for new messages from Thorne, but didn’t find any.
I imagined that he’d probably come by my room, and someone—either my sister or mother—had told him that I was resting and that he should leave me alone. Why else hadn’t I heard from him?
Looking around, as if there was someone in the room with me who’d interfere, I sat back down on the mattress. My mother had told me not to message Thorne about the pregnancy, but I wanted to let him know that I was awake now. I wanted to see him. I was ready to give him the news in person.
Me: Hey there. I know I should say good evening, but it still feels like good afternoon to me. Did you have dinner already?
Holding my phone, I watched the screen eagerly. I sat like that for five minutes, and when no replies came, I frowned. Looking over at my door, I made a quick decision. I changed into some clothes that were not rumpled from sleep, slid on some comfortable flats, then opened my door to the hallway. There was a guard standing outside. He perked up at the sight of me. “Your Highness,” he said, bowing his head. “Your parents asked me to stay here in case you woke up and to make sure that nobody bothered you.”
Curiosity pricked at my veins. “Did anyone try to?”
“No, Your Highness.”
Dejected, I asked, “Did my parents mention why I needed to rest?”
He cast a shifty look to the floor. I was sure he’d heard the rumors, the whole castle must have
by now. “They just said that you were a bit ill.”
“Well, I’m feeling better now. So I think I’ll go find some dinner.”
His face went ruby red. “Your Highness,” he sputtered, “they insisted I not let you go wandering off. Why don’t you go back into your room and I’ll have dinner brought up to you?”
“I’m quite capable of going to find something on my own, thank you.” I walked down the hallway and the guard followed me, still speaking.
“Really, Your Highness, please. I don’t want to get into any trouble.”
“I’m the queen, I say you’re free from your post.”
That made him stumble. I wondered if everyone had forgotten that I was the one who’d married Thorne. I was in charge, not my parents. Their commanding presence and my passivity in the castle affairs had made me look weak. I’d been so busy enjoying my time getting to know Thorne, I hadn’t noticed until now.
Thinking of him again, I hurried down the hallway toward the main foyer. When I started past the kitchen, on my way to the west wing, the guard jogged to my side. “I thought you were getting something to eat?”
“Yes,” I said with a scowl. “But I want to eat with the king. I’m going to his room to get him.”
“He isn’t in his room.”
“Then where is he?” I asked, slowing down to stand next to the staircase. There were multiple servants bustling around, the castle full of movement in the early evening.
The guard rocked from to side to side. “I’m not entirely sure. I believe he went off to do something with his father.”
That struck me as strange. Just then my stomach rumbled. I clutched it. “All right. If he isn’t in his room then I guess I’ll get some food and wait until he returns.” The guard slumped, as if he was relieved. “But please stop following me. I don’t need a chaperone in my own castle.”
With some chagrin the guard remained there in the foyer as I walked into the kitchens. Three young women and two older ones were busy at the stoves, cooking whatever was going to be for dinner. They looked up when they saw me, and just like with the guard, I sensed an unspoken suspicion in their nervous smiles. I had the idea they’d been talking about me before I’d even entered the room. “Your Highness,” said a young girl with red braids. “What can we get for you?”