by Mara McQueen
They also wouldn't open—at least not for her.
"Oh, no, Your Grace," Rossen had stammered when she'd asked him if sneakers or hiking boots were better for a day out of the city.
The Capital was grand and lovely—though she'd never admit she liked it, especially not to her Syndicate cousins—but she was getting antsy. A week in and she was tired of the stares, pomp, and circumstance. She wanted to climb up a tree and just sit there for half an hour. There, she'd admitted it. She missed her forest back home. "You can't leave the city without being accompanied by the Prince. Not before the wedding. You're—you're not Brotherhood yet."
Wasn't that just peachy? The Prince she hadn't seen since that first day when she'd woken up here.
She didn't even know where here was. No matter how many times she asked where the Capital was located, people changed the subject. Were they afraid she'd order an airstrike?
But she pieced together bits and pieces. The air tasted salty—a coastal city? No, the warm breeze came from all sides. An island, then. The weather was always balmy, the afternoon rains hot and fast, and the plants were lush and winding. Somewhere near the tropics then.
And the food. Good Lord, the fantastic food. Back home, she'd eaten trout maybe five times in her life. Here, she got a plethora of fish and seafood every day. She'd had shrimp for the first time in her life and she'd loooved it.
She loved everything Rossen filled her table with. In her twenty-four years, she'd gone to bed hungry more times than she could count. So she ate her way through every single dish she didn't recognize; she even got sick the first few dinners and had to pretend she hadn't been a damn glutton—Yeah, I get these super intense headaches? Awful, just awful.
What she didn't love was Rossen not letting her help him clear the table after. Or the constant gifts she was receiving.
Vases, flowers, sweets, drawings.
"It's tradition," Rossen said as they were stacking everything in neat little piles. "You're a newcomer, they want you to feel welcome."
How very not-Brotherhood of everyone. This was the menacing Clan she's had to fear all her life? Were they planning on literally killing her with kindness?
She'd be a hypocrite and stupid not to like everything she'd received or complain about it. But complain she did. To herself. After a lifetime of wanting, it felt weird to have. So much. From strangers.
Everything had been sent anonymously, so Ava had no chance of sending a cute thank-you note, either. She'd have to come up with a plan. She always paid back kindness.
Only one gift had been signed. Her favorite so far, a book on the basics of the Brotherhood.
Delve into the madness before it sneaks up on you
Kimbra
Kimbra had elegant handwriting. Great tastes in presents, too. The woman really was perfect.
But the grandest gift of all had come from the Prince himself...and Ava wasn't sure she was all that thrilled with it.
"It's...huge," she managed to get out, staring dumbfounded at the building surrounding them and at the line of people carrying her new things in.
Raiden had appeared in front of the small, very normal house she'd been staying in just as Ava got ready to explore the Capital some more. She should've known something was up from the moment the guards hadn't shown up to escort her.
Raiden had looked, as always, amazing. The universe had done everyone a favor with his body. And that gorgeous face. And those eyes.
He had his long hair tied today, but he'd dressed in a black suit again, which drew in all the light. Or maybe it was Raiden himself—he was just that magnetic that not even the Sun could stop itself.
"A fan of black, I see," Ava had said to hear something, anything. Raiden liked to watch, she liked to talk.
"Someone in the royal family has to be." His gaze roamed over her red dress, sending goosebumps all over her flesh. "Do you want to trade?"
There it was again, that unrestrained smile of his. The one that made Ava think there might be some soul beneath that icy efficiency. One she could touch. One that wanted to reach out to hers.
It was easy to let her guard down around him when he was like this. After all the hurt in the past year, all Ava wanted was someone she could just be herself around.
"And deny you the pleasure of constantly looking like you're on your way to a funeral? I wouldn't dare." With her pale skin, the constant black would make her look like a ghost. And he looked so good in black, why tempt fate? Though red would fit him just fine, too. Anything would. "What's up?"
"I want to show you something," he'd said and turned as some guards marched their way.
Ava had rolled her eyes. How could someone be so fun and enticing one minute, then make her want to strangle him in the next?
"Why, yes, I will like to come with you. Thank you for asking."
"I've asked you once. Learned my lesson," he said, without any explanation.
This hot and cold thing needed to stop. It was as if Raiden caught himself relaxing around her, then overcorrected with detachment. What in the world was going on through his head?
Did he not want her here? Something very similar to disappointment stabbed at her heart. But she wasn't over the moon about being here either, was she? At least they'd be miserable together. No cheating, right?
Ava had never planned on some grand love of her life. She'd given up on dreaming for the impossible right around the winter she'd had to endure in some beat-up sneakers which she'd outgrown a year before.
But Raiden could at least make an effort to like her. She liked him. Kind of. Maybe more. Whatever.
As they rounded a corner, a never-ending stream of guards marched past them. Their helmets were all black and they had great big guns strapped to their backs.
"You want everyone to know you have enough weapons to take over a small country?" Ava asked. Show-offs.
"Yes, they do. These are the advisors' guards."
Now that was a Clan title she'd never heard of. "Who?"
"In the Syndicate, you'd call them consigliere. Second only to the royal family. They're in charge of protecting the city," Raiden said, not sounding the least bit happy about it.
"And here I was, thinking you're in charge of everything."
"Not yet. Still have to take the crown from my father," he said, watching her from the corner of his eye. "Even after that, Banu and Dima would still have their small army. In case we royals go insane and start destroying the Clan. We love our extreme safety measures."
Huh. If they were so set on safety…"You don't even have cars."
He grinned. "We do. Underground, where they belong. We also love our clean air and quiet. The Capital was built as a refuge from the outside world. A safe haven for any Brother or Sister who wants it."
It felt like one. After all the death and gore outside these gates, no wonder the Clan members wanted a little peace.
“It's still the head of the beast,” Ava said. The Capital might’ve seemed nice, but it was the birthplace of heinous strategies. “Might look like a paradise, but it's the Brotherhood headquarters.”
Raiden shrugged. “Someone has to stop the rest of humanity from making mistakes. Why not us?”
They walked, keeping a polite distance between them. Past the houses, past the gardens, past the palace's walls, right in front of a massive building with too many grand columns.
Ava would have kept on walking right past it if Raiden's arm hadn't jutted out to stop her.
He tsked. "So eager to get away?"
Honestly? Ava wished she was, instead of being tempted to lean into his touch.
He'd mercifully touched her sleeve, or the tips of her ears would've gone the same shade of crimson red she was wearing, but it still sent shivers down her spine.
Even after entering the building, seeing its interior courtyard and high walls—decorated in those Brotherhood lines Ava loved so much—her mind still couldn't wrap around the idea that she would be living here from now on.
/> She’d lost everything before twice. She wasn’t taking anything for granted now.
"It's huge and it's safe," Raiden said, watching her whirl around on the spot with her mouth open. The house had a fountain. And a balcony—two of them! "And it's yours."
"Wait." She turned to him abruptly. "You're not going to live here?"
A corner of his lips ticked up. "Eager to share a bed?"
"Stop making me blush."
Raiden laughed. "I'll be moving in. After the wedding."
Ava's brows shot up. "Let me get this straight. You can go out and swing your sword at everybody, but you can't sleep in the same house as your fiancée? Your scandal meter's kind of skewed."
"I can do anything," he said simply. "But I think you need to get accustomed to your new home before you get accustomed to me."
Oh, there was no stopping the blush now. Ava turned to hide it, but from the way his smile widened knowingly, he must've already noticed.
He came to stand behind her, so close his breath whispered against the crown of her head. "Do you like it?"
She loved it. She didn't love it for her. The house looked beautiful, but she could already hear the echo of her steps along its walls. She wasn't used to having space.
It was too much. All of it. Ever since she'd arrived in the Capital. The more they treated her like someone important, the more she worried. What if they found out these expectations kept her up at night? "It's...it's...it's so fucking big," she said lamely.
Raiden laughed, for real this time. With his head thrown back, throat exposed, and everything. “Axton was right. You Syndicate First Family do not have a filter.”
She'd get one. Eventually. If she really had to. Becoming the Brotherhood Crown Princess seemed like the kind of job where she needed that.
"But thank you," she said earnestly, looking up at him. She wasn't a spoiled brat. She appreciated having an entire house all to herself—at least for another two weeks. The wedding clock was ticking. She got a quick little smile from him in return.
"And I have a large family," she went on. "Plenty of rooms they can fight over when they visit."
Ava couldn't wait to see her cousins again. A few jokes here, a childhood story there, and her feet would be back on the ground in no time.
"Your cousins can't visit," Raiden said. "At least not yet."
"They're not coming to the wedding?" After her last one, when they'd lost their uncle and had to run for their lives, who could blame them? But Ava needed them there. She was all alone among strangers. "Did—did they say they don't want to—"
"No." He raised his hands, looking on the verge of grasping her shoulders, but fisted them back at his side. "They've been screaming they want to for a week, but this is the Capital. No strangers allowed until they prove we can trust them. Especially no Syndicate strangers."
"I'm a stranger. I'm Syndicate." Though her heart had never beaten blue and silver, the Syndicate colors. She hadn’t even had her initiation ceremony.
"You're an exception." He was doing that thing again. Watching her every reaction, as if waiting to uncover some deep, dark secret. He was going to be disappointed—Ava didn't have any. "But you'll see them soon. I promise."
"I'm going to hold you to that."
"You and—" He unbuttoned his jacket and took out a leather dossier which looked like it had seen more summers than Ava. "—the marriage contract."
The clauses were as basic as Raiden had said. No cheating, no trying to destroy the other’s Clan, no killing each other. Underworld basics.
“The Syndicate member and the Brotherhood member agree to share a meal at least once a week, to facilitate understanding, wellbeing, and trust between the Clans. Really?” How uncharacteristically romantic of the Underworld.
“To make sure we don’t forget how the other looks.”
She huffed a laugh. “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”
She didn’t know if it was a blessing or a curse, but she wasn’t going to forget Raiden’s face. Ever. But it didn't bode well for them if he thought she was so forgettable.
Ava sucked in a breath as she turned the pages and saw her parents' signatures. She touched the old ink gently. Tears stung the corners of her eyes. They'd been so young when they'd signed this. Almost as young as Ava.
What had they been thinking when they'd written their names down? The signatures didn't look shaky, like someone had been forcing their hands. What had happened in those first six years of her life to make them change their minds?
Did it matter? Almost two decades of sacrifices and Ava had still ended up in the Capital.
Those years hadn't been worth it. Her parents losing their lives hadn't been worth it.
Ava could wallow in misery for the rest of her days—or use them to make a change. A real one, even if she had to go against the entire Underworld to accomplish it.
Raiden had already signed the contract, with crisp, jagged lines; a signature fit for the Prince they called The Dragon.
There was only one blank spot on the page. For her name.
Her gaze lingered on the building trying to dwarf her. Then she looked up at Raiden. The man who'd haunted her past before they'd even met. The one who was about to become her future. The hazy, unknown future which terrified Ava.
She'd been shielded all her life—now she could actually do something with it, with Raiden by her side.
She had to trust she'd be able to survive this new role. She had to trust he'd help her through it.
"Do you have a pen?"
Chapter Eight
AVA
Ava loved one thing about her new house—the thick beams webbing under the ceiling. Sturdy and easy to climb.
She'd found the perfect little nook high above her foyer, right next to the oval stained window.
No more trees? Ava improvised.
She had a thick Brotherhood book in her lap, trying to cram as much information as she could. The Capital was, indeed, an island and it had a main city and some small coastal towns. It also moved. From Europe to Asia, every four generations or in case of a cataclysm.
The royal family also changed, just as frequently. Raiden was the third generation, which meant that if they had kids—and Ava was in no rush—they'd be heirs to the throne, but their grandkids would be spared. Major win—smaller targets on their backs and Ava would have time to spoil them rotten.
She'd been so absorbed in the book that she didn't hear her visitor until it was too late.
"I swear, Her Grace was right here half an hour ago," Rossen said, obviously flustered. "I'll find her, Your Highness, I promise."
Ava peeked down. Raiden placed a long, heavy wooden box onto the table, eyes scanning the room with that cold, calculated gaze of his. His captivating presence filled up the entire space.
Great. Now everyone would know the country bumpkin liked to climb in her own home.
Ava sighed softly.
Raiden's gaze slashed up. Hearing like a bat, this one.
"Please get the tea," he said. As soon as Rossen left, he called to Ava, "You can stop searching, the house isn't bugged."
Ava rolled her eyes. Of all the ridiculous reasons—"I wasn't looking for microphones and cameras."
"Then what are you doing up there? Hiding?"
"Think I've had enough of that for one lifetime." She locked her knees around a beam and flipped over, until she was upside down, long hair cascading down. "Catch."
She threw the book at Raiden. He caught it one-handed an inch away from his face. Didn't even blink. Ava would give anything to have his reflexes.
But she did alright for herself. She untangled and flung back to the floor. She was decent at climbing, even better at jumping back down.
Raiden looked at the book. Then at her. Then back at the book, brows furrowing.
"You went up there to read?" He was staring at her like she was some weird creature he'd never seen or heard of before.
"To read undistu
rbed." She tucked her hair over her ears; with him around, she was bound to blush.
They sat down at the table at the same time. As soon as he set the book down, the door burst open again, a line of servants filling in.
They placed a steaming pot and teacups in front of them, along with a rainbow of colored dishes filled with small snacks, biscuits, fruits, and so many treats Ava couldn't name.
Delicious.
The servants filtered out just as fast and efficiently, leaving the two of them alone with this weird tension clinging between them.
If they didn't start talking soon, Ava was going to fidget. She picked up a purple squishy square to keep her fingers busy and popped it into her mouth. It burst with a delicious sweet liquid.
"This is amazing." She moaned. "You need to try it."
"I have," was all he said and kept on looking.
He was doing that a lot around her. It felt like he was trying to uncover her layer by layer. Like she was a puzzle he couldn't quite crack. Ava felt the same way about him, but she wasn't gawking, was she?
His gaze saw too much and gave nothing away.
Ava cleared her throat and peeked at the box. It was oval, carved out of dark-red wood. It looked old, from the Brotherhood symbol on the lid, to the golden hinges in the back.
"This doesn't have candy inside, does it?" she said, because they were alone and he was staring and she was so aware of him.
How he smelled so tempting. How close he was. How he sat in that chair like it was a throne. How he filled a cup with tea and gave it to her instead of keeping it for himself.
"Open it," he said, pouring himself a cup, too.
She did, as gently as this old wood demanded. Inside, she found a velvet lining and five metallic ovals, each with an animal symbol on it.
"Decorations for the foyer?" she asked with a smile.
"As future Crown Princess, you have to pick your own symbol. Choose wisely."
Her very own symbol. Such a small decision, which could haunt her for life.
"I'm guessing yours is a dragon."
Raiden nodded.
Ava traced each metal symbol.