The Forsaken Royal: A Reverse Harem Urban Fantasy (Annabelle's Harem Book 2)

by Anna Hill

  Lio scoffed. “Hardly. I’m pretty sure there are many affairs happening back in Elderan as we speak.”

  I thought back to my slimy troll boss who used to leave me in charge while he went to the brothels as his wife waited for him at home. “Okay, yeah… sure. People definitely cheat. But they keep up the illusion of monogamy. They put it on a pedestal, like it’s the only way to be.”

  “And you don’t think there’s a reason for that?”

  Actually, no, I hadn’t. I couldn’t come up with a possible reason for it. “What?”

  “Annabelle, come on. That was just another way that the humans could destroy witch culture. When royal witches had harems, it made it okay for everyone to love who they desired as long as all parties were happy. And humans were highly against this because they’ve always been monogamous, even as other species were not. Though, for humans, I think it’s mostly about control. They can’t stand the thought of losing control of their partner, of having to share them. As I’ve said, they’re greedy. And they forced that possessiveness and greed across all of Elderan. But among us shifters, among those of us who have done everything we could to retain our culture, it certainly doesn’t exist.”

  I crawled onto the bed, and once I was lying down next him, he instinctively wrapped one arm underneath me and the other on top of my torso.

  “You guys just make me feel so… at home. Like with you guys, everything is right.”

  “And that’s exactly why we don’t feel that jealousy. All we want is for you to feel whole and complete, Annabelle. That is your right. I’m only here to give you everything I can. But I know that everything may not be enough. You may need to find other things from other people. And I’m more than fine with that.” He pushed the hair out of my eyes.

  “How could I be so lucky?” I asked.

  He burst out laughing. “Are you kidding, Annabelle? I think it’s safe to say your life has been anything but lucky.”

  I had to laugh at that too. “Yeah, you’re right. It hasn’t even been a full twenty-four hours since I escaped from being captured by my ex and the corrupt king of my country so… Not quite lucky. But isn’t it funny how when you have the right people around you, everything else seems to fade away?” I nuzzled my head into his chest.

  “That’s exactly how it needs to be. Why do you think we’re here? It’s to give you that feeling. So that you can go forward and do exactly what you need to. We're here to give you the strength to handle all the negativity that this life will throw at you.” He kissed my forehead.

  “Well, you guys are doing a good job.”

  “I hope so.”

  I drifted off to sleep, and I fell right into another dream with my mother. It was starting to feel like she was all I dreamt about lately. And I didn’t mind that one bit.

  We were at the same lake, and she had her feet in the water, facing away from me.

  “Mom, I did it!” I ran to her excitedly. “I got out of there! I escaped! And I wasn’t even rescued. Well, kind of… but I still mostly got myself out.”

  She turned around with that familiar soft smile. “I knew you would, dear.”

  I put my own feet into the dream-lake. It was warm, unlike a real lake would be.

  “The problem is, I have no idea what I’m going to do next,” I told her.

  She looked at me curiously. “How do you mean? Can’t you defeat Robert now that you’re free?”

  I so loved that my subconscious made my dream-mom aware of everything I was saying and what was going on in my life. It was comforting. It was like I was really talking to her.

  “I probably could defeat him in brute power, yes. But I can’t even find him. We have no idea where he might be hiding out at. You know, it’s not like he makes public appearances or anything.”

  “Well, it’s very simple, isn’t it?” she asked. “You have to use magic to root him out.”

  “I don’t think I have that kind of magic, Mom. I mean, that’s what Rhyion is searching for, but he hasn’t found a spell to do it yet. I certainly don’t have the power myself.”

  She shrugged. “If you can’t use your magic, use somebody else’s.”

  I laughed. “Trust me, I wish there was someone else I could use for magic. Why don’t you go ahead and come back to life and help me?”

  I hadn’t meant it to sound so heavy… but it did. And both our faces sunk at the thought.

  “I’m so sorry I had to leave you,” she said.

  “It's not your fault.”

  “But it is… I should have known.”

  “Should have known what?” I asked.

  Though there was no point in asking. That was probably just an echo of my own thoughts manifesting in my dreams. Hadn’t I told myself over and over again that I should’ve known? Should’ve realized Jacob was who he was?

  “Never mind. No point in rehashing the past.” She wrapped one arm around me and pulled me close.

  I leaned my head against her. “I learned that I’m in love… again, I guess. Not with just Lio… also Angelo.”

  She smiled. “I always thought you might be a harem girl. You always had so many crushes growing up, so many boys always flocked to you… I don’t know, mother’s intuition.”

  “So you don’t think it’s’ wrong, either?” I asked her.

  Even after her death, I was desperate for her approval.

  “Not at all! How could it be? We’ve been doing it for centuries. The very last witch before our reign fell had a harem, you know. Sometimes, one man cannot fit the needs of a powerful woman.”

  “But Dad fit yours,” I reminded her.

  “Yes. I think that was part of my destiny, to only love your father. Because of course, I could only love your father. I couldn’t have discreetly had a harem and survived as long as I did. Having only one soulmate was probably part of my fate because it was necessary for survival.”

  “He really made you happy though, right?” I asked.

  She kissed the top of my head. “Oh yes, and he still does.”

  I liked that thought. That my parents were still with each other, somewhere in the afterlife. Still madly in love, still making each other happy.

  “How come he never visits me?” I asked her.

  “He can’t, honey. You know he isn’t capable.”

  But I didn’t know that. It didn’t make a lot of sense to me. If my mind could come up with these vivid images of my mother after her death, why couldn’t it do the same thing for my father? I missed him just as much.

  I assumed it had something to do with the fact that I was so focused on my mother’s history as a witch. I was barely finding my identity, and she was my one tie to witchhood. That had to be why she was so prevalent in my subconscious. It was really a way to relate to myself.

  “Can you tell him that I miss him?” I asked.

  “Of course. And he misses you too. A million times over.”

  What I wouldn’t do to actually get to see them both.

  5

  Two months went by with no movement toward finding Robert.

  Rhyion and I spent every day reading old spell books, trying to find anything that might lead to Robert… but to no avail.

  While we read, Angelo and Lio took care of the rest of the village. It was hectic around here, and people were scared. They had to create new crops and harvest the food that was naturally on the island, they had to clean up these old cabins, a lot of people lost their belongings and some were grieving…

  I helped them as much as I could, too. I used a lot of my magic for the new crops as well as harvesting food in the interim. I made appearances, I gave my condolences and apologies, though nobody seemed to blame me.

  They all still loved me. We had that same mother-child bond that we always had before. They trusted me.

  And it only served to stress me out more because I felt like I was failing them.

  I read the last page in what was a six hundred page spell book and immediately threw it across th
e room.

  Rhyion looked at me shocked. “Are you… okay?”

  “No, of course not!” I told him in frustration. “I’m anything but okay! I can’t figure this out. And you’re way smarter than me, and you haven’t figured this out either.”

  “Annabelle, relax, please. We will figure it out."

  “How can you be so sure? Rhyion, we’re running out of books. And with all your vast knowledge of magic, you don’t know a single way to track down Robert. Doesn’t that tell you that maybe there is no way?"

  “Of course there's a way. With magic, there’s always a way. And I wouldn’t say I had no idea of a way. Of course in my mind, there are plenty of ways… just not any ways that we can use.”

  I looked at him skeptically. "What do you mean?"

  “I mean there is certainly magic that I know of that could do it. The real issue here is that all this old magic is very strictly bogged down by a lot of morals and ethics. Nobody wrote down spells they considered unethical, and a lot of what we’re doing would be considered that. And, of course, there’s black magic that could do it, but we have no access to that.”

  “Right, of course not.” I collapsed into a chair in the corner of the room.

  But there was this weird déjà vu I was experiencing. It was like an echo in my head, kind of like a dream… No, it was a dream. A dream I'd had months ago.

  My mother’s face came to me.

  “If you can’t use yours, use somebody else’s.”

  It was a silly little comment. The kind of comment that meant nothing. But in retrospect…

  Maybe there was someone else’s magic I could use.

  I immediately got up and went into the other room—the room that I slept in with Lio. I traded off now between his and Angelo’s rooms.

  Rhyion followed me in there. “Annabelle, I don’t understand. What are you doing?” He swept his long hair off his forehead as he asked.

  “I'm looking for something.” I opened the closet door.

  In it was a trunk of all my old stuff I had at Lio’s house. It was mostly clothes, my old purse, and maybe inside the purse…

  I pulled it out and dumped the contents onto the floor. My heart was pounding in my chest. Please be here… It could be the difference between defeating Robert and being stuck on this island for the rest of my days, killing myself to find a way to defeat him.

  As heavy things like old lipstick and loose change clunked to the floor, there was one thing that floated down slowly, like a feather… A thin piece of paper…

  A thin piece of paper that had the answer.

  “I don’t understand, Annabelle,” Rhyion continued. “Can you please explain?”

  I looked up at him. “Go get Lio and Angelo right now. You guys come meet me back in the living room.” I smiled. “I’ve figured it out.”

  Rhyion did what I said without further question. All the boys did that. Even Angelo, for all his snark and rebellion… if I told him to do something, he did it—even if he grumbled the entire time about it. At the end of the day, the boys always saw me as their queen, and they would do absolutely anything I asked of them at the drop of a hat.

  I collapsed onto the couch, unable to tear the smile off my face. After two very frustrating months, answers were finally in my grasp. I was that much closer to getting Elderan back into my hands.

  And I didn’t want it for reasons of power, truly. I had no fantasies about being queen, about everyone falling into my rule.

  I wanted to protect people. Every day, I thought of those back in Elderan living in poverty. People like my parents who struggled to make ends meet and feed their children. People who even died on streets… All so that King Robert and his ilk could live the high life in his castles, not responsible for the good of the people in any way.

  I wasn’t going to be like that. I’d work day and night to fix Elderan. I wouldn’t allow poverty. I wouldn’t allow starvation. I had no desire to live that same high life. I only wanted to protect those that needed it.

  The boys came back into the house about five minutes later, eagerness on their faces.

  “Sit down,” I told them, and they all gathered in chairs around me.

  “So, before I found out about who I was or who you guys were, I was obsessed with finding out who killed my parents. It was the only thing I focused on. Of course, now I know it was Robert who killed them. But before I knew my history, I planned to use black magic to find out what happened to them.” I held up the piece of paper. “My old coworker, Nessa, gave me this. It was the address to a woman she knew who could answer my questions. Whatever questions I had. I may no longer want to know who killed my parents… But I have a lot of other questions.”

  “Wait,” Angelo began. “You want to go back into Elderan? To find this woman who may or may not be able to help us? You don’t even know if she can do what she claims. It may just be a way to swindle people out of their money.”

  “Maybe, but there’s no harm in trying,” I told him.

  He furrowed his brow. “That’s not true at all. There is a lot of harm in trying. We’re protected on this island thanks to your spell, but if you go back into Elderan, you’re going straight back into danger.”

  “I agree,” Lio piped up. “It’s too risky. We’ll find another way.”

  I looked back and forth at both of them. “What risk do you think there is? I’m far more powerful than Robert. I could take him on. We already know I can, that’s kind of the point.”

  “Actually, we don’t,” Rhyion said. “The only thing we conclusively know is that when you tore your necklace off, Robert and his people fled. But we don’t know why they fled. Even if they did fear you were too strong to control, that doesn’t mean it’s true. You’ve never fought him, and we’ve never seen him fight. Who knows what kind of magic he has and what he’s capable of. Just the fact that he left is not enough information to tell us whether or not you could win against him right now.”

  I looked around the room at all three of them. This was not the reaction I was expecting at all! I thought they’d be joyous that I’d even found the possibility of an answer.

  “You guys, I know you fear for my safety. I know you’re all very protective of me. But I have to do this. We’ve been researching for months with no answers. I’m not going to continue to sit here and stay on this safe island just because it’s less risky. What kind of queen am I if I won’t go out and fight for the info we need?”

  “But there’s other ways to fight,” Lio said.

  “I’m not so sure that’s true,” I told him, “and this isn’t up to you guys. I appreciate your advice and your concern, but I am doing this. Nothing is going to stop me. I want to destroy Robert at all costs.”

  “How do we even know you’re ready to destroy him, like Rhyion said?” Angelo asked.

  “Well, I guess that’s a question we’ll have an answer to after using black magic, huh? We can get many questions answered… like if I can beat Robert, where he’s hiding, what we need in order to destroy him… None of you shifters have any of the ingredients required to use this kind of magic. So we need to go to someone who does, and we need to do it soon.”

  Lio took my hand in his, looking up at me with a worried expression. “Annabelle, please. Consider that there’s another alternative.”

  I jerked my hand back from him. “There’s not. And do not try to guilt me into staying.” I looked at Rhyion and Angelo too. “None of you. I’ve made my choice. I’m doing this. So I suggest you get behind me now.”

  Lio looked to the ground, clearly very upset but knowing better than to continue arguing with me. Rhyion and Angelo looked at one another, flashing a glance that said both of them disagreed.

  But they couldn’t stop me. They knew that.

  Angelo spoke up. “I’ll go with you, of course.”

  Now Lio jerked his head back up and jumped to his feet. “I’ll go, too.”

  Rhyion spoke up. “Lio, we’ve discussed this. You canno
t go for the same reason you could not go to rescue Annabelle. You and I are not marked. We are not known as companions to Annabelle, not yet.”

  I could see frustration cross Lio’s face as he pushed his red hair back from his eyes. “So what? We’ll be known one day. Why shouldn’t we be known now? If Robert finds out, so what?”

  “You know so what!” Rhyion answered, frustrated. “We may be discovered one day, but until then, we need to value that secrecy. It may come in handy. And we all need to do our best to stay alive because in the effort to take back Elderan, Annabelle needs all of us. We cannot just go ignoring the rules that we set forth to keep the entire group safe. And Angelo is more than capable of helping to protect Annabelle. Hell, she is more than capable of protecting herself. She doesn't need any of us.”

  “I will constantly be with her, Lio,” Angelo said, attempting to reassure him. “You know I would never let anything happen to her. I would die first.”

  It was meant to put Lio at ease, but it only irritated him more. He trusted Angelo, I knew he did. And he should. Angelo had already proven he’d sooner die for me than let harm befall me.

  But still, his frustration was clear and palpable. He wanted to be there himself. He didn’t want to leave my side.

  And I couldn’t blame him. I didn’t want to leave him, either. Over the past two months, I had gotten incredibly close to both Lio and Angelo. I mean, I thought we were close before, but things were different now. I was no longer beholden to be respectful to Jacob, and I could throw my entire self into my relationships with them.

  And I had. I was always with either Lio or Angelo. I traded off nights sleeping in their beds… though I hadn’t really had any intimate time with either of them since the first time Lio and I had sex. It was just too much to focus on pleasure while I was constantly frustrated that I had no answers about Robert. The boys seemed to understand.

  Still, I accepted that sometimes separation would be necessary in our journey. Apparently, Lio had not.