by Lola Gabriel
3
Sebastian had known that the princess wouldn’t react positively to his presence. Not that she had reacted as negatively as he had thought she would, but things could have definitely gone smoother than they had. He couldn’t believe he had gotten so careless, allowing the princess to actually notice he was watching her.
“Hello, sweetie!”
Sebastian snapped out of his thoughts at the sound of the king’s voice. The princess had video-called him on her computer when they were back in her room, and Sebastian politely turned away from it to give the princess as much privacy as he could, given that he couldn’t very well just leave her alone.
“Hey, Dad,” the princess said. Her tone made Sebastian bite back a smile. He remembered it from when they were younger, when he and the princess had spent much more time together. It was a tone he had come to know as ‘we’re getting down to business, and nothing short of physical force is going to stop me.’ Even though this was partly Sebastian’s fault, he couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for the king. He was on the wrong end of an angry Princess Kaia.
“How has EMU been treating you?” the king asked.
“Pretty good,” the princess answered. “I hope I didn’t catch you while you’re busy? I need to talk to you about something important.”
Sebastian smiled to himself now, taking advantage of the fact that she couldn’t see him. The princess went straight to the point, didn’t she? Diplomatic yet steadfast, she would make a fantastic Fae Queen one day, ruthless when she had to be. Without meaning any disrespect to the current Fae King and Queen, of course, but the princess would be a ruler unlike any the fae folk had seen before.
“No, no,” the king said. “I’m never too busy to talk to you, my dear. What is it?”
“Can you explain why I caught Sebastian following me around campus today?”
Sebastian heard what sounded like the king choking on his own spit.
She doesn’t waste time, does she? he thought to himself. Straight to the point.
“Well?” the princess pressed when she received no answer.
The king sighed deeply. “You weren’t supposed to catch him.”
Despite his lifelong training as a warrior, Sebastian felt the sudden urge to make himself as small as possible. Yes, he would indeed get a reprimand after the king was done having this conversation with the princess, and he couldn’t blame anyone except himself. How had he become so careless? He knew how to remain hidden from sight, how to stop anyone from catching him, and yet the princess had known exactly where he was after he had been following her for less than ten minutes.
Well. He had never been particularly good at hiding from the princess, even when they were children. He had always hidden right alongside her. Perhaps that was why she had noticed his presence so quickly.
“That doesn’t answer my question,” the princess replied. “But it does tell me that you did send him.”
Sebastian was about to say something along the lines of “I told you”, but he realized that that would be incredibly juvenile of him. Besides, it was a given, since fae folk couldn’t lie.
“Love—” the king said.
“Oh, don’t start with that!” the princess snapped. “You said you were letting me go out into the world on my own!”
“I know, Kaia—”
“What kind of Fae Queen do you expect me to be if I apparently can’t be trusted without a personal guard?!”
“I sent Sebastian to protect you!” the king yelled.
“From what?! From drunk students and peer pressure?!”
“From the death threats, Kaia!”
Sebastian quietly gasped to himself. He had not expected the king to actually tell the princess the real reason he had sent him. He hadn’t thought he would lie, obviously, but it was one thing to lie outright and another to lie by omission. Then again, Sebastian had never faced an angered Princess Kaia before, though he supposed the king must have at some point.
The princess went silent and remained like that for a few seconds.
“Dad,” she finally said, and her tone was not impressed. It was as though the king had told her he’d sent Sebastian to protect her from a bug plague. “Are you serious right now?”
“Am I—” the king sputtered. “Of course I am! Do you think I would joke about this?”
“We’ve received death threats since I was born!” the princess cried. “Long before that, even! You once told me you and Mom used to receive so many of them, it was the most correspondence you got.”
“Yes, Kaia,” said the king, “but we had the Royal Guard protecting us here from any peril. You, on the other hand, have no one watching over you, and that makes you completely vulnerable to an attack from our enemies!”
“I’m sorry, ‘completely vulnerable’?” the princess echoed. “You do remember I was trained in self-defense, right? Besides, I almost stabbed Sebastian! If he hadn’t been a fae warrior, he might even have gotten seriously hurt!”
That’s true, Sebastian thought, smiling in spite of himself. He hadn’t just been complimenting the princess’s prowess and aim with her dagger. They had stopped training together many, many years ago, so he was truly happy to see that she had kept at it by herself, and her abilities had only grown better and stronger with time.
He could’ve backed up the princess’s statement, but he thought it wiser to stay out of the conversation unless his opinion and/or vote was specifically requested. If the princess already disliked having him here, she would most certainly not want him intervening.
“And that’s why I sent him!” the king said. “Kaia, my darling, it’s not that I don’t believe you can take care of yourself, because I know you can. But will it hurt you so much to let Sebastian watch over you?”
“Yes!” the princess nearly screamed. “Dad, we talked about this! I don’t want to be Princess Kaia of the fae, I just want to be Kaia Blackwood! And I can’t just be Kaia Blackwood when I’ve got a goddamn bodyguard following me around all day long!”
Sebastian heard the king take a deep breath on the computer’s speakers. He also recognized that tone; His Majesty was losing his patience, and not even his love for his daughter would keep that from happening.
“Kaia,” he began, and Sebastian was barely able to hold back a wince. Though the members of the fae royalty weren’t easy to upset, when they were angered, it was best to stay as far away from them as possible. “You are Princess Kaia of the Fae, and that’s not something you can change.”
“I’m not trying to change it!” the princess replied. “I know I am, Dad, but for once in my life, I don’t want that to be all that I am! Can’t you understand that?”
“I understand that we have a lot of enemies who would love to cause us harm, and one of them threatened my daughter’s life,” the king said. Sebastian could tell, just by those words, that the princess would not be getting her way with this. “And I understand what you’re saying, Kaia. But I’m afraid this is not up for discussion. I won’t have you unprotected if I can send someone to look after you in my place while you’re away from home.”
The princess slammed her hands down on her desk, making Sebastian jump. He knew she wouldn’t agree to the king’s orders, but he didn’t think she would resort to physical force, especially if she wanted to keep this conversation private. It would be a miracle if no one in the other rooms had actually heard that.
“We had a deal!” the princess shouted, standing up from her chair.
“And now we have another one,” the king replied calmly. “Sebastian will stay with you at Elite Magic University until we can identify the source of the death threats.”
“Father—” the princess said, a desperate last attempt for the king to listen to her.
“And until we can ensure that your life is in no danger at all,” the king continued, as though she hadn’t spoken at all, “he will be with you 24/7, accompanying you to your classes and to your dorm. I’ve already talked with the ad
ministration to make arrangements for Sebastian.”
What? Sebastian turned around and looked at the video call for the first time. He hadn’t been told he would stay in the princess’s dorm room! It… it should have been obvious, yes, but he would’ve liked for the king to tell him beforehand!
“Your Majesty,” Sebastian said, although he didn’t get far before the princess interjected.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” she exclaimed. “He’s not staying in my goddamn room!”
“On the contrary, Kaia,” said His Majesty. “He’s not letting you out of his sight.”
“But—”
“And that is final!”
The call disconnected before the princess could get another word in, and she slammed the lid of her laptop shut, growling in anger. She hit the surface of the desk with her palms again, with such strength that Sebastian was worried she would injure herself. Even if she did, though, he knew she wouldn’t admit it, much less to him.
The princess sat back down on the chair of her desk, slumping on it like all of her strength had suddenly abandoned her. She ran her hands through her hair and then leaned forward on the desk with her elbows, as if she were about to pass out on top of it.
“I can’t believe this,” she mumbled. “Of all the things my dad could have done…” She shook her head to herself. Sebastian thought she was going to add something else, but she stayed silent, maybe pondering the situation she found herself in completely out of nowhere.
“Your Highness,” he said quietly. “I must apologize. I didn’t know His Majesty would make arrangements for me to stay…in such close quarters with you. I thought he had sent me only to watch over you from afar and make sure your life was not in any—”
“Sebastian,” she interrupted him, looking up at him. “It’s…well, it’s not okay, because I still think that Dad should’ve told me what he was planning to do before supposedly agreeing to let me come here without any security or anything. But I don’t think any of this is your fault. I don’t blame you.”
“But you should’ve never known I was here,” Sebastian insisted. “I was meant to remain hidden, and yet I got sloppy and failed.”
“Look,” the princess said, crossing her arms over her chest. “You were never going to remain hidden for long, okay? If I hadn’t noticed you today, I would’ve noticed you someday in the foreseeable future—especially since you’re supposed to be living with me. My father shouldn’t have lied to me. Yes, yes, I know he didn’t technically lie—” she lifted a finger to stop Sebastian from talking when he opened his mouth to jump to the king’s defense, “—but he wasn’t being truthful, and that’s just as bad.”
“He’s doing this to protect you,” he said. “All His Majesty wants is for you to be safe.”
The princess smiled sadly and shook her head. “You know, I never thought you would become such a fae warrior. Just like all the other ones.”
Sebastian frowned to himself. Of course he would become a fae warrior like all the other ones under the king’s service. That was what he had been trained for his entire life, the reason why he had been assigned to the princess as her personal guard when they were children. What had she thought would happen to him?
“I’m…sorry, Princess, but I don’t understand.”
“No,” she said. “I know you don’t.” She took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. “Listen, if you’re going to stay here, you can’t keep calling me ‘Princess’ and ‘Your Highness’, okay? I know Dad doesn’t expect you to be some sort of robot who never speaks, so if you have to call me anything, at least call me by my name, all right?”
“I—” Sebastian pressed his lips into a line. “I apologize, Princess, but I simply can’t do that.”
“You can’t?” The princess stood from the chair and walked toward him, coming to a halt right in front of him. “What if I ordered you to call me by my name? Could you do it then?”
Oh, no. Sebastian was surprised that he still recognized what each tone of the princess’s voice meant, and this was no different. This was her fighting tone, when she was ready to get into an argument and do what she had to in order to get her way.
“You… y-you’d be putting me in a very difficult position,” he stammered. “His Majesty—”
“I’m sure my father didn’t order you to call me by my goddamn title, Sebastian,” she snarled. “So there’s no higher authority to answer to, except me.”
She was only a few inches away from him, and Sebastian was reminded, all of a sudden, of how beautiful she was. She had inherited the king’s white-blond hair and the queen’s blue eyes, along with her iron will. Rulers of smaller fae communities, all of whom obeyed the king, had presented their children in attempts to arrange a union with Princess Kaia, but the king had sent them all away, telling them that his daughter would choose her partner when she wanted to. In all his years, Sebastian had never seen the princess even start to worry about that particular choice.
“I don’t need anyone to be the queen!” she used to say when they were children, especially when they sparred or trained together. “I will be a queen on my own, and I will be such an amazing ruler that I’ll be remembered as the best queen of the fae ever!”
Sebastian had absolutely no doubt that she would be. Whoever was threatening her life would have to go through him to get to her, and Sebastian would rather lose his life than let the princess come to any harm.
“I…will do my best, Princess,” he told her now, knowing that his instinct would always be to call her by her status rather than by her first name. He had never done otherwise. Besides, the princess hadn’t actually ordered him to do anything—it had just been a question.
If there was anything a fae knew how to exploit, it was specific wording.
4
Well. Kaia was screwed.
She’d had such a wonderful time at EMU, able to forget, for most of the time, that she was a princess. Back home, in her ‘giant mansion’, everyone other than her parents always called her by her title: ‘Princess this’, ‘Your Highness that’. She had met other royal fae folk and royal immortals from other species, at balls and parties and whatnot, but none of them had ever been her friends. Her only friend had been Sebastian, and then she’d realized that he could never truly be anything other than her personal guard, a warrior under her father’s service, sworn to protect her life at the cost of his own.
Kaia didn’t think she’d ever had any real friends until she’d met Carlie and Layla, because she didn’t have to worry about them wanting to get to know her just because of her status or her money or some equally stupid crap like that. They didn’t care about it—all they cared about was her, who she actually was, not what she was or what she represented. She could be herself with them.
Sebastian being here was a reminder of all the things Kaia had wanted to leave behind; he was a reminder of the shadow that would always be over her head, telling her who she had to be.
“Is this what you needed to check first?” asked Layla, glancing at Sebastian standing a few feet behind them, his back to them.
Kaia sighed deeply. After the conversation with her father, she knew it was useless to try to get around his plan, so she just had to accept the fact that she would now have a bodyguard, whether she wanted to or not. Layla and Carlie had been shocked to see a complete stranger fae walking behind her when she entered the library. In fact, the only one who hadn’t been shocked to see Sebastian was the librarian, who just raised an eyebrow at him and went back to work. Kaia assumed that the entire faculty of the campus knew about him already.
Dad certainly didn’t waste any time, did he? she thought to herself, fuming.
“I thought someone was stalking me,” she answered, sitting down at the table where her friends were. “Turns out it was just Mr. Fae Warrior over there. My dad sent him to follow me around.”
“What?” Carlie turned to look at him for only a moment. “So he’s just going to…be wherever you
are?”
“Yep,” Kaia said.
“Even class?” asked Layla.
“Yep.”
Now it was Layla who stared at him. “Why?”
“Because apparently one of my father’s enemies wants to kill me,” said Kaia, rolling her eyes. “Maybe even more than one.” She couldn’t imagine what kind of ridiculous death threat had scared her father so much. All royal members of the immortal species had gotten death threats every now and then, and nothing had ever happened. Well, at least not in a few hundred years. And even if it did, Kaia could take care of herself, damn it! Contrary to what the king believed, she had never needed Sebastian’s help, not even as a kid.
“What the hell?!” Carlie nearly shrieked. “Someone wants to freaking kill you?!”
“Says my dad,” Kaia replied, leaning back against her chair and looking at the ceiling. “I don’t believe anyone’s out there actively wanting to kill me, it’s just a stupid death threat.”
“Kaia, it’s a goddamn death threat!” said Layla, sounding more concerned than Kaia had ever heard her. “There’s nothing stupid about it!”
“No wonder the king sent you a guard, you could be in danger!” added Carlie, sounding just as worried.
“Guys!” Kaia felt… flattered, kind of. Humbled. It was heartwarming, knowing that her friends cared so much about her. “I promise you it’s nothing! I’ve gotten death threats my whole life, and there’s never been any serious danger.” She looked at Sebastian out of the corner of her eye and sighed once more. “Unfortunately, it does mean Sebastian’s here to stay, as much as I’d rather he didn’t. Now, can we please go back to the assignment at hand?”
Carlie and Layla looked at each other. It seemed like they wanted to argue further, but Kaia was glad when they didn’t. She felt perfectly safe, and there was no need for her friends to worry. And if it turned out someone was truly seeking to hurt her, her defense mechanism would warn her of the danger. This whole thing was completely unnecessary.