The Royal Beauty

by V Vee

  Augustus watched as Alastair bounced up from the bench he sat on, once he finished wrapping his hands and walked over to the hanging seventy-pound heavy bag. Spreading his feet apart and centering his core, Alastair began punching the bag, light and slow hits at first, in order to warm-up, then heavier, quicker jabs and punches, as he built up a sweat. His knuckles made constant, hard contact on the bag, even as he moved and shuffled his feet.

  Augustus called out to his brother.

  “Alastair! Take it easy, man,” he directed him. However, Alastair ignored him, and Augustus looked over at Alfie who had a look of concern and worry stamped on his face, exactly the expression he was sure covered his own. While they all seemed to have women problems, Alastair seemed as if he were taking out his frustration over more than the nanny. Well, all of them except Algerone and Andreas—who didn’t have a woman at all to have problems with.

  After long moments—over an hour to be exact—Alastair pulled his final punch and stepped back. He panted and tried to get in a full breath. Augustus continued to watch him as Alastair walked over to the refrigerator he and his brothers had installed in the room and pulled out a bottle of water. Opening the cap, he lifted the bottle to his lips and took a deep pull of it. He sighed, then he looked around no doubt, just then becoming aware of the fact that Augustus and Alfie weren’t the only ones in the room, Algerone and Andreas had shown up in the gym, both of them dressed to work out, while Alastair had almost destroyed the punching bag. Though none of them were working out at that moment, all four of them staring at Alastair.

  Alastair lowered the bottle and swallowed. Quirking an eyebrow at his brothers he put the cap back on the almost empty bottle.

  “What?” he asked.

  “What the hell did that bag ever do to you, man?” Alfie teased, gesturing to the heavy bag Alastair had been using. Alastair turned to look at the piece of equipment, raising both eyebrows in surprise. Augustus chuckled when he saw Alastair noticing the seam on the bag had torn a bit. He shook his head at his brother’s single-minded focus. He hadn’t even realized that he was destroying the bag he was so fixated on expelling the emotion that boiled within his blood.

  Augustus could relate. His own body and knuckles were sore and bruised from his working out and sparring with Alfie.

  “Nothing, Alf. Just mind your own business,” Alastair muttered, turning to walk over to the weight bench.

  “No, no. While I don’t usually agree with the young one,” Augustus said with a smirk tossed in Alfie’s direction when the youngest Smythe prince flipped him off. “on this we agree. Something has gotten under your skin and you don’t know how to handle it.”

  “Perhaps it is a particular nanny?” Alfie suggested with a waggle of his eyebrows.

  “Wait. My nanny?” Algerone questioned, looking around at them all with his eyebrows lowered. “Which one?”

  “Leyah,” Augustus, Alfie, and Andreas answered simultaneously.

  “Et tu Andy?” Alastair glared at his younger brother.

  Andreas merely shrugged, his usual implacable expression on his face. “I noticed,” he responded.

  “You notice everything, you creepy gracvory,” Alastair muttered.

  When Andreas merely winked at Alastair before walking over to one of the treadmills and climbing on, Alastair rolled his eyes and Augustus chuckled.

  “You have a thing for Leyah, Las?” Algerone asked.

  “It’s not a thing, Al,” Alastair leveled a look on his oldest brother. “She’s mine.”

  All sound ceased in the room. Andreas turned off the treadmill and turned to look at him. By the stubborn tilt of his chin, Alastair refused to be intimidated by the expressions on his other brothers’ faces as they all stared at him in surprise.

  “You claimed her?” Andreas questioned.

  Alastair shrugged. “From the minute I saw her walking up the drive. Then a few times after that.”

  Algerone growled. “You fucked my nanny?”

  “No! Not yet anyway,” Alastair narrowed his eyes at his brother. “Why, is that a problem? You want her for yourself or something? Isn’t it enough you already have Valerie, you want to add another black beauty to your rotation and have yourself an Algerone sandwich?”

  Alastair jumped up, spreading his arms wide when Algerone charged towards him. Augustus stepped between them and held Algerone back. Alastair mocked Algerone, smirking when the other man cursed him repeatedly. Alastair had never been afraid of any of them. Not even when they were kids and he was younger, and scrawnier than the rest of his older brothers. Alastair would always stand and go toe-to-toe with all of them. While Augustus was huge, much bigger than the rest of them when it came to muscles, Alastair was faster than all of them. Andreas, even with his scary intensity, and his military training, did not scare him. Alastair could outwit Andreas at any time. And Algerone, he’d let love, marriage, and children soften him over the last few years, even Augustus had to admit that their eldest brother wasn’t as intimidating as he used to be. The four of them might not have known for certain what was going on with Algerone over the last fourteen years, but they’d known it was something since the eldest Smythe prince had slowed down and gotten comfortable.

  “Am I supposed to be afraid of you, Crown Prince?” Alastair taunted his brother. “I’m not. I don’t care if you are Kothrar’s favorite, or if you have a wife and kids, I will not back down when it comes to Leyah. She’s mine.”

  Algerone tossed off Augustus’s hold and marched up to Alastair, getting in his face. He pointed at Alastair, his eyes narrowed.

  “That’s exactly why I’m telling you to back. The. Fuck. Off.” Algerone warned. “She’s my nanny. She’s my wife’s friend. My children love her. All of them. Even Chikere has warmed up to her. More so than his own nanny. She is the perfect addition to my family, and I will not have you fuck up a great thing because you want to dip your wick in her pot for a few days or weeks before you get bored of her and she ends up leaving because she can’t stand to see your ugly face anymore.”

  Alastair growled at his eldest brother when Algerone pushed his face with his large hand. Shoving Algerone away from him, Alastair pointed.

  “It’s not like that with her! I don’t just want her for a while, or a few weeks or months. I want her. She’s mine. You don’t get it do you?” he shook his head. “She will always be mine. Until we take our last breaths and I don’t give a flying gracvor who you are, what your wife thinks, or if your kids like her. I will have her, she will be mine, and we will be together, so just mind your own quiyn business!”

  With that he jerked up his bottle of water and left the gym, ignoring them as they called for him to return. And when Algerone yelled, cursing his name, Alastair had merely flicked him off.

  Fuck. This wasn’t what they needed. They all needed to be on the same page. One unit. They needed to have each other’s back. Not only because of the attempts on the lives of Algerone and Alastair, but also because of the women in their lives. They’d all gotten extremely close, and Augustus knew it was only a matter of time before they would stand up for each other. Have each other’s back. Be a united front against the men in their lives who continued to fuck shit up.

  And while Alastair would deny it with every breath in his back, due to his own stubborn nature, Augustus would not. He needed his brothers’ help if he ever planned on settling things with Lady Taylor once and for all, as well as finally, and permanently making Helen his princess.

  Forever.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Alastair

  Alastair waited for his brothers to show up in the secret room off his office, his eyes narrowed on the information he’d obtained from the palace guards. More than the two guards who had been killed on the night he’d been shot at were missing or unaccounted for.

  Fourteen. There were fourteen guards who their head of security informed him had either abruptly left their employ for no reason—and by email or letter, not face-to-face, or by
phone—or were missing. This was not a coincidence. The palace did not have a high turnover rate. Those who applied and trained to work as security for the royal family did not do so lightly. They were put through a rigorous training at a secure royal facility. Their minds, bodies, and spirits were broken. Their loyalties tested. They were interrogated and tested repeatedly and cut off from the world they once knew. Their family members, friends, and loved ones had no knowledge of where they’d been taken and were never to be told of the requirements and difficulties they’d faced to be a part of the elite, exclusive royal security guard.

  After enduring all of that, it was highly unlikely that any of the guards would simply up and leave before their retirement. Not with the amount of pay they received, the benefits, and the admiration and praise heaped upon them from the people of Malvidence. Something was going on, Alastair could feel it in his gut, and his gut hadn’t steered him wrong yet.

  He turned his head at the sound of the door opening and nodded his head at his four brothers who entered, each with varying degrees of frustration, impatience, and exhaustion on their faces. Alastair had put the room into tighter security protocols than it had ever been before and made sure each of his brothers had access to the room, but only them, in case they all arrived at separate times. He was happy they’d all come in at the same time, and when the door closed behind Andreas, he put the office into a temporary lockdown.

  Algerone yawned and scratched at his chest. “This had better be good, Las. You disturbed my sleep and pulled me out of bed with my wife.”

  “Agreed,” Augustus stated, his eyes narrowed on Alastair’s face.

  “Trust me, once you hear this, you’re going to be glad you’re standing here with me, rather than off doing whatever it was you were doing,” he gestured at Alfie who had lipstick smears on his neck. He picked up a napkin and threw it at his youngest brother. “Clean yourself up, man. God, can’t you look presentable for once?”

  Alfie rolled his eyes and cleaned his face and after being directed by Algerone, his neck. “Don’t be mad at me for being with a lovely woman while you’re panting after the nanny and all alone.”

  Alastair smirked. “I will have you know that I left the gorgeous Miss Meer in her bedroom not hours ago, very tired, and very satisfied.”

  “Nice,” Alfie remarked giving Alastair a fist bump.

  Alastair waved his youngest brother’s encouragement away at the look on Algerone’s face. “I was extremely respectful, Al. Probably more than you were with Valerie.”

  Augustus threw up an arm to stop Algerone from pummeling Alastair’s face at his words. Knowing he’d gone too far, and only being able to partially blame the fact that he was still unbelievably horny, Alastair nodded and held up his hands in surrender. “I’m sorry, bruthrar,” he apologized. “Now, can we get back to why I invited you all here?”

  “Please,” Andreas spoke up for the first time. “I have somewhere to be.”

  Alastair opened his mouth to ask his younger brother where he’d been rushing off to as of late but shook his head. Each of them had their secrets and their own lives. He would allow Andreas his, but if it caused issues or problems for the rest of them, he wouldn’t hesitate to beat the younger man’s ass.

  “Here,” he said as he handed each of his brothers a copy of the report he’d received. “I want you to check out the number of missing or accounted for guards.”

  Algerone shook his head as he flipped the pages in his copy of the report. “Fourteen? No. That can’t be right.”

  “Why are we just finding out about this?” Augustus asked.

  Alastair looked at his two older brothers. He nodded. “Yes, that number is correct, Al. I checked over it myself. Not one of the fourteen guards have checked in or been on their assigned shifts within the last two weeks.” He looked over at Augustus. “I suspect the reason we weren’t informed is because this is a security issue, and the head of the guard,” he glanced down at the report in his own had, “Reginald Voorhees was already aware of the issue. As a matter of fact, Reginald was surprised I even asked for the information since he was looking into it himself and trying to find replacement for the fourteen men.”

  Andreas crossed his arms in front of his chest and stared at Alastair, giving him a piercing look. Alastair shivered. While he knew his brother would never hurt him unless he really had to, Andreas had a way of looking at a person that made them want to confess to every sin, wrongdoing, misdeed, and errant, impure thought they’d ever had or committed. The very fact that Algerone was allowing the darkly silent man to spend as much time with his son, Chikere, as he was, stunned Alastair. He loved his brother, he did, but Andreas gave him the creeps.

  “What, Andy? What?” he finally huffed out.

  “Why are you looking into this?” Andreas finally asked.

  Alastair ran the fingers of one hand through his hair, tugging lightly on the strands. He sighed and shrugged. “My gut,” he finally answered. When his brothers simply stared at him, Alastair knew he had to give them a more elaborate answer than he had. “Something doesn’t feel right. It hasn’t since Algerone returned with his American bride and his half-Malvidencian children.” He held up his hands when Algerone growled at him. “Hey, hey, hey. These are not my words, these are some of the murmurings that I’ve heard from staff members when they think none of us are around, and from some of the advisors. As well as from the comments on the various articles.”

  Algerone’s eyebrows rose. “They’re calling my children half-Malvidencians?”

  “Worse,” Alfie grunted.

  “What?!” Algerone’s voice was menacing. “What could be worse than that? Not that there’s anything wrong with being American, but my children are of Malvidence. They are Malvidencian royals.”

  Alastair sighed. He really did not want to be the one to tell his brother the horrible things his wife and children had been called. Alastair wasn’t afraid—he was no one’s punk or coward—but even he’d winced and then grown enraged at the racist, bigoted, and hateful speech being directed at his sister-in-law and his nieces and nephews.

  “Let’s see,” Augustus murmured, looking at his phone. Alastair groaned, knowing this was going to be bad. They all had the infamous Smythe temper, but Algerone’s could be destructive and the worse of them all if provoked. “They’ve called Valerie a sell-out, a white man’s whore, a nig-whoa, I didn’t even know people still used that word,” he frowned, his eyebrows pulled low. He hesitated, still reading, he let out an angry sounding grunt, his jaw clenching and Alastair figured his brother had just gotten to the worse comments. Augustus’s eyes flew up to find his. “Did you read this?”

  Alastair nodded. “I’m handling it.”

  “What does it say?” Algerone asked, pulling out his phone and moving his fingers over the screen as he went to look up the articles and comments for himself. He let out a sound of exasperation when Augustus tugged the phone away.

  “You don’t need to read it,” Augustus told their eldest brother. He turned at pointed at first Alastair, then Alfie. “Fix it.”

  Alastair lifted his hands. “I am.”

  “Fix it faster,” he commanded.

  Alfie huffed. “Yes, Your Highness,” he mocked. He rolled his eyes again. “Look, can we get back to why we’re really here? Las and I will take care of the ignoramuses, okay?” He glanced over at Alastair. “Now, what made you curious about this?”

  Alastair scratched the back of his neck in a gesture of nervousness. “I was already looking into the shooting at the airport, and then my own shooting here on the grounds, but I was really interested after the ball incident.”

  Alfie snorted. “You mean when you and Augustus came bursting into the ballroom, guns raised, ready to blast away our well-dressed guests?”

  Augustus growled at their youngest brother and snorted when Alfie merely flipped him off. Alastair ignored them both and nodded his head.

  “Oh, c’mon Las. Those were fireworks!” Algero
ne stated firmly. He slapped the back of his hand against the report he held again. “And I’m sure this can be explained as well.”

  Andreas swung his attention away from Alastair and over to Algerone. “I’ve never known you to be dismissive,” he observed.

  They all paused and looked at Algerone. The other man sighed heavily and ran a hand down his face. He shook his head. “Look, you guys don’t get it. I spent fourteen years barely with my family. I finally have the opportunity to be with them every day, for the rest of my life and the first thing that happens is my wife gets shot? After everything I put her through, I do not need something else to scare her or make her rethink her decision to give me chance number 14,281,032,” he said.

  Alastair stepped toward his oldest brother and put a hand on the older man’s shoulder. “Bruthrar, I understand. We all do but putting your head in the sand is not going to fix anything. It’s just going to make things even more difficult when you finally do come around. Something is going on. There’s a connection between both of our assassination attempts, and the missing guards. I just know it.”

  Algerone nodded and walked over to sit down behind a desk. Alastair inclined his head to his other brothers, and they all sat in the respective seats, all of them solemn and quiet for a while.

  “Do you know why we didn’t notice a gap in coverage or a lack of guards around us?” Augustus wondered aloud.

  Alastair shrugged. “I think it’s because we barely go out, and when we do, we’re all more than capable of taking care of ourselves. Not only that,” he turned to his computer and typed in a few words, the large television screen that hung on one wall turned on and Alastair projected his computer screen up onto the tv. He indicated the areas the missing guards worked in.

  “Plus, there’s the fact that the missing guards all patrol the grounds. Very few of them would have any actual interaction with any of us. I doubt we’d have even been aware of them if I hadn’t been with Leyah when I heard the fireworks, or gunfire,” he shrugged.