Page 102 of Settle Down, Princess

I hated when people looked at me the way Creed did now. The way Jessalyn did as well, with disappointment. That made sense. I more than deserved that, but the other… Hope, it was talked about as if it was this miraculous thing when it was nothing but a disease. One that seemed to infect everyone around the first bright spark who dared to feel it, which had me wanting to quarantine Silas and Roan away from these idiots. But of course, no one did what I needed them to, the four of them coming to stand together, all of them staring me down with the same intent.

“You know this was always on the cards, brother,” Silas said, and it was only my hands clenching into fists, all my muscles locking down, that stopped me from surging forward and shutting his stupid mouth for him. That irrational feeling, that even out here someone would hear, was riding me hard.

“No, I don’t—”

“Arik, I know you don’t want this, but—” Roan said in the same tone he used with his damn horse when it was getting skittish, but I was no fucking steed.

“No!” I threw myself forward, getting in his face. “You don’t know.” I’d tried to keep this all back, stuffed down where they didn’t have to deal with it, but they had to poke the bear. It came lumbering up inside me, dragging a messy tangle of pain, and anger, and hopelessness behind it. “None of you fucking do because you wouldn’t be saying a thing right now if you did. What do you think happened the last time someone told me I should take the crown? What do you think happened?”

I saw shock in their eyes, coupled with a fierce protectiveness in Creed as he tried to put his body between mine and the princess’. Because I was the one who was feral now. That had to be what this was, and I felt a moment of empathy with Creed because I didn’t know how he bore it. A vicious kind of anger that raged utterly out of control, ready to lay waste to everything around me and damn the fucking consequences. But that was never on the cards, not since that day.

“Every single time some malcontent comes slithering up to my door, proposing to make me king, they think the same thing.” I stripped all emotion from my voice, needing to keep to just the facts if I was to get through this. “That they’re the first ones to come up with this miraculous plan to save the country from Magnus.”

Roan stiffened and Silas’ eyes narrowed, but I forged on.

“It won’t work.” I bit that off.

“You don’t know—” Fucking Jessalyn. Her aristocratic tones cut across everything I had to say, as if her belief in the divine right of royalty would be enough to get us through an act of treason safely.

“But I do.”

When my arms crossed my chest, my feet placed squarely on the ground and my stance was strong. When I felt my lips twitch, forming a smile I wore like a mask most days, I felt centred again.

“I know exactly how fucking hopeless it is to try and usurp the true king of Khean, because…”

My father always said I had a flair for the theatrical. He assured me it was part of what would make me a good king one day. You couldn’t just order people around because you had a crown on your head. You had to create an air about you that made exercising that authority seem plausible, even beneficial. Magnus did it through fear and loathing, but I… I was supposed to be a good king, a benevolent one.

“I tried to do just that when Magnus killed my father, and…” When my breath hissed out of me, all my anger seemed to go with it. “A woman I loved was beaten, raped, and killed when I failed.”

Chapter 59

“A woman I loved was beaten, raped, and killed when I failed.”

I staggered back from Arik’s words as if I was slapped, initially because of the way he delivered them, staring me down with an arrogant glare. Then the meaning of them filtered through.

“Raped…”

I frowned, shook my head, wanting to deny what he was saying, but his expression didn’t allow for it. That arrogant smirk didn’t reappear, making clear he had fooled me. Instead, he watched me try to get my mind around what he’d said.

“Ariel…” Silas said, his eyes widening.

“Your father found out about her, did he?” Arik was a lot of things, but I would never have described him as brittle. That’s how he looked now. As if a good tap would send him shattering into pieces. “Yes, Ariel, daughter of the Duke of Fallspire.” He said her name with far more reverence than he ever had my title. “The woman I thought I was supposed to marry. The duke knew what Magnus had done to my father and who was the intended heir to the throne.”

His lips twisted.

“Not my brother. The duke is the leader of one of the more powerful factions in Khean. I was sure with his help, with Ariel by my side, we’d make things right. Bring Magnus down. Make the entire court aware of his illegitimacy. Make clear what my father intended. I’d rule Khean fairly, justly. I’d be the king my father always said I would be.”

I’m not sure if he realised it, but a fire seemed to light in Arik’s eyes as he slammed his fist down on his chest. I watched it flare to life, then… die.

“If I failed, I assumed the burden of that would fall to me. I dreamed of going to the gallows with my head held high, knowing I did so in an attempt to avenge my father, but…”

His mask cracked then and shattered. A completely different Arik shouldered forward, one I’d never seen before. He was looking at me, but it wasn’t me he saw, I was sure of it. This… Ariel, that’s who stood before him. Otherwise, why would his eyes soften like that, then start to shine, a small sad smile twitching at his lips, then smoothing away? Why would he stare at me like I was the only woman left in the world?

“I didn’t pay for my treasonous attempt to wrest the throne from Magnus, she did.”

His fists went up, scrubbing at his eyes as his brows jerked down. He wasn’t seeing his former love, but her desecration.

“Do you know how women scream when they’re being raped? I’ve heard plenty of screams and wails, from that of mothers who’ve lost their sons, to women in danger or in childbirth, but I’ve never heard another woman’s screams match hers. Magnus knew about the plot, about the duke, about everything, and he had everyone in place before we could even get started. He couldn’t kill the duke or implicate him in the plot. The man was too powerful, so instead… Magnus took out his ire on the duke’s daughter, my…”

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