Page 1 of Take My Throne

Chapter One

“Good morning, wifey.”

I open my eyes to see Lucas smiling down at me, leaning against the side of the bed like he owns the entire world. I feel like throwing up. It’s been a week since Lucas and I had exchanged vows, and I still am not used to being married to him. I didn’t think I ever would be. It wasn’t as though I’d done it because I wanted to. When you’re faced with a choice of get married or see your best friend butchered before your eyes, you say ‘I do,’ even while your heart screams I don’t!

The only good thing so far was that Lucas had behaved like a perfect gentleman since he put a ring on my finger. He hasn’t even kissed me, other than an awkward peck on the lips once the priest declared us man and wife. Sure, we slept in the same bed and my father insisted on calling me Mrs Donatello every time we met, but for all intents and purposes, we might as well have been brother and sister for the lack of passion between us. Every time I see him, I only see them. The three kings who have my heart and nothing my father or Lucas can do will change that fact.

I stretch out, trying to act all nonchalant when the reality is that the thought of walking back into that school a married woman makes me feel like I have heavy rocks at the bottom of my stomach. How am I meant to explain this to Declan? And what about Romy? Poor Romy will be heartbroken. Our engagement might have been one of convenience, but at least the two of us had feelings for each other. It wasn’t all fake.

Archer would know about it by now. My father had kept Milly under lock and key since the wedding. He called it insurance in case I decided I wasn’t going to accept life as a married woman, but now we are going public with the news I’d married Lucas, he let Milly go home last night.

I hope against hope she would be at school today. I am going to need a sympathetic face, but something tells me her family would insist she stay home to recover from her ordeal and I can’t blame them. The Knights had suffered enough thanks to my father.

“It’s going to be okay, you know,” Lucas says. “I’ll be with you. I know you don’t think much of me right now, but I want to make this marriage work. It’s to both of our benefit if it does. It might be too much to ask for you to love me right now, but I think, no, I know that when you get to know me better, you’ll find I’m not a bad person and maybe you’ll change your mind.”

“You keep telling yourself that,” I say, getting up and grabbing some clothes before going to the bathroom to brush my teeth. I lock the door behind me. This is the only privacy I ever get, so I take my sweet time getting ready.

My father confiscated my phone, so I have had no contact with the outside world since my sham of a wedding ceremony. I can only imagine how many text messages Romy has sent me. The poor guy must be going out of his mind.

If I’d been allowed to wear whatever I liked to school, I’d have picked all black clothes, a signal that I was in mourning for the life I should have had. As it is, I go for a Goth look with my makeup, going as over the top as I dared without risking being told to wash it off by Pilkington. I am not going to glam myself up for Lucas. Anyone watching me will know I am angry with the world and my father in particular.

“Wow, Ivy.” Lucas does a double take when he sees me stride out of the bathroom. “I wouldn’t like to get in your way today. You look like someone seriously pissed you off.”

“Someone did.” I give him a look, and he smirks.

“Look, none of this is my fault,” he protests, holding his hands in the air. “I’ve told you that so many times I’m sick of hearing it. I’m as much a victim here as you are.”

“You keep saying that, but I’ve yet to see any evidence of it,” I reply. “You’re still as buddy-buddy with my dad as always. The pair of you are up late talking every night, no doubt plotting your next move to take over this town. Well done on preventing a marriage to Romy Navarre which would have given me independence from my father, but would also have benefited House Archaic. I don’t know what you said to my father that persuaded him that a complete unknown was a better bet, but whatever it was, it must have been good. My father never does anything unless it benefits him. So, what was it, Lucas? What did you promise him? Or did you buy your way into my family?”

“We ought to go to the dining room,” Lucas replies, sidestepping the question. “Your father wants us to have breakfast with him before we go to school.”

“Probably wants to check I’m not wearing gloves to cover up my wedding ring,” I snipe, but I follow Lucas out of our suite and down to the dining room where we’ve been having meals with my father three times a day since the wedding. Most couples would have been on honeymoon this past week, but not us. My father said he was going to pay for us to go away on our first anniversary. Until then, he wants to ‘keep an eye on us’, presumably to make sure that I am behaving the way he wants. Lucas has the father-in-law from hell, but what my father doesn’t know is that I can be as stubborn as him and I am more than happy to wait for the perfect opportunity to get my revenge.

He won’t know what hit him by the time I’m was done with him.

“Ah, the happy couple.” My father beams at us as we walk into the dining room together. “So good to see you ready to announce your marriage to the world.”

I scowl but say nothing as I cross over to my regular seat to the left of my father, Lucas coming to sit next to me. I bite down on my cheek as hard as I can to stop myself from screaming. The taste of my own blood settles me.

“Let me see your hand, I want to make sure everyone can see your commitment to Lucas,” my father orders. Obediently, I hold out my left hand and he takes it, inspecting my engagement ring and wedding band. Even though Lucas and I hadn’t had time for an engagement, my father had insisted on supplying me with a ridiculously over the top diamond solitaire and matching platinum wedding ring which had been engraved with Lucas and my names.

“Good.” My father nods, satisfied. “Be sure to show that to everyone you meet, particularly Archer Knight and Romeo Navarre. Let no one say that your new husband doesn’t know how to treat a lady. And while you’re at it, be sure to mention how in love the two of you are. By the end of the day, no one at the Academy should be in any doubt that you are serious about this marriage and being with Lucas. I do not want to hear any rumours about you and Romeo rekindling your affections behind Lucas’s back-–nor do I want to be told that Archer is using you to get to me. Are we clear?”

“Clear,” I mutter.

A maid comes and places a plate with a selection of Danish pastries in front of me as well as a large bowl of fresh fruit salad with a dollop of plain yogurt on the top, exactly how I like it. I have no appetite-–hadn’t wanted to eat since the wedding-–but I know my father would be displeased if I didn’t finish everything in front of me, so I force it down, every bite turning to ashes in my mouth.

“Now then,” my father comments. “I want you both to come straight home after school today. Ivy, I’m sure you’ll have a lot of catching up to do with all the classes you missed. Your work has never been exemplary other than for music. Need I remind you that I allowed you to take that class on the condition you maintained a certain standard in your other subjects? I know you were able to scrape by the assessments on your return to the Academy, but you and I both know that if you do not remain diligent in your work, you’ll soon slip behind your peers, which will not do. You’ve missed enough school this year without having to lose another week.”

And whose fault is that?

I know better than to openly criticise my father, so I say nothing.

“Lucas,” my father continues, “I want you to come see me as soon as you return home. We have a few matters to discuss after you’ve assessed the situation at the Academy. Of course, I know there’s no need to worry about your grades. There’s no doubt who has the brains in your relationship.”

I narrow my eyes and bite harder on my cheek. If I’d been allowed to take the subjects I’d chosen, I’d be acing them. It isn’t my fault I was being forced into doing something which didn’t suit my skills and interests.

I force down the last of my fruit while Lucas finishes his bacon. He starts every day with a full English. He must have hollow legs to eat all that food and still be as skinny as he is, but I take a small satisfaction from thinking about the damage it is doing to his arteries in the long term. If I can’t figure a way out of my sham of a marriage, maybe I’d get lucky and he’d keel over from a heart attack in his forties.

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