Page 40 of Solstice

The lie hit me in the gut, churning like rancid compost. I nearly wilted from my reaction to it. Instead, I took a deep breath and remained calm. I could press the issue, perhaps force it out of her. A younger version of me might have, but I didn’t. I carried on with my plan.

“You’re lying,” I whispered, running my lips down the side of her neck in gentle kisses.

She gasped, pretending to be offended. “Are you calling the virtue of royalty into question?”

I chuckled softly, refusing to be distracted by her charm. “Even if I couldn’t sense the truth, I know you better than that, Miriam Stuart.”

“I’m not lying, my prince.” She kissed me and turned back to her ball of dough. “Nothing’s wrong.”

I intended to argue, every lawyer spidey-sense I possessed picking up on the way she’d phrased it. Nothing’swrong, but that didn’t mean nothing was bothering her. Ivy walked through the door and found us that way, her heels clacking across the hardwood as she strolled down the hallway into the kitchen.

“Hello, darling,” Miri said, giving her a kiss when she came close enough.

“Hello.” Ivy turned to me, pressing a greeting peck against my lips as well.“Anything?”

“Nope.”

Ivy returned her gaze to our wife. “What are you making? It smells delicious.”

“Roast chicken and peanut butter brownies.” Miri smiled that fake grin and left my arms, going to the oven so she could check the state of our dinner. But I met Ivy’s gaze, and we both thought the same thing.

Our princesswashiding something, and she really didn’t want us to know what it was.

12

Miri

Ilit a cigarette and inhaled, wincing as it burned down my throat. Wrapping my robe tighter around my waist, I sat in the third-story loft with the window open, breathing in the cool winter air. February in DC usually brought snow, but this year, things had been unusually humid. I inhaled the scent of the city, vibrant with hustling politicians and reporters. Manhattan may have been the city that never slept, but DC was the city that never stopped.

I took another long drag on the cigarette and reached for my magic, calming myself in the steady hum of the surrounding plants and trees. They reminded me how small I was in the vastness of the world, that no matter how hard I beat myself against my own memory, the world continued to spin on.

Clenching my fingers and opening them, I focused on the energy of the earth flowing through my veins. I still had my gift, but the vibrant pulse that had once been my wall of thistles was long gone. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, still sensing nothing after these six long weeks.

But that only reminded me of the secret weighing on my heart, the secret I knew about the king and hadn’t told them. That Samhain, when I came face-to-face with Alberich for the first time, I remembered he’d saved me from the wreck that had killed my parents.

“Little Thistle, you’ll come to owe me quite a bit before we’re through.”

I should have told the others by now. I’d promised no more secrets, and here I’d been holding on to a big one for nearly two years. I didn’t have a good excuse for waiting. Perhaps I thought to do it in person, knowing they would want more from me than a brief FaceTime that was likely being recorded by our families. Perhaps I had hoped it was a fluke, that the king had been messing with me and it hadn’t really happened that way.

The what-ifs plagued me. What if the king only put that memory there to mess with me? Or contrasting that, what if he had really saved me from that wreck? If it was all true and the only reason I was alive was because of him? Was I not strong enough? Not disciplined enough? What could I have done better?

I sound like Ivy.

Laughing, I finished my cigarette and stabbed it out, immediately lighting another.

And now, I look like Lex.

They were cuddled around each other in her bed downstairs, the space between them growing smaller both physically and emotionally the longer their engagement went on.

I liked the sight of their closeness. It pleased me to know they had that intimacy when they couldn’t have Carter or me. But that pleasure had lately been laced with a bitter jealousy I struggled to contain. They lived together, spent every damnable second together, and once upon a time, it had been me in both their beds.

Marry Carter,they said.Come home to us.

Like it was that easy to leave my family behind. Would either of them do it for me? Doubtful. Hence the reason they were still engaged to be married in April, and I’d likely end up with some rich parasite twenty years my senior.

At least I’ll make a quick widow.

I grimaced at my gallows humor, another hot jab of anxiety stabbing through my stomach as every one of my molecules revolted at the idea of being around the Prince of Monaco.

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