Page 1 of The Princess's Pet

1. An Unexpected Arrival

Rosemary was everything my father deserved. She was beautiful, homely, and could calm the beast within him with just a smile. She was exactly what the middle-aged fisherman needed. He had grieved my mother for seventeen years before Rosemary came along. Everyone deserves love.

They had been together for over a year now and last week they announced that Rosemary was with child. It was perfect. If you took me out of the picture, they would be the picture-perfect family. And, well, I was eighteen, no longer a child. The small beachfront house I called home was cramped as it was and there would be little space for another person, even a baby, with me there. Sadly, I knew I had to move on out.

I was working in my garden, humming to my tomato plants and encouraging their growth. Technically, very little should have been able to grow in the soil of our garden, so salted by the sea. But being half-witch from the Flores coven gave me green fingers. Every living plant I touched or sang to would sprout new life. We all have gifts, my father told me when I was little. My mother’s gift was for aquatic plant life. That’s how they met: my father found my mother floating on a bed of seaweed while he was fishing. My gift wasn’t anything special. I didn’t have the power of a full-blooded witch, but I could grow just about any plant. A useful gift especially during bad harvests. The tomatoes were almost ready for picking. Rosemary had interrupted me. Her face was red and she wrung her hands on her flour-covered apron.

“Persephone, can you please come inside?” she asked. Her voice trembled slightly, and I was caught off guard by the use of my actual name; everyone I knew called mePercy.

I stood, wiping my dirt-covered hands on my old, worn blue jeans, and walked towards Rosemary. She stopped me with a hand on my shoulder, lifted a clean edge of her apron, and began wiping at my forehead.

“Rosemary, what are you doing?” I laughed, confused, but I didn’t push her hand away.

“You’ve got soil on your face.” She stepped back smiling at me but her usual warm smile wavered.

“What’s wrong? Is it the baby?” I asked, suddenly panicked, and my hand reflexively moved towards her stomach. She shook her head, pressing her lips together.

“The baby is fine,” she reassured, taking my hand in both of her own. “There is… I can’t believe this. Oh, Percy.” She seemed to choke on her words.

“Tell me what’s wrong. Is it Father?” If it wasn’t the baby, then it had to be Father to make Rosemary so sad like this. She shook her head again.

“They’re here for you,” she whispered, looking behind herself and back at the light blue house.

“Who is?” I whispered back conspiratorially. Everyone I knew lived on or near this beach.

“A Royal,” she answered, her head bowed and eyes not looking my way.

It took me a moment, really a moment too long, to catch up to what Rosemary was telling me. It was just so unexpected. This wasn’t meant to happen. Itneverhappened.

“Percy,” she whispered, getting my attention. I looked away from the house and back to Rosemary. “You have to go meet her,” she said, giving me a forced smile of reassurance. I noddedmy head, and Rosemary led me back to our small house, holding my hand.

My head swirled as we walked back towards the wooden back porch. A Royal here for me. I never thought this would—or even could—happen. Not really. When I gave my blood sample for testing, as was the law on my eighteenth birthday almost a year ago, I didn’t even think about the possibility. Soul match testing was just something that happened. It never meant anything. No one ever actually matched with a Royal or noble. But apparently, it could happen, and it did happen—to me.

My heart beat a race inside my chest as Rosemary opened the door while still tightly clasping my hand in her own.

My father sat with his back to us at the small table in our kitchen. Before him stood two guards in the deep midnight-blue uniform of the reigning monarchy. My father’s large frame prohibited me from seeing the figure who sat opposite him at the table. All that was visible at first was black as night hair, waves falling over one shoulder.

Rosemary cleared her throat as she pulled me to her side protectively and I stumbled into her. My father turned, standing from his seat and stepping aside. I saw her for the first time. Well, for the first time in person. Her regal face was one the whole country was familiar with.

She stood from her seat, much taller than I expected—about the same height as my father, and he was a tall beast shifter. Her form was not small but rather womanly, with a noticeable cinched waist and wider hips to match her bust. She wasn’t large, but she was evenly proportioned in an almost too-perfect way that one would expect from a princess.

Her silver-grey eyes met mine for a moment before Rosemary pulled my arm, and my senses, momentarily lost, were found. I averted my gaze.

“This is my daughter, Persephone Flores—Percy.” My father introduced me sounding awkward. I looked at him, but he did not offer any smile. His brows were pushed together, and his yellow eyes glowed, signalling he wasn’t at all happy and holding in his wolf beast.

“She isn’t a beast shifter?” the Princess spoke, I supposed to my father.

“No, her mother was of the Flores coven,” my father answered. And while the pain wasn’t as strong when he spoke of my mother as it once had been, I could still hear the slightest change in his tone.

“That explains heroddeyes, then,” the Princess continued, speaking as if I wasn’t there. I looked up again, unthinking, to her face and was met with a scowl. “Does she have a beast?” the Princess asked once I looked away.

“No, she is not a half-shifter,” my father answered without further explanation.

“What else contaminates her blood and yours?” the Princess asked. I heard my father inhale through his nose to calm himself. He didn’t particularly like purebloods that thought themselves special or above the rest of us.

“Vampire, of the Auster coven,” my father gritted out between clenched teeth, still trying his best to remain calm.

“The Auster coven. And relation?” the Princess asked, sounding almost amused.

---