Page 22 of The Prince of New York

“You used refined demonstrations, broken down in a way easy for her to understand. You can’t trick me, Ian. I’ve seen you work. And there are the recordings from North Dakota. They had the metal composition of the tanks that you slagged. I had a few scientists break down how hot your flames need to be for you to render one of those tanks to slag in the period of time you did. Rachel can reduce even bone to ash, but she can’t do what you can.”

I eyed him. “How do you know?”

“I took her to one of our military yards, pointed her at an old tank we were going to have scrapped, and told her that you could do it in under thirty seconds.”

“You dared her to beat me.”

Ethan nodded and grinned. “She slagged it in twenty seconds. You can do it below ten seconds. She’s good, but you’re better. Your control is better, too. You can just slag the barrel. She took out the entire tank. I’m fairly confident you could do the same trick she did in California but probably better. You got angry over her burns. And it wasn’t just over the risks she took. You were angry she had not been practicing with her talent sufficiently, and you knew she could have managed that without getting burned.”

Damn it. He had me dead to rights. “All right. I’ve always had to keep one step ahead of Rachel in the talent evaluations. As long as my parents believed I was stronger than Rachel, they left her alone.”

They had left all our siblings alone. But the varying differences in our talent evaluations made sense; if Rachel had worked as hard as I had from an early age, her talent would have been as strong as mine. I’d developed mine to protect her and the rest of my siblings.

We were the only ones left in New York City, and while I hadn’t seen eye to eye with most of them, I missed having them around.

Our asshole parents had broken our family, and I wondered if we’d ever be able to put the pieces back together.

My friend sighed. “I was worried about that. Everything you’ve done, you’ve done to protect her, even from a young age. You stood in the line of fire so she wouldn’t. Hell, you’re the reason I met her when she was five. You gave me wrong directions on purpose.”

“My parents were pissed, and if you ran into them, they might have done something stupid. I made sure you weren’t near them until they cooled their temper.” I grimaced at the memory, as it had involved me taking the blame for Ethan having gotten lost in the palace. Fortunately, my RPS agents had clued in on what I’d been doing, and they’d covered me, reassuring my parents it had just been a small mistake and that it’d caused no harm. After a scolding, I’d gotten off with a single slap for embarrassing them in front of the Californians and told to go make myself useful elsewhere. “I hadn’t thought you’d be making off with my sister as an adult, but I can’t really complain about it. There are far worse men I could be stuck with as a brother-in-law.”

“You mean like any one of the men Sylvia would have picked for herself?”

“Basically. And I would have given my approval if Will had been lacking two functional brain cells.”

Ethan snorted. “Will is beside himself trying to figure out how to thank you for being kind to Mackenzie at that auction. You were the only genuine person beside him in attendance. I mean, others treated her nicely, but only because you’d put yourself in the line of fire. He still can’t figure out why.”

“My parents,” I admitted. “They actually liked nulls, and I put in a fairly competitive bid for Mackenzie, so when I didn’t take anyone home with me that night, I had the auction records proving I’d put down most of my money on Mackenzie. I’d lost the bidding, but I’d bid high enough I actually got praised by my parents for making a good run—and told not to worry about not winning. The amount I had been willing to gamble for charity pleased them. I actually talked to the assholes about it, and they approved me contributing to the charities despite not having won any bids. It did great things for my taxes that year, and I got out of having to act like I was a stud up for hire.”

“I don’t think they know that,” Ethan murmured.

“Few know about it. I don’t care if you tell them. Had I known about her woes, I would have made an offer of employment to Mackenzie, and she would not have been at any risk of losing her daughter. But, for nulls around the world? What happened was better. I won’t lie; I was tracking Mackenzie, and once I found out she was pregnant, I was prepared to step in. I was not going to let her daughter fall into some stranger’s hands. I would have yanked custody, gotten onto the phone with Montana, and yelled at him about his daughter. I recognized him.”

“How? I hadn’t, and I’d seen pictures. Nobody realized who he was outside of a select few. He used his magic somehow, but he won’t tell me the details. He just said he worked some talent to make sure we didn’t remember who he was or realize he was Montana.”

I wondered at that, and after a few minutes, I shrugged, wincing when it revitalized the pain in my skull. “I don’t know. I just knew who he was, I knew he didn’t want anyone talking about it, so I kept quiet. I respected his need for privacy, and only an idiot would have missed how much he loved Mackenzie even at the auction. Every time he looked at her, he glowed. And she had no idea. She was absolutely clueless. Honestly, I was trying to help Will, but I worry I botched it.”

“You were fine. Will appreciated your kindness. You did leave quite the impression on Mackenzie, because you were, well, you.”

“Handsome? Egotistical?” I asked, raising a brow.

“Kind.”

Damn. Ethan didn’t pull his punches. “I have a reputation to maintain, Your Majesty.”

My friend snickered. “Your reputation has been thoroughly ruined, Your Royal Highness.”

“You should probably get the congress to change the age of the heir transfer to be twenty-one. If the kid can’t drink, are they really old enough to rule the kingdom?”

“You’re right. I’ll get to work on that next week. Honestly, they’ll approve, especially as it’s only valid for as long as you’re capable of taking over the reins if needed. I’d try to pull the same quartet Texas is working on, but I don’t think we can wing it until after the mess with Deidre is resolved and their quartet has a year or two to settle. But I think we could sell it to New Yorkers with ease. Then we’d have one of our kids and one of your kids jointly rule with their spouses. That would probably help prevent another round of tyranny.”

I sighed at the thought of getting stuck with an actual crown. “I’d have to have a spouse for that to be viable.”

“Madelyn’s perfect queen material.”

“How do you figure?”

“Are you joking? The woman stared you down and practically spat her doubt at you. She is not afraid of questioning you, and you need that in a wife. I’m confident I’ll get Rachel questioning me vehemently sooner than later. It really might take a severe case of pregnancy hormones to make happen, though.”

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