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“Please,” Mr. Vargis whispered, fear further faltering his hoarse tone. “You need to help or more of us will die.”
Naya kept her gaze on the back of the hall, her heart beating so rapidly, she could feel the thrum in her throat. She couldn’t answer him. He had to know what he was asking, he had been there last time.
“Nayara,” Mama finally murmured under her breath. “Say something to him. Anything.”
Naya swallowed again and dragged her eyes down to the man. “I tried,” she said, her voice soft. “I couldn’t?—”
“The princess will visit you shortly,” Papa interrupted, his voice resounding over the hall.
A flare of annoyance prickled at Naya, her body tightening her father’s false promise.
“She needs time to work on a solution.” He held up his palm as the villager began to speak again. “I know you feel you don’t have time to wait,” he said, speaking over him, “but this situation must be dealt with carefully, as you well know. The princess will do all she can.”
The villager glanced between Naya and her father, his brows creased and his lips twitching like he still had more to say. But he bowed low, he took a last look at Naya and then shuffled backward into the crowd.
The hall suddenly felt even quieter, like hope had been sucked out of their very bones. Naya couldn’t bear it.
She rose from her chair.
“Sit down, Nayara,” Mama half-whispered across to her. “They come here to see and hear from you more than us now. Just being present will help their disappointment.”
“Nothing I do will help their disappointment or their losses,” Naya whispered back, her annoyance bright and jangling. “Why do you keep making me do this?”
Mama frowned, leaning back to look at her in surprise.
“I cannot help them, Mama.” She stumbled to the stairs at the back of the platform and escaped, her vision blurry with tears.
CHAPTER THREE
"Naya.” Her father’s voice was at least controlled, even if not completely calm.
Naya didn’t turn to look at him. She continued to pace, her arms wrapped around each other, palms clutching elbows. Her horror and shame ebbed away, leaving her trembling with smoldering anger and defensiveness.
She had no idea when Papa entered her quarters, but she sensed him. His confusion, annoyance, and concern prickled along her back from where he stood in the door behind her. He’d found her in her office, but her private quarters were a series of connected rooms—from her bedroom to her personal library—and it felt like her father’s mood expanded to all of them.
“You have responsibilities,” he said. “You cannot just get up and leave the Great Hall in the middle of a seasonal audience.”
“Then you should have prepared me for it,” Naya bit out.
“How were we to do that? You’ve been avoiding these meetings, Naya, avoiding us. Gilly only managed to see you yesterday by chance. At some point you just have to do as you’re told and sit through them like your mother and I do. How do you expect to learn how to deal with the various problems that arise in this empire if you don’t even attend when our people bring them to us?”
Exhaling long and slow, Naya turned to her father.
His thick and bulky Alpha warrior build had always towered over both her and her mother, but the strength of force it represented was evident in the success of the Lox Empire. Papa was a serious man whose fierce attitude and determination had established him as the most powerful Alpha, not just in the Lox Empire but in the collective continents referred as the Known Lands. Even as the years had worn on, etching his features with lines, age couldn’t diminish the power that resonated around him.
Only with his family did Naya ever see a softness to him—he loved them all deeply. But that didn’t weaken his opinion or position. The expectations and standards he held his children to were supportive and inspiring and crushing, and none could escape them.
“Papa.” Naya wrestled with the turbulence within her, locking it down so she could try and sound reasonable. “I’m not the best choice to be the next heir if?—”
“Nayara.” He used her full name to slice off her words, stern and sharp. “We both know that isn’t true. You’ve spent years preparing for this. The people know and trust you. You’ve given your time to meet with them, visit them in their homes. You’ve traveled all over the Known Lands, outside of the Lox Empire, and met with the other rulers. You’ve studied the various empires, specifically our own, in so much depth; trade, warfare, Alpha/Omega politics, merchant law, wealth management, local country laws?—“
“Papa, that’s not?—“
“And you are a trained Lox warrior!” The words burst from him and thundered down to Naya’s core. “No one else in the entire Known Lands possesses the kind of combat skill and magical ability you wield. It is unheard of. You know what you mean to this empire. You were born for this.”
At yet she had still fucked up in the worse way. Somehow, it hurt more to hear the proud edge to his scolding.
“You are the heir. No question. One difficult situation doesn’t mean you discard everything and hide. Now it is time to do what is expected of you.”
