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“So why did you say you’ll wait for your soldier? By the way, if you think people won’t figure out who you’re in love with, I can tell you they will.”
“Good.”
“Not good. Everyone knows D’Artaron isn’t available. He’s chaste, and now you are chaste. Chaste people can’t produce heirs, and the crown will fall. Oh fates, I feel faint.”
I tap the bed. “Come sit down.” After she sits, I close my hand over hers. “You talk a great deal about males as if they’re horses. As if I’m a mare. Well, if we are, then we’re talking about pedigrees. Wouldn’t you agree?”
She side-eyes me. “Where are you going with this?”
“Name a single male with a better pedigree than D’Artaron.”
Claudette stares, opens her mouth, pinches it shut again. “That’s beside the point.” She thinks some more. “Ha! I have one.”
I frown. “Who?”
“The Summer prince.”
I groan. “He is handsome.”
She bends and whispers, “And, I hear, a champion in bed.”
I laugh again, and the pain intensifies, the accumulating heat not leaving my body.
“You said it yourself. The male who mates me will be the Spring king. And the moment you said it, I knew it had to be D’Artaron. He’s the only one for me. Besides, if he takes the throne, he will be the only one the Summer king will respect.”
“Pfft. D’Artaron will do whatever the other one says.”
“You haven’t seen them together. There are lines the king can’t cross with D’Artaron.” A stab of pain racks my body, and I yelp, then squeeze my eyes shut.
“Please, Chloe, reconsider.”
“No!” I shout and push the covers away. “I never wanted the crown, but the queen does what she wants, and a good queen wants to serve her people the best she knows how. This court must have D’Artaron, and if I have to bribe, scheme, and use my body as a tool to pull him away from the Summer Court and bring him here, then by the fates, that is what I’ll do.”
Claudette appears surprised.
“What?”
“Nothing, sister.”
“There is something. Tell me.”
“You are thinking the way royals do.”
“I hope so.”
Claudette folds the hem of my comforter, her focus on the floor. She clears her throat and whispers, “If you order D’Artaron to service you and breed you, he can’t refuse.”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
Claudette squeezes my knee. “I know. You are your father’s daughter. You always were. I’ll fetch a healer.”
“Thank you, sister.”
She drops into a low curtsy. “You’re welcome, Your Majesty.”
34
D’ARTARON
