“Take him inside,” the same voice said.
The ropes around his ankles rasped as they were pulled away and Felix found himself being guided none too gently forward, stumbling over a rocky path. A firm grip on his shoulder held him in place. He heard the creak of a door before he was pulled through a doorway, a stone floor echoing under the soles of his boots.
He was shoved into a seat and his wrists were released and retied to the arms of the chair. He dimly registered that his short sword had been taken, but at least his legs remained free. Felix felt a glimmer of hope. He just needed to distract whoever this was before it occurred to them to tie him up more securely.
“Please,” he said. “There’s been a mistake. I don’t know who you think I am, but I’m just a groom.”
“Oh, I know exactly who you are,” the voice said as Felix’s blindfold was pulled off.
Felix blinked rapidly against the daylight, his eyes taking a moment to adjust. When his vision cleared, he blinked again just to check he was seeing what he thought he was seeing, but the scene in front of him remained the same, as he’d known it would. “Y-your Highness?”
Prince Stephan loomed over Felix, blindfold still in one hand as he took Felix’s chin in his other hand and tipped his head back, tilting it from side to side. “Hmmm. I suppose you’re pretty enough.”
Felix jerked his head back out of the prince’s grasp, his heart racing. “I…I don’t understand.”
But he had an awful, growing suspicion that he did.
Stephan crouched in front of him, so he was at eye level. “Don’t you? I’m disappointed. I’d thought you would at least have half a brain in your head. Although, perhaps Leo prefers his bedfellows pretty and dumb.”
Felix swallowed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Stephan gave Felix’s cheek a light slap. “Don’t play stupid. I saw him fussing over you when you came off your horse. A king doesn’t care a fig for the well-being of a groom—but he might care about hislover.”
Felix tugged at the ropes holding his arms to the chair and felt the tiniest bit of give, which fed his earlier flicker of hope. He didn’t know if anybody had noticed he wasn’t back from his ride, but eventually someone would come looking. And meanwhile, if he could just keep Stephan talking, he was confident he could work himself free, or at the very least buy himself some time. He might not know anything about kidnap etiquette, but his father had made sure he was well educated in the art of self-defence—and that included escape.
“I don’t understand,” he said again, flexing his forearms.
Stephan straightened and folded his arms over his chest, and out of the corner of his eye Felix spotted two other men circling around behind him.
Stephan smirked. “You, boy, are the reason Leopold turned down my sister. Their marriage would have been a milestone and joined our kingdoms. But your king wasn’t interested, and at first, I didn’t understand why he’d walk away from such an advantageous alliance. But when I saw how he fussed over you after my men aimed badly enough to unseat you instead of the king”—he shot a glare over Felix’s shoulder—“I realised that the reason for his refusal was simple. He’s in love withyou.”
“No, he’s not,” Felix said, and he forced a note of bitterness into his voice. “I’m just a convenient fuck.”
He didn’t really think it was true, not with how devastated Leo had looked when he’d left, but he also didn’t want to give Stephan any reason to think he was anything other than a warm body.
“And yet he had you staying in the castle after your fall,” Stephan said, tapping a fingertip against his chin and pacing up and down in front of Felix’s chair.
“Why were you shooting at the king in the first place?” Felix asked, hoping to divert Stephan from following that thought to its logical conclusion.
“It was meant to be a near miss, perhaps a flesh wound. A reminder that Lilleforth is in the precarious position of having no heir should something happen to the king. Then someone would whisper in Leo’s ear that perhaps he should marry Sophia after all, just in case.”
“And who was going to say that, exactly?” Felix said, ignoring the fact that he’d said almost the same thing, although from a very different viewpoint.
Stephan arched an eyebrow in a way that was probably meant to be imposing, but fell short. “It’s easy to find someone who’s willing to perform certain services: tell a king what you need him to hear, pass on information, that sort of thing. How do you think I knew you’d recovered at the castle?”
Felix’s gut soured at the idea that someone had been watching Leo—watchinghim—without him knowing. But he kept the shock off his face and reminded himself that spies were common, and that Stephan was, first and foremost, an idiot. Felix just needed to keep him talking while he worked on his ropes—and Felix was anexpertat talking.
He gave a lazy half shrug. “I assumed you’d have spies. Doesn’t everybody? It’s just a shame yours are so terrible at their job.”
Stephan’s brow creased. “If they’re so terrible, how did I know you’d gone riding today?”
Felix shrugged again, as much as his bonds would let him, and took the opportunity to tug at his ropes, loosening them further. “Maybe youdidn’tknow. Maybe, because I’ve been in bed for over a week, you took a lucky guess that I’d want to ride. Or maybe you’ve been holed up in this”—he looked around, took in the large single room with stag heads on the wall and a stone fireplace, and made an educated guess—“hunting lodge, having someone keep watch on the stables, waiting for any sign of me, because you couldn’t figure out a way to take me from the castle. Which, I’m still not clear on why you took me at all? WhyamI here?”
“Because Leolovesyou,” Stephan repeated, and Felix wasn’t sure if hearing it hurt because it was a lie, or because it might be the truth. “I considered just killing you and removing the object of his affections permanently, but there was no guarantee he wouldn’t declare war as an act of revenge. So instead, I thought I’d take you just to show that I can, and then I’d have my men hurt you before sending you back with a message. If Leo wants to keep you safe, he’ll marry my sister. And if she’s Queen of Lilleforth, she can’t inherit the throne of Evergreen—which means it will come to me.”
Felix blinked. “That is…the stupidest plan I’ve ever heard.”
It was actually far more clever than Felix had expected from Stephan, but he wasn’t admitting that.
