He looks behind me over my shoulder and I snort. "She's not going to fucking marry you. Give up."
"I wish she would."
"She's not interested in marrying a King."
"I know," he says, sighing as we walk down the hall. "But I would not be a normal man if I didn't imagine it from time to time. Although, I’m in no rush to marry."
"Sensible. I was married and a father as a boy—much too young. Tell me all you know," I reply, sitting in his library and uncorking a bottle of red wine.
We do not leave the room until three hours later. Mine and Espan's spies have done well. Traitors from the Cataclysmic Flats have managed to get a copy of the key to one of the ten doors to the Vault. This leaves two questions. How do we get it back, and who is the rat who helped them get it? There’s a hell of a lot of money floating around these people at the moment, and it plants a bad thought in my head.
Someone powerful is helping them, and it has me looking around the table of mine and Espan’s most famous guards and advisors, questioning everything that leaves everyone’s mouth. Shit, I can’t even rule Espan out, that’s how dangerous this is.
"Who found the hidden cave?"
Espan sighs. "That’s what I wanted to tell you earlier. It was Renna and Onyx. Don't go flying off the handle. Her army has taken a few months of work spying for me, and she's the best I've had."
I ignore the way my heart rate spikes at the mention of her name as we walk out of the palace grounds. She’s crossed my mind every day for months, but the Renna that I know is nothing more than an act.
* * *
I amawoken at four in the morning by searing pain in my chest. As I struggle to regulate my breathing I know that all hope of any more sleep is long lost. Instead, I plunge into an ice bath and walk down to the training ground to lift weights, borderline grinding my teeth into dust at the agony. The distinctive noise of an arrow whipping through the air and hitting a target greets me, and I stand at the top of the steps.
Sheis here.
Of course she is here. She just had to be here. She sprints across the empty courtyard, swinging on a rope and launching herself onto a platform not one foot wide. From there she leaps up to catch a wooden bar, pulling herself up. I watch the way her muscles flex, the way her body moves and bows with unexplainable grace and power. As I witness her split an arrow in two with another arrow, I see that there is no way she could’ve ever been a mortal. She has been training like this for alongtime.
Bruises and knife cuts decorate her exposed arms as she plummets to the stone floor, wipes the sweat from her face, and starts collecting arrows. I let out a frustrated exhale at seeing her. I should've known she might be here. I can’t keep watching like a stalker.
"Good morning," I chirp, my voice a little too sweet and dripping in sarcasm.
"It would be, if I hadn't just seen you," she says, pulling her final arrow out of the target with a little extra force. She’s painfully beautiful, her skin a warm shade of brown and her body sculpted from hours in this courtyard. She looks healthy.
"Grow up, Renna."
"Go fuck yourself, Rexxan."
And with those kind parting words, she vanishes into the night.
When I return at sunrise, Espan is waiting for me outside my bedroom, looking creepy. "I don’t fuck men, Espan. Find someone else."
He chuckles. “Very well.”
“Why are you here?”
"I told Mary you'd help her out for a few hours this morning."
"Fine," I say, walking past him.
Mary runs the orphanage. I always pay it a visit when I come. I'm not sure why. Perhaps because children are my biggest weakness. Perhaps because I lost my parents quite young, or because my son very nearly lost his parents too. Had we not been in the Royal Family, he would’ve been in an orphanage too.
A few years ago, I attended a charity gala in this very palace and every high-profile guest there sponsored a child at Mary’s orphanage, paying for their food and education until they’re grown up. Mine was a baby girl called Anpopeia, or Poppy, who I hope has now found her family.
When I arrive, I spot Renna leaning against the gate, eating a pear. I stop in my tracks. "Espan, I swear to the gods, if this is a fucking set-up—“
"It's time you two buried the hatchet. At least be neutral with her. You both love volunteering here. Patch it up. Make it work, for the children."
I'm going to cripple his Kingdom's finances for months, I swear. I'll cut off his fucking wine supply, that'll do it. Renna looks up, beautiful brown eyes meeting mine. She frowns immediately, and I hate that that’s how she feels around me. She beams at every other man like they put the sun in the sky. "What are you doing here?"
