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“You do not look quite the part of the happy bridegroom,” came his brother’s drawling voice from behind him.
Orion sighed, but turned to face him all the same. “Should I be turning cartwheels down the corridors of the palace?”
“Not looking murderous might be a start.” Griffin’s gaze swept over him. “Where is your lovely bride-to-be? Sequestered somewhere around here, presumably? Surrounded by the usual passel of women and dreams of her special day, one assumes?”
Even if Calista had not been her father’s weapon, she would still be Calista—but Orion did not allow himself to succumb to the urge to defend her. Not tonight.
“My bride-to-be has not shared her plans with me,” Orion said instead. “Then again, I did not ask.”
Griffin blinked at that, standing behind the chair he usually preferred to lounge in. Orion watched as his brother tapped his finger against the back of the chair, as if contemplating something. Deeply.
The world must have ended.
“If you’ve come here to give me marital advice,” Orion said softly, “don’t.”
Griffin smiled. Faintly. “What marital advice could I possibly have to give? The closest I’ve been to that blessed state was witnessing our parents’ union. Not exactly the sort of thing that would turn a man’s thoughts to marital bliss, was it?”
Orion’s smile felt thin and mean on his mouth. “You have no idea.”
“If you are holding on to something that affects us both, out of some misplaced sense of duty,” Griffin replied, in much the same tone Orion had used, “I will remind you that I’m not a child.”
Orion knew that too well. But he also knew that he could have quite happily lived out the rest of his life without knowing what had happened between his parents. Or what had caused his mother to make the choices she had.
Why should he ruin what scant good memories Griffin had, too? He didn’t see the point.
“I will always do my duty,” he said instead, and felt far more tired than he had when he’d used to make such statements. When they had been hopes and dreams instead of simple facts. “I made that promise to you years ago. And to the rest of the kingdom.”
“Yes, yes,” Griffin murmured. “No one doubts your commitment, brother. What I do wonder, though, here on the eve of your wedding to a woman so unworthy of you that it is almost laughable—”
“You are speaking of my queen,” Orion growled, all steel and menace, and only then recalled that he did not plan to defend her. Not tonight. But he had already started, so he kept on. “I will not have it. Not even from you, Griffin.”
His brother looked as if he wanted to laugh, but wisely did not.
Instead, he nodded. “Understood. But while you are busy being on her side, whether she deserves it or not, know that I’m on yours. And not because I want your job, because I don’t. I never have and I never will.”
“I am aware.” Orion thought his voice was too harsh, then. Too rough, but he had lost the ability to moderate it. “It’s maddening, if you must know the truth. Younger royal siblings are supposed to want nothing more than to usurp the heir’s position, with all the usual sniping and backbiting.”
“I would rather die.”
Orion smiled despite himself. “This I know.”
And the two of them looked at each other, then away. It might have been an embrace, had they been different men.
“Tomorrow I will stand at your side and welcome your new queen to our family and this kingdom,” Griffin told him, his voice as solemn as his gaze was uncharacteristically serious. “I represent the entirety of the royal family besides you, and so I can say with certainty that she will be supported. As long as you wish it.”
Orion thought of Calista. Beautiful, faithless Calista.
He thought of the betrayal she had already enacted, and the others that were sure to follow. And he had lied to Griffin. He knew that Calista was not in the palace tonight. He had been informed when she left and with a single phone call, he could determine where she was now—but did he really want to know?
Orion would have asked himself why he was bothering to protect her, but, of course, he knew.
Because he loved nothing more than exercises in futility, particularly if it came with a side dose of martyrdom. Except possibly the one woman who had ever gotten beneath his skin.
But he said nothing of these things to his brother.
“I wish it,” he said. “I want her supported, no matter what.”
Griffin nodded. And turned to go, but Orion stopped him.
