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My father was certainly not supposed to fucking agree, either. But he patted her hand and told her it wasn’t a problem at all. Worse yet, he made me pay for it.
“You screwed up. It isn’t hard to keep a girl like her in check. You’re a fucking prince of the realm. All you had to do was give her a smidgen of attention, but no. You had to show her you preferred your whores. You were given a sweet, malleable, pretty thing who would have kept you in the heart of the people—one of them. With our polish and our education, but a girl they’d see as theirs anyway. And you failed. Don’t think for one second people won’t wonder what defect you have that means you can’t keep even a fucking commoner.”
And he was right. The world did wonder. Partially because of him: he made it crystal clear to anyone who asked that poison had been the one to walk out on me, not the other way around.
My friends think that’s why I started obsessing over the girl, but it’s all much simpler than that.
She was mine, and all of a sudden, one day, she wasn’t. Not because I grew tired of her, but because she decided otherwise.
I didn’t like that.
At eighteen, I’d reacted like a little shit of course, but even now, six years later, there’s no denying that all my instincts tell me to hunt her down, drag her back here where she belongs. Then mark her. Brand her. Soil and ruin her for anyone else.
So I keep busy. I open museums. I travel. I lead relief efforts. I even joined the army for a year, between the end of my bachelor’s and med school. And I still train with the knights whenever they let me.
You failed.
Ivy, Ivy, Ivy.
Even the little prick’s smirk can’t stop the chant at the back of my mind, or the pull making me itch, demanding I go back to my old habits.
She’s always had a discreet security detail, but two years ago, I asked them to stop updating me about her daily life.
Might have to do with the fact that it was the year she fucking started dating.
Mywife wasdating.
And not me.
I knew if I kept up with the details, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself. I’d get on a plane and reclaim what’s mine—never mind the fact that kidnapping her would break about a dozen laws, and potentially ruin our kingdom’s relationship with the UK in the process.
I don’t know what she’s up to. I just know she’s safe. That’s the one thing I couldn’t stop myself from doing: ensuring that no one could hurt her.
If anyone gets to break my sweet little poison, it’ll be me.
“Guess what?” the newly anointed prick demands.
Nico looks like the picture-perfect prince, in his white ceremonial attire, a green sash pinned across his torso. He’s incredibly pretty, his dark hair and olive coloring so unlike my blond curls and fairer complexion. I’d say one of us looks like the gardener’s son, if we both didn’t have our father’s cold gray eyes.
He’s so cold.
Indifferent.
It might have been wonderful.
But it wasn’t.
The gray eyes didn’t stop Nicolai from keepinghisbride, though I know he’s even more messed up than I was at his age.
I didn’t do anything wrong. Honestly, if I had paid attention to her back then, I would have been a freak. She was fifteen when she broke it off. Did she really want a fucking adult to notice she had tits?
And sure, eighteen-year-olds fuck fifteen-year-olds all the time, but why would I have wasted my time on her when I knew I’d get her for the rest of my life? It was my time to just chill. Be myself. Explore other shit.
“It baffles me that you truly seem to believe I care about anything you might have to tell me,” I retort.
I don’t dislike my brother as such. There’s only one thing dividing us: the fact that he still has his Fort girl and I don’t. He won. I failed.
I get along with him better when I don’t think about poison.
