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Ren’s quiet laughter joined mine, carefree and delighted.
“An hour later, Astrid’s tutor walks in to find the princess’ room absolutelycakedin flour. And it would probably have been okay if the stuff was still dry, but one or the other of us had had the brilliant idea of adding water to the mess to make our ‘snow’ more slushy.” I snorted. “Fucking hell. I was apologising to the servants for months after our punishments ended.”
Ren stiffened, his amusement instantly stifled, and it hit me what I’d said. What to him, punishment as a child had entailed.
“Nothing like that,” I said softly, silently cursing his father and the abuse he’d inflicted on the brilliant, beautiful man at my side. “I was just confined to my room for a week, only permitted to leave for meals and lessons. Not that it stopped Kolya, who snuck in everyday to bring me snacks he’d traded for secrets from the other childre...”
It was my turn to fall still. The northern prince’s name echoed around the bedchamber as if the man himself was here, not as the mischievous and demanding boy he’d been, but the bitter, resentful adversary who’d slaughtered innocents and hadn’t given a fuck, too intent on claiming both my affections and the Mazekhstani throne to care about their cost.
Ren trailed gentle caresses down my arm until the sick, guilty feeling invoked by that horrible night sank back into the recesses of my mind, soothed by his touch and presence. And then the prince paused, glancing over at the door. “I can hear voices.”
I sighed and flung the bed covers off us, which made Ren yelp and toss out a myriad of threats in my direction. “It must be the healer. We better get ready to leave.”
We dressed quickly, grateful for the increased cleanliness and warmth our new clothes offered over what we’d been wearing when we arrived – which were now nothing more than embers in the suite’s fireplace – but the still, cloudless night held a vicious chill to it that had been kept away while we lay in the bed with his warm skin against mine. Ren shivered, his face pale and expression drawn as he hugged his uninjured arm around himself, and I moved towards the bedchamber door, ready to drag the damn healer in here if he didn’t move any quicker.
“…it’s my own Blessed house, bitch.”
I froze, my hands shooting up into frantic gestures to warn Ren to stay still and quiet. Pablo Martinez’s obnoxious voice continued to float through the door, too close for him to be in the corridor. He had to be standing in the suite’s antechamber, with only an inch of wood between us.
“That slimy fucker who calls himself a driver deliberately ran over every pothole between here and the border. I’ve been bounced around in that damn carriage for hours, and I need a hot meal and a bath, something a good wife should have had ready. Why is that so hard for you to understand, woman?”
“We didn’t know you were…”
The doorknob rattled. Ren and I darted for the window, him muttering a prayer for Dios to ward off squeaky hinges as he eased it open.
“Why the fuck is this door locked?”
“It’s…been sticking in the cold weather lately,” I heard Lady Martinez say hastily. “How about taking a bath in our rooms, dear?”
“You know I don’t fit in that tiny tub. This is…get this open!”
After a silent battle of glares between us, Ren relented with a roll of his eyes, and climbed through the window first.
“My lord.” Abril’s voice, polite yet cold. “Welcome home.”
“I said open the door, not stand there like a gaping dormouse, you imbecile,” Martinez snapped. “You there, deal with this. It seems my household has gone to shit in my absence.”
I clambered out after my lover, swinging my legs out over the twenty-foot drop and trying to manoeuvre the window closed with my elbow. My fingertips scraped across gritty, cold stone, and I glanced down to find Ren clutching the wall tightly. His face was screwed up in pain.
I heard the sound of a door being broken down amid Lady Martinez’s gasps, and hastily lowered myself below the level of the windowsill, my boots scrabbling for purchase.
“What thefuck?”
We’d been seen.
Could we climb down two floors quicker than the obnoxious bastard could send his men around, or would we find them waiting for us on the ground, swords already levelled at our throats?
“I’m a tolerant man,” Lord Martinez boomed from above us, “but there areexpectations,girl, and one of those is to keep the standards expected of this house. What if His Majesty were to visit and be subjected to this Blessed mess?”
I glanced at Ren, but he had his eyes squeezed shut. His knuckles were white where they gripped the stone.
“My apologies. I’ll make the bed immediately, my lord,” said Abril soothingly, and then I winced as a hard slap echoed through the window.
“Pablo!”
“Don’t you raise your voice to me, woman! See to it that the girl receives a flogging for her incompetence when she’s done.”
There was a long silence from the room, and it felt like an eternity. Would the servant attempt to barter her way out of punishment by giving us and her mistress up?
