AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Morning,” I said easily, and one of the sheets was tugged aside to reveal a short Quarehian woman with her hair plaited and pinned around the crown of her head. She had a chipped jug in her hands, which she almost dropped when she lowered herself into a hasty curtsy at the sight of Ren.
“Your Highness! You’re awake!”
His eyes flickered to mine, uncertain.
“Señora Hernández,” I greeted her by name for his sake, and reached up to take the jug from her limp hands before it splashed more water over the floor. “The Hernándezes have been very kind in allowing us to take shelter in their home,” I explained, helping Ren to sit up when it became clear that he was going to do so either with or without my assistance.
“You have my gratitude,” he said sincerely, with a graciousness that held none of the prince’s usual sarcasm or flirtation. The woman gave a shy smile and withdrew, letting the sheets fall back into place to enclose us once more.
The room was too cold at night and swelteringly humid during the day when the basement became the laundry it was primarily used for, but we’d be sleeping on the streets if Señora Hernández hadn’t found us. She and her wife risked a hanging – or worse – for offering us aid.
Sequestered away like this, with nothing but white cloth surrounding us, it almost made it seem like we were cloistered among the clouds. Somewhere peaceful and serene, and not a dank basement that now, thanks to our presence, reeked of sweat and the iron tang of blood. Where Ren wasn’t recovering from a hole in his fucking shoulder after being driven from his palace by malicious lies.
He swayed against me, eyelashes and breath fluttering, and I took his weight.
“Rest,” I murmured, helping him to lie back down on the floor and untwisting the sheets that were tangled around our legs. I could see him struggling to keep his eyes open now that the brief surge of excitement had faded.
I stroked his hair in the way I knew he liked until his body surrendered to sleep once more.
With a warrant out for my arrest alongside the prince’s, and looking as distinctly foreign as I did, it would be unwise for me to leave the basement. But even if that hadn’t been the case, there was nowhere I would choose to be other than here, listening to Ren’s shallow, pained breathing, keeping him cool with a wet cloth draped across his brow, and holding his hand in mine.
*
Chapter Two
“No,” I said, pissed off. “The man may have taken my sister, my crown, and my country, but I draw the line at my fuckingbed. Welzes actually had the audacity to move into the king’s chambers?”
Lord de la Vega nodded sombrely from the carriage seat opposite us, where his significant bulk took up most of the space. The nobleman, who had made his fortune in trade, had travelled with us fromla Cortinato Máros to attend my coronation, and was now one of our only allies in the city. “Although Imayhave mentioned to him what you’d been up to in it only a few nights ago, my prince. I fear I upset his enjoyment of his new abode somewhat, as I’ve never seen anyone pale quite so quickly.” He looked at Mat and chuckled, a glimmer of amusement flickering in his beady eyes. “You have a beautiful singing voice, Your Highness.”
My northerner cocked his head, frowning in confusion. Then his eyes went wide with horror as he registered the lord’s meaning and he promptly buried his face in my uninjured shoulder. “Oh!”
“Now you have,” I said, cackling.
“How?” Mathias wailed, his voice muffled by the itchy fabric of the commoner clothes I was wearing.
“The guest rooms I was assigned in the palace are below those of the king,” de la Vega told him, sharing a conspiratorial wink with me. “Certain...soundstravel rather well.”
“We’re changing that, Ren,” Mat snarled into my shoulder. “The moment you get your crown back, we’re removing everything from that entire wing.”
“Certainly,mi cielo,” I said amicably, patting his hair. “I shall of course defer all those pesky amendments to the gender laws and focus my attentions solely on palace renovations designed to allow you to scream even louder when I fuck you.”
He peeled his face away and glared up at me with murder in those blue-grey eyes of his I adored so much.
But because I loved courting danger and wasn’t done teasing him, I glanced at de la Vega. “I hope you also encouraged Welzes to take a look in my bedside drawers? My toys should keep him reminded of whose rooms he’s sleeping in.”
“Naturally, my prince,” the man said smoothly, and Mat choked, glancing between me and the lord with a clear question in his eyes. I blinked back innocently.
“Can we fuckingfocus?”he snapped, now peering worriedly at the curtained windows of the carriage as if expecting to see soldiers staring back from the other side. “We’re being hunted like Blessed dogs through the city, and the net is tightening every day. Sooner or later they’re going to catch us – catchyou,Ren – and Welzes isn’t going to give a fuck about having to change the sheets on his bed when him and Councillor Navar have your head on a spike.”
“Hmm,” I said, doubtful. “Decapitation isn’t the way they’ll go. Considering they have no intention of letting me live long enough to stand trial for my alleged treason – because it’s complete bullshit – they’ll have to make my end look like an accident or a suicide. Losing one’s head tends to suggest foul play…unless you think anyone would buy that I accidentally tripped and fell neck first onto areallysharp axe?”
Mathias shot me a disdainful look. “I don’t carehowthey’re planning to kill you, just that they are.”
“It’s terribly sweet of you to care at all.” I beamed at him, nudging my elbow against his. Unfortunately, de la Vega’s carriage turned a corner at the same time, and the nudge became a rather hard prod to his ribs as I fell against him. He smacked my thigh sharply in response.
“I care,” Mat hissed. “To the extent that if anyone gets to finish your irritating ass off, it better be me.”
I snorted at the interesting wording. “We’re dissectingthatsentence later,mi sol.”
