“Maybe.” I flip my hair off my hot neck. “I think your harem is full enough without another woman.”
“There’s no one here but me.” There’s something strange about the way he says it. So I almost believe him. Then I imagine him with that girl atop him in the Instagram photo, rubbing his shoulders while she rocks herself against him.
He’s nice—yes. He’s charming. Swoony, even. But he’s Prince Liam. He’s a playboy.
“Thank you, Liam. I’m okay here, though.” For now at least. Someday soon, I’ll have to tell him my secret. But not now.
“The offer stands. Escape and entertainment.”
“Thank you.” My gut clenches.
“Goodnight, Lucy.”
“Goodnight, Liam.”
NINE
Liam
The Kingdom of Gael is 4,700 square miles: a little smaller than Northern Ireland or the state of Indiana. Several million years ago, its west coast was connected to the east coast of Scotland, fitting like a puzzle piece into Linne Foirthe, the inlet of the North Sea that kisses Edinburgh.
Lots of underwater earthquakes later, the ferry ride from Edinburgh to Clary, Gael, covers 69 nautical miles, or about the distance from Baton Rouge to New Orleans. Gael is shaped like the silhouette of a bird’s head, turned sideways. Our capital, Clary, is at the tip of the beak, pointed toward Scotland. Torr, where I live in Haugr Castle, is at the top of the bird’s head. The journey from his head to the tip of his beak takes me exactly one hour, twenty-seven minutes. More if I tell Ain to disregard discretion and drive fast.
It wouldn’t be smart to take a vehicle outside the royal fleet. Would be too dangerous if we’re caught. Would put us at risk of being stopped by the guard—Gael’s police force. So Ain drives a black Bentley with the royal plates. Past the townships Kot, Dalr, and Vestur, over two-lane roads that cut through grassy, rock-strewn countryside and arch over sloshing tj?rns.
It’s windy today, even more so than usual. When the wind rips across Gael’s flatlands, it’s a force. I watch Ain pull the steering wheel against the slap of it and wish that I was driving. One of many things I dislike about being in my homeland: a prince behind the wheel would seem like sacrilege. Would start rumors about the royal finances.
I try not to think about that as Ain drives and I sit with the tips of my shoes against the bundle underneath the front passenger’s seat.
Ain has the radio set to classic rock, and doesn’t look back at me as he drives. I know he feels sympathy for me—maybe even pity—but he’s angry with me too. For putting the crown in jeopardy. For not stopping everything sooner.
He’s told me more than once this can’t go on. I know he’s right. I just don’t know how to end it. There is a solution I don’t think I can pull off. Another one I’m not ready for. I wonder if he thinks I’m a coward for not being ready. The thought makes my hands sweat, makes my throat tighten. Like there’s a noose around my neck in more than metaphor.
I let my fingertips hover over the flask in my pocket, but I don’t touch it through the fabric of my pants. Having it up against my leg: that’s enough. It has to be. I’m not drinking it in front of Ain.
I study the black hair that curls along his nape. It’s turning silver in some places. I remember when I was a teenager, the way I envied Ain’s beard. I thought he was such a badass, but I also hated him for following me everywhere and making me look weak and sheltered. He wasn’t with me for most of the last year and a half. I enjoyed it. I think briefly of dismissing him entirely, and what that would be like, before I feel a jab of guilt.
I lift my gaze out the window, to where buildings have started springing up out of the rocky landscape. Petrol stations, restaurants, office buildings, apartments… Clary looks a bit like Edinburgh, but cleaner and slightly less modern. Three hundred thousand people live here. My eyes follow them as they walk, bike, and wait on buses.
Gael has a great bus system. Thinking of that makes my mind lurch forward, cataloguing what I know about the nation’s transport system, any controversies with its funding, flaws in the planning grid. I grit my teeth and shift my thoughts away.
I shut my eyes, try to imagine the capitol city of Clary as it stood two hundred years ago: nothing but a stone fortress and huts for all the farmers and the tradesmiths.
There are mountains on the island’s north shore, and a small ridge in the northeast. But not here. Clary is situated on a high point, overlooking a vast valley. I wish I could turn back time and see the way the wind would whip through the grasses. The way the ocean would pound the rocky shore. Horses, carts, and maybe even chickens on the rocky roads.
I inhale slowly.
Back then, kings would kill a dissident.
In my memory, I hear gurgling. It makes my chest and head feel hot. I hear the bastard’s words. I see Bryce’s busted face. I clench my fingers. I wish I had killed him. I think of her curled over on her side, all that soft, soft hair around her, and my fingers sifting through it. I can hear her quiet voice through the phone. And Christ, I’m hard now. Now.
I chuckle, not a trace of humor in it.
I see Ain’s gaze in the rear-view mirror: there, then gone.
The buildings start to choke the road. The road widens. We cross a bridge and take a right, and wind up on an old stone road that runs along one of the city’s many veiny inlets. I can feel my back and shoulders tense. I can feel the old familiar tightness of my lungs.
Again, Ain’s eyes. I don’t know if I love him for that, or if I hate him.
A left down a short, one-way street, then a right into an alley. He stops where he always does, and I pick up the parcel in the floorboard. It feels soft in my hand, just a bundle wrapped in brown paper. I nod toward him and, without looking into his eyes, get out of the car and go into the gym through a dented steel door. My fingers know the password now without my eyes needing to look.
Inside, the speakers blast techno music. Far away, down several halls, I hear the clink of weights. A pretty blonde leans against the green wall of the hallway. She smiles as I walk her way, and when I’m within close distance, her hands reach out for me. She draws me close, as if we’re good friends.
She laughs. “Liam.”
I nod and smile for any cameras. “Dru.”
I hand her the package.
“Ah. How lovely of you.”
I nod.
She grins. “No messages this time. Keep at it. I suppose that’s all.”
I nod again, and keep my head held high, the way a royal should. And then I’m gone, with just a brief stop as I reach the steel door to the alley. Just one sip—no, two—of Everclear. After his esophageal cancer seven years ago, and the resulting radiation, Ain can’t smell it.
I swagger back into the alley, get into the car. Again, he looks at me. It’s more than what I normally get. I wonder why he seems to care more this time. Then I close my eyes and let the road noise and the buzzing in my veins take me away.
TEN Lucy