Peach

Saturday morning is cold as a snake’s heart, with odd clouds closing in over the mountains. Snow clouds, Viktor called them.

I call them alien formations that my Southern bones aren’t ready to deal with.

“Are you certain you wouldn’t like to borrow my coat?” Viktor asks.

“I’m already wearing three coats,” I reply as we follow an overgrown jungle path in search of a lost ark at some temple of doom.

Okay, fine, we’re hacking our way through dying underbrush on a mountain in the Alps headed toward the second of two royal summer homes apparently owned by the monarchy. The first was cozy and adorable—though still four times as big as my house back in Alabama—and staffed by a lovely woman and her husband who were hired two years ago, but hadn’t ever met King Roland. They kept everything neat and tidy and it reminded me more of a bed and breakfast than a royal estate.

And the gazebo in the gardens was so picture-perfect, I snapped several pictures to share with Alexander. I have a feeling he’d see what I saw, though I’ll deny it. And he’ll convince Viktor that if Amoria wants to fully embrace its country of love title, the estate out here should be opened for couples getaways and weddings and marriage retreats.

It was so charming and comfortable, I slept better last night than I have any night since we arrived in Amoria.

Probably better than any night since my mama died, if I’m being honest. But I don’t think it was just the fresh mountain air slipping in through the window Viktor left cracked, or the thick comforters and his body heat keeping me warm.

Viktor’s mum has a tight leash on Papaya, helped back at the palace by Alexander and Samuel and Eva. I video chatted with all of them before bed, and she was so tired she was nearly falling asleep on the phone. Apparently after school, Eva took her on a mission to hunt out the old oil paintings of the previous kings and royal families, and they wore themselves out battling spider webs and unexpected surprises in various boxes and trunks in the palace attic.

Today, they’re keeping her busy with horseback riding and grooming the alpacas, and this afternoon she’s having a cooking lesson with the palace chef, which I think is Viktor’s mum’s way of infiltrating the kitchen.

Viktor takes my hand and helps me over a massive log blocking the road, which is why we’re walking instead of driving, and I let him, because I might secretly like touching him.

Plus, his hands are warm, and my fingers are like ice.

“You’re anticipating spinning this story to make me appear ungentlemanly, aren’t you?” he asks.

“Hush. We haven’t been married long enough for you to have figured out all my faults.”

“I was highly aware of your nature before our wedding.”

“And you still married me, so what does that say about you?”

“That I am madly, desperately in love with you despite yourself.”

Yes, there are guards with us. But the statement still sends warm heart bubbles through my chest.

Shut up. Maybe I’m starting to like hearts. Is that a crime?

I didn’t think so.

Also, for the record, since I spilled my guts over the fire a few nights ago, nothing’s changed.

Nothing at all.

Except that maybe I’ve done a little inappropriate swooning over the little things. Like that Viktor always leaves a dry towel closest to the shower for me. That he preps my favorite vanilla caramel blend after he’s made himself a pot of black coffee every morning. That he’s been leaving puzzle books open on the table—which is very unlike him to leave anything out of its place—because I think he knows Papaya needs the mental challenge, but prefers to tackle them if she’s solving something she thinks the last person wasn’t smart enough to solve, or because she knows it would irritate her if someone else finished the puzzle she left for herself for later.

Which he’s been doing the entire time we’ve been at the palace, I just hadn’t caught on until yesterday.

We push through more drying weeds, and I catch a glimpse of stone through the evergreens. “Is that it?” I ask.

He consults the map on his phone, then peers through the trees, his expression going suspiciously blank. “Should be.”

One of the guards asks something in German. Viktor answers, and the guard frowns at him.

Viktor frowns back.

“Oh, for the love of Thor, quit having pissing contests over who should go first,” I tell them all. And then I go first.

Which I’m almost positive amuses Viktor.

Which also means he’s somehow used his Super Bodyguard magic powers to deduce that there’s no danger lurking in the trees or the forest ahead.

I march past four more trees, and a building appears in the clearing. It’s two stories high, stone but covered in vines, with part of the roof caved in. There were obviously gardens on this side of the building at one point, but they’ve all grown wild and blended into the forest, with only the merest hints based on the spacing of the trees and bushes—and also the utterly unnatural rusted archway with long-dead vines clinging to it—to suggest this was once a place someone cared to cultivate.

Half the windows are broken, but it seems more likely to have been caused by the vines growing through them and weather and animals adding to the strain on the building than from random teenagers like Papaya climbing a remote mountain to cause property damage.

“It’s like no one’s been here for—”

“Fifty years,” Viktor finishes. He stops beside me, his arm brushing mine, and there’s something in his tone that makes me grip his hand.

He squeezes back. “’Twas my grandfather’s favorite retreat. He talked of this estate until he died.”

I glance up at him.

Stoic, reliable, unflappable Viktor is very much flapped.

His lips are drawn down, his eyes what I’d call misty on any other man, and there’s a tremble in his grip.

All I know about his grandfather, the man, are the stories I’ve heard from his mum. All I know about his grandfather, the king, are little tidbits mentioned in passing around the castle. When King Jonas was here, he had a grand feast every year to celebrate all the newlyweds in the kingdom.

When King Jonas was here, his birthday was celebrated by every family donating blankets and bottles for wee babes.

When King Jonas was here, he visited every village annually to ask what they needed most.

I’ve heard Viktor making plans to do all those things as well.

Viktor’s grandfather must’ve made mistakes too—kings aren’t exiled for no reason—but the people I’ve met who have stories to share believed he cared about his kingdom.

If he hadn’t, I doubt Viktor would have married anyone to claim the throne.

“You’ve never been here?” I ask quietly.

He shakes his head. “My grandmother salvaged pictures.”

I don’t know how long he needs, but I stand in the chilly afternoon with him until he gestures me ahead. We circle what’s left of the gardens first, and it becomes clear nature has reclaimed most of it. There are even bones of an animal large enough to have been a mountain sheep or a deer sticking out from under a bush.

“King Roland was my grandfather’s half-brother,” he tells me while we walk. “Older by six months. Never claimed by my great-grandfather, yet a confession was found in his diary after his death.”

I ignore the twinge in my shoulders, wondering what Roland must’ve endured, being the bastard unclaimed child of a king.

“My grandfather ruled for two years before Roland launched his attack on the legitimacy of the king. Amoria is the country of love. He was a product of the love of the king, and therefore claimed himself to be the rightful heir.”

And then I ignore the twinge in my shoulders questioning if anyone would’ve listened to Roland if he’d been born Rolanda instead.

“He had no training, no preparation. No impression put upon him from birth of the responsibilities and duties of a king. Simply a deep-seated belief that as the eldest child of a king, the kingdom should be rightfully his.”

“And the kingdom agreed?”

“Enough of the kingdom.”

He lifts his gaze to the building again. “His mother was a maid here.”

I grunt out a hmph before I can stop myself.

“Yes, she was sacked.” He squeezes my hand. “I realize her treatment to be the greatest sin in all this mess, yet seeing my grandfather’s haven and country fall into such disrepair makes me wish I could dig up the old king so I might strangle him with my own hands. Quite irrational of me, but I cannot seem to stop myself.”

“King Roland, or your great-grandfather?”

He pauses. “The both of them.”

My family never had estates. Or stories of the great things we’d done for our country. Or even our town, or our neighborhood. Joey was right.

I’ve been given a chance to do some serious good in the world.

In Viktor’s world, but it’s still a world bigger than Casper County and Weightless.

We reach the front of the building. The iron hinges have rusted and the wood rotted in places. I wonder if there was furniture left behind. Books. Candles. Linens.

A noise breaks through the rustle of the wind. Something not human—animal, maybe.

Coming from inside.

And it sounds way bigger than a polecat.

I instinctively move closer to Viktor, who’s already shielding me with his body. “Back toward the trees,” he orders.

And leave him here? Not a chance. I grip onto the back of his dark winter coat.

Yes, fine, I’m still behind him.

But I’m not leaving him. And I’m peeking around him to see what the noise is. That counts for something, doesn’t it?

Movement passes just inside the door. The light angles just right, and—

“Bloody hell,” Viktor mutters.

I stifle a snort of laughter.

This isn’t funny.

It’s his grandfather’s favorite retreat. He clearly has some emotional attachment to it, and he must’ve loved his grandfather and his father very much to have taken up the responsibility of moving back to a country they still loved despite being run out.

The two animals inside grunt and snuffle, and the one on bottom bleats as though she’s in pain.

I assume she’s a she, anyway.

I don’t know much about the proclivities of mountain goats, but apparently they like to do their seducing and mating in buildings fit for a king.

I bury my face in Viktor’s back and try to hold back my laughter.

He sighs, and I wrap my arms around his waist in apology.

“This is your fault,” he informs me crossly.

It is not, and he knows it. “All part of my master plan to steal a kingdom for Papaya and me.”

He shudders. “My life was quite orderly before you.”

“You mean boring.”

He turns in my arms, wraps his own around me, and presses a kiss to the top of my head. “Very boring indeed.”

I know Manning Frey well enough to know his royal bodyguards would not have had a boring life. “You’re welcome.”

He snorts out a laugh, and my nipples instantly tighten. Viktor laughing is the sexiest sound I’ve ever heard. Plus there’s the whole thrill of victory in getting Viktor to laugh.

“You’re quite the pain in the arse,” he tells me gruffly. But he’s weaving his fingers through my hair and holding me tight as though my pain in the arse-ness is exactly what he likes about me.

Like possibly, his dependability and straight-lacedness are exactly what I’m coming to appreciate about him.

I stroke a firm hand low on his back, debate slipping my hands under his coat—I’m cold—and magnanimously decide I won’t touch my icy fingers to his undoubtedly hot back. “How about we give those goats some privacy and see what else we can find on this mountain?”

He says something to the guards in German—I’m pretty sure it was leave us alone, you annoying fuckers, but probably more polite—and swiftly pulls me back toward the towering pines.

Almost urgently.

Like maybe now he can’t wait to get away.

We twist and wind our way through the trees, climbing upward, and I’m getting winded. He’s not saying much, but the clouds in his expression are clearing, replaced with rugged determination.

My lungs are heaving, my calves straining, my thighs trembling when he finally pulls me to an abrupt stop. “Here,” he declares.

I blink through my panting and look around, and I lose my breath for an entirely different reason.

“You’re going to push me off, aren’t you?” I puff out.

He looks about, at the view of the rugged, snowcapped mountain peaks standing out stark white against the gray sky, the steep valleys still deep green, the glimmer of a town or two along the river winding its way through the landscape below. We’re not at the edge of a cliff but a gentle sloping embankment leading to what seems to be a cliff several feet below.

“I shan’t push, you, but only because ’twould be too much trouble to have to save you,” he replies.

A smile twists his handsome features, and despite the stitch in my side, I bark out a laugh. “I can’t believe Gracie has no idea how obnoxious you are.”

“I beg your pardon, my lady.” His tone holds no offense, and his statement is topped with a warm smile that puts a flutter in my chest. “I daresay you need to re-learn the definition of obnoxious.”

I’m still laughing and huffing for breath when he cups my face and draws me in for a kiss. My hands aren’t cold anymore, thanks to the exercise, so I don’t feel bad at all about unzipping his coat and sliding my hands between the warm layers.

His heart thumps solid and steady under my palm, his tongue strokes into my mouth, and everything else melts away.

It’s just me and Viktor and the mountains.

And beautiful as the mountains are, they’re not the biggest draw right now.

I don’t know how it happened, but I’m sinking deeper and deeper into like with this guy every minute.

Or maybe, possibly, something stronger than like.

I should pull back, because there’s no way for the two of us to have a good ending, but I can’t help myself.

Not today.

Maybe I’ll try tomorrow.