Gabriel

 “Lucas, could you please pass the butter?” Uncle Nicholas said.

“—but Gabe, they don’t stand a chance if they’re playing Ireland at the finals!” Lucas said, apparently ignoring his father.

“Here you go, Uncle,” I said, passing him the butter and flashing a quick smile at him. I didn’t think anything of it, Lucas got really absorbed in a conversation and accidentally ignored other people who were talking to him all the time.

And then I went back to arguing the merits of the Merovian team with Lucas, who was completely deluded and a traitor besides.

“I have to agree with Lucas on this one, Gabriel, I’m sorry to say,” Uncle Nicholas chimed in, smiling affably at both of us. “Merovia doesn’t have the strongest team, I think we can all agree.”

“I think we’re doing fine without your input, papa,” Lucas said coldly.

My jaw dropped. I looked around and I saw Noah’s eyes flicking anxiously between Lucas and Uncle Nicholas. Mama had lifted her glass to her lips but wasn’t drinking. She was staring into the middle distance as though she couldn’t sense the beginnings of an epic fight.

Uncle Nicholas’s usual genial smile had been wiped away, to be replaced by a mix of anger, embarrassment and confusion.

“Lucas,” he said, drawing himself up, “I will not be spoken to this way—“

“I will speak to you in any way that I choose,” Lucas said, sounding contemptuous.

Noah gave an audible gasp and choked it down. We exchanged baffled glances, neither of us had any idea what was going on.

“Lucas,” Mama said, sounding shocked, “Please show your father some respect. I understand that you may be angry with him for some reason, but there’s no reason to behave this way—“

Lucas, I saw, was trembling with anger. His fingers shook as he laid his knife and fork on the table. He had eaten almost nothing on his plate, I saw.

“Really, Aunt Sofia?” he asked, looking up. His face was pale and bloodless. “Even though my father is the one who’s been leaking all these stories to the press and trying to remove Gabriel from inheriting the Crown?”

“What?!” Mama said loudly, putting a hand over her chest in shock.

“How dare you!” Uncle Nicholas said at the same time. His face was red and he was blustering loudly, stammering and looking outraged.

“It’s true,” Lucas said, his voice carrying above the rest of the din. “Uncle Nicholas told the tabloids you were faking your engagement, he spread rumors about you and Noah, Gabriel. And he’s the one who paid a maid to look through Noah’s trash for the pregnancy test. How else do you think they knew everything mere hours after we did? Nobody else knew but the people in this room.”

“Even if I’m to believe you, Lucas,” Mama said, “The question is, why? And there is no reason I can think of for my husband’s brother to conspire against his own nephew and jeopardize the throne!”

“That’s because you insist on believing the best of everyone, Aunt,” Lucas said kindly. “Who else would take in a strange commoner as a son-in-law? Who else would let their brother in law and his son stay in the palace, even though you knew that my father had once wanted the throne for me?”

“Nicholas?” Mama said, looking at Uncle Nicholas. “Tell me this isn’t true. Not you, not for this…?”

She looked frail, and that scared me more than anything. I’d never seen this look on her face—she looked tired and sad and hurt.

“I can see that it would be of no use to defend myself,” Uncle Nicholas said finally. He wiped his mouth with his napkin and laid it down on the table. “In short: yes, I did all of it.”

Lucas sighed, like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Mama put a hand to her mouth. Noah looked at me, and I looked back at him, our faces mirroring the shock we were both feeling.

How could it be Uncle Nicholas? I thought to myself numbly.

The same uncle who had snuck me sweets when I was sick, and bought me my first gaming system, and taken me riding for the first time. I’d always thought he loved me…obviously, Lucas was first in his heart, but the fact that he’d engineered this entire thing to see me removed as heir…that implied a level of hatred that I couldn’t even comprehend.

“Why, Nicholas?” Mama asked steadily.

“Alysia, you know how much I respect and admire you. As my brother’s wife, and as a Queen of Merovia, no one could have done their duty more admirably,” Uncle Nicholas said. He smiled at her as he’d done before, when they’d been old friends.

“But your son,” he said, voice changing, “Your son is a stain upon this family. He consorts with the lowest in society, he has no idea what is due to his station, and he brings shame upon the family name. I’ll be damned if I see someone like him sit on the exalted throne of our ancestors.”

“Gabriel,” Mama said fiercely, “Is just a boy. He’s learning to be a responsible adult. One day he will make an excellent King—“

“Don’t make me laugh,” Uncle Nicholas said, cutting her off. He glanced at me and away, lip curling contemptuously. “Just look at the way he found a husband! By having sex with the first random omega who spread his legs for him—“

“Hey!” Lucas and I said at the same time. I looked at Noah, concerned, but he didn’t seem to be paying attention. His fingers were gripping his cutlery so hard that they’d turned white. Well, at least he wasn’t upset at being called a whore by my uncle.

“How dare you,” Mama was saying, lips white with anger, “You will not talk about Gabriel or his fiancé that way! I would be very careful in your position, Nicholas, I could easily have you strung up for treason. They still haven’t changed those laws. Merovia and tradition, and all that.”

“Do what you wish,” Nicholas said dismissively, “If you think the populace will sit idly by and watch me be strung up for doing my duty, you are a fool Alysia—“

“Gabriel?” Noah whispered.

I looked back at him. His face was pale and clammy looking, there was a light sheen of sweat on it. His pupils were dilated.

“Noah?” I asked, concerned. “Everything all right?”

“No!” he said, half-laughing and half-sobbing, “It’s coming! Now! The baby’s coming!”