My father gave me Bathsheba when I was only nine years old. I had never been very fond of horses before then, but after…I could hardly part with her for the better part of three years.

When I saw lightning strike the stable, there was no question about what I needed to do. As great as our stable grooms are, I have no doubt they’ll rescue Bathsheba last, if they rescue her at all. She’s one of the oldest horses we have now—my family has sold off most of the once great stable we’d owned.

I arrive at the stable, and it is chaos. The grooms are running around, grabbing whatever they can, opening stable doors, and letting the horses run for their lives.

And Bathsheba stands alone in the back, still locked in her stall.

The air is thick with smoke already, though the flames seem to be only on the roof right now. I rush past one of the men as he runs again for the door. “Princess Justine!”

I can barely hear the man over the pelting of the hail on the roof, but I give him a glance over my shoulder that says I’m not leaving the burning building.

“Princess! We tried! Her door…”

I don’t wait for another word from him. I tear down the aisle to the back of the building and pull with every bit of strength I have on the sliding lock that secures my horse’s stall.

It doesn’t budge.

I pound at it with my fist, and it still doesn’t move. The lock is frozen in place—I’ve complained to the staff about it sticking for the past few years, but nothing has been done. It’s a low priority, and when budgets are tight, fixing the sticky lock of a stable stall is at the bottom of the list.

Unlike the other horses around us, Bathsheba is very calm. Her chocolate brown eyes stare at me, almost as though she’s begging me to help her.

And I try. I kick at the door—I’m sure William can probably hear my shouts from inside the palace.

It’s at that moment I realize I’m alone. The other men are gone. And the smoke is getting thick—way too thick for it to be safe. I pull my shirt up over my face, hoping it will keep me from being overwhelmed by smoke.

There’s a loud cracking above me, and a moment later a burning chunk of the roof lands in the stall just behind me.

I shout and kick harder at the stall, but it doesn’t move—it doesn’t even budge the smallest bit.

One of the men must hear me, and a moment later, he’s kicking at the door with me. We work together, kicking together at the door, and finally, finally, there’s a sound of shearing metal as the lock breaks and the stall door swings open.

Bathsheba, princess that she is, strides around us, not breaking into a gallop until she’s midway down the corridor. I can no longer see her when she gets there—the smoke is too thick.

And I’ve breathed in too much of it. The adrenaline rush from trying to save my horse fades quickly and I realize my lungs are burning. And that isn’t the only thing burning—the side of the barn behind me is now on fire.

The smoke is black now—too thick to see. I drop to my hands and knees, hoping to crawl out. “Get down!” I shout for the man beside me to do as I have, but my voice is barely a croak.

He grabs me around my waist, throwing me over his shoulder as he begins to run for the exit. But before we get there, he must be overcome by the smoke, too. He stumbles, dropping me on my back.

I hit the ground with a thud, knocking what little air was left in my lungs out of me. I turn and grab the man under his arms, sliding him along the ground until we’re near the exit. At least there is fresh air here—not much, but some. I stay low to the ground—the air is still thick with smoke above us. And it is dark as night—the only light is from the fire crackling over us.

Samuel, one of the other grooms, comes over to help, grabbing the man by his other shoulder, and we both work together to slide him out of the building and onto the grass, far away from the burning stable.

“You and your husband should not be out here!” Samuel calls to me over the howling wind and pelting hail.

“My husband isn’t out here!” I call back to him. “I left him in the…” It isn’t until that moment I realize the man who came to help me was William. He never spoke a word to me in the stable.

I didn’t recognize my own husband. My chest tightens and my stomach does a strange flip. He has to wake up. He has to…

Samuel slaps William and he sputters and coughs a few times before sitting up. He looks over at me, his face masked with soot.

“Did it get out?”

My mouth falls open for a moment. I’m still stunned that I didn’t recognize him, but I suppose I’m even more stunned that William came to help at all. “Yes.”

“Did they all get out?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” He coughs again. “We should all get inside. It isn’t safe out here.” He holds his hand out and catches one of the coin sized hail pellets in his hand before tossing it to the ground.

I help him to his feet and I motion for the men to follow us into the palace. As soon as we’re safely inside I turn to them. “Thank you for your bravery today. I—”

“It was nothing, Your Highness,” Samuel says.

His partner nods. “We were only doing our jobs.”

“You can find shelter in the common area, just like last time. There will be food and water—you can wait out the storm there.”

“Thank you, Your Highness. I think we’ll wait a bit, though. We’ll need to go back out as soon as the hail lets up. But as soon as the horses are rounded up, we’ll head inside.” The two men give me a small bow before they head down the corridor to watch the storm.

I turn to William. “That was stupid.”

“What was stupid? I—”

“I told you to stay in the corridor. It was safe there. There was no reason—”

“You would have died, Justine. There was no way you were leaving that stable without that horse. And you weren’t going to break down that door alone.”

It isn’t lost on me that he’s called me by my given name for only the second time. “I would have been fine. I—”

“You would have given your life? For a horse?”

“For my horse. Yes. I would have died trying to save her.”

He shakes his head. “It’s a horse—”

“A horse I love. And I didn’t make some choice to love her. I grew to love her over time. It wasn’t some random decision I made one day—Oh, I think I’ll decide to love this horse today.”

“That is the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard, Princess.”

Ah, I see we’re back to that. I glare at him for a moment. “You need to be checked by the medical staff. You were overcome by smoke—”

“I’m fine.” He returns the glare. “Your voice sounds a hell of a lot worse than mine. Maybe you should go be checked by the doctors.”

“You need a shower. You’re covered in soot—”

“Seen a mirror lately, Princess? You’re not looking so great yourself.”

“Thank you for helping me.”

“Maybe you should…” He pauses, his mouth falling open. “What?”

“I said, thank you for helping me.” I arch a brow. “If your hearing has been affected, too, you really should—”

I’m interrupted by his lips crashing against mine. He slides his hands around my waist, pulling me close to him.

I moan as his tongue meets mine, wrapping my arms around him. My hand finds the back of his neck and my fingers weave into his hair, pulling him as tightly to me as I can.

He backs me against the wall. His hand slides up the side of my waist, and much as it did last night, finds my breast. He brushes his thumb across my shirt, and my nipple tightens in a hard bud, sending a pulse of need right to my core.

I want to wrap my legs around him. I want to let him fuck me right here in the hallway…

I break our kiss and his lips drop immediately to my neck, causing another moan to escape me.

“William, we can’t. Not here—”

“Not here is right.” A voice interrupts me.

William drops his hands and turns to the man standing behind him. Reginald.

“I come to check on the staff—to make sure the people who serve us are safe, and I find…this? Again?” Reginald arches a brow. “I realize this is the honeymoon and all, but you two should stay in your suite. Your constant pawing at each other is a bit…disgusting.”

It isn’t until that moment that I realize Lady Clarissa is standing behind him. “Well, when you match an unwanted Montovian prince with a Rosvalian whore, nothing good will come of it.”

William takes a step toward the two. “I’ll ask you kindly to stop insulting my wife.”

Clarissa cackles. “You’ll ask me? Well, that would be something new for you, wouldn’t it, William? I thought you were of the mind that you didn’t have to ask women for what they wanted. I was there the night you announced you were taking your wife. I don’t recall you asking for much of anything.”

My gut twists at the memory of the night of the Festival Ball, but I try to shove the feeling away. If William wants me to choose to be happy, perhaps I should. At least around my brother and his new girlfriend. “We’re very happy.” I give her the phoniest, sweetest smile I can manage. “Obviously. We can’t seem to keep our hands off each other as my dear brother is so right to point out.” I turn my phony smile to my brother. “If you’ll excuse us, Brother, we’re trying very hard to start on the four male heirs you seem to be so concerned about. Of course…” I bat my eyelashes at him, then turn them to Clarissa. “Of course, when we do have our first male heir, I’ll probably need to hire some additional security, won’t I? I wouldn’t want anything happening to my child because anyone was…concerned about their place in line for the throne of Rosvalia.” I turn my gaze between the two of them. “Is that going to be a concern again—?”

William tugs on my arm. “Let’s go. We can continue with our new…decisions in our suite.”

“What the fuck are you two on about? Reginald turns his gaze back and forth between the two of us as though we are insane. “Sister, what are you accusing me of—?”

“We’re leaving.” William gives him a fake grin. “My wife is exhausted. Probably because of her hormones. It’s possible she’s already carrying that male heir of ours, you know.”

Lady Clarissa’s smile turns to a wide-eyed look of rage in a split second.

“I suppose we’ll see in a few months, won’t we, Sister?” Reginald gives me a look that tells me he knows about my arrangement with my father. “Probably in what…three months or so? Maybe…ninety-six days or thereabouts?”

I glare at my brother as William pulls again on my arm, and we make our way back to the safety of the corridor that leads to our suite.

He drops my arm as soon as we’re safely away from the two. His arms loop around my waist and he pushes me hard against the wall.

I slide my arms up his back and tilt my head, waiting for his lips to come down on mine, but this time, they don’t.

Instead, he tips his forehead to mine as he pulls my body tightly against his—he’s so close to me I can feel how much he wants me.

But instead of kissing me, or even fondling my body, he looks into my eyes and speaks. “Tell me what happens in ninety-six days, Princess.” His hands slide to my ass and he pulls me right up against him. “Tell me now.”