Chapter Three
Reynard
He stood in the hall, gun in hand, and he smiled at his reaction. He’d awakened to hear Percy screaming, and rushed for the room where his prince and the royal consort slept, heart pounding. He got to the door, and instead of hearing them fighting off royal guards, he caught the tail end of a passionate encounter that left him adjusting a partial erection in his sweatpants. The lovers were rarely quiet, Percy being incredibly vocal and demanding when he was in the throes of passion. Reynard had been subject to their sessions many a time, his duties as royal guard keeping him within sight or sound of his charges at all times, even when they didn’t know it, so this was not the first time, nor would it be the last, that he would be able to hear them having sex.
Reynard walked away from the door, and since he was awake, got dressed, intending to do a perimeter sweep around the small cottage. He pulled on his clothes, tucked a firearm at the base of his spine inside his waistband, and a jacket on his way out. He closed the front door quietly, not wanting to alarm his charges. Percy was easily frightened, though his courage was growing with every day that passed, and Edward was hanging on to his composure by a thread. His prince, while used to the pressures of his rank and duties, was at a loss when it came to living away from the comforts of wealth and royalty. Edward was far from spoiled—but his prince was just that—a prince, and accustomed to a certain lifestyle.
Reynard prowled through the cold shadows, the cottage they were occupying on the outskirts of a small micro-city just off the royal highway. The area was partially abandoned, its remaining citizens poor, older, or incapable of moving to one of the larger cities closer to the capital. It was out in the middle of nowhere, with nothing to recommend it to tourists, and so the settlement that developed when the great highways system was first built almost a hundred years ago was steadily losing people to death and time and lack of interest. Over half the houses and businesses were empty, and the streets were pitted and cracked.
The SUV he traded for Mason’s sleek beast of a car was hunkered down in the deep shadows next to the small cottage, pointed toward the road for a fast getaway if they were tracked here. They were almost 800 miles from Cassia City, and they had another 1500 miles to go to get to the border with Elysian. As a country, Cassia was one of the largest in the world, occupying a huge portion of the northern half of the largest continent. It was also the longest ruled, single-dynasty monarchy in history, the line of Airric unbroken for two thousand years. Two of his descendants were within shouting distance of him now, and Reynard took the job of protecting Edward, Percy and their unborn babe seriously. It was an honor to serve the Cassian Dynasty, even if some of its members were spoiled brats and fractured souls.
Edward was worth his weight in gold. The youngest blood prince was humble, honest, braver than he had any reason to be, intelligent and even-tempered. He didn’t know Edward as well as he did Mason, but then he was only recently assigned to Edward’s detail as a captain. Mason, that prince, that man…he knew very well.
Reynard finished his sweep, the nearest sounds of life blocks away and muted. It was quiet, and cold, and the skies above were crystal clear and sparkling, a wide swath of stars filling the horizon end to end.
He leaned against the SUV’s hood, crossing his legs at his ankles, hands in his pockets. He watched the sky, and remembered.
A sarcastic, wry smile. Dark eyes, full of passion and fire. And pain. Hair just beginning to be touched by time, a spattering of white at each temple. Golden skin, firm muscles, and a rich, masculine scent that Reynard would never be able to forget.
Forgetting Mason, Blood Prince of Cassia, would be impossible. Almost as impossible as saving him. Reynard was tasked by duty and …love, to protect Edward and Percy and their babe. He refused to fail. He would never let them down, and while his heart ached fiercely with the need to save Mason, he couldn’t abandon his charges to do so. Mason was trapped, by his word and his blood, and the only one who could help him was himself.
***
Percy
Percy stayed behind Edward, one hand clutched in his master’s jacket. They were in the market, Reynard a few steps away, arguing with a shady looking man about accommodations for the night. They had left the derelict micro-city behind, and were now days further east. Ten days in total since they had escaped the capital, and they were all feeling it. They were coming up on a portion of the country that was fully wild and untamed forests, sprinkled with small hamlets and tiny towns, and large, sprawling country estates much like Hartgrove. Here the estates were vineyards and orchards, all dormant in the winter months, surrounded by dense old wood forests.
The town they were in was near an estate called Estiary, which Percy thought odd. Edward grew grim, mouth tight, and Reynard looked like he was ready to murder someone, but they needed to stop for supplies, and this town was the last one before a long stretch of wilderness. Percy could tell from the way both men were reacting to the name of the town that something was very wrong, and Percy stayed in Edward’s shadow, head down, doing his best to be unobtrusive and forgettable.
“The inn is your best bet, my lord,” sniveled the odd man Reynard was speaking to, “the one next to the pub. The Discontent Noble is the pub’s name. Can’t miss it.”
The odd man, thin and whip-like with a narrow countenance and gray overtones to everything from hair to skin, pointed down the length of the market. “The bar and pub are closed until noon, then open for lunch and evening business.”
“Thank you,” Reynard said, dropping a golden half-piece coin in the man’s hand before nodding and walking back towards where he and Edward were waiting next to a wall. The odd man watched them as Reynard walked away, biting the coin before grinning and ducking out of sight in the crowd.
“He was a bit …off,” Edward murmured to the captain once he was in earshot. “Will he cause us trouble?”
“Probably, but we haven’t got much in the way of options.” Reynard jerked his head down the market, and Percy and Edward followed him, Percy between both men. Edward had his arm around his shoulders, and Reynard walked close enough to touch him, their arms occasionally brushing. He felt dwarfed and sheltered between them, and he was thankful he had yet to feel smothered. Reynard continued speaking, voice low, head tilted down to make it harder for them to be overheard. “If we had secure computer access or untraceable cells, this would be easier, but I asked around. This whole village is owned by the local nobleman, and there’s only one inn. No apartments for rent or lease, no vacant homes we can take over without being noticed. The estate controls the power, the internet, even the local cell tower, so I believe everything is monitored, nothing secure.”
Reynard frowned, glaring back down the length of the market. “So unless you want to rough it in the forest, we have little choice but to stay at the inn.”
Percy shivered, thinking back to how uncomfortable it had been a few nights back, sleeping at a rest stop off the highway between towns. He may fit comfortably in the rear of the SUV, but Edward and Reynard were too large to find any decent rest in the vehicle.
“Should we risk staying at a public establishment?” Edward asked, tone curt, arm about Percy’s shoulder tightening. “What if someone sees us and reports us to the authorities?”
“Just having you two walk around in public is too much of a risk, if you’re going to be asking that,” Reynard snapped, “but since every time I suggest you stay behind with Percy, you claim it’s safer if we stay together…”
“Because it is!” Edward hissed, stopping in the middle of the market, glaring over Percy’s head at Reynard, who stopped as well. Percy bit his lip and looked nervously between the two big men, wondering if he should worry about ducking. “I may know how to shoot a gun, and throw a punch, but I’m no defense for my mate if we’re cornered by the royal guards, and you know it! So yes, we need to stay together, because you are his best chance at surviving this, I’ll not have us separated again!”
Reynard’s brows went up at that declaration, dark blue eyes calming, and his gaze searching as he looked at the prince. Percy slid his hand to rest on Edward’s side, feeling how hard his lover was breathing, how tense he was, so taut he trembled. Edward was beyond stressed.
Reynard stepped so close to Edward that Percy was pressed between them, his back to Edward’s chest, Reynard firm and strong along his front. Percy shivered, not entirely certain he disliked where he was, but Edward was ready to snap, so he held very still and waited.
“My prince,” Reynard said softly, looking Edward in the eye, forcing Percy to tip his head back at his proximity, “If you trust me to keep your mate safe, even above yourself, then please, please trust that I can care for you both, and that I know what I’m doing. If I say it’s safe for us to separate, then trust me. If I say we need to stay together, then we will. In Court, Palace, and country estate, you know best and are master. Yet out here, in the wilds of the common lands, follow my lead. Do you think you can do that?”
Percy couldn’t see Edward’s face, but after a moment he felt Edward nod, his tense frame slowly relaxing. Edward put his hands on Percy’s shoulders, and turned him from Reynard, pressing his face to his chest. Reynard was still at Percy’s back, the heat from both men in the cold winter air comforting and stimulating at the same time. Percy snuggled into Edward, relieved that the tension seemed to be dissipating for now.
Reynard put a hand to the back of Percy’s head, tousling his long hair affectionately before stepping away, leaving his back exposed to the cold elements. Edward hugged him for a moment more, but then tugged him to follow after the captain as he cut through the meager crowd in the square.
The sign soon appeared for The Discontent Noble, and Percy giggled at the picture of a finely dressed man sitting on a crooked stool, his beer stein spilling, and a cranky expression on his features. Reynard pointed to a nearby recess in a wall, and Edward guided Percy there, turning them away from any curious eyes of those passing by on the street while Reynard entered the pub.
Percy kissed Edward’s jaw, doing it again until Edward gave him a small smile and hugged him close.
***
Arianna
Arianna smiled down at her son, little Airric suckling from his bottle with a self-righteous determination. He was as demanding as his siblings, yet somehow she knew that though he was youngest, he would be the ringleader in childhood adventures. Only a few months old, and he watched the world with wise eyes, and his cries for changings and feedings were enough to send the nursery staff running to tend to him.
The day was cold, winter blustering outside the palace walls, the weather keeping the Court subdued and in their private quarters. Usually at this time of day Arianna would be with Malcolm, leisurely strolling the halls of the palace, making sure to be seen. Yet the weather and the twisted tale Mason told her days before drove her here, surrounded by her children and nieces and nephews.
Camilla, Mason’s wife, was in the far corner, scolding her oldest son of seven years for failing to do something or other, and Arianna frowned, turning her shoulder so she didn’t have to watch. Camilla was a horrid woman. She came to the nursery only when her children stepped out of line for some supposed infraction or another. She delighted in disciplining them, or even better, disciplining the tutors and nursery maids instead. Arianna put her foot down when it came to Camilla interfering with her own children. She would be Queen one day—and while she left the daily care to the governesses and maids, Arianna had final say and authority over her children and how they were to be raised. And Camilla was to have zero private interaction with Arianna’s children.
She knew she wasn’t the ideal mother, but she wasn’t just their mother—she was to be Queen. Her life was not her own. Split between her duties as queen-presumptive and mother, Arianna regretfully lost much of her time as a parent. It was little hardship on the bad days—she didn’t regret the diplomatic trip to Elysian when all of her then five children had the chicken pox. On the good days, though, she missed their little smiles, their grasping sticky hands, and their pleas for story time and coloring sessions.
“You better start behaving! What would your father think? Or the King? Are you always going to be a disappointing child?” Camilla scolded, and Arianna frowned. No one but Ari, Malcolm, Camilla, and the king knew where Mason was, and Arianna went cold to her core. Camilla had to know the state her own husband was in and what was happening to him, she must—how could any royal wife abandon her prince? Even a wife as atrocious as Camilla had to realize that without Mason, she was naught but a gaudy decoration amongst those of the blood. Why wasn’t she protesting his treatment, or even visiting him?
“Grandpa never comes here! And Daddy isn’t home! I don’t care what they think, and I don’t care what you think! I hate you!” her nephew shrieked at the top of his lungs, and Arianna smirked as the young boy stormed majestically from the nursery, his siblings and cousins cheering from around the room.
Arianna looked out across the room, trying to block out Camilla where she fumed, taking her anger out on the boy’s hapless tutor. Her own children, from her oldest child, the future king, young Simon, to her youngest daughter, Selene, and the middle girls, sitting quietly nearby doing their lessons—and then to her nieces and nephews, Camilla and Mason’s children. She drank the sight of them in, for once thinking about what would happen if all of this was taken away. What would happen if Mason was right—a part of her was so angry, so mad at him for even suggesting the horrible reality he told her days before—but another part of her, the part of her that loved Cassia, loved her husband, and loved her children—if Mason was right, then she had two choices, and her rarely exercised conscience was demanding to be heard.
Her children, the succession, the crown and throne—all of it hinged on Mason and whether or not he was lying. Because the anger in her heart battled fiercely with fear—she ached from betrayal. Surely she couldn’t believe him. Her children, Malcolm’s and Mason’s children—they were innocent in all of this, yet to them fell the greatest betrayal.
Well, if Mason was to be believed, if his radical story was true, then they weren’t his, and her children…..dear God, by the Saint’s grace, he must be lying.
“Molly, take him, please,” Arianna called to Airric’s nurse, who promptly appeared and took the youngest princeling from her arms. She touched his soft cheek and gave him a strained smile, and all but ran from the room. She caught a glimpse of Camilla watching her leave, a frown on her typically dour face, but Arianna ignored her sister-in-law.
She had to find out. Her nerves were unraveling, and she couldn’t lose it in front of the children, or Camilla.
She left the nursery, and took off down the hall in the direction of the king’s rooms.
“He has to be lying.”
Yes, that was it. Mason was lying. He was always causing trouble, always stirring up his brothers, poking his nose where it shouldn’t be. He must be lying!
“He is lying, I know it!” Arianna cursed under her breath as she took a corner too fast, her heavy skirts catching on a stone wall, halting her for a moment before she jerked the fabric free. She huffed out an irritated breath, and let go her death grip on her skirts, determined to regain her composure. She could hardly approach the king in a frazzled state. She walked as fast as she could through the maze of halls until she neared her destination.
Arianna swept down the hall outside the king’s study, the tall, dark oak doors closed. The long hall was empty, which if the king had been inside then there would be two guards stationed just outside the doors. Arianna looked over her shoulder, and saw no one, so she hurried forward. Asking the king directly if what Mason had told her was true was less attractive than going through his desk and finding the facts for herself.
The doors weren’t locked. She opened one, blessing the well-maintained hinges that let her enter silently, and she shut the door behind her. The hearth was cold, the lights out, the only illumination coming through the drawn curtains. King Henry’s desk was along the far wall, which meant anyone coming to speak to the king had to cross the whole room while the king watched them, a tactic his majesty used to intimidate petitioners and his ministers.
Skirts rustling over the rugs, Arianna walked to the desk, breathing ragged, an unlady-like sweat building under her dress. If she were caught, she had no idea what the king would do. Being caught by anyone other than him would be simple—but for Malcolm and the king, she outranked everyone in the building, and the blood princesses were all back at their respective homes. Being the future queen came with plenty of protection, but nothing could protect her from King Henry if he decided to punish her for going through his personal belongings.
Not that she knew for certain how he’d react. The king she knew, and the king painted by Mason in the outlandish story he told her a few nights back, were drastically different. The king she knew, while arrogant and demanding, was a devout family man and dedicated ruler, doing his best to keep Cassia and her people at the top of the power scale. There was no country to match Cassia in the whole world, with Elysian, the late queen’s home country, being a close second.
So surely that’s what Mason’s tale was—just a tale, something he concocted to while away his hours spent being punished for letting Eddie disappear. Though why the king and Malcolm would be so upset over a single breeder when there were literally hundreds of them in the country for them to choose from left her equally confused. Mason’s explanation for that was equally ludicrous.
King Henry would never let a single minister mess with the affairs of his children, not even the rich and influential Minister of DNA Engineering and Cloning, no matter how much money was involved. There was no way, just no way that King Henry would bow to the wishes of a minister, and persecute a blood prince and legally bonded royal consort, one that if what Mal and Mason both claimed was true, was carrying a Cassian Royal.
It boggled the mind.
That’s why she had to find proof—one way or the other. Either Mason was being his typical prick self, or something horrible was happening. Something so horrible that if true, meant that for the last forty years, from the king to her youngest babe, all of them lived a lie.
A lie that drove a father to chase his own son like a common criminal, and in the ultimate irony—the only one of them not weighed down by the broken laws of the king.
She tore through the drawers of the desk that would open, scattering papers here and there. Just thinking about the wretched things that Mason claimed left her composure in tatters.
Tears found their way past her withering control, her hair falling from its immaculate coif. Her skirts were heavy, the corset too tight, and her limbs trembled, and she yanked fruitlessly at the bottom drawer, the old wooden antique momentarily defeating her. It opened with a snap, and she tumbled backwards, falling on her rear with an undignified squawk. The drawers and its contents spilled across the ancient rug, and Arianna struggled to right herself.
Her right hand landed on something cool and hard, and she stopped, looking down and wondering what it was.
A key, as long as her hand, heavy and made of either copper or brass, shiny and old. She peered at it, and the style was reminiscent of a century past. The end of the key held an emblem, and she tilted it back and forth, thinking it was familiar.
It came to her in a rush, and her mouth opened on a silent ‘oh’. Arianna climbed to her feet, and stared at the mess on the floor and desk in consternation. She wasn’t one for cleaning, and the king could return at any moment. She rushed for the door, tucking her stolen key into her bodice, making sure it was well hidden. It would take Malcolm to find it there.
She made it back out into the hall, and breathed in relief when she saw no one. Arianna rushed down the hall, and once she hit the main intersection, turned the opposite way she came from originally. There was only place that key would open, with the crest of the Elysian Royal House upon it.
Her Majesty, once Princess Esme of Elysian, and the late Queen of Cassia, dead these last twenty years. It was her key, and since nothing was in the King’s possession that spoke of the truth, then Arianna would go to the one place where the lies began.
Maybe with the queen’s key she could unlock the truth. It would be just and proper then, since it was a queen whose first and greatest lie condemned them all.
***
She was breathless, more from the possibilities than the fast walk through the palace. The late queen’s solarium was as it was the day she died, furniture covered, the books and trinkets and the still present scent of day lilies and roses hanging in the air. It was dust free, as it should be, the servants instructed to clean and little else.
Arianna hurried through the outer sitting area, heading for the door that would take her to the inner sanctum. The queen’s private bedroom, traditionally where the wife of the king slept when she wasn’t required in her husband’s bed. Such practices died out with the late queen, and Arianna had no intention of sleeping somewhere other than beside her husband. Besides, she had plenty of children…
Her stomach churned. She stumbled at the door to the old queen’s room, one hand on the panel. The key in her other, staring down at it, dreading. It was on the other side of this door that she might learn the truth.
Her children would always be hers, and nothing could take from her or change how she felt about them. Yet it was their parentage that was still in question, and so was the line of inheritance. It was the throne and their futures as royals of the Blood that would be taken from them, and all it would take was the truth.
Arianna approached the final door, the ancient key heavy in her hand. She inserted it into the lock, and after some effort, the lock turned, the door opening with a faint snick. She left the key in the door, and with one hand, pushed it wide. It groaned on its hinges, complaining, dust kicking up as the wood scraped over the uncleaned rug.
Darkness. The room was fully shuttered, the air stagnant. Dust floated in the air, and her sinuses burned with the desire to sneeze. Putting a hand over her nose and mouth, Arianna took one step in and looked around for a light switch. She found it, and flipped it on, and lights fluttered around the room. A few bulbs popped and went out, but enough stayed on she could see.
Arianna took in the late queen’s private room. While the outer sitting area had been cleaned, it was obvious this room hadn’t been touched in decades. Probably not since the queen died in her bed, just ten feet from where Arianna stood now. Her blood chilling despite the stifling atmosphere, Arianna shivered in morbid dismay. She had no idea where to look.
What was it that Mason said? He was here, the morning his mother died, the only one of her eight children to be present…and it was because he was there when his mother died Esme told him a terrible secret.
***
Memory
“She was dying. She had been dying for her whole life, and her last pregnancy, my youngest sister, was the one the one that drove the final nail in her coffin. She died because she told my father the truth too late, and his bitter resentment and sense of betrayal made him lose all grasp of reality.”
“What betrayal, Mason?” she asked, gripping the bars of his cell, leaning as close as she dared.
“There is a fatal weakness in our line, introduced through my mother. From her mother, a noblewoman in Elysian who married into their royal house. It’s a genetic disease, one that has over a 75% chance of being passed from parent to child, regardless of gender. In most it stays dormant, but can become active in the right conditions during childhood illness.” Mason’s face was free of his usual cynicism. His eyes were as dark as his brothers’, and she had no trouble reading hem. He was speaking the truth.
“A weakness? A disease? Tell me! Are my children alright? Do they have it? Does Malcolm?” Panic was seeping into her nerves. Were her babies sick? Her husband. Surely not, they were all so healthy. They must be fine. Her hopes were dashed, and Arianna almost fell off the chair she was using to see into Mason’s cell.
“Malcolm has it, sister dear. I have it, and the children have been spared, but they are not spared the fallout from the lies. My sisters, even with the assistance garnered in their births, were born with it. It presents falsely as a form of chicken pox when they’re children. My mother, Saints rest her soul, gave the disease to us all, save one.”
“What is it?” Arianna whispered, terrified.
“I could go into a horrible, long winded lecture on what it does, but the disease itself has been around for eons, attacking houses that have seen to many inter-marriages of cousins and the like generation after generation. It’s a disease that attacks the eggs and sperm cells in developing children, that causes a type of cellular disintegration of the cell walls,” Mason said, a weird smile twisting his lips. “There is no treatment for it, not for a Cassian Royal at least.”
“I don’t understand,” Arianna complained, though in part, she did. A deepening well of despair was building in her gut. This couldn’t be true.
“The disease, Ari, renders those afflicted with increasing levels of sterility. Most people aren’t aware they have it. A fever will occur when a child, growing in severity, then one day be gone as if by magic. But inside the body, especially in females, the cells are becoming weaker. Eggs in the ovaries are becoming warped, breaking down. In advanced cases, like with my mother, the cellular degeneration can spread to the uterus and vaginal walls, even into the intestines. It weakens everything.”
“Oh, dear God, no,” Ari breathed, in total shock. “My sons? Malcolm?”
“The men luck out, if you want to call it luck. We won’t die of it, but Malcolm and I are sterile. It just warps our sperm as its produced, making them weaker, less viable, and eventually we will cease to make any at all.”
“But…I have children! They are his! My children are Malcolm’s! Stop lying!” Arianna snapped, becoming enraged. This was all a horrible, nasty lie. “I have slept with no man but him!”
“You have children, yes. So does my witch of a wife. They are not sick, but that doesn’t matter.” Mason smiled, a rueful display of bitterness. “Malcolm is not the father. Nor am I.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“King Henry was so upset when my mother started to get sick right after she gave birth to Edward. He was even more upset because my mother miscarried at least twice between Mal and myself, and twice again between me and Edward. Mother wanted to stop having children, you see. She knew what was wrong with her. Why she was having so much trouble getting pregnant and staying that way.”
“Tell me who the fathers are!” Arianna shrieked, ready to strangle Mason.
“Once it came time for Malcolm to marry, my father had him tested. Quietly, of course. The disease was in the last stages with Malcolm. He is completely sterile. So am I. But our father couldn’t admit this to anyone. The sanctity of the Cassian Dynasty must be preserved above all else, and for him to remove both Mal and I from the line of succession wouldn’t do at all. Too much speculation, doubts into the strength of Airric’s sons. Our line would be seen as tainted, weakened.”
She was going to be sick, he couldn’t mean….
“So Father, his blood as pure and untainted as any previous Cassian Monarch, decided that he would guarantee the continuance of our line. He would skip the tainted generation completely. So each year, my dear sister, during your routine visits to the royal physicians, he had you secretly impregnated with another’s seed.”
“No…” The urge to vomit rose, threatening to overwhelm her.
“Your children are my father’s bastards.”
***
Arianna
The memory left her ill. And so did the slim journal she held in her hand, dated some forty years prior. It was written by the late queen, when she was still Princess Esme of Elysian. Arianna dropped the journal, and dove back into the small chest she’d found under the bed, looking for one that would have been written around the time of her death. Mason was fifteen when his mother died, so Malcolm would have just turned twenty. Arianna married Malcolm the year he turned thirty, just over ten years ago.
Malcolm knew, he must. Mason knew, so therefore Malcolm must know. How could he take her to their marriage bed, make love to her, and celebrate each of her pregnancies knowing the truth? How deeply did this betrayal run?
She found it, a dark blue leather book dated the year of Queen Esme’s death. Arianna sat on the floor, skirts askew, and flipped until she found the relevant passages.
The words made her heart pound, her stomach flip. It was true.
King Henry, deprived of a healthy wife and heirs, forced Queen Esme to go through more pregnancies, this time via IVF. His sanity broken, King Henry was determined that he would never let the line of Airric fail, so he felt more children was the answer. It was all done secretly, since no royal could be conceived through artificial means. Only through intercourse and unassisted, natural conception was a Cassian heir considered legitimate. It was written into law almost a hundred years ago, when the development of DNA technologies took off around the world. It was a law created as a measure to insure that only a true-blood Cassian could take the throne, so that no foreign blood could be inserted into the line in an attempt to usurp the crown.
Queen Esme was implanted with an egg fertilized with the king’s seed, and forced on bed rest for each pregnancy. Queen Esme was forced to carry each child to term, then they were delivered via C-section. With each reluctant pregnancy and birth, she grew weaker and weaker.
Edward was the last child she conceived and delivered naturally, before the disease began to kill her. All of the blood princesses, while the king’s daughters, were automatically disqualified from the line of succession because they were conceived via IVF, and so were all of their children as a result.
Edward, last naturally conceived child, and the only one who wasn’t…..
“King Henry will be most upset, sister,” a nasty voice interrupted her thoughts, and Arianna sat up sharply, eyes wide in dismay. “You weren’t supposed to know.”
Camilla stood just inside the door, a smirk on her lips, eyes full of manic delight. She walked into the room, lips twisting in derision. Arianna surged to her feet, enraged.
“You knew! You bitch! You must have known!” Arianna screamed, rounding the bed, intending to rip her sister-in-law to shreds. How dare she take part in this travesty!
“Of course I knew! I’ve known since Mason was called back from the army to marry me. He refused, the bastard.” Camilla’s face warped into a snarl, and she dodged Ari’s reaching hand. She darted across the room, a small table between them, Arianna panting in rage, bosom heaving. Camilla giggled, some of her insanity slipping out in the sound.
“Why?” She was asking this of everyone. She was so confounded by the whole mess that it was all she could ask past her anger and confusion.
“Why did he refuse? He was in love with a soldier! Because he caught some of Eddie’s perversion, that’s why,” Camilla spat. “Oh? Do you mean why did I go along with this? Easy, sister. I wanted to be a princess.”
“For power?” Arianna gasped out, shaking. “You let them violate us for power?”
“Don’t act so scandalized. You wed Malcolm for the same reasons. You were never told any of this because you’re too flighty, too spoiled. You’re dutiful and devoted one moment, and irascible and undependable the next. Too inconstant. Stubborn, even, and King Henry said you weren’t to be trusted.”
“You let him put his seed in you? You knew what was really happening during our yearly exams?” Arianna demanded, again feeling sick. Her emotions were everywhere, all over the place.
“I let King Henry fuck me,” Camilla admitted, and Arianna swayed on her feet. “There was no need to pretend with me, I let him knock me up the good old fashioned way. I’ve actually never slept with Mason, you know. He could never get it up for me.”
“I don’t blame him one bit, you disgusting whore!” Arianna lunged for Camilla, but her sister-in-law ran back towards the door, laughing.
“Don’t be rude, Ari. King Henry is going to be so mad at you! And Malcolm, well…he’s going to be so disappointed you know the truth.” Camilla smiled one last time, and then ran out the door.
She would go directly to the King. Of that, Arianna had no doubt. She had little time before she ended up under lock and key, or worse, she ended up like Mason. There was no need for a queen-presumptive, not anymore—there were six heirs for the Crown Prince, after all. Arianna was decoration at this point.
If the king was crazy enough to violate his wife’s right to choose, then to do the same to his daughter-in-law’s, and everything he’d done to Mason over the years, and now Edward…he was insane enough to kill her.
She would never stay silent. This atrocity could not go unanswered.
There was someone in this palace who could tear this secret apart, and stop King Henry’s madness. And there was someone out there now, who’s right to rule was pure and unblemished by his father’s insanity and duplicity.