Viktor

Our first week in residence passes quickly. Peach and I move into the second-floor wing to a room with a king-size bed and a view of the rear gardens. By silent agreement, neither of us mentions anything that transpired in the heart bedroom in the tower.

In fact, we speak as rarely as possible.

Papaya is across the hall, Meemaw beside her on one side, Alexander and Samuel on the other. While I spend my days in meetings and language training, Peach and Papaya take care of all the details of registering the girl for school, investigating extracurricular activities, and purchasing new clothing. I’ve also seen yarn and knitting needles strewn about the sitting room, which is the only room in the family wing with a television.

Peach and I have both kept to our sides of the bed, with her working late into the evenings after Papaya has retired, and sleeping in later than I rise, though I’m fully aware she’s only simulating sleep in the early morning hours.

I’m often expected at working lunches and formal dinners, which Peach has been excused from under the pretense of settling in to her new home. Even the weekend is full of obligations, and I’ve begun to suspect that my family’s invitation back to Amoria was merely a ruse to kill off the rest of us through overcommitment and the noise of politicians who prefer hearing themselves speak to making a meaningful impact on the country.

“You’re the king,” Alexander reminds me early Thursday morning. He’s accompanied me for a run as the sun is rising, much like he’s accompanied me to as many meetings and audiences as I could persuade him to attend. “Set your own bloody schedule and stop acquiescing to their every demand of you.”

“A king is as much a servant as a leader,” I reply.

“You need to establish boundaries.”

“I need to establish a great number of things,” I grouse.

“Perhaps you could begin by cutting back on your exercise regimen. It can hardly be good for one to expend this much energy when we’re all on our way to losing well over ten kilos thanks to the food.”

The two palace guards accompanying us are both huffing harder than Alexander before we’ve traveled two kilometers in the crisp mountain air. Thus far, they’ve had an easy task of keeping Papaya under watch, as Peach has been at her sister’s side nearly every minute of the day—so I’ve been told—though Peach cannot possibly keep up her hours without falling over from sheer exhaustion one of these days.

I’m growing more worried by the day. I’m unable to help myself, especially as word gets back to me that she’s told a shopkeeper just how much she’s loving the country, and reported to a baker that I particularly enjoyed the rolls she purchased whilst in town, and confided in a dressmaker that I’m fond of the way deep purple in her clothing makes her eyes pop.

She’s fabricated every bit of our relationship in public, yet with no details I would find fault with.

And I’m quite uncertain how to be the man the kingdom is slowly growing to believe me to be.

“We’ll not starve,” I inform my brother. “And today’s menu cannot be horrible. It’s the Queen’s Reception.”

“I fear all this exercise has clouded your judgment. Call Leonie at once and inform her the reception is canceled.”

“And miss my first opportunity to publicly show off my darling family?”

Alexander coughs and sputters.

Though he’s not reminded me again, I’m aware he knows the truth of my arrangement with Peach. And it’s only natural for anyone to cough and sputter at the idea of presenting Papaya to the world. Even one of the guards has come down with a cough.

The girl has no filter and an utter lack of decorum.

In private, she’s charming in her own awkward teenage way, though my brief interactions with her have failed to instill in me any desire to procreate, knowing that babies grow to be children who grow to be teenagers.

She may be an extreme case.

And she does share genes with Peach.

Which is why she’s not actually attending the reception today.

Neither is Alexander, but that’s a political move that makes my blood boil. I’ve already informed the Prime Minister that Amoria shall return to using the word love with its purest meaning, or I shall be quite unable to support his continued tenure as Prime Minister, regardless of the political party elected by the people to have the majority rule in Parliament next term.

The sunrise has turned the sky from a hazy purple tinged in pink to a clear light blue when we return to the castle through the gardens that have been carved into the mountainside. Our conversation has turned to Alexander’s thoughts on the needs of the kingdom. The meetings this past week have been eye-opening, and I’m most grateful for his keen insights and guidance. Should he have refused to join me in Amoria, I daresay the kingdom would be doomed.

We turn a corner around an overgrown shrubbery, and the rising sunlight catches two blond heads amongst the weeds. I spur myself back into a run and dart through the twisting garden path, because if someone’s given these two sharp objects—

“Kill the hearts, kill the hearts, kill the heart-heart-hearts,” Papaya’s singing as I round the last corner on the crumbling brick walkway.

She does, in fact, have a pair of pruning shears in hand, and she’s clipping a heart-shaped topiary on a trunk.

And by heart-shaped, I mean irregular, unsymmetrical, and only recognizable as a heart because one would assume every shrub, flowering bush, and adornment at the palace should be in the shape of a heart.

I’m rather glad to be back in my own underwear and living in a room without hearts at every turn, though the plates still startle me each morning.

“Good morning, Viktor,” Peach says brightly—too brightly again—from behind a bramble of overgrown roses. My heart momentarily stalls at the sight of her in a dirt-smeared T-shirt, tight black athletic pants, and that lopsided pile of blond hair atop her head. She’s wearing no makeup, but her lips are nearly cherry red, and her cheeks are a soft rose, which I can only assume has come from the exertion of clipping at the bush. “We saved breakfast for you. Also, you probably want to get a vet out here to check out your chickens, because the eggs this morning were...”

“Very un-egg-like,” Papaya finishes for her. “Though they were shaped like hearts. Complete with bacon bent into hearts. At least, they told us it was bacon. It was hard to tell under all the charring.”

“I suspect even Eva could out-cook our chef,” Alexander says behind me.

He may very well be right, and our sister has been known to burn water. Her talents lie with the art of painting and illustrating, not with the art of food. I’m disappointed she and Mum shan’t arrive for another few days, but as Mum took ill with a rather nasty summer cold, ‘tis for the best that she not board an airplane.

Papaya snips three more errant twigs, and I realize a twig is exactly what she’s re-sculpting the heart into.

Namely, a crude twig-and-berries sculpture.

“By all means, continue with your artwork,” I tell her, “but bear in mind I expect all body forms of all genders to be represented if you wish to sculpt body anatomy. Why are you gardening at this hour of the morning?”

“Because someone’s a sadistic terrorist,” Papaya replies with as much fervor as Peach put into her good morning.

“And someone needs to learn a lesson about the consequences of sneaking rubber snakes into the footmen’s quarters.” The false, overly-sweet cheer bouncing back and forth between the two of them is enough to give a man a toothache.

“There’s no proof that was me.”

“You pulled the same stunt in the teachers’ lounge last spring.”

“Yeah. Duh. So how did I get more snakes?”

“You are the very embodiment of the phrase nothing’s impossible. Think of all the good you could do with your energy.”

“Like recording it for my own YouTube channel?”

Peach snips too hard at her rose bush, and half the thing falls over.

Something moos behind me.

No, not moos.

Hums.

I glance back toward the alpaca and start.

Someone has knit rainbow legwarmers for it and strung a unicorn horn atop its head.

“Also,” Peach says, her cheer positively snarly now, “you keep asking for Fred to live in the garden. Therefore, you have to fix the garden for Fred.”

Papaya snorts. “I don’t want Fred to live in the garden. I want Fred to live with me.”

“Don’t make me make you move in with Meemaw.”

“Meemaw wouldn’t care. You know she’s going to be sneaking off to bone the butler.”

“Aaaggh!” Peach interrupts, dropping her own shears to cover her ears.

“If you’d prefer to not have your own crushes and kisses discussed, one might suggest you not gossip about others’ private lives,” I advise Papaya.

“Who am I going to kiss?” she demands.

“Fred seems quite taken with you.”

“You are so wrong.”

“He’s only getting warmed up,” Alexander reports. “Viktor is truly terrifying when he’s determined to make someone’s life miserable. As I should well know.”

“I do believe the misery was of your own making,” I inform my brother. “And then shared with the lot of us.”

“Never.”

“Always.”

Alexander grins. He’s rather similar to Manning Frey that way. Always smiling over something, and most likely plotting some kind of trouble.

No wonder it was a privilege to serve the prince so many years.

He reminded me of family.

“Your Majesty? Your Majesty!”

“And your puppy dog is up early as well,” Alexander murmurs.

Peach curls her lip and turns back to pruning the roses as Leonie races toward us. “Your Majesty, we have a problem,” my young adviser declares.

“Several, I’d say,” Alexander comments out the side of his mouth.

Leonie dips a short curtsy. “Pardon the early hour, Your Majesty. We have a busy day today, and the Duke of Prievia has just requested an immediate audience to discuss—ah—” her eyes dart to Papaya “—a rather private matter.”

Peach and Papaya share a look. One is now frowning, utterly without any semblance of cheer.

The other is feigning innocence.

I’m sure you can guess which is which.

Though I should vehemently deny the stirring in my bollocks caused by that surprisingly stern glare on Peach’s face, if only for my own peace of mind.

Surely the idea of discipline is more arousing to me than the idea of my own wife.

“I shall be along shortly,” I inform Leonie.

Alexander rolls his eyes and mouths tell her no.

“Your Majesty, we’ve also had a request that your wedding album be displayed at the reception today, and that—”

“I shall be along shortly,” I repeat.

She freezes momentarily before dropping her eyes to the ground. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

And now I feel like a bloody heel.

I was never bothered by having to block people from access to Prince Manning. ‘Twas my job, and I did it well. But I am bothered by having to block people from my own person.

I dismiss the guards with a nod as well.

Once they’ve departed, I turn a silent gaze on Papaya. “I trust you’ve been enjoying your time in Amoria?”

“It wasn’t my fault!” She waves the clippers about and I veer back. “He didn’t tell me he was the son of a duke. And he swore he’d already paid for the chocolates. He promised me. And why do people put real gold in chocolate anyway? Who wants to poop that out when you could get actual cash for it at the pawn shop?”

Peach is pressing her eyeball again. “Have no fear, Your Majesty. She successfully pleaded her case when the cops showed up, and she also managed to give the little punk a bloody nose for lying to her.”

And now my own eyeball is twitching. “Where were the guards?”

Papaya mumbles something.

“Louder and clearer, please,” I order.

“I said you’re ruining my life,” she shrieks. She tosses the clippers into a hedge and races off toward the palace. Three guards leap out of the bushes near the gate and follow her.

“Well done, Viktor. True mark of parenthood if you can ruin a teenager’s life with eight words.” Alexander claps me on the shoulder.

I turn a remove yourself glare on my brother.

He grins and tucks his hands into the pockets of his athletic shorts. “Go easy on him, dearest Peach. He’s quite cranky before he has his heart eggs in the morning.”

Peach doesn’t wait for Alexander to leave before she launches into her story with more animation than I’ve seen from her in days.

It’s quite distracting, all that blood flowing to her cheeks, her breasts bouncing with every fling of her arm and stomp of her foot.

“She was supposed to be having a tour of her new school, and everyone thought I was being all uppity insisting no one let her out of sight, like we think we’re so much better than everyone just because you’re the king here, and I almost went along on the tour with her, but they promised me she’d be fine, so I stayed in the office to do paperwork, and the next thing I know, everyone’s all in a tizzy because Papaya’s gone, and some duke’s son is gone, and they’re not on the school grounds and for all I knew she was off getting herself pregnant. So I pulled my GPS tracker app and I tracked her to this really, really cute shop that smelled like utter heaven that I can probably never go back to now, and the owners are there yelling at her in Swahili or something and she’s about to cry and by the time the guards caught up and translated, she figured out she’d been played for a fool by one more stupid rich kid with more money than conscience and she hauled off and laid him out flat, and if you ask me, that little dickopotomus deserved it. But she’s still on my shit list for sneaking out of her school tour, and—”

I’m quite unsure what’s come over me, but while I should be scowling, I’m suddenly smiling, and while I should be listening, I’m instead cupping her ears and drawing her mouth to mine, silencing her with a kiss, because I simply cannot help myself.

She sucks in a breath the moment our lips touch.

I should stop.

I truly should.

But once again, she’s parting her lips for me, molding her body to mine, dragging her fingernails through my hair and against my scalp.

I daresay a good romp between the sheets should be good for both of us.

But she comes to her senses and pulls out entirely too quickly.

“What—” she starts.

“Merely practicing,” I lie quickly. “Is there anything else I should know about the incident with Papaya before I speak with the duke?”

Her expression shifts from bewilderment to disappointment to fury to resignation, and finally settles into disgust. “No.”

“I shall solve this,” I tell her.

She catches me off guard with a shove to the chest. “I don’t want you to solve it. I want to fucking solve it myself, but I’m a woman from a poor family that can’t even trace their history as far back as the Civil War. I’m not fit to be listened to by fancy dukes with money and titles and arrogance. I’m just hysterical.”

I open my mouth, but I find I have nothing to say that would be of any comfort.

Not to a woman who was forced—by a man—to take a husband in order to be granted temporary custody of her wayward sister.

“Then let us solve this together,” I suggest instead.

She pins me with a look that would need no translation into any language.

She believes me out of my noggin.

“Queens do outrank dukes in this kingdom, regardless of their station at birth.”

“I don’t want to play your outrank games. I want people to be decent people and fuck all the ceremony.”

“That would be lovely. But until the day you can convince the Duke of Prievia to be a decent human being, perhaps you would endeavor to beat him at his own game instead?”

“Amoria is the country of love. Why do you have dickheads for dukes?”

I frown. “I’ve no idea, but it would seem rather backwards, wouldn’t it?”

“And people think Southerners are stupid,” she mutters.

“’Tis always best to be underestimated by one’s enemies, my lady.”

She regards me with a shrewd squint. “Are you making fun of me?”

“A man only makes that mistake once in a lifetime, I assure you.”

She squares her shoulders and glowers. “You’re still not very funny.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“And a country of love shouldn’t have enemies.”

“Quite right, my lady.”

“If you my lady me one more time, you’re gonna find yourself waking up with a new butthole tomorrow.”

I try—and fail—to hold back a smile. That’s the Peach I know. “That’s the spirit, Your Majesty. Let us meet with the duke. This should go swimmingly well.”

“I really don’t like you right now,” she grumbles.

But a smile is teasing her lips as well.

And when I offer her my arm, she tucks her hand into my elbow.

A flood of warmth spreads over my skin from where her fingers touch, and for a moment, we’re not adversaries, but rather a team.

It’s both comfortable and terrifying.