“We can’t keep doing this,” Bruno says to me, one morning. We’re sitting together out on a terrace, overlooking the beautiful mountain country of Tomassia, drinking coffee before breakfast.

I take a long sip of coffee, because I know exactly what he means. We can’t keep sneaking around with the Crown Princess like this, because as much as I love everything that we do together, I hate that we have to keep it secret.

I want Katarina to be ours in public. Everyone needs to know that the Princess belongs to us and no one else. I want to be by her side, all the time, every day. Not just in the dead of night.

I’m in love with the Princess. We’re in love with the Princess.

And we’re going to marry her. I’m not sure exactly how, but we’re completely determined to make it work.

“I don’t know how to ask her father for her hand,” I admit. “He doesn’t like either of us to begin with, he’s always surrounded by an armed guard, and he’s an old-fashioned bastard.”

“Hey, that’s my future father-in-law you’re talking about,” Bruno deadpans.

“Then you’ve got an idea?”

Bruno sighs.

“No,” he says. “Maybe the only way is to just go in and ask.”

“What if we just ran away and married her?”

“You mean what if one of us ran away and married her,” he points out. “If we did that, one of us would be escorted to the border by an armed guard, and Katarina would likely be disowned. She can’t marry us both. Not yet.”

We haven’t even brought this up to Katarina yet. I’ve been meaning to, but our time together is so limited — and we never seem to end up talking.

“Maybe the Princess would have some thoughts,” I say. “If we can talk without fucking for fifteen minutes, anyway. After all, he is her—”

“Is this bachelor’s corner? Mind if I join?” says a slimy, nasal voice behind me.

Bruno and I both turn our heads. Sven is standing there, wearing sunglasses, his scalp shining through his dark hair, his white linen shirt unbuttoned to the top of his hairy, paunchy belly. He’s accompanied by a retinue of guards, hanging ten feet behind him. I don’t think he goes anywhere without those guys — probably because he couldn’t defend himself from a basket of puppies.

We’re nothing if not well-bred, so we move our coffee cups and make a space for him at the table.

“I love a vacation, but I’m just about done with this place,” he says, sitting heavily. “Bunch of backwards, inbred morons with terrible food. Women are pretty, though,” he says, scratching his belly.

Bruno and I exchange a look.

“I’m rather enjoying my stay,” I say.

It’s not worth getting angry with him, I tell myself. He’s a stupid oaf, insulting our hosts right in their own home.

“Of course you are, you’re from San Javier,” he says, grinning unpleasantly. “Hey, here’s a joke I heard the other day. What kind of baby do you have if you fuck a woman from San Javier?”

Rage starts simmering in my belly, and I squeeze my coffee cup, trying to contain myself.

“What kind?” I say, already knowing that the answer will piss me off.

“A foal!” He says, laughing so hard he slaps his knee. “Get it, because your women are so ugly they look like horses? Ha!”

It takes every fucking ounce of self-control I have not to smash his face in with my coffee cup.

“Calm down, jeez, can’t you take a joke?” he asks, grinning like an asshole. “But seriously, I can see why you two came to make a bid for the Princess. Sorry about that, fellows.”

Bruno leans back, a look on his face somewhere between anger at this idiot and amusement that Sven is such an idiot.

“Sorry for what?”

“For getting the Princess,” he says.

We’re both dead silent.

“I really lucked out,” he goes on, completely fucking oblivious. “Marry the pretty Crown Princess, whelp a few heirs on her, and then when she gets fat and those nice tits start to sag, the kingdom is just full of pretty ladies who I’m sure wouldn’t turn down their Prince Consort.”

“You need to leave,” Bruno says, his voice dangerous and quiet.

Sven frowns, too dumb to even hear the threat in Bruno’s voice.

“Why?”

“You’re not welcome to insult the Princess in front of us,” he goes on. “And because I don’t care how many fucking guards you’ve got, not a single one will get to you before I break your goddamn nose in.”

Sven looks confused, then angry, then insulted, then confused again.

“Come on. We’re all the same here, you know, marry a woman so she can have your babies and then other women for fun?”

He tries to smile ingratiatingly, but I see red and get to my feet, knocking over my chair.

“You don’t deserve Katarina,” I growl. “You don’t deserve to be near her. You don’t deserve to touch a single fucking hair on her head, to breathe the same air as her. Now get the fuck out of here.”

Sven stands, holding his hands out, palms toward me, like he can somehow calm me down.

“Okay, okay,” he says. “Not into a little guy talk, I guess.”

We don’t say anything, just glare, Bruno also on his feet. Sven puts his hands by his sides.

“But that sweet little thing is practically already mine, so maybe I’ll send your shitty kingdoms a postcard when I pop her cherry.”

Sven turns and walks off, and I fight the urge to follow him, no matter how satisfying punching him in the goddamn face might be. Getting arrested and then deported isn’t exactly in my plans.

“We have to do something,” Bruno growls.

“Today,” I say. “We ask the King for her hand today.”

Then we look at each other, because we still don’t know how the fuck to do that.