Marriage alliances are the best political move. Diplomacy will always be more valuable than war. Even if it means I’m arranged to share a wife with this brute attempting to have tea with me.

Even if Vincent Lyvester is that brute.

I watch Vincent, every bit the prince I am, sipping his tea, his hand clenching on the glass.

When this marriage is final, Vincent and I will be shared kings of three allied nations.

He seems to actually be attempting to be civil. I know better than to assume Vincent is being anything other than genuine, because he doesn't have a properly manipulative bone in his alpha male shell.

At least I have the abs and the political prowess. We can't punch our way into peace…

“I hear you are a just and clever general,” I offer to Vincent. I know how to be genuine, too.

Hey, I do.

For the record, my general path to peace—we all want peace—is to give that damn cocky smirk I swear was plastered on when I was born.

My phone vibrates in my pocket. Marius, no doubt, my second-in-command, keeping me up to date on my kingdom’s goings on, and those of every other nation. I don’t pull my phone out now because that will just undo my own goodwill gesture toward Vincent, now won’t it?

Yes, yes it would. I don’t make stupid moves, so I’m not about to start now.

“You want to get that?” Vincent says in a hushed but ultimately loud whisper. I’m clearly going to be the husband with all the grace, but that won’t come as a surprise to anyone.

Except, perhaps, the bride herself.

Isadora Brevintos. She’s nothing like the trash I take into and out of my bed on a regular basis. My chambers have seen more maids than would be needed to clean a whole castle, be the women actual servants or just girls I pick up in bars that are groupies not deemed too dangerous by my staff doing risk assessments. No, Isadora brought no secondary missions to the table, performed no diligences outside of standard channels.

Isadora is two things I’ve never seen before.

When the marriage was arranged and agreed upon, she was a pure politician with no desires to work through backchannels or to be underhanded.

And now, walking through those doors, she’s more gorgeous than any woman I’ve ever seen. I feel it like the strongest instinct I’ve ever had. I want her to be mine. I need to have her.

Sharing her is not my idea of a good plan at all…I understand it politically, but the animal inside me simply wants her all to myself.

I see that Vincent is staring too, so I quickly pull out my phone and let him go slack-jawed at the sight of her before I do the same and we look like a pair of idiots.

Marius texted me a few details. I send him back a 100 emoji. Yes, I find those little emojis to be quite useful for quick communication; don't you agree? I’ve slipped my phone back into my pocket before anyone has noticed.

No one knows I’m texting right before the betrothal ceremony progresses, and Marius knows that yes, I am intent on impregnating her with an heir as soon as possible.

I don’t have to admit to anyone that I’m as much excited about the prospect of seeing Isadora’s stomach swelled and full of my child, because it means I planted my seed in her as much, as I am excited about the alliance we’ve made in this political match.

It isn’t a love match. I shouldn’t let myself get distracted from the ideas washing over me right now that threaten to overtake me.

Unlike passionate, brash, alpha bravado Vincent, I maintain control of myself at all times. I’m not so foolish as Vincent to let everything read on my face. No one knows what I’m thinking unless I want them to, and then I design that thought.

So how come I want to look like the alpha male turned into a fucking puppy at Isadora’s feet?

I’m no one’s lap dog.

I take what I want so well that, when it comes to political power, it is willingly ceded to me in a way that people believe all the things that are actually my machinations were, in fact, their ideas.

A smile forms across my lips, and just as a thought occurs to me, Vincent wises up and looks at me after muttering something about how glorious our intended bride is.

I offer the smile to Vincent because I realize now that, while I’m regarded as clever, Vincent is one of the only people to see me as cunning. The man chooses to not offer persuasion up as one of his honed skills like I do, but he has always recognized that I’m playing a game where everyone doesn’t seem to know that they are pieces on the board.

I banter with Vincent but mostly ignore him. I don’t want to waste my breath on him when I could be stealing away Isadora’s and charming her.

“Don’t fuck this up,” Vincent says, all bravado and gritted teeth.

Oh, so Vincent cares as much as I do. Is as drawn to her as I am.

I play the game. I see the players and the facts before me, and right now, I have to figure out how Vincent’s shared lusts and affections for Isadora can be useful for me.

Isadora approaches us, and I see that she’s without any purposely bewitching moves. She’s not unlike Vincent in that she seems intent to play fair, rather than play the games of politics. If she’s to be a good ruler, honestly she’ll want to balance both. But there’s a spunk in her, a fire, that leaves me without doubt that she can and will do both, and very well.