I’ve been at the castle for almost two weeks, staring down at the beach, and yet I haven’t been on it. Standing on the verandah in the early morning light, I realize I’m in a mood, and I think that has something to do with it. The wind blows hard and the sun hides behind the clouds, pouting. I tug at the colorful yellow and blue kimono I’m wearing over a pair of expensive jeans. It’s a crude pairing, but all of my clothes are made to make me look sexy, not made for comfort.

Especially not on a day like today, when the cool wind blusters over a dark grey sea. I could stare at the ocean for hours, churning and foaming just below me. Sipping a cup of coffee, I’m absorbed in my own thoughts until I hear Dryas’s footsteps.

Turning my head, I nod to him briefly. He’s especially handsome today in his ripped jeans and dark tee, looking tired. He has a cup of coffee in one hand, his mug the mate to mine.

“What are you doing?” he asks, his voice still gravelly from sleep. He sips his coffee and looks broodingly at the mug as if it has insulted him.

Shrugging a shoulder, I nod at the sea. “Just looking. I am thinking that if I don’t get out of the castle soon, I will go crazy.”

“Oh?” he says vaguely, his yellow-green eyes narrowing on the ocean view.

He is breathtaking, I will give him that. Those light-colored eyes set in his darkly tanned face, those muscles tightly grouped on his tall frame. The dark hair pushed back with careless fingers. A few days stubble still clinging to his cheeks.

I’m certain that Eve felt the same way when the Devil came and whispered in her ear. My skin spreads with goosebumps, just imagining Dryas close enough to mutter his deranged thoughts to me in a similar manner. What would they be, I wonder?

Dryas is silent, staring contemplatively at the grey sea. He isn’t in the mood to share his thoughts, apparently. I ought to be glad of that. I know well enough what he’s capable of.

So why can’t I stop staring, like a little girl at the eclipse?

At length, he speaks, his voice smoothed out. “We should go down to the shore if that’s what you want.”

My heart lifts, soaring like a helium balloon. “Really?”

Dryas turns his gaze on me, his mood so heavy that it drags my heart down a few notches. “I said we’d go. Do you want to go or not?”

I take in a halting breath. “Yes. Of course. Let me change.”

He sips his coffee instead of answering, calling out only when I’m at the door. “Wear a dress.”

A dress? On a day like today, so windy and grey out? But I know better than to contradict him when he’s already allowing me what I want.

Well, part of what I want. A teeny, tiny part. My list of things that I truly desire is much longer, but I won’t let that get in the way of feeling like I’m momentarily winning. Skipping all the way to my closet, I quickly change into a Grecian-style sleeveless dress with a thin gold belt to go around the waist. It’s made of silk, colored somewhere between amaranth pink and mauve purple, and it has two thigh-high slits in its pleated skirts.

I grab a chunky-knit lamb’s wool cardigan to throw on and slip my feet into sandals. In my head, I’m calculating the cost of what I’ve just thrown together. The final tally makes me faintly sick if I’m honest.

How far I am from the convent, where I dressed the same way every day for eight years. Rather than think about it, I hurry down to the entryway, where Dryas is waiting. He gives me a bored look as I’m descending the stairs, unlocking and opening the colossal front door. He stands there, holding the door open for me.

I duck under his arm, stepping out into the cloudy day. The sky is amazing, a mercurial swirl of black and white and grey as if I was looking at an artist’s palette. I look around me, at the castle’s light stone walls towering above, at the jagged rocks of the coastline starting not twenty paces from where I stand. Below, I can see the dark rocks where they meet the ocean, protruding like broken teeth.

Dyras starts off without me, not looking back to make sure I’m keeping pace. Rushing along and gathering the dusty rose folds of my dress in my hands, I hurry to follow him. At first, it seems as though he just means to walk around the castle.

That’s fine with me, albeit a little disappointing. I’m happy enough to be able to look at the castle from a different point of view. I gaze up at it, marveling at all the shades of beige rock someone put there by hand.

Without warning, the castle simply ends, or maybe I’m just too busy craning my neck upward to expect it. As soon as the castle ends, there is a small path, worn into the mud-colored rock that is underfoot.

Dryas turns down the path, his long legs carrying him swiftly. He put a sweater on, just as black as anything else I’ve ever seen him wear. As I admire his broad shoulders in it, I notice that it’s a little bit fuzzy. My fingers scrunch up in my palms, wondering just what the sweater would feel like.

Do I dare to find out? Probably not, but a girl can have aspirations.

I scurry along, realizing when I step onto the path that it slopes right down to the water. Gravel crunches underfoot after the first couple of feet, keeping the path from growing slippery in bad weather. I’m conscious of the fact that I drop and drop as the castle and the earth rise around me on both sides, mud-colored rock and baked brown dirt. The sky above seems to shrink in comparison.

No wonder the path seems hidden.

Ahead of me, Dryas comes to a level spot, emerging from the earth. The roar of the sea is much louder here than in the castle. I’ve started to take the calming push-pull sound for granted as a part of my life. It haunts the halls of the castle. It’s in the background of everything, even my dreams.

Push-pull, push-pull.

The ocean has something to say to me, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what, exactly. The waves crash further down, noisier in the distance.

Dryas shades his eyes and looks impatiently back at me. I half-jog the last ten steps, bursting out into the open. Copying Dryas, I shade my eyes as I look around.

Apparently, he’s brought me to a beach, so private that you can’t even see it from anywhere in the castle. It’s not much to look at, only stretching a quarter of a mile to my right, perhaps only as deep as four car lengths.

Still, I can’t help but grin at Dryas. I did, after all, complain that I hadn’t been on the beach. Then he takes me to the beach. Not just any beach, but a tiny exclusive one.

There isn’t a soul to be found anywhere on the beach, which seems entirely appropriate.

Dryas, for his part, merely cocks an eyebrow and crosses his arms. “Happy?”

“Very. Can we walk?” I say, nodding to the length of the beach.

He waves a hand. “By all means, little bird.”

The nickname does something strange to my insides, making my stomach do flips. I bite my lips to clamp down on the smile that seems determined to work its way to the surface.

I hesitate, looking at him. He won’t mind if I take his arm, will he? I am restless suddenly, and he looks so stoic, unmovable. My heart races and my fingers tremble, but I reach out and take his arm.

He looks a little surprised, arching a brow, but he says nothing about it. Instead, he puts his big, rough fingers over my trembling ones and begins to walk.

Something is acknowledged between us, something quiet and warm and alive. I’m happy just to be here in this moment, right now. I refuse to let intrusive thoughts and feelings saturate this moment.

Glancing out at the water, I breathe in the sharp tang in the air. Like the sound of the waves, so too is the salt water everywhere and on everything.

“I looked into the king you talked about.”

I turn my head with a start, glancing at Dryas. “Oh?”

He inclines his head, lifting a hand to shade his brow again. “Yes. The Rebel King.”

I wait for him to continue, but he doesn’t. I have to prompt him. “And?”

His mouth kicks up in one corner at my exasperation.

Damn him, he baited that hook and let me swallow it whole. He smiles, “Your king was a Scotsman, Declan Stewart. He was a bastard, supposedly off some pretty rich blood. He fought in Afghanistan with so much vigor that it made the British crown nervous. He was the toast of Europe when he came back, especially your good friends in Montenegro. Stewart was going to be a king when the people overthrew the monarchy.”

I raise both brows. “Is that right? That didn’t happen, did it?”

He gives a tight smile, shaking his head. “No, it did not. The king was found dead one morning. Heart attack, apparently. Or made to look like one, in any case.”

I’ll admit, I’m more than a little crestfallen at the news. “Ah. So… it looks like he’s just someone that Father Derrik and Prince Henrick are hoping to pass off as my father, for some reason.”

We reach the far end of the beach and have to turn back.

“It makes a good deal of sense that they would try to claim you as an heir,” he says, squinting out across the ocean. “The Rebel King was incredibly popular. And you’re the right age to be his daughter. I mean, the dates line up with when Stewart was back in Europe, broadly. If they had you, then Prince Henrick might not have as much trouble ruling over his people when the time comes.” He pauses, thinking. “Right now, as it stands, there are a lot of things in between him and the throne.”

Shaking my head, I let go of Dryas’s arm. “I don’t know about any of that. And to place any hope on my mother… My mother was… she lay with a lot of men.” I turn my face away from him, my cheeks heating up. “For money. Or drugs.”

When I look back, Dryas’s eyes are on my face. “That means you are in good company while you’re with me.”

I flinch, wondering at that odd phrasing. But I see what he’s driving at. He’s letting me in, in his way. He barrels along.

“At any rate, I understand now why you’re so precious to Father Derrik,” he says. “I wondered why he took you and Amabel in…”

My cheeks are alight with my shame. I duck my head to hide it, all the time knowing. Father Derrik might want me because I’m some fake heir or something, but that’s not the only reason. The other reason is much darker, much deeper, much more mortifying.

The other reason can never under any circumstances become known. Not by anyone save me, Father Derrik, and a couple of nuns in Liechtenstein.

Dryas glances at me, expecting me to say something.

“Maybe,” is all I can muster. I double my pace, leaving him behind. “I need to… I need to go back to my rooms.”

“Rue—” he says, but I’m already slipping back into the path cut out of the Earth.

He probably thinks I’m mad. Or maybe he thinks that my bowels ache. I don’t know, and I can’t care.

All I can do is run up the path, breathing hard, and pray that Dryas never learns my secret.