Damien
A SOFT KNOCK sounds on my door, and at first I ignore it. Despite having been home for a month now, the palace still feels foreign—like it isn’t my home anymore. I guess had I not been left for dead in an alley behind the Royal Edenvale Hospital, I wouldn’t have been welcome any time soon. The notion rankles, like lemon pressed to a long-festering wound.
Whoever is out there knocks again.
“What is it?” I shout with annoyance, then wince. My three broken ribs are healing, yet still tender.
When my intruder doesn’t enter, I rise uneasily from the safety of the plush leather chair, put down my book and make for the door.
“What?” I ask, throwing the door open to find a tall, dark-haired man with a kind smile that makes my stomach turn. Not because I cannot stand his benevolence but because it’s like looking into some sort of funhouse mirror—some semblance of the me I could have been had my life gone in any other direction but the one it has.
“Benedict,” I say, greeting my older brother, the one who gave up a life in the priesthood for Evangeline Vernazza, an artist from Rosegate. “To what do I owe this brotherly visit? Here to bring me another book? Or to tell me again that I need to give Nikolai time, that he’ll eventually speak to me?”
I don’t mean to spew my bitterness at Benedict. He’s been nothing but concerned since they found me in the hospital—nothing but caring since I returned to the palace. But I doubt I’ll ever prove myself worthy of Nikolai’s forgiveness. And I can’t say that I blame him.
Benedict sighs. “No pep talks today, brother.” He looks me over and chuckles softly. “Forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but you’ve—looked better.”
I run a finger down the scar from my temple to chin—the one from the car accident years ago. My beard bristles against my fingertips. I gingerly touch the bridge of my nose, but even that sends pain rocketing to my skull. When it didn’t set correctly the first time, the doctors had to re-break it so I could breathe correctly again. Both my eyes are still rimmed with a mixture of purple and yellow. Then there’s the new scar running the length of my right eyebrow.
This time I’m the one to laugh, a rare occurrence these days. My hand flies to my side, and I brace the other on the doorframe.
Benedict places a steadying palm on my shoulder.
“Are you okay?” he asks. “Should I ring the doctor?”
I straighten carefully and wave him off. “I’m fine,” I say through gritted teeth.
My brother raises his brows. “You sure are going to be a sight for bitter eyes,” he says, and I detect a hint of amusement in his tone.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I ask.
Benedict throws an arm around my shoulder. “Join me in the west wing and you’ll see.”
I run a hand through my overgrown hair. “I was just starting a really riveting book. I think there are vampires in it. I really should finish it.”
Benedict urges me out the door and pulls it shut behind me.
“To the west wing,” he says again.
I glance at my attire—a falling-open robe, pajama bottoms and suede slippers—and shrug.
“Lead the way,” I say.
Benedict walks slower than usual, making sure I keep up. Yet he’s silent the whole way. Whatever waits for us at our destination, Benedict doesn’t seem to want to tell me.
And for good reason. When we arrive, Benedict pushes open a large oak door that leads to a sitting room, yet no one inside is sitting.
Standing in an arc facing the door is my father, the king; my brother Nikolai and his wife, Kate, our soon-to-be king and queen; Benedict’s new bride, Evangeline; and in the middle of them all, quite possibly the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, though I am still on some pretty heavy painkillers.
She gasps when she sees me, and I realize I must look even worse to those who do not see me on a daily basis.
“Damien,” Nikolai says, the first time he’s addressed me by name since I’ve been home. His voice is laced with disdain. He opens his mouth to finish whatever he wanted to say next, but the young woman rushes toward me.
“Oh my God!” she cries, then reaches a hand toward my face. I flinch, and she pulls away.
“What happened to you?” She pulls open my barely closed robe, spots the fading bruises over my ribs. “Damien. Tell me what’s been going on for the past two months.”
I stare at her, my brow furrowed. Then it clicks.
“Jesus,” I say, my gaze shifting to Benedict, then my father and Nikolai. “What the hell is the Princess of Nightgardin doing in the Edenvale Palace? Are you all out of your minds?”
Nikolai crosses his arms. “So you do recognize her. Would you like to explain yourself?”
I let out a bitter laugh, trying to bite back the pain. But the princess’s hand flies to her mouth. She notices my wince, and I hate that she is perceptive enough to register my weakness.
“Of course I recognize her. I have read a newspaper or two in my absence—even turned the TV to the news once or twice. Just because I don’t—I mean didn’t—live in my own country, it’s not as if I abandoned all thoughts of home. I’ve kept up with what’s been going on in our enemy nation. Yet now you’ve gone and invited the enemy into our home. Would you like to explain yourself?”
The princess rests a warm palm on my chest, and I raise a brow. Perhaps this day will prove quite interesting after all.
“Tell them, Damien. Tell them I’m not a liar.”
“Tell them what, exactly?” I ask, amusement lacing my tone.
“About taking me home from the Veil. About our weekend in your Nightgardin penthouse.” She rests her other hand over her abdomen. “About making love to me for three days straight, planting your seed inside me—and then never coming for me like you promised you would.” Bitterness and hurt lace her tone as my head swims.
I back away, my hands in the air as if someone points a gun at me, which this woman might as well be doing because what she is suggesting could mean an all-out war.
“Slow down there, doll,” I say. “I’ve seen you in the papers and on TV, but I’ve never met you before in my life, let alone planted my seed in you. What crazy fucking game are you playing?”
Her beautiful eyes fill with tears, but then she sniffs, straightens her shoulders and juts out her chin. “At least be man enough to say that weekend meant nothing to you instead of pretending like it never happened.”
“Tell her, Your Highness.”
I spin toward the door to find X standing right behind me, though I didn’t hear him approach. He does shit like this all the time. He’s not there...and then he is. To be honest, it freaks me the fuck out.
“Tell her,” he says again, “how you lost the last year of your life.”
Juliet
“Lost a year? What do you mean by that?” I snap, my voice husky with raw emotion. So much for my years of finishing school. All those tedious lessons on decorum and personal grace fly out the window. I’m reeling. It wasn’t that I expected Damien to welcome me with open arms, be ready to parent our child and live a life beside me filled with sunshine, rainbows and unicorns as we danced cheek to cheek. But... I did harbor a mad secret hope.
At the very least, I expected him to express some basic human emotion upon seeing me, even if it was simply to be filled with regret over our ill-advised fling.
Never could I have expected that he’d disavow me altogether. The psychological blow is too much to take in my delicate condition. Sweat sheens my forehead as my stomach roils. Here it comes. A sickening sensation that is all too familiar of late. Oh no. Not now, I think, but like it or not, I’m going to be sick, and with no notice.
“Highness.” X hands me a white paper bag, the same receptacle that one might find on a commercial airliner. I haven’t the first clue how he procured it from thin air, but I am grateful nonetheless.
“Thank you,” I reply as regally as possible. And then I empty out the contents of my stomach in front of an audience that includes not only my erstwhile lover but his entire family.
I am mired in one royal mess.
In the end, when my breakfast is folded up in the bag and taken away by a maid, I force my gaze to greet theirs. These faces are all as familiar as my own. My entire life I have been taught about our enemy to the south, how Edenvale has always competed with Nightgardin for wealth, land and reputation.
The bigger countries in Europe might chuckle at our border squabbles, but this animosity is no joke. It runs deep and cuts to the bone.
In Nightgardin, children are taught from the time that they are weaned from their mother’s breast to never trust a citizen of Edenvale. Perhaps I should have been a better student.
“She is with child,” X announces gravely. “And claims the child is Damien’s.”
The collective gasp fills the room.
Only Damien remains unmoved. “Bullshit,” he drawls, tightening the bathrobe he wears. “That’s impossible.”
Prince Nikolai glances to him. “Is it, brother? I wasn’t familiar you possessed so much...restraint...around beautiful young women.”
Princess Kate places a warning hand on her husband’s arm. “Darling. Deep breaths.”
Damien lowers himself into a plushly upholstered chair and leans back, legs akimbo. “You’re absolutely right, brother. I am a depraved, lust-filled monster. But I will still deny to my last breath that I could have fathered this child.”
Benedict clears his throat. “Birth control isn’t foolproof.”
“Christ.” Damien drags a hand through his thick, glossy black hair. The beard makes him look ever more the rogue, and yet I cannot deny my attraction. Damn this man.
“Thank you for Sexual Education 101, seminary dropout,” he continues, and I wince at the way he treats his older brother. “But do you know what is foolproof? Not sticking my cock in a woman’s honey.”
“Dear Lord! That’s why they call you the Backdoor Baron in Rosegate.” Evangeline covers her mouth with her hand. “Heavens. I thought it meant you were shy and reclusive.”
“And I could have lived another twenty years and never heard this story,” the king mutters, face pale.
I fist my hands at my sides. “You made love to me the...old-fashioned way,” I mumble, cheeks aflame. My parents had punished me with months of solitary confinement. But this moment is the worst I have endured. My humiliation is complete. All I have left is anger.
“Another lie, Highness. I don’t make love,” he snarls. “I’m told I can’t even feel such a rarefied emotion, right, family?”
“Why are you doing this?” I shout, my pulse loud in my ears. “What’s happened to you?”
X steps forward before Damien has a chance to respond. “Prince Damien was dumped at the royal hospital two months ago. As you can see from the wounds not yet healed, he’d been severely beaten. And he appears to suffer from amnesia concerning the days surrounding his misadventure.”
I suck in a sharp breath and turn my gaze to Damien, now understanding the earlier comment. “I thought X said you’d lost the whole year.”
He taps his temple with his index finger. “It’s slowly returning as I heal,” he says. “The last I remember now, I’d won the Nightgardin Rally. Not long after, my body was dumped at the hospital’s service entrance. It all seems to add up. Except you, that is. I’d have remembered your pretty back door, and I guarantee you’d not be with child after such an encounter.”
The king presses the heels of his palms to his eyes while I fight the urge to slap him silly.
“My mother’s guards had you beaten for being with me. They weren’t exactly gentle dragging you away.”
“You’re quite a storyteller, doll,” he snaps in a harsh tone. “Most likely I racked up too many gambling debts.”
I stride closer to where he lounges in the chair, looking this stranger up and down. I may remember our weekend together, but certainly do not know this Damien.
Ice and stone.
I didn’t expect flowers and roses, but this is like being trapped in a waking nightmare.
“I don’t know who you are, my prince. The man that I spent three magical days with was gentle and considerate.” Exhaustion permeates my every pore, and before I can topple over, X positions a small stool behind me.
“How can we prove her story is true?” Nikolai asks as I sink down. His tone is not unkind.
“A paternity test will take time, especially if the pregnancy is only two months along,” King Nikolai muses, stroking his clipped beard. “In the meantime, if we keep you here, your parents might well wage war to reclaim you.”
I sigh heavily. “I know I have brought danger to all of you here, which should be reason enough to trust me. I would not risk so much for any other reason. But to carry a bastard in my belly, an Edenvale bastard at that—”
“No niece or nephew of mine will grow up with such a stain on their future,” Benedict snaps with unusual feeling. “Brother, you will marry this woman today. Now in fact.” He looks to me again, eyes wide with realization. “Were you not meant to marry the Duke of Wartson this week?”
I nod. “Tomorrow.”
“Damien,” Benedict says, his voice laced with dark warning.
“Never happening,” Damien shoots back.
“I am not a priest, but I am a deacon in the Catholic Church, ordained to perform the sacrament of marriage. If what the princess says is true, and I sense no lie in her words, then this is how we can protect her, our own kingdom and the newest member of the royal family.”
“I accept your proposal,” I answer in a firm, clear voice. I like this brother. He is logical and ethical.
“His proposal.” Damien is on his feet in an instant, but not without a grimace. I force myself not to feel sympathy for his injuries, not when he so clearly wants nothing to do with me and our child. “What about me?” he asks. “My say?”
Nikolai joins the fray. “You’ve put our family and country in danger.” His tone is an arctic blast. “Marriage is the only honorable choice. Hell, Damien. It’s the only safe choice. If the king and queen of Nightgardin find her before you right this wrong, do you think her intended will let bygones be bygones? They will execute her and your heir. And because of your...situation...in our court, I’m not sure we’ll be able to protect you. But make her princess of both courts...”
“This is madness,” the king says.
Prince Nikolai nods once. “But it is the only way.” The king doesn’t argue. “The Nightgardin court will hate it,” Nikolai continues. “But their fury will be less than if we allow you to make a whore out of their only daughter and heir. Apologies,” he says to me in a softer tone. “Those aren’t my sentiments. Your kingdom is more conservative.”
I clear my throat, rest a protective hand over my belly. “I understand. My own mother said all of your words to my face...and worse. She cursed the day I was brought into this world. She told me that she wished that I had never been born. It’s only because Wartson never learned I’d been sullied that I am still alive—that the wedding is still on. But I obviously could not go through with it. Not with another man’s child in my womb. Not with Edenvale’s royal blood coursing through my child’s veins. So I fled.”
“How?” Damien narrows his eyes.
I shrug. “I tied four bedsheets together and escaped from my tower like any self-respecting princess. After slipping my servant girl a sleep aid, of course.”
X steps forward again. “Sir, if I may,” he says, addressing Damien. “Either you marry this remarkable woman, or I will.”
Benedict and Nikolai chuckle, but Damien betrays no emotion.
I don’t understand this family. Even in crisis there is humor here, and evidence of love.
“Do it not for her or even the child I believe will turn out to be yours,” the king adds. “Because the worst possible scenario here is that you impregnated our enemy’s heir, and face it, son. If there is a worst possible scenario, you will find a way to achieve it.”
Damien winces at this, and despite the iron will I promised myself I’d have, my heart aches not for the wounds we all can see, but those he’s kept buried far beneath his gruff surface.
I think about the possibilities if Damien and I marry, despite what he feels—or does not feel—for me. My child could grow up here and be safe. Have a life. Freedom. It’s more than I ever could have expected with the duke.
And who knows, maybe the impossible can happen, and someday, far in the future, he or she will be able to bring an end to the tensions between our two kingdoms.
My gaze locks on Damien’s, and this time I don’t look away. It hurts to experience his stare without any feeling behind it—at least not the love I thought we shared. I should have known better, that I was not meant for true love. But at least here my child will have that chance.
Anger and suspicion surround Damien as an almost visible miasma. “Highness?” I ask. “What shall it be?”
This is not what I planned for my wedding day, but at least he is not an old lecherous duke. Never was this day a happy event in my mind, but I hadn’t quite imagined the groom would be in his pajamas looking as if he’d just lost a bar brawl.
“What the hell? Let’s do it,” Damien growls. “But fair warning, Princess, I’m cursed.” He winks.
I force a bitter grin. “Then it appears that we have very much in common.”