Amelia and I cleaned up the kitchen while everyone else in the house got ready for Eden’s doctor’s appointment. She was unusually quiet next to me and I wondered how worried she was about Eden. I wanted to reassure her that Eden would be fine but I had my own concerns and so we worked silently next to each other.

We said goodbye to Eden, Kiran and Sylvia and then I took Amelia by the hand and led her into the living room. We sat down on one of Syl’s overstuffed couches that swallowed you up as soon as your ass touched cushion. I maneuvered myself until I could face Amelia and took her hand in mine, moving my thumb slowly across the palm of her hand from the base of her thumb to the crook of her pinky and ring finger. Her skin was soft, perfect, pure cream against the rough pads of my own fingers.

“Are you alright?” I asked with as much softness I was capable of. In this moment it felt like she could shatter, like the wrong word or action would crumble her. I didn’t want her to break.

“No,” she answered in a sandpaper voice. “It’s too much. I’m worried about so much and I feel like my insides are twisted so tight that…. I just…. I can’t even breathe through this.”

“Hey,” I rushed to pull her close to me, cradling her in my arms and loving the way she fit against me, like we were created just for each other. “He’s not going to win. You have to remember that. No matter what happens, you have to believe that justice… that goodness will triumph. You have to believe that what we do is right and because of that we will win.”

“That sounds like a practiced speech,” Amelia mused. Her fingers mimicked the movement my thumb had made on her palm and she trailed her thumb back and forth across my wrist. I cleared my throat as a deep haze of lust for this girl settled over me.

“It is. It’s one I gave to myself about a thousand times during the whole Lucan thing,” I admitted on a bitter laugh.

She lifted her head and cupped my jawline in her tiny hand. “You are an incredible man.” Before I could respond she tilted her chin and kissed me so lightly on the lips I barely felt her touch. And in that moment something fierce and possessive swelled in my chest. With every passing moment I spent with Amelia my feelings for her grew. She proved over and over to me that she was the one for me.

Not able to respond to her compliment, I offered some advice, “Always remember the good things that we do. They have to outweigh the evil we fight against otherwise we lose. You have to visualize how this ends and how life goes on after we win; otherwise the present swallows you whole with despair.”

“How will life go on after this is over, Avalon?” Amelia asked completely amused with my theory.

“Easy,” I whispered. “It will go on easily. Talbott and Lilly will get married in the courtyard in the Citadel. They will beg for time off and I will be forced to give them an extended honeymoon although I will not be happy about it. In order to make them pay for their time off, I will force them to make public relations stops around the world, which will simultaneously enrich their honeymoon and serve my purpose of getting the word out about the importance of their marriage. Eden will gain seventy five pounds because her baby is obsessed with tater tots and she won’t be able to stop eating them. She will give birth to a handsome baby boy which they will name Avalon the second as a thank you for everything I’ve done for them in the past. And since Angelica will no longer be forcing every eligible girl that comes to the castle into my path I will finally get some time off to go do some extended traveling, probably to an exotic beach where I can surf all day and drink a lot of rum.”

Amelia was laughing at my explanation, her body shaking in mine and I fell in love with that feeling. Fell in love with it.

“Why will Angelica get off your case?” Amelia asked when she had subdued some of her laughter.

“Because I have you now,” I murmured against her hair. “Because you’ll be with me of course.”

“On your island?” Amelia whispered.

But she sounded terrified.

“Yes, on my island,” I replied confidently. This was the future after all.

“I cannot go with you to an island Avalon,” Amelia sat up from me putting space between us…. space that I instantly hated.

“Why not? Don’t you like rum?” I purposefully sounded obtuse.

Amelia burst into unexpected laughter and looked at me like she couldn’t believe me. “Avalon, really? Who doesn’t like rum?” she sighed and then snuggled back against me. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. And then so did she. “For a minute there I thought you were serious.”

“About the island?” I clarified, my neck suddenly prickling with an unexpected crick. “I am serious, Amelia. After this is over, I want you all to myself. I want this to be…. I don’t want this to end.”

I didn’t know how to say I wanted to be her future. I wanted her to picture me and only me when she visualized the end of this conflict without scaring her. Why was she so jumpy? I was ready to confess my undying love for her and claim her like a caveman and she wouldn’t even consider rum and the beach with me.

She bristled in my arms. “Let’s just get through this first, yeah?”

“Amelia, if you are not picturing me in your life when this is over, your view of the future is seriously messed up,” I all but growled.

She jumped up from my chest and scooted back on the couch so that her cold feet were pressed up against the side of my thigh. She wrapped her arms around her knees and looked up at me from under thick eyelashes. I wanted to wrap my warm hands around her feet and run my finger down the perfect arch of her foot. I wanted to grab her ankles and yank her onto my lap so I could kiss her until she couldn’t think straight. But I resisted, I forced myself to meet her where she was at and find out what craziness she was thinking.

“Avalon, daydreaming about a beach and rum is not taking this slow…. It’s not really just seeing where this is headed either. That’s a whole new kind of thing, that’s setting up a destination and I’m not sure I’m ready for rum and an island,” she admitted.

How did this go bad so quickly?

“I’ve known from the beginning where this was headed, Amelia,” I admitted, hoping that if I shared my confidence with her it would somehow rub off. “I’ve always known we were headed for the beach and rum.”

“You can’t say that,” Amelia shook her head as if what I was saying was completely ludicrous. And maybe it was. “Besides, even if there is a beach, which I’m not saying there is, but if there is then it’s a long ways off. There is no way in hell my parents would let me run off to exotic locations with alcohol and my royal boyfriend. There would need to be a ring on this finger.” She wiggled the finger in question at me.

I couldn’t say for sure, but I was almost positive she was using marriage to scare me off. I almost laughed; she was in way over her head. I grabbed her ring finger and pulled it to my lips so I could kiss the place where my promise would be. Then I turned her hand over so I could kiss the inside of that same finger. She trembled against my lips and I took that as a good sign.

“Who said there wouldn’t be a ring on your finger?” I asked casually. I took her whole hand back in mine and rubbed my finger and thumb over the same place, caressing it gently in my grip. I imagined what it would look like there, how it would feel to know that I could claim her as mine, that the ring would be a symbol of mutual ownership…. that the space on my same finger would bare her own representation of possession.

“Avalon,” she gasped, snatching her finger away. “You cannot possibly feel that way. It’s way too early.”

“Amelia,” I soothed meeting her terrified gaze and speaking with as much confidence as I felt. “I know three years ago I was a complete and utter jackass. I was oblivious to how amazing you were and I hurt you. Forever I will regret that. But since the day you came back into my life I have not once stopped thinking about you. You consume my thoughts. You consume everything about me. I was lost without you, floating…. drifting…. completely bored and without purpose. Which, by the way, it’s really hard to get that way when you’re King. And then there was you. You walked into my life and stole that part of me. You took whatever ugliness I had become and you reminded me of the man I could be, the man I was supposed to be. You are this beacon of light, this destination I will fight to get to. You are everything I need and want and want to become. I have fallen completely in love with you, Amelia. So yes, I do want a beach and rum, but most of all I want to give you a ring, because when I visualize my future, every scenario I come up with includes you. You are my life now and I will fight with everything I am to end this conflict and give you the life you deserve.”

Amelia’s eyes shimmered with unshed tears. A pit dropped in my hollow stomach and I suddenly worried that she didn’t feel anything of what I felt. Maybe I was a complete idiot after all.

“How can you possibly feel those things for me?” she whispered, her throat thick with emotion.

“Because they make up who I am, Amelia,” I smiled patiently at her.

“I don’t think I can feel that way for you,” she sighed sadly.

And the world stopped spinning. Officially, in that moment everything came to a screeching halt and I was sure I would explode. I had to explode, I needed to explode, because the possibility of living through this was a hell of a lot worse than internal combustion.

“What?” I coughed out, unblinking and dazed.

“I’m sorry, Avalon,” Amelia whispered and then she got up from the couch and fled.

Well, Hell.

Chapter Thirty-Three

“They really don’t make these things for comfort, do they?” I grumbled under my breath to Kiran. He snickered, trying to remain professional.

We sat on the two thrones that were set up in the downtown Omaha club. I shifted uncomfortably, knowing I would need a healthy dose of magic to get me through this meeting and not just because of the politicians sitting in front of me. Although to be fair, not all of the twelve regents were politicians, in fact, most of them were appointed by me and former Resistance team leaders or members of teams.

After Lucan’s death and I was voted King, I spent a significant amount of time housekeeping the Kingdom’s political system. Lucan had made some wise decisions when appointing certain regions and while they weren’t all strictly loyal to them, many of them were career politicians that needed a healthy retirement and an exotic island exile.

Not a real exile of course, but it was my go-to incentive when trying to convince them they’re community service was way up.

I adjusted the crooked crown on top of my head and gave my sister a smile. She wasn’t seated with us in front of the Regents, opting for a quiet place to observe in the back. Even though, technically Kiran was only King by default of marriage, Eden was still uncomfortable sitting up here in front of everyone, so Kiran took over the public relations duties for her.