“What are you drawing?” Simon’s voice cuts through my concentration and on instinct I jerk away, trying to hide the work in progress from his view.
He grins at me, his gap-tooth smile making something loosen in my chest, and I lean back against the bark of the weeping willow, watching as he plops down next to me, laying his toy sword at his side, and peering over my arm again, trying to get a good view.
“Is that lady?” he asks when I don’t respond fast enough.
I hesitate for many reasons. The foremost being that Simon is ten years old. He has loose lips without meaning to, and I’m unsure what will happen if he runs and tells his mother that the prince was drawing pictures of the king’s fiancée. I have no clue whether she’s still warming Michael’s bed, but there are many people in this kingdom who will take information and use it to give themselves an advantage, no matter how trustworthy they seem. And I don’t trust Simon’s mother as far as I can throw her. Anyone who allows their child to be beaten and bullied or doesn’t mind if they run through tunnels all day long doesn’t deserve to have a child.
My chest pulls with anger, memories from years ago resurfacing when I think of similarities to how he’s treated with what I went through back then.
“It is,” I reply, hoping I haven’t made a mistake.
Because as much as I’ve claimed Sara—as much as I know that she’s mine—we still need to hide away in secret until my carefully laid plans come to fruition.
Michael has sent troops to the southern border, just as I suggested. The Privy Council is up in arms, but at the end of the day, they aren’t king. He is.
For now.
My stomach cramps in excitement and anticipation, feeling like I can almost breathe for the first time in years. I was willing to give it all up, to let it all go, run away with Sara, and never look back. But then she said those words. Those perfect, magical, beautiful words; how she wanted me to wear the crown. My soul exploded as I slid my cock deep inside her and fucked her silly while she called me her king.
After we were sated, she placed her head on my chest and asked about the rebels, and I told her of my goals. We planned and plotted until the early morning hours, my heart straining against its cage with every whispered word, not realizing how much I ached to have her this way. As my equal. As my queen.
“She’s pretty when you draw her, but she’s prettier in person,” Simon notes.
“She is,” I confirm again.
He’s quiet for a few moments, and then he glances out at the gates as they open up, a set of three automobiles driving through into the front courtyard and rolling to a stop, my heart pulling tight in my chest, knowing that Sara is in one of them, most likely on the arm of my brother, so close yet so far away.
My jaw clenches at the thought of them.
“Do you think that one day, maybe I’ll be able to have a lady?” Simon asks.
I break my stare away from the cars, looking to him instead, my brows rising. “You can have anything you dare to dream of, little lion.”
He nods, before his eyes shutter. “Well… then… do you think maybe one day, I can have a dad?”
My stomach rolls and I lean my head back against the trunk of the tree, tapping my fingers on my knee as I stare at him, having no clue what to say. “Having a father is overrated. Trust me, I speak from experience.”
He chews on his lip, his enormous amber eyes wide and trusting. “Do you think maybe you could do it?”
My heart squeezes.
“No one would have to know,” he rushes out, his tone hopeful. “It’d just be pretend, anyway. And it could be fun! Like… like now, only, you tell me you love me and teach me how to be a man.”
“I don’t think your mother would approve,” I chuckle through the ache that’s digging its way through my chest as I reach out to ruffle the top of his head.
He scoffs, his eyes going to the ground, disappointment drooping his shoulders. “Mama wouldn’t even notice.”
“I tell you what,” I sigh, closing the sketchbook and placing it to my side, before turning to face him. “I can’t be your father, but I’ll always be your friend.”
“Yeah, okay,” he mumbles, his toe kicking the blades of grass.
“There’s a secret place my father used to take me at the cliff’s edge at the back of the castle. One day soon, I’ll take you there. And I’ll teach you everything I know.”
His eyes light up, that gappy-toothed grin coming back full force. “Promise?”
Laughter from across the courtyard draws my attention away before I respond, and even though I know what I’ll witness, even though I expected it, white fiery rage surges through my body, regardless.
Michael and Sara pose for a cameraman, his arm wrapped around her waist and his fingers gripping her tight to his side.
My teeth grind until they threaten to break in half, and I have to restrain myself from standing up and going over to rip his fingers off of her. But I breathe deep, reaching in my pocket and pulling out a joint instead, allowing the hash to buzz through my veins and do its best attempt at keeping the jealousy at bay. It doesn’t work, the feeling slamming into my chest and spreading like a poison until everything I see is tinged in green.
She twists her head, glancing around the courtyard as if she can sense that I’m near, and then she locks her gaze on me. I hold her stare, my dick straining and my insides seething with the need to stake my claim.
I want to grab her from his hold and bend her over the hood of my brother’s favorite automobile, flipping up her skirts and impaling her deep on my cock until she screams out my name and gives everyone else a show.
Maybe then he’d know better than to put his mangy hands on her.
I’ve come on her and in her and told her she was mine. Yet he’s the one who gets to parade her around to the world.
And when he leans in, his arm tightening around her waist and bending her backward to kiss her on the lips, I lose it, shooting to a stand so fast that Simon jolts from the movement, my vision blurring to everything except the murderous rage that’s pouring through my insides.
