Chapter one
age twenty-five
Growing up royal meant living up to certain standards.
Shoulders back.
Chin up.
Smile.
Mind your manners.
Never raise your voice.
No exceptions. Well, unless you were my brother. Liam paraded his penis around Ayelswick like a show pony and no one ever said a word. I was the amenable princess on the outside, curious rogue on the inside. Princesses didn’t act on their impulses. They repressed them. We were bred to play a role, not direct the scene.
Our kingdom was just a small island tucked between the coasts of Ireland and Scotland, but what we lacked in size, we gained in wealth. Because of this, my father ruled with an iron fist. People didn’t love him because of his compassion. They obeyed him because they were afraid of what would happen if they didn’t.
Our palace sat on the top of a hill, overlooking the Irish Sea. With its stark-white exterior, blue roof, round towers and arches over arcades, it towered over the countryside like a patron saint watching over their flock. If the palace was a shrine, then my bedroom was my sanctuary. Of all the two hundred and sixty-four rooms, mine was the least extravagant. I left the pomp and circumstance to my father and brother. They liked the thrill of a show. I preferred simplicity.
I stood at my bedroom window, looking out over the garden. Patches of purple thistle and heather blanketed the green grass. Yellow buttercups added pops of brightness like sunshine. Just beyond the garden, there was a cobblestone bridge arched over a crystal-clear stream that flowed in from the sea. As a little girl, I stood on that bridge, throwing pebbles into the stream. I always tried to out-throw Liam. I usually lost, but it never kept me from trying every day until they blocked off that bridge. Beyond the bridge, there was a cottage at the bottom of a grassy hill. Ma gave us strict orders to stay away from that cottage. Whispers in the hallways said the place was haunted, and that was why no one went there. Servants claimed they heard screams sometimes in the darkness of night. Ma said those were just stories, that the cottage was old and decrepit and a danger to us all. Liam and I once tried going to the cottage to see for ourselves. Da stopped us before we got there. The next day, the bridge was blocked. Sometimes at night, I listened for those screams just to see if they were real, if that was why Da blocked our path. I always fell asleep before they came.
I missed my mother.
I missed her smile, her laugh, and her words of wisdom.
I missed her bedtime stories about beautiful princesses being saved by handsome knights. Then, with tears in her eyes, she’d tell me how important it was to be able to save myself. She said I needed to be careful of the knights because sometimes the darkest secrets lay beneath the shiniest armor.
“Every story has a villain,m’eudail.” M’eudailmeant “my darling” in Gaelic. The way she said it made me feel like they’d invented the word specifically for me. “No matter how good you try to be, you will eventually end up being that villain in someone’s story.” She would run her hand over the top of my head, smoothing my hair as she smiled. “But even villains deserve to be happy.”
She was a queen in every sense of the word. Poised. Graceful. Strong. The perfect match for my father. Until cancer held her hostage in her own bed. It started in her lungs but quickly spread to the rest of her body. I’d held her hand as she grew frail and weak. I’d watched the fire in her eyes burn out on days when it was all she could do to hold them open. I’d brushed her hair from her forehead, just before she closed her eyes for the last time, and I promised her that I would be the heroine of my own story.
Now, a woman, not much older than me, wore my mother’s crown, slept in her bed, and called herself a queen.
The quiet creak of my bedroom door pulled me away from my memories.
I turned to see my stepmother, Sadie, standing at the door. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a braid. She was dressed to perfection, while I was in yoga pants and a pink t-shirt. Her makeup was flawless, and the soft yellow dress she wore made her blue eyes seem even brighter. I didn’thateher. Not really. As a person, Sadie was kind, gentle, and every bit as poised as my mother had been. We would’ve made great friends, especially since she was closer to my age than my father’s. As a stepmother, it was just weird.
And even weirder that she was in my room.
She eased the door open further. “May I come in?”
“Is something wrong?”
Sadie never came to my room. She mostly stayed in the garden, library, or kept to herself.
She quietly stepped inside. Her pink-tinted cheeks were more flushed than usual. “You’re going to New York City.”
“America?” Confusion washed over my face, scrunching my brows. “When? Why? Does my father know about this?” No one did anything in the palace without Da’s permission.
Grey Van Doren stepped over the threshold of my bedroom doorway. His foreboding presence dripped superiority. With piercing blue eyes, full lips, and a sharp jawline, he was every bit as gorgeous as he was daunting. My mind was flooded with one thought after another, piling on top of each other and making my heart beat fast and heavy. Grey typically only came to the palace to discuss business with my father. Da wasn’t here, and Grey was standing in my doorway.
Why?
His voice was low and smooth. Calming, even. But for reasons I had yet to discover, his words sent an ice-cold shiver up my spine. “Your father is the reason you’re going.”