Chapter 8

Holding Elva, I walked further into my assigned room, bringing the man into focus.

It wasn’t Nicholas, but his brother.

“Julian.”

I knew Julian from my days at the Royal Academy, though we hadn’t been friends. Since Julian and Nicholas were arch-enemies, and I was Nicholas’s girlfriend, I avoided interacted with Julian as much as I could.

He quirked his lips into a playful smile. “You know, these days I go by, ‘Your Royal Highness.’”

I swallowed hard, realizing my mistake.

I had to be careful here. Any perceived slight against the princes could cost me my life. But it was so difficult to reimagine the boys I knew at the Academy into the princes they presented themselves as now.

Nicholas and Julian were brothers, too. I never would have guessed.

I guessed Nicholas had plenty of his own secrets. Funny, back then, I had thought I was the only one with something to hide.

“I’m teasing,” Julian clarified.

I exhaled the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

“It’s been a long time, Piper,” Julian said, approaching me. “You must have questions.”

I had so many questions, I was dizzy with them. But I had no idea where to start.

Elva squirmed in my arms.

I patted her back as I lowered her to the ground. “I packed some of your toys, honey. Why don’t you play for a while?”

“Okay.” Elva cast a distrustful look at Julian. When Julian waved at her, she quickly looked away. Then she rushed over to her suitcase and found her dolls.

I watched her for a moment, before turning to Julian.

“Cute kid,” he said. “My brother’s?”

“No.”

He made a thoughtful humming sound. Even watching him, I couldn’t discern what he was thinking. Julian had always carried an enigmatic presence – always smirking, but never quite revealing all that he knew.

Normally he was not the type of person I would seek out for answers. But since he was here and willing to talk to me, he was my only option.

Of the many questions I wanted to ask, the most pressing was, “Why am I allowed to stay?”

He shrugged. “I’m not sure how you charmed your way through the initial selection, but once it was done, it cannot be so easily undone. Not without great embarrassment to the royal family.”

I supposed that made sense. The royal family had used their magic to select the initial list of names. For them to admit a mistake would be to admit themselves fallible. This would only further tarnish their already divisive reputation.

But even so, surely they could have made up some excuse.

“It doesn’t hurt that you have a compelling story,” Julian continued. “Sure, the King thought about making you leave, but when he discovered your set of… unique circumstances, he decided to let you stay.”

“I’m not special,” I said.

“Aren’t you?” Julian lifted a brow. He counted on his fingers. “Wolf-less. Unemployed. A single mother. You tick every box.”

I frowned. “You make it sound like I’m only here as some kind of PR stunt.”

“A commoner candidate with your specific traits garners a certain amount of sympathy. We’d have to be monsters to make you leave.”

His smile was boyish, easy and lopsided. Disarming, even. It didn’t quite match the weight of his words. He was talking about public relations of the highest order, and seemed utterly unbothered by any of it.

“But if we let you stay, we become magnanimous. Generous. Willing to turn a new leaf and lead the nation into a new era of unity and opportunity for all, even the downtrodden. It’s a simple choice, really.”

“So I’m here just for show.”

“Of course.” He laughed. “No one thinks you’ll actually win.”

“Juli—er, Your Royal Highness. I can say I backed out on my own. I won’t paint your family in a bad light. I’ll put it all on me. But I have no reason to stay.”

Julian lifted a lone brow. “No? Not one single reason?”

I blushed, unsure if he was trying to insinuate Nicholas. I imagined not many people here knew about Nicholas and me. Nicholas probably tried to keep it a secret as much as he could.

But Julian would know, because he was there.

In another life, being near Nicholas would have given me enough reason to want to stay.

But he’d made his feelings about me clear. And I had other priorities.

My gaze slid to Elva, playing with her dolls at the foot of the bed.

“I don’t want to play house,” I said. “Nor do I want to partake in this game of undercutting nobles and chasing princes.”

I had been away from nobility for a long time, but I hadn’t forgotten their cutthroat politics, where an action as small as selecting the wrong utensil at dinner could start a blood feud. Backstabbing, betrayals, pretending to be nice just to make someone vulnerable….

The memories made my already tired body even more exhausted.

Elva coughed and immediately reclaimed my attention. She recovered quickly this time, thank God, and returned to playing.

Softer, so that she wouldn’t overhear, I said to Julian, “My daughter is frail and sick often. I have to work hard to care for her. I can’t waste time staying here.”

Julian tapped a finger to his chin. “Piper, you realize this is the royal palace, correct?”

“Yes, but –”

“So while you are here, wouldn’t you have access to all the royal resources? Including our medical staff and supplies?”

I froze.

I hadn’t thought of that. Would the royal family truly be willing to use their resources to help Elva?

Julian must have seen the disbelief on my face. “While you are here, you are under the care of my family. We wouldn’t simply stand by and let you or your daughter suffer.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Turning away a sick child would surely be bad for public relations.”

“It would be horrible,” he said, smile adding teeth.

I couldn’t understand him. Why was he being so generous with what were probably family secrets? Surely the royal family couldn’t want me to know the real reason they were keeping me around?

When I asked him, Julian laughed. A roguish light danced in his eyes. They were different than Nicholas’s, more brown than gold, with no flecks of green.

“I’m not so different than I was in the Academy,” he said.

He’d been a trickster then for sure, constantly teasing or performing elaborate pranks. Nicholas, the more serious one, had always accused him of never taking anything seriously.

Once, Julian had put a smoke bomb in the teacher’s lounge, and in a panic, the fire department had been called in. Julian had laughed and said it wasn’t a real fire. He couldn’t understand why anyone was upset.

Nicholas had apologized profusely for the act, as if he himself had committed it. At the time, I had thought he felt responsible for the entirety of our class. Now I knew he only felt responsible for his brother.

“I like stirring the pot,” Julian said now. “I want to see what happens.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“I want to see what you’ll do, Piper.” His grin turned mischievous. “And what Nicholas does, too.”

I wrapped my arms around myself. “Nicholas and I don’t want anything to do with each other.”

“Oh, really? So it doesn’t bother you at all that he will mate with another women during this contest?”

“No,” I lied. My heart twisted at the mere mention of him with someone else, but I quickly, internally, scolded myself. I was the one who had broken Nicholas’s heart. I had no right to be jealous now.

He certainly didn’t think of me with any fondness. And I had no intention of holding onto a hopeless past, when I had my daughter and our future to contend with.

“Say what you want, but I’m no fool,” Julian said. “You and Nicholas have a special bond.” He laughed. “And I can’t wait to see how far I can bend it.”