Page 45 of His Hidden Royal Heirs

“I’m going to go lie down,” she whispered into Zia’s ear, holding her tight.

Zia wanted to demand to know what was going on, but she knew Beau needed a good, quiet rest after an attack. “I’ll come with.”

“No. I’d like to be alone for a bit.” Beau looked back at Cristhian, then at Zia. She continued to whisper. “Whatever you decide, I want you to know that it’s okay.I’mokay.”

“Beau...”

But Beau released her and moved into the hallway. Zia wanted nothing more than to follow, but she knew her sister well enough to know that Beau did need the alone time now.

Cristhian approached, and Zia had to turn her attention to him. She had to clear her throat to speak, because she felt very shaken, uncertain. Confused about everything she’d just seen. “I should go after her, but she wanted to be alone.”

“She was...very distraught when I came upon her,” Cristhian said. Clearly being very careful about words to choose. But he had an expression on his face she didn’t recognize. Something very...soft.

There was no point lying, Zia supposed. “She has panic attacks. They’re often brought on by...stressful social situations.” But there was nothing social going on, except dealing with Cristhian, she supposed. But Beau was usually fine with anyone one-on-one. “I cannot fathom what might have brought this one on.”

“Your father was in the room with her before I got here. I do not know what was discussed, but he was angry and she upset.”

Zia’s expression darkened. “Well, that will do it.” She was glad she had a lifetime of learning how to handle her temper and she no longer went tearing into her father after one of his arguments with Beau.

That had always ended badly for Beau in the long run. He’d often made Beau even more a prisoner in the castle after that. Kept Zia from seeing her. Kept anyone from seeing her until Beau could “handle herself.”

So Zia had learned to keep her anger internalized. Plan little rebellions. Ones that had no chance of hurting Beau.

And for the past few months, while Beau had been helping her with her own, who had Beau had? No one. Zia couldn’t take back protecting her children, but what shecoulddo was make decisions in the here and now that did both things.

Zia would get Beau out of this. She looked up at Cristhian...who had been kind in the face of Beau’s panic attack. She could tell from the position she’d found them in, from Beau’s reaction.

But he was looking at the door, a strange frown on his face. “Panic attacks.”

Zia braced herself for an insensitive comment. The ones her parents and their staff had leveled at Beau her whole life. Cristhian had been kind to Beau’s face, but there was no way he could understand—

“It was so familiar,” he said, as if in a kind of trance. “I think... My mother had them. I simply thought she was crying, but it was like that. The shaking, the struggling to breathe. I never understood. I don’t know iftheydid.” He said it like he was lost in some old memory.

And was potentially realizing his mother might have been a real and complex person, even if his memories were from a child’s perspective of simplifying things. But children knew. They understood the world around them, often better than adults understood, or at least differently.

Cristhian was clearly having a moment of clarity, and she yearned to give him more, if she could. “Do you think they were brought on by her leaving her family?” She certainly wouldn’t be having any panic attacks about that, but maybe it was more complicated than she was giving it credit for.

“She never fully left. They wouldn’t allow it. Even disapproving of my father, they did not want to lose their control over her completely. So she struggled with the way they treated her. So often they tried to stir up false stories. Infidelities. Abuse. My parents never believed these things, and the media never could seem to make the accusations stick, either. It was all...mind games, but the complications went away if she attended the events they wanted. I always thought her reaction was just the stress. I have always blamed her family for pushing at her, tearing at her, but some small part of me... I have always felt guilty of it, but deep down I blamed her, too. For running instead of standing up to them.”

Zia watched him, surprised to find this moment of pure vulnerability. He was coming to some new conclusions andallowing her to be a part of it. She wanted to reach out and comfort him, and she would have held herself back. Even now, she would have held herself back.

But he’d comforted Beau. So she reached out and took his had in hers, as he had done for her sister.

“Sometimes running away is the only option we have. Sometimes, there is no standing up, no matter how much we’d like to.”

He looked at her then. Still caught up in his past, but she knew he saw the connection, and because she did, she felt even softer toward him. She had never realized until this moment, and maybe he had not fully either, just how muchrunningrepresented something horrible to him.

“I did not realize that perhaps she was not able to stand up to them,” he said, his voice low, strained. “No matter how she tried. And my father tried. To protect her from it, but he couldn’t, either. Because it wasn’t them. It was her.”

She tried to drop his hand. Every time she thought she glimpsed some human part of him... “People are not to blame for the ways their brains and bodies betray them.”

But he squeezed her hand so she could not pull away. And then he held it gently. So gently it seemed wrong to pull her arm away.

“No, that is not how I mean it, Zia. I did... I think. I loved my mother more than anything, but still I blamed her for that. Somewhere. Deep down. Until I saw your sister and understood.” He swallowed, as if some deep emotion was clogged there in his throat.

Which in turn made her own throat feel tight. That a man so bent on control could acknowledge that maybe...maybe he was not always right, maybe he didn’talwaysunderstand every little thing.

“No one could protect my mother, and that was wrong. My father tried with all he was, but he couldn’t... He wasn’t given the time to accomplish this goal,” he said, some conviction and strength returning to his voice. “I know you don’t want to marry me. I understand you think I will rule your life as your father has. But, Zia, I will protect you. I will protect our children. I will protect Beaugonia and anyone else you’d like me to.”

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