Page 89 of Of Brides Of Queens

Rulers was a colder version of friends.

“I am attempting to adjust my ideas,” he eventually said. “Kings are not used to compromise. You are a queen, and I am blinded to the woman of you. She would own me.”

Bring tried to lure me in with the promise that I would control him. In fairness, he offered a powerful gift—a king at my disposal. But it would not be so. In any deal with him, over time perhaps, he would want me at his disposal. To inspire him. To battle for him. To add to his purpose.

The queen of me enticed him and stirred his thoughts of our powerful destiny, but King Bring otherwise viewed me as a princess. Perhaps See had caused me more heartbreak than anything since queendom, but he did at least recognize that queendom changed everything for us. Bring had not connected my difference nor the lack of precedence in what I was.

I said, “Your battle must be to unblind yourself to the woman of me, sir. That mindset is restricting our alliance possibilities, and it makes you speak as if we could be joined in more than body. I am not long a monster and a queen even less, but I know the dreams you speak cannot be. You have a princess, and there is no sense in wondering how we might have gone on if I had arrived before her.”

His second mouth closed its sharp teeth with a ringing slide. “Just because a thing has never been, does not mean it cannot be.”

“If you were right, then surely kings and princesses would have altered their unions before—the Raises to fix the warping of theirs. And would you not have severed your own union, too, if you do not mind me saying so?”

“I can only say that other kings do not hold the power of curse, young queen. They are not so powerful in their mindless drive to save. As for myself, the manner of my saving took more defined shape when you walked into the toothed beast’s yawn. You have inspired new thoughts and actions.”

He sought to bring about a curse strong enough to break his union with his princess. But would he achieve that without killing her?

I shook my head in a pretty and demure way. “You are an ancient king, and I cannot follow your connections. How could any man be powerful enough to make an impossible thing possible? You are a king, but not an ancient. Do not toy with me this way because I have been told there is but one king for me, and I will be in great turmoil if I am convinced otherwise. Sir, how could you hold two princesses in your arms?”

I could see the outline of his hardness. He made no effort to hide it, and such was the tight leather of his pants. My thoughts immediately raced to all I hadnotseen of See. I did not like that I could see less of See than other kings, but I imagined that was because See might hold more power over me than any other king.

Or was the most powerful of five kings.

Bring rose to his knees on the picnic blanket. The food and wine were forgotten, but this picnic was never about picnicking. “The answer is that I would hold only one princess.”

“Oh,” I said, making sure to deflate in voice and body. “Yes, that is what I had thought.”

“You misunderstand me, young queen. I would only holdyou.”

I lifted a hand to my temple. “You speak in riddles so.”

There was a thud of silence, and I could feel his deliberation. Had I overplayed the role of pretty princess on a kitchen swing?

“My princess is in your queendom,” said King Bring. “Why is she there?”

“Because Princess Raise is there. I assumed you had granted her permission to visit.”

“I did not. How comes it to be that my princess did not return for daylight slumber?”

I tilted my head. “I did not realize she did so.”

“Yet you did not ask for her.”

My lips torsioned. “Did you wish me to ask of her, King Bring?”

He chuckled after a beat. “Perhaps not.”

“I would imagine that she stayed up until dawn speaking to Princess Raise. They were very excited to see one another. I left them to renew their acquaintance to attend queenly matters.”

I cleared my throat, remembering all the queenly matters I had attended.

King Bring was quiet for so lengthy a time. “I need a sign from you. I need minuscule encouragement. I feel a mad fool and must have a token to go on by before I confess the whole.”

“You are the only saving king. How could that man feel a mad fool? You see more than any other king about the potential of this world.”

He shook his head. “I tell myself this, too, and yet a young queen had made me doubt sanity. She warps the floor underfoot so that I never feel stable. I am more uncertain in recent monthsthan in twelve hundred years prior and even in my paltry human years.”

“Sir, you remark that I am lacking in ancientness, yet you expect me to understand the riddles of kings. Your offer to hold me as your only princess is impossible, and so I cannot entertain the idea because it…” I made sure to keep my breaths shallow though each one dragged fabric across my nipples and reminded me of See.

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