Page 2 of To Catch a Prince

“Down,” saidTalia.

Darsen’s pants fell around his ankles. His colleagues wept withlaughter.

“Again,” saidTalia.

Darsen’s underpants were on the floor in atrice.

Talia smiled. The man was well endowed. Not forlong.

“Walnuts to hazelnuts, then hazelnuts topinenuts.”

She didn’t wait to see her handiwork, but his shouts could be heard from one end of Malek to the other. With a nutsack that small, he wouldn’t be dropping his drawers any timesoon.

Talia washed her hands of the small, backwards, oppressive town of her youth and set off. Truth be told, she may have stayed in the Northern Var - might even have carried on working for her parents - if things had unfolded in a different way, but, instead, Natalia Astria, the only living Enchantress in Eartia, set off, without knowing where her steps would take her, and embraced herdestiny.

1

The Prince

Vincent found himself pondering politics;legislations, to be precise. For surely, as prince of the realm of Farden, Duke of Norda, Baron of Wellyem, and cousin to King Rhey Vasili, he should have a say in suchthings.

“I’m going to pass a law against meddling parents, if it’s the last thing I do,” he said to the old Archduke, who paid no mind to thethreat.

Viktor Vasili was master at the art of ignoring his son when he didn’t want to hear what wassaid.

“What about dear Saskia? She’s grown into quite the beauty, Ihear.”

Vincent groaned, lifted his gaze high towards the ceiling, and closed his eyes. He then prayed to all the gods for the patience to deal with the would-bematchmaker.

At one thousand, one hundred and three years of age, Viktor, eldest amongst the elders, the most ancient member of the royal family still breathing, had been practically stunned when the pretty she-bear shifter he’d been keeping at home had produced a son andheir.

That hadn’t been part of the plan. Viktor was a scholar, a hedonist, a musician. He enjoyed life and freedom, and was quite indifferent to political games. As his name was Vasili, having a childwasa political move, so he’d never thought of it. But when Vincent came, Viktor took to fathering with an unceasingwonder.

“I suppose I may as well marry you now,” he’d told Mula, his mistress, who was so good as to inform him that he could go do something he deemed anatomicallyimpossible.

She’d made him work for it, but Viktor was patient and, at long last, earned himself awife.

Mula wasn’t swayed by the courtship as much as the fact that the father of her child was, simply, a good dragon. He hired no maid, no weapons master, no great tutor. It was he who played his violin to their son at night, as he had no voice for a lullaby. It was he who held his baby close, while their driver turned the carriage round their citadel when he still wouldn’t sleep. Vincent learned to walk holding his hand, and, soon after, learned to fight with him, too. No son had ever had a better father. Or a more adoringmother.

Vincent had to repeat that to himself quite frequently of late, for Viktor and Mula were in agreement right now. They wanted grandbabies. Badly. And to acquire those, they needed Vincent to choose abride.

Although, neither Viktor, nor Mula, was against him simply throwing a wench on his shoulder and having his way with her until she was with child. They weren’t fussy like that. Viktor had wed Mula, by and by, but they hadn’t been bound at his birth. No wonder that their sense of propriety wasn’t quite in line with every other noble’s. A somewhat familialtrait.

“Saskia,” said Vincent in a slow hiss, “would cut my throat in mysleep.”

This wasn’t an exaggeration to anyone who knew the beautiful blonde creature his parents were considering as a potential wife for him. They apparently didn’t place the value of his neck above their lust forgrandbabies.

“Poppycock,” Viktor protested. “The girl has honor. She’d attack you while you were awake, and come at you from the front, too.” The man had a point. “But, perhaps not. It wouldn’t do to hasten your demise. What think you of Demelza,hm?”

Vincent sighed, deeply. “We’rerelated,” he reminded hisfather.

In his long life Duke Drakr, Viktor’s father, married twice. Of his first wife, Wuja, a proper lady his own father handpicked, he birthed Rhey’s father, Ryker, who was to become King. After Wuja’s death, Drakr chose to elevate his favorite mistress, Syn, to the outrage of some and the amusement of many. Viktor was born of Drakr and Syn. Drakr perished before his second wife, and finding herself rich, but without a husband, the lady, still beautiful - as dragons were for many years - devoted her life to her pleasures. She had an entire harem to satisfy her needs, so it was no surprise that she gave birth to three otherchildren.

One might have thought that her daughters would be rejected as bastards of low birth, children to a Noble Whore, but, on the contrary, Syn’s children were embraced at court. Syn shared her beauty and her arts with her progeny. Viktor, and his half siblings, Tara, Pyru and Lore, played music, wrote poems and danced so well there was talk about some elvish blood in their veins. When they were of age, the most eligible gentlemen offered for hissisters.

Tara wedded Prince Julian, the son of the King who’d preceded Ryker on the throne; Demelza was their only daughter. She thus shared Vincent’s blood, courtesy ofSyn.

“Come, Vik, this won’t do at all. Our son knows every woman of birth and rank in the kingdom. If any of them had caught his eye for more than a night yet, we’d know.” Vincent was about to thank his mother for the unexpected aid, but she then added, “We’d better have a look amongst peasants he may not yet have seen. Should we line themup?”

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