Page 18 of Royally Arranged

It felt disjointedly good to half drown myself. Gasping, I hung my head, watching the droplets spatter rhythmically into the drain. My head came back up; I studied my mouth, noting it was only a little tender. Larchmont hadn’t hit me as hard as I’d thought, or maybe I was tougher than either of us guessed.

I tugged at the skin under my eyes. There were little red lines snaking through the whites around my irises. I was so damn exhausted.

“You alive in there?” I grabbed a towel and dried my skin vigorously. “Just cleaning up.” There were drops of dried blood on my shirt. I yanked it over my head and threw it to the floor in a crumpled heap. “Tonight I want to explore what this country has to offer.”

He chuckled thickly. “You mean see what the girls are like.”

The instant he said it, a worm of guilt started to eat through my heart. Thinking about girls made me think about Nova. “Sure,” I said, trying to sound chipper. “Don’t know how much longer we’ll be here, should get while the getting is good.”

“Yeah, your father hasn’t told me when we’re flying home.” I heard him pacing the room. Again, I wondered if he was spying on me. But I decided it didn’t matter. Let him spy, let him tell my dad what I was up to. It wasn’t like anyone was going to stop me from going out. Though if I lingered, there was a chance my mom or dad would show up and try to corner me.

After sliding on some gray jeans that sat low on my hips, I stretched my arms upward with a grunt. My reflection showed off the fit muscles that had remained even with my “easy” club job. Tattoos ran from my throat down to my wrists, and all the way across my torso and stomach. They were on me back to front. I was pretty much wearing a bodysuit made from ink. The only free spots were above my neck, my hands, and my feet.

Oh, and my cock. I hadn’t gonethatfar yet.

Tattoos were something I’d always been obsessed with. You’re never more of a focus to a person than when they’re stabbing your skin with needles. I loved the precise pain ... the carefulness that tattoos demanded.

The art was smooth and dark. I preferred black and gray; the only pop of color was on the right side of my ribs. There the red-and-black crown stood out sharply.

I touched it, exploring the ridges of muscle where the crown sat. I’d probably pressed my fingers to that small piece of art a million times since I’d gotten it when I was eighteen. It was customary in my family, a tradition—one of the few that my father had brought back with him from Torino. It made me think, again, about the situation I was in.

“How is your dad holding up?” Rush asked.

I paused in strapping on my gun’s holster over my clean white shirt. “He’s about as fine as can be expected,” I said slowly.

“Must be hard for him, losing a brother and all.”

I yanked the last strap tighter than I’d meant to. “Yeah.”

“Did you get to see her? I mean, I imagine you did.”

“Who?” I asked, straightening my collar.

“The widow, the queen.” Rush stopped walking over the rug. “I got a look at her in the papers, but it was a photo from a year ago. People say she hasn’t left the castle in that long.”

“Didn’t take you for much of a gossip reader,” I said smoothly.

He laughed. “I’m not some meat-headed ox. I do read. Occasionally.”

Studying myself in the mirror, I brushed my fingers through my hair. “So what did the paper say about our widowed queen?”

“A lot of things. I don’t get the idea that many people like her. Seems to be some talk about a conspiracy, guess a lot of people think she might’ve been the one to kill the king herself.”

“She didn’t seem the type,” I said softly. “She just seemed ... sad.” No one was to blame for cancer. I didn’t want to tell Rush that I’d already heard the details of how my uncle had died, though, in case it was supposed to be classified.

When I came out of the bathroom adjusting my shirt, Rush looked me up and down. “Was she hot?” he asked bluntly.

Caught off guard, I gave an uneasy laugh. “I don’t know, she’s like twice my age. Plus most of her was covered in black lace, didn’t exactly get a good look at her face.”

Rush nodded slowly. “I feel pretty bad for the next guy in line that ends up with her.”

I stopped midgrab for my jacket. It took me a few seconds to breathe again. “What?”

He checked under his fingernails, but made no indication that he knew he’d set my nerves on edge. “That’s how it works, right? The king is dead so the queen’s gotta marry another guy and make him the new king. I don’t know much about this whole royalty thing, and your dad hasn’t really given me any lessons on this system. I just assumed.”

Picturing myself marrying Austere Valentine, a woman I knew nothing about, a woman who was certainly my enemy and my uncle’s widow, left me icy. Was Rush right? Was thisalsopart of the plan no one had let me in on?

“I don’t know how it works, either,” I mumbled. “I do feel for the poor bastard, though.” I grabbed my dark gray jacket off the back of the chair and slid it into place over my gun. After being attacked by Larchmont and Richard, I wasn’t going to walk around without protection. Torino also seemed to be in turmoil. A lot of that was probably from the king’s death, but I was getting a good, strong idea that these people didn’t like Austere.

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