Page 23 of Royal Games (The Royals of Monterra)

The rest of me wasn’t too sure about it. I worried that my behavior was some combination of a teenage dream finally realized and wanting to make Rafe jealous.

Which I should not have wanted to do. Why did I care what Rafe thought? Why would I want to make him jealous? Wanting him to be jealous implied something deeper and more emotional that I didn’t want to examine.

“Of course he did,” she replied. She was watching Rafe work, and he was currently engrossed in what he was doing. The part of me that wanted him to be jealous was miffed that he was basically ignoring me after I had gone to so much trouble to get his attention.

But when I considered Nicole’s words, they didn’t make sense. “What do you mean by that?” Had she bribed him to do it or something? Was she so worried about my self-esteem that she had somehow talked Tommy Davis into it?

“His caveman genes couldn’t help it.”

Now I was even more confused. “Again, what?”

“A dominant alpha has moved to town and wants you, so the only way the other eligible men can respond to the threat to their masculinity is to try to get you first.”

The thought of Rafe wanting me did inexplicable things to my ability to breathe. “That makes no sense.”

“It’s all instinct and genetics. It doesn’t have to make sense. But I minored in anthropology, so I totally know what I’m talking about. It’s the same thing where the women in the town will either try to mean girl you out of the way or befriend you to get closer to that magnificent specimen of man.” She looked startled, as if she realized what she had just said. “But not me. Because I’m totally your friend.”

Should I be more concerned that she’d felt the need to tack on that last sentence? I decided not to analyze it. Instead I told Nicole I had to go. I had plans to do some PvP with my guild later on and I wanted to get home.

I did not want to think any more about caveman or cavewoman impulses. I particularly did not want to think about what my personal ones were urging me to do.

I stayed up later than I probably should have and thwarted my master plan of getting up before he did. I got up at my regular time (a time that should be banned from all clocks) and looked out my window before I got dressed. Sure enough, Rafe was out back bringing hay and feed into the barn. Aunt Sylvia would be up soon to make breakfast.

I decided to do the most sensible thing that I could: go back to bed. That would mean forgoing my favorite meal of the day, but it would also mean I could avoid Rafe.

Unfortunately, I was one of those people that when I was up, I was up, no matter how tired I was. I wanted to sleep more, but my internal clock wouldn’t allow it. I stayed in bed defiantly, even when the smell of Belgian waffles and bacon wafted upstairs. My stomach gurgled and protested, miserable to be missing out.

I turned over, opened up the top drawer of my desk, and pulled out a Snickers bar from my candy stash. It wouldn’t fill me up, but it’d have to do until I could get to school.

It was a Saturday, but I had labs to make up that I’d missed earlier in the week. The hours seemed to fly by faster than an Internet startup, and I was surprised when it was time to go home.

Trying to delay the inevitable, I stopped by the library to get the list for the book drive. Our librarian was extremely ambitious and wanted to create a world-class library on a small-town budget. While I applauded her drive, we didn’t have the money to get it done. She sent me out to beg people and companies to donate their old books, and I typically ended up with romances and thrillers. I’d never gotten even a fraction of her massive list completed.

You can imagine my surprise when I walked in to see the floor covered with opened and unopened boxes. “What’s all this?”

Bonnie was prancing around the library like some kind of demented sprite. “It’s all the books from my wish list! Every single one of them!” She unpacked several books, laying them out on the table and smiling at them like they were the children she’d never had.

“But ... how?”

“Prince Rafael. He talked to me after the town meeting and got the list. They arrived this morning.”

I shouldn’t have asked. I should have known. That must have been what he had to talk to the town council about, since Bonnie also served as a councilperson.

I drove away faster than normal, because I was trying to decide what I was going to do to Rafe when I saw him. He couldn’t just hijack my entire life. He didn’t get to make these kinds of decisions for me. He couldn’t wave his money around and do whatever he wanted. There had to be repercussions for his actions.

I went inside, calling out for Aunt Sylvia. She didn’t respond, and I remembered that she and some of her friends had planned a shopping trip in Iowa City. She wouldn’t spend any money, but she enjoyed it as a social activity. I went into the kitchen, intending to go to the guesthouse and give Rafe a piece of my mind.

A rhythmic sound outside made me stop, and I went to the kitchen window that overlooked the backyard to see what it was.

Rafe was outside chopping wood. At first, I shook my head at the ridiculousness of it. He was actually chopping wood. Back in Monterra he probably had a servant just for wood chopping. And the wood-chopping servant would have some underling to do most of the work. I expected him to get the axe stuck or to aim for a knot that might glance his blade the wrong direction.

But he wasn’t doing it wrong. No, he was swinging that axe with strength, precision, and the perfect amount of momentum—and it was obvious he had done it before. I couldn’t even make fun of his outfit. He had on the right kind of boots and gloves, as well as dark jeans and a button-down shirt.

Even his stance was right. He stood square to the wood and had his legs spread a little wider than his shoulders. I had seen wood chopped before, but there was something different about watching him do it. The power he wielded, the satisfying thunk as his blade neatly split the pieces, the way he engaged his entire body on that one repetitive and intriguing task.

He must have been doing it awhile, because beads of sweat clung to the ends of his black hair. He stopped, leaving the axe in the stump. My stomach hollowed out and all my anger fled when he took his shirt off, laying it on the snowy ground. He had a white tank top on underneath, and he retrieved the axe to keep chopping. I didn’t know whether I should feel quite that much disappointment over a tank top.

I watched as he swung and hit, swung and hit. Over and over again. Like he was a machine with only one program to run. The wood was no match for his strength. The muscles in his arms flexed and rested with each swing. I liked the way they tightened and stretched his skin. I knew he was strong, but I was impressed by how strong he really was. It was so ... masculine. And thrilling.

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