Page 26 of The Prince and His Stolen Groom
“Mph.” I was trying to sayimpbut couldn’t quite get my mouth to work.
“That’s it, we’re getting out of here.” Strong arms slipped under me, dragging me away from the chair. I didn’t want to leave the chair. I whined and reached for it, but they shifted me in their grip until my head rested against their shoulder.
“How do I unlock the door?”
They couldn’t unlock it. I didn’t rememberwhythey couldn’tunlock it; I just knew they absolutely could not, under any circumstances, unlock it. I pulled both hands close to my chest to hide them.
A warm, strong hand clasped one of mine. I struggled but had no strength to fight them as they wrapped my hand around a doorknob. The door unlocked.
“Nooo!”
“You’re so dramatic,” they grunted as they carried me outside.
I was wrong. I was so wrong. The sunlight was way worse than the artificial light. I hid my head against their neck and clung onto them with one arm. For some reason, I couldn’t move the other one without burning pain slicing up it.
“Did you not bring a horse this time? Dammit, Rick, how am I supposed to carry you all the way to the castle? I don’t even know where it is!”
The voice sounded farther away now.
“Rick?”
The dark and quiet beckoned to me, telling me that if I just went to sleep, all of the pain and discomfort would go away.
“Rick!”
Prince Brendon Takes Over the Narration
As an only child and heir to a kingdom, Prince Brendon Banes had experienced an odd mix of pampering and responsibility thrust onto his shoulders from a young age. He was allowed an extra cookie at teatime if he widened his eyes and made his smile as charming as possible. He was also trapped in tutoring sessions from morning to night to learn how to rule a kingdom.
During one of his lessons, he learned the importance of having a proper queen to rule by his side who would help him serve the people. She should be generous, intelligent, and understanding. Since he only knew one girl his age—Katherine Holmwood, the Captain of the Guard’s daughter—he had proposed to her that very evening.
She’d punched him in the face.
When he confessed the reason for his black eye to his mother, she sat him down and calmly explained to him that he didn’t need to find a wife—he was already engaged.
That burden lifted from his small shoulders, he proceeded to forget about his fiancée for the next twelve years. He didn’t even remember her existence until he turned eighteen and his mother said, “At some point, you should probably get to know Francesca before you marry her.”
That night he wrote his first letter to Princess Francesca Woeful.
He did not receive a response.
In case the letter had gotten lost along the road, he wrote her another one.
No response.
Every month he wrote her one, treating it more like a journal than correspondence with a stranger. Then he forgot one month, and since it didn’t really matter, he simply wrote it the next month. Then he forgot for two months, three, six …
Until the day came when a letterdidarrive. However, it was not from his fiancée, but from her parents, asking when a good time would be to have the wedding.
Brendon hadn’t eventalkedto his fiancée yet, and her parents already wanted them to marry? He understood why they must—his mother gently reminded him of his duties and the spell that protected the kingdom any time she saw him even talking with someone—but couldn’t he at least get to know her first?
The perfect opportunity arrived—an anniversary ball hosted by the Kingdom of Misfortune. All the most important people of the Desolated Lands were invited. Brendon buzzed with excitement at the thought of finally meeting the woman he would spend the rest of his life with.
His mother pointed Francesca out in the crowd, standing next to a lanky teenage boy with her same dark hair and bronze skin. She fussed with his collar and wiped something off his face, and Brendon grinned at the little domestic scene. She’d be a good mother, which should translate well into being a good queen.
Shortly after that scene he’d been distracted and wasn’t able to introduce himself. When he went to look for her later, she had left the ballroom. Prowling the ballroom unaccompanied invited too much attention—ladies needed dance partners, after all—so he dragged Kit away from a vigorous conversation with one of the Misfortune soldiers. Together, they searched the gardens for Francesca.
They found her behind a hedgerow, straddling another woman, kissing so fiercely and messily that both of their hairstyles were ruined beyond repair, their clothes soon to follow.
