Page 28 of The Prince and His Stolen Groom
Mutter, mutter, mutter.
“What was that?”
She sighed deeply. “I had hoped that … perhaps the spell would work anyway, so long as your name was on the marriage certificate.”
“I see.” Apparently, what he’d said to Rick a few days ago had been accurate—anyone would be fine except him. “Well, not to burst yourhappy bubble of sapphic bliss, but there’s something wrong with your brother.”
Franny heaved a long, drawn-out sigh. “What’s he done now?”
Not that she was incorrect, but the immediate accusation made Brendon clench his teeth. “He’s unconscious and feverish. I left him at the front of the stables.”
To Franny’s credit, her annoyance immediately changed to concern as she shoved Brendon out of the way to reach her brother’s side.
Brendon decided to give them a moment alone—she knew her brother and the kingdom better, she would hopefully know what to do—and turned his sights on Kit. A muscle jumped in his jaw as he tried to figure out what to say to her. “Tell me about the armor,” he said, gesturing to the pile of gleaming metal discarded to one side of the stall. “Where did you even get it on short notice?”
Kit fidgeted nervously. “I, uh, already had it.”
“Why would you have armor that hasn’t been used in over a century?” He could understand her owning it for historical purposes—adventures stories and war histories had always fascinated her—but why had she packed it for a non-violent wedding?
She refused to look at him as she asked, “Do you remember what happened that night we first saw Francesca?”
A lump formed in his throat. That scene was all too close to the one he’d just walked in on. “I remember enough.”
“I don’t mean the … gardens,” she said carefully. “I mean afterwards.” She finally looked at him, scanning his face for some recollection. “You tried to abdicate.”
His brow furrowed. “I tried towhat?”
“You stole the punch bowl at one point and had it on your head.” She delivered this absurd narrative with no trace of humor in her voice. “I’d chased you all over the castle until you found some random guest room with a balcony. You stood at the rail and made a grand speech to a non-existent audience. Honestly, I couldn’t understand most of it, and probably wouldn’t remember anything if I did. I do remember, at the end, you took the bowl off and held it in your hands like it was a crown. You looked me dead in the eye, and for a moment I really thought you’d somehow sobered up. Then you said ‘she doesn’t want me, and I don’t want this. You can have them both.’”
A long moment of silence followed. Brendon didn’t know if he should laugh or cry. Was that Kit’s horrible idea of a joke?
When he didn’t say anything, she added quietly, “And then you passed out.”
“So,” Brendon began, trying to compose himself and speak steadily. “Based on a drunken rant from five years ago, you decided that, not only had I run from my responsibilities to my family and my kingdom, but it was now your duty to romance and seduce my poor, abandoned fiancée.”
“No!” She rushed toward him, hand outstretched. She pulled it back at the last moment and clutched it against her chest, as if she might break his fragile control with a single touch. “No, it wasn’t like that! I didn’t—it wasn’t on purpose—we just … we had so much in common. One thing led to another and …”
“And you ended up fucking in a barn?”
She cringed and murmured again, “I’m sorry. If you want to send me back home, tell my father what I’ve done, remove me from the guard—all of it! I’d understand.”
A soft groan came from behind them. “I’ll deal with you later,” Brendon said before returning to Rick’s side.
Francesca hovered above him, flitting around, her hands gripping uselessly at nothing as if she could pluck some cure from thin air. She looked to Brendon, eyes filling with tears, and demanded, “What’s the matter with him?”
Brendon crouched next to Rick and carefully lifted his hand to show her the bitemark. During the walk from the tower to the castle, it had swollen to four times its size and now oozed a viscous, purple puss. “Something nasty bit him, I don’t know what.”
“How do you notknow?” she wailed, as if Rick’s condition was his personal failing.
“I wasn’t with him at the time,” he gritted out.
“But why are you with himnow?”
“Is that really important?”
“How do I know you weren’t the one who injured him?”
Brendon threw one hand up in the air, the other still holding onto Rick. “Because I have spent the last four days locked in his stupid magic tower! And if Ihaddone this to him, do you really think I would bring him back here to find help? He showed up this afternoon with a bite and a fever, that’s all I know!”
