Page 7 of Tall, Royal and Grumpy

I poked him in the chest. “I know you convinced Kareem to let me go to Raven.”

His smile vanished and he defensively pulled his already bull-sized shoulders wider. But it didn’t make him look scary. It turned him into a gentle giant, soft and guilty but fiercely loving too. “I won’t apologise for doing that.”

“I know. But I wish you didn’t have to.”

His face contorted in that adorable way men’s faces softened with sympathy yet hardened protectively, with awkwardness bridging the two emotions.

“Do we have a busy day tomorrow?” I asked to put him out of his misery.

He shook his head, immediately straightening into his professional stance. “We’ll spend the morning working through your environmental strategy presentation with the advisory team. Then in the afternoon we will attend a tour of the new community centre in Baytown City.”

“Okay, that sounds all right.”

“It should be. But you should still get an early night and rest.”

I hummed my agreement. “I’ll try.”

Resting his hand against the back of my head, he pressed a kiss to my hair. “Good night, Esmeralda.”

“Good night, Sher.”

He rubbed my head with the affection of an older brother. “Call me if you can’t sleep.”

“Okay.”

As Shehryar headed back down the corridor the same way his mother had left, I headed into my room and started preparing for the night ahead.

A comfortable hoodie. Snacks. A romance novel. A hard maths exam paper. And a games console.

Everything an insomniac needed to get through ten hours of lonely darkness.

Chapter Three

ESMERALDA

Six busy days of attending Imperial Cabinet meetings with ministers to finalise Jahandar’s actions for this year’s international agendas and showing face at other events, all while practising my presentation passed by in a single breath. And the day Kareem and I were to leave for the State of Touma caught me like a lioness sneaking up on its prey, her claws swiping out way too quickly.

Just like that, I found myself sitting in the public dining hall of Touma’s main palace, Chaukham Palace, dressed in an evening gown of Jahandar’s national colour—dark red.

There was a pulse beating so heavily in my chest that I could feel it in my throat.

He was there. Orange—no, Kai was right there. So freaking close to me.

He wasn’t in the seat next to me, no, but he was only eleven seats away on the opposite side of the table. Eleven seats away!

He hadn’t been there when Kareem and I arrived at the palace earlier that afternoon. Only Kai’s mother, Queen Leila, his uncle and younger brother to the King, Prince Arsh, and Kai’s youngest brother, the third prince of Touma, Adam, had been there to greet us. Apparently, Kai, King Rami, and the second prince of Touma, Fay, had gone to Vray Manor and Westcombe Palace to await Raven and Prio’s arrival, hence his absence.

I’d almost been convinced Kai wasn’t going to turn up at the welcome dinner with all sixty plus members of royalty from all seven states in attendance, excluding all the children under fifteen. Spread across two dark oak tables dressed in flowers, crystal glasses, silver cutlery and empty plates of food, with gold chandeliers spreading a bright yellow hue all across the historic room. But when he entered the hall with his family, my excitement and nerves hit a new degree of measurement.

My hands were shaking in my lap as the penultimate course of nine was served, and I was doing my best to focus solely on what Princess Dabira of Shah was saying to me from opposite the table. But my eyes kept searching out the man who made my heart pound erratically.

Gosh, I was so jealous of the Dowager Queen of Khaas who was sitting next to Kai, laughing at whatever he’d said to her. I would have traded my every organ for the older woman’s seat.

“There is only a month left now for my Shadow to have her four pups,” Princess Dabira said, her hand falling over her heart as her mahogany cheeks glowed with delight. “But I can say with my whole heart that I am already attached to every one of them. Unfortunately,” —she let out a theatrical sigh— “my mean brother, the dear King, has already made me promise to give all but one of them away.”

The blue eyes of the seventeen-year-old Prince of Raven, sitting next to Princess Dabira, lit up. “You’re going to give them away? Do you possibly think I could have one?”

The woman chuckled, nudging the boy with her arm playfully. “Well, we’ll have to speak to your parents first, won’t we? Having a pet wolf is a big responsibility.”

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