LITMIR.BIZ

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worst nightmare. Wearing a crown again. Placed on a throne.

      A target would be on her back, and she would be up on a pedestal where she was an easy target.

      She had lived through that nightmare once. She had no intention of entering into it again.

      She should tell him to take her home.

       And have the only people on this earth who tried to protect you destroyed?

      That bitter, familiar cold lashed at her again. She couldn’t go back. It was too dangerous. It was selfish. They would protect her with their lives, and it was very likely their lives would, in fact, be the cost.

      She had lost too much already. Too many people who had believed deeply in their convictions cut down. To hear Raz speak of her parents, her father had been a man of conviction. Who had fought to change antiquated ideas in Tirimia, who had made a pact with Raz’s tribe to preserve their sovereignty within the nation.

      For that, he had been killed. Out of loyalty and respect to her father, Raz had risked the tribe to protect her, to raise her.

      She wouldn’t put them at risk again.

      This was something she would have to figure out on her own. She would have to rescue herself.

      “No,” she said. “I cannot be returned to them. It would be far too dangerous.”

      “Wonderful,” he said, his tone at odds with the word.

      “I will not be marrying you, of course,” she said, taking a grape from the platter and holding it between her thumb and forefinger.

      “Is that so?” he asked.

      She nodded, keeping her expression grave. “I have no desire to marry.”

      “Why is that?” he asked, reaching out and plucking the grape from her fingers. “Concerned over having your grapes sampled?” He put the fruit in his mouth and she found herself transfixed, trying to untangle the wealth of meaning in his words while watching his lips, his jaw, work slightly as he chewed.

      Why was the way he chewed interesting? It shouldn’t be. She’d never found chewing fascinating in her life.

      “I don’t know you,” she said, looking away and picking up another grape, biting into it with no small amount of fierceness. “And that’s just for a start.”

      “We have nothing but time to work this out. You could list your reasons. Extensively.”

      “I won’t have a complete list until I know you better.”

      “I think what you just described is marriage. Two people who truly don’t know each other and are somewhat blind to each other’s faults until time and proximity force them to really get a good look at the poor choice they made.”

      “You make it sound so appealing,” she said, shifting her position, tucking her feet beneath herself and leaning forward, taking a piece of fig from the platter.

      “I’m not a great believer in the institution.”

      “Then why should we marry?” she asked.

      “Because,” he said, his tone weary, “my brother has said it shall be, and so it shall be. There are a great many perks to being the spare in the royal family, Zara. Not the least of which is that I have been able to cast the mantle of responsibility off for the past thirty-two years with very few consequences. While Kairos has always been bound by duty, honor and all manner of other words that make me feel like I’m about to break out in hives. The downside,” he added, leaning in, studying the platter, but not taking any more food, “is that I am also beneath his rule.” Andres looked up then, his dark eyes meeting hers. He was close now. So very close.

      And he did, in fact, smell like the cologne she had found in the bathroom.

      “I see,” she said, barely able to force the words out past her constricted throat. “Are you going to tell me you’re a prisoner too?”

      He straightened and she nearly sighed in relief. For some reason, having him so close to her was disturbing in ways she couldn’t quite work out.

      “No,” he said, “I’m not a prisoner. Just a prince. That means there are certain expectations I’m obligated to fulfill. Make no mistake, I’ve spent the past decade and a half steeped in debauchery and generally ignoring all of my responsibilities. We all have to face a reckoning, eventually. You are mine.”

      Arrogant. That was what he was. To sit there and call her his reckoning when she’d been dragged here against her will. To speak of his duty as such a burden when her father had lost his life upholding the crown in Tirimia, fighting for what was right.

      What did this man do with his position? Nothing, from the looks of things.

      “You speak of being a prince with such disdain. I am a princess, forced into hiding because of the title. My parents were killed because they were royalty, and yet you stand here, perfectly whole, complaining of being forced into marriage by your brother. How terribly sorry I am for you that your life of extended pleasure is being interrupted by duty. My parents died for duty.”

      “Am I supposed to regret that that isn’t an option for me? Should I go offer my neck to the guillotine rather than my hand in marriage?”

      “My parents are dead,” she hissed.

      “And I am sorry. But I am not sorry that I don’t face the same peril. This is not the same country, nor am I in the same position.”

      “You have your life and your opportunities and still you speak with such disrespect of the position.”

      “And still, you will be my wife.”

      “Never,” she hissed, knowing that now, with hair tousled and her posture mirroring that of an angry cat, she was looking every inch the feral creature he clearly thought she was.

      “What are your options, agape?” he asked, the endearment strange to her ears. “You said yourself you cannot return home. Where will you go if you don’t stay here with me?”

      Words churned through her mind, but when one would rise to the surface, it would slip back beneath just as quickly, before she could grab hold of it.

      “Nowhere,” he said, answering for her. “You can speak of life and death all you want, as though it is all that matters, but here in this position you see that. There are many shades of gray within living and death, and unhappiness through a forced marriage is most certainly one of them. But you’re like me. You’ve hit a wall. You have no choice.”

      “There is always a choice,” she said, not sure where the words came from, but certain, even as she spoke them, that they were true. “I live because of that truth. Because rather than giving up, my mother’s maid chose to save me. Because rather than sending me back, the clan chose to care for me. We always have choices.”

      “I suppose you’re right,” he said, his dark gaze far too assessing. “Then this is my choice, and I’m making it. I owe my brother a debt, beyond the typical royal duty. I’m in no position to refuse his demands. And I choose to obey them.”

      “What of my choices?”

      “They are somewhat crippled in this situation. I won’t lie.”

      “Crippled? They are completely incapacitated.”

      He shrugged as though he were pushing her protests off his shoulders. “Perhaps. But this is the reality. Whether you want to or not, you, Princess Zara Stoica, will be my wife by Christmas.”

CHAPTER THREE

      “PRINCE ANDRES.”

      Andres looked up, at the servant who was standing in the doorway of his brother’s study, the other man’s expression concerned. Andres and Kairos had spent the evening

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