*Isla*
“No.”
It’s the only word I can get out as I stare into my cousin’s eyes. He is unblinking, unwavering, as he stares right back at me, the last word he uttered hanging in the air between us.
I won’t believe it. I can’t believe it. Nothing that he has just told me makes any sense at all, and if by some crazy, un-understandable reason it is true, Maddox would’ve already told me about it.
After all, I spoke to him just last night, and he said nothing about any queen consort, any contest, any new women coming to the castle to compete for his hand—in marriage.
No, I won’t believe it. I can’t even let the idea of it being the truth register in my mind, because if it were true, if there was even the smallest possibility that Antony isn’t just making all of this up to make me want to leave, that would mean that Maddox isn’t the man I’ve always thought he was, and my entire life is a lie.
Antony clears his throat and finally drops his eyes to the ground in front of him. “You didn’t know, then?”
“I didn’t know?” I repeat. Anger is boiling up inside of me, and it’s causing me to want to lash out at him irrationally. “No, I didn’t know because there’s nothing to know. I don’t know what it is about making up such a ridiculous lie that you think is so funny, but it’s not funny at all. Do you feel like you coming here to tell me this, that Maddox, the father of my child, is allegedly looking for someone else to marry, is supposed to be humorous or something? Does stressing out a pregnant woman make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, cousin? If you are even who you say you are.”
His eyes are back on mine again, and his mouth has dropped open slightly as if he is offended. Oh, have I said something unkind to the man? How dare I!
“I am your cousin,” he says, his voice even. “And I am sorry if I caused you stress. I honestly thought you had to know. Your maid--what’s her name? Pepper? Pippy?”
“Poppy,” I grind out, watching amusement dance behind his eyes because I’m certain he did, in fact, know her name.
“Yes, her. She knows everything that happens here, doesn’t she? I thought she was well-connected. How would it be possible for her not to have heard from one of her maid friends about all of this? After all, preparations for their arrival began on the second floor of the east wing a few days ago. I can’t imagine that thirty bedrooms could be prepared without the maids whispering about why.”
I suddenly feel vindicated and lift my chin in the air as I say, “Yes, or of course, Poppy knows about that. She mentioned it to me. But those rooms are being prepared for more dignitaries who want to come in from the countryside, not for harlots who want to throw themselves at the king to try to increase their station.”
Antony tsks his tongue at me. “It isn’t so becoming of you to call them such names when they only want the same thing that you want, cousin.”
“Oh? Is that so?” I counter. “It seems to me that they want to marry Maddox for power, and all I ever wanted him for is….”
I have to stop talking. It isn’t Antony’s business. Besides, at the moment, with even the possibility of what he is saying being true, I can’t bring my mouth to form the word anyway.
He provides it for me. One syllable. A heavy word. “Love.”
I can’t bring myself to respond to him, so I say nothing, only pay careful attention to the air coming in and out of my lungs. I have to stay calm—for my baby’s sake.
“Listen, Isla, I truly am sorry to be the one to tell you, but I am shocked that you’re so surprised by the news. After all, you had to know that Alpha King Maddox has no intention of marrying you, right? Hasn’t he told you as much?”
I shrug my shoulders. I feel like I am in a daze. Perhaps I should be crying or cursing. But then, what Antony believes to be the Goddess’s truth sounds like a work of fiction to me. It reminds me of some of the books I like to read in my spare time. It doesn’t sound like the truth.
It can’t possibly be the truth.
“Don’t you think, if he intended to marry you, he would’ve spoken to you about it already?” Antony pushes. “After all, you are carrying his child, right? So… doesn’t it stand to reason that he would want to make sure that his child was born after the two of you were married if he intended to do so?”
“I’m his breeder,” I remind him. “He isn’t looking for a wife. No, he doesn’t intend to marry me before or after our baby is born because he doesn’t intend to marry anyone at all—ever again.”
Since Maddox and I have become so close, I know a bit about why that is. He usually sleeps well in my arms, but sometimes, he still has faint nightmares that whisper to him when he awakens in the middle of the night. At those times, occasionally, he’ll give me a glimpse into his mind, and I understand that he is dreaming about the night Rebecca died.
He never speaks of it—that night. He rarely even speaks of her, but I know it continues to haunt him. I don’t believe that he is responsible for her death, but he does, and that’s why. I know that has to be the reason why. He won’t marry anyone—not me, not some ridiculous daughter of some haughty Alpha, not anyone—because he feels like he is responsible for what happened to her.
But he didn’t kill her. I know that much. It’s very clear to me that he loved her more than anything, and he possibly still does. So there’s no way that he actually killed her the way that some people say. No, whatever truly happened to the last Luna Queen, it was an accident.
I am confident when I saw, “He won’t marry anyone. He’s made that vow. Why would he change it now?”
“Things change,” Antony says with a nonchalant shrug. He puts as much care into this important response as most people put into a remark about the weather. He may as well have just said, “It’s sunny today.”
“Things might change, but Alpha Maddox is not easily persuaded to go against his initial plan. Trust me. I have encountered the stubborn side of him more than once.”
Antony snickers at me. “True. But you are not a conniving Alpha who wants to see a new heir before the king’s twenty-ninth birthday, an Alpha who wants that heir to come from his own daughter, now are you? Do you not suppose these powerful men have gotten into the positions they are in because they know how to convince people to do things they’d otherwise not consider doing?”
I am not sure how to respond to that. In my experience, most Alphas have gotten their power because their fathers were Alphas before them. I think of Alpha Ernest. He was the first Alpha I knew, and he was an idiotic mess. No, he definitely didn’t have the power of persuasion.
Or did he?
He had managed to convince Maddox to take me, after all, and that was at a time when the Alpha King had no interest in taking a breeder.
“Well, even if you were right,” I continue, folding my arms beneath my chest, “Maddox wouldn’t leave it to me to discover on my own. He has more respect for me than that, and he knows I am in a delicate condition right now. Even if he stopped loving me for some reason, he wouldn’t want any harm to befall my child.”
Antony certainly can’t have any sort of smart remark for that, I’m quite certain.
But then he does. “I don’t think that Alpha Maddox is the kind of man who puts a lot of thought into how his actions affect other people, Isla. I am fairly confident when I say he will expect you to accept this change of events with a stiff upper lip and take one for the team—the team being the crown, of course. Perhaps he’ll make some sort of a promise to you that he will provide for you and the child. If it’s a boy, maybe he’ll even say the child can hold an office or something. He'll become the next Alpha of some distant pack. Maybe the one they’re fighting in now. Who knows? What I do know is, this is happening, and you pretending it isn’t won’t make it stop.”
He seems so sure of himself, it makes my gut ache. I want to ask him who he heard it from, but doing so would acknowledge the possibility that the story he’s telling me is true, and I refuse to believe it.
“I think I should go,” I say, clearing my throat and preparing to stand.
“Oh, good. I knew you had some sense in that pretty little head of yours,” Antony says with a chuckle that tells me he knows that I did not mean what he is implying I meant.
I squint at him, examining him like a bug I might just step on. “No, I should go back to my room,” I clarify. “Not to the islands. It’s far too dangerous for me to even consider. I’ve already told you that.”
“Well, I guess I just thought you might be like your friend the Alpha King—prone to changing your mind.” He smirks at me, and I have never wanted to slap a man I hardly knew more in my life.
I stand, one hand poised protectively over my gut, and glare at him. “Do not call upon me again. I will not see you.”
“Princess…” he says, standing and walking toward me. He reaches for my arm, but I yank it away.
“I mean it!” I say. “Go on about your duties as commander if you must, Antony, but don’t come near me. If you do, I will tell Maddox who you really are, and then, you’ll be forced to go back to Maatua—alone.”
I turn on my heel and head back to the castle, but as I reach the door, a single tear slides from my eye.
I refuse to believe what Antony is telling me is true, that Maddox has decided to select a wife from a group of Alphas’ daughters, and I’m not even in the running, though I’m carrying his child, my father is currently an Alpha, and I am a princess.
No, Maddox can be cruel to his enemies, but he’d never treat me with such disrespect.
Would he?