Pretender to the Throne

“The people love you. They don’t love me, Layna.”

“The people love me?” she spat, anger rising in her, anger she always thought was dealt with. Until something came up and reminded her that it wasn’t. Something small and insignificant, like catching sight of herself in the mirror. Or burning her finger when she was cooking. In this instance, it wasn’t a small something. It was the ghost of fiancés past, talking about the people. The people who had loved her.

She’d made her peace with some of the people of Kyonos. She served them, after all, but she didn’t feel the way she once had about them—confident that she had a country filled with adoring fans.

Quite the opposite.

“Yes,” he said, his voice certain still, as though he hadn’t heard the warning in her tone.

“The people,” she said, “behaved more like animals after you left. Everything fell apart, but I assume you know that.”

“I didn’t watch the news after I left. A tiny island like Kyonos is fairly easy to ignore when you aren’t on it. And when you’re drunk headlines look a little blurry.”

“So you don’t know, then? You don’t know that everything...everything went to hell? That companies pulled up stakes, stocks went down to nothing, thousands of people lost their jobs?”

“All because I left?”

“Surely you knew some of this.”

“Some of it,” he said, his voice clipped. “But there’s a lot you can avoid when you’re only sober for a couple hours a day.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“I imagine vice isn’t so much your thing.”

“No.”

“So the economy collapsed and I’m to blame? That’s the sum of it?”

She shrugged. “You. The death of the queen. The king’s depression. It was an unhappy combination, and no one was confident in the state of things. People were angry.”

She looked at him and she tried to find a place of serenity. Of strength. What happened to her wasn’t a secret. It was in newspapers, online. It was widespread news. It was just hard to say out loud.

But you aren’t going to show him that you care. You aren’t going to be weak. It doesn’t matter. Vanity. All is vanity.

“There were riots in the streets. In front of the homes of government officials, who were blamed for the economic crisis. There were different kinds of attacks made. Several attempts at...acid attacks. We were leaving our home when a man pushed up to the front and tried to throw a cup of acid onto my father. He stumbled, though, and the man missed. I was hit instead. I don’t think I need to tell you where,” she said, attempting to smile. Smiling could be difficult enough at the best of times since half of her mouth had trouble obeying that command, but when she didn’t feel like smiling it was completely impossible.

But telling the story was easier when she imagined it was another girl. When she remembered what happened without remembering the pain.

She searched his face. She seemed to have succeeded in shocking him, which was something she hadn’t imagined would be possible.

“So, I think it’s fair to say maybe the people don’t love me as much as you think they do.” She pushed past him now, determined to put an end to this. To this strange bit of torment from the past.

He grabbed hold of her, his hand on her arm sending a rush of heat through her. She breathed in sharply, his scent hitting her, like a punch in the chest.

Her head was swimming. With glittering palaces and silk dresses. Dancing in a sparkling ballroom in a man’s warm embrace. A trip to the garden where his lips almost touched hers. Her full, beautiful lips, unencumbered by scar tissue. It would have been her first kiss. And right then she wanted to weep for the loss of it because now there would never be one.

Not on those lips. They were gone forever.

Not even on the lips she had now. Because she had vowed to never know that pleasure of life. To forego it in favor of serving others, and release her hold on her own needs. Not that it should matter. No man would ever want to kiss her anyway.

But Xander was...he was too much. He was here, right when she didn’t want him, and not fifteen years ago when she’d needed him.

Right now, she didn’t need him. She needed distance. The more Xander filled up her vision, the more faded everything else seemed to become. Xander was a look into a life that she didn’t have anymore. Couldn’t have. Didn’t want.

She just needed him gone. So that she could start to forget again.

“I suppose you should go now,” she said. “Now that you know how it is. If you’re looking for a ticket to salvation, Xander, I’m not it.”

“I’m not interested in salvation,” he said. “But I do want to do the right thing. Novel, isn’t it?”

“Well, I can’t help you. Perhaps it’s best you found your way back to the village.”

“I’m staying here tonight.”

“What?” she asked, shock lancing her.

“I spoke to the abbess, and explained the situation. I don’t want the public knowing I’m here yet, not until I’m ready. And I intend to bring you with me.”

“I see. And nothing of what I said matters?”

He shook his head, his jaw tight. “No.”

“The fact that I’m not me anymore doesn’t matter?”

He studied her face, the cold assessment saying more than any insult could. Before the attack, men...Xander...had never looked at her with ice in their eyes. There had always been heat.

“I’ll let you know in the morning.”

He turned and walked away from her, into the main building. She waited out in the yard, cursing silently and not caring that it was a sin as she stood there, hoping he was putting enough distance between them that she wouldn’t run into him again.

She would speak to the abbess tonight and in the morning, hopefully Xander would leave. And he would go back to being a memory she tried not to have.

* * *

It was early the next morning when Mother Maria-Francesca called her into her office.

“You should go with him.”

“I can’t,” Layna said, stepping back. “I don’t want to go back to that life. I want to be here.”

“He only wants you to help him get established. And as you want to serve, I think it would be good for you to serve in this way.”

“Alone. With a man.”

“If I have to concern myself with how you would behave alone with a man then perhaps this isn’t your calling.”

It wasn’t spoken in anger or in condemnation, just as a simple, quiet fact that settled in the room and made Layna feel hideously exposed. As though her motives—motives she’d often feared were less than wholly pure—were laid out before the woman she considered her spiritual superior in every way.

All that ugly fear and insecurity. Her vanity. Her anger. And old desires that never seemed to fully die. Just sitting there for anyone to see.

“It isn’t that,” Layna said. “I mean, I’m not afraid of falling into temptation.” And even less worried about Xander falling into temptation with her. “It’s just that appearances...”

“Are what men look at, my dear. But God sees the heart. So what does it matter what people might think? Of the arrangement, or of you?”

Such a simple perspective. And one of the main reasons she felt so at home here. But that didn’t mean her ease and tranquility transferred to every place she went.

“I suppose it doesn’t matter.” And what she wanted certainly wouldn’t come into play. She could hardly throw herself on the ground and say she didn’t want to. Of course she didn’t. True sacrifice was hard. Serving others could be hard. Neither were excuses she would accept.

“This is an opportunity to do the sort of good that most of us never get the chance to do. You have the ear of a king, in heaven and now on earth. You must use this chance.”

“I’ll...think about it. Pray...about it.” Layna blinked back tears as she walked out of the room. By the time she’d hit the hall, she was running. Out the door and to the stables.

She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. She needed to ride.

And she did. Until the wind stung her eyes. Until she couldn’t tell if it was the burn from the air that made tears stream down her face, or the deep well of emotion that had been opened up inside of her. Threatening to pull her in and drown her.

She rode up to the top of the hill, the highest point that was easily accessible, and looked down at the waves, crashing below, against the rocks. That was how she felt. Like the waves were beating her against stone. Breaking her down.

Like life was asking too much of her. When she’d already given everything she had.

She leaned forward and buried her face in Phineas’s neck. Maria-Francesca was right. It hurt to admit it. Even in her own mind, it hurt to admit it. She’d never taken her vows. And so much of that was down to herself.

Was down to that piece of her that missed the ballrooms. That longed for a husband. For children. For the life she’d left behind.

If she stayed here, she would be safe. But she would be stuck. She would never take her vows. Because it wasn’t her calling. And she’d been too afraid to admit it for so long because she didn’t know where else to go.

You can go with him.

Not for him. For her. For closure. So that the ache she felt when she thought of Xander, and warm nights in a palace garden, would finally fade.

As it was, he’d been gone from her life with no warning. A wound that had cut swift and deep. An abandonment that had become all the more painful after her attack.

It was safe here at the convent. But it was stagnant. And she saw now, for the first time, that it shielded her, instead of healing her.

She could do this. She would do it. And when it was over...maybe something inside of her would be changed. Maybe she would find the transformation she ached for.

Maybe then...maybe then she would come back here and find more than a hiding place. Maybe then, she would be changed enough to take the final step. To take her vows.

Maybe if she finished this, she could finally find her place.

* * *

All of her belongings fit into one suitcase. When you didn’t need hair products, makeup, or anything beyond bare essentials to wear, life was pretty simple. And portable, it turned out.

She shifted, standing in the doorway, looking at Xander, who had his focus on the view of the sea. “I suppose you have an ostentatious car ready to whisk us back to civilization?”

Xander turned and smiled, his eyes assessing. She didn’t like that. Didn’t like how hard he looked at her. She preferred very much to be invisible.

“Naturally,” he said. “It’s essentially an eight-cylinder phallus.”

“Compensation for your shortcomings?”

The words escaped her lips before she even processed them. They were a stranger’s words. A stranger’s voice. One from the past.

So weird. Being with him resurrected more than just memories, it seemed to bring out old tendencies. In her life at the convent, sarcasm and smart replies were not well-received. But when she’d been one of the many socialites buzzing around Xander, wanting to catch his attention, when she’d moved in such a sparkling and sometimes cutthroat circle, it had been the best way to communicate.

They had all been like that. Pretending to be so bored by their surroundings, showing their cool with cutting remarks and brittle laughter. It struck her then that Xander had changed, too. He hadn’t joined a convent, but he lacked the air of the smug aristocrat he used to carry himself with.

He still had that lazy smile, that wicked mouth. But beneath the glitter in his eyes, she sensed something deeper now. Something dark. Something that made her stomach clench and her heart pound.

“I apologize,” she said. “That was neither gracious nor appropriate. I’m ready to go.”

He shrugged and took her suitcase from her, starting to walk across the expanse of green. She followed him, over the hill and to the lot where a red sports car was parked.

“I’m a cliché,” he said. “The playboy prince. It would be embarrassing if it weren’t so much fun.”

“There’s more to life than fun.”

“But fun is a part of it,” he countered.

“Certainly.”

He deposited her suitcase in the trunk of the car. “I think you might have forgotten the fun part,” he said.

“You have that covered for the both of us, I think.” She moved her hand in a wide sweep, like she was presenting the car on a game show.

He smiled. “You have no idea.”

For some reason that smile, that statement, made her stomach tight. “I imagine I don’t.”

“Why don’t you get in the car and we can continue this while we head back down to Thysius?”

She hadn’t been to the capitol in a couple of years, and just the thought of it filled her with dread. “What exactly are we doing?”

“Get in the car.”

Fear wrapped its fingers around her throat, the desire to turn and run almost overwhelming. But she didn’t. “Not yet. Where are we staying? What are we going to do?”

“The palace,” he said. “You’re familiar with it.”

“Yes.” Much too familiar. There was a time when it would have been her home. When she would have been the queen. Memories that seemed like they belonged in another life were crowding in, trying to remind her of all the things she’d tried so hard to let go of.

“The press will think it’s all sensational.” He opened his door and got inside and she stood outside, looking at her warped reflection in the slightly rounded window.

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” She pulled the car door open and got inside, closing it behind her.

The leather interior smelled new. And an awful lot like money. Such a strange contrast to the old stone walls of the convent. When he turned the key and the engine roared to life she couldn’t help but think it was a very strange contrast. The pristine newness. The noise. So different than the ancient quiet she’d lived in for so long.

“This is the story that I need. You and me, collaborating on bringing the country into a new era.”

“Why do I feel a bit like you just told me together we will rule the galaxy as father and son....”

“Are you saying I’m asking you to join the Dark Side?”

“I feel like it.”

“Seems a strange reference for a nun.”

“I’m not a nun, actually. Not yet. I’m a novice.” And she had been for a near record amount of time. Speaking of movies, her life was becoming a bit “How do you solve a problem like Maria.”

“And I do watch movies,” she said. “There isn’t a lot that happens up here, and we aren’t all serious all the time.”

He pulled out of the parking area and onto the road. And she wasn’t “here” anymore, either. She was leaving. Heading into the world. Away from the convent, away from the village. Into the city. Toward people. And the press.

Panic clawed at her, a desperate beast trying to escape. But she held it in. Did she pray for serenity or was this part of her test? To do what she didn’t want, for it to be hard. To have to persevere.

Suddenly, she just felt angry. She hadn’t asked for any of this. Not for Xander to come back, not to have to be in the public eye again.

She hadn’t asked to be attacked. To have her life stolen from her. And hadn’t she taken it and turned it into something worthy? Why was she having to do this now?

Fear was doing its best to take her over completely. And its best was far too good for her taste. The farther she got from her home, the closer they drew to the capitol city, the more it grew.

She was shaking. A tremor that seemed to start from the inside and built outward until her teeth were chattering. She tightened her hands into fists, trying to will it to stop. But she didn’t have the strength.

They took so much. He took so much. Don’t let them have anything else.

That voice. That strong, quiet voice inside of her made the shaking stop. Because it was right. Too much of her pain belonged to Xander, to the people of Kyonos, and she wouldn’t give them one bit more.

She would help. Help restore the nation, get it all back on track, get Xander into a good position. But she wouldn’t give of herself. Her actions, her presence, yes. But nothing of her.

“It isn’t just you,” he said, his voice rough.

“What?”

“You aren’t the only one who will be judged.”

He was so in tune with her train of thought that she was almost afraid she’d voiced her fears out loud. “Maybe not. But I’m the only one of us who didn’t earn the judgment.”

It was true, even if it was unkind. So, okay, maybe she wasn’t holding back all of herself from Xander. She was letting him have some of her anger.

He laughed and the car engine roared louder, the cypress trees outside the window turning into an indistinct blur of green as he accelerated. “Very true. I did earn mine. And I had a hell of a lot of fun doing it.”

CHAPTER THREE

XANDER FELT LIKE he sometimes did after a night of heavy drinking. His head hurt. His stomach was unsettled. And memories pushed at the edges of his mind, threatening to crowd into the forefront.

Yes, it was just like the aftermath of being drunk. Or being hungover was a bit like coming home.

He paused the car at the gate. Stavros didn’t know he was coming. It had been a phone call he hadn’t been certain he could make. Stavros might bring up the option of hurling himself into the sea again and he might end up taking him up on it. Instead of returning to this.

He picked his phone up and dialed Stavros’s number.

“Are you at the palace?” Xander asked when he heard an answer on the other end.

“I am not.” Stavros’s response was measured.

“Where are you then?”

“Vacation. My wife wanted to go to Greece and my children are enjoying a slight change of pace. Palace life is quite boring to them, I fear.”

“I do remember the drudgery,” he said, looking up at the turrets, bright white against a sun-bleached sky.

And he was walking back into it. Back into the past. Suddenly, he couldn’t breathe.

He wanted to run again in that moment. Because he could remember what had pushed him to it now, all too easily.

Blood. Death. Blame.

So much easier to run. To wrap himself in life’s pleasures and ignore the pain.

“I can’t imagine anything ever felt like drudgery to you. You never took it seriously enough.”

“Maybe not then. But I’m here now. Oh, yes, I’ve decided to come back and assume the throne, I don’t believe I mentioned that.”

There was a long pause. He looked across the car at Layna, who was sitting there looking straight ahead, as though she was pretending she couldn’t hear.

“I’m glad,” Stavros said, at last, and Xander believed him. “But if this is a game to you, then I suggest you take your ass back to wherever you came from. It’s been my life’s work to bring Kyonos back from the brink, and I’ll not have you destroy it.”

“Don’t worry, Stavros, I’ve only ever been interested in destroying myself.”

“And yet, somehow, you seem to destroy others in the process.”

Xander looked at Layna and felt an uncomfortable pang in his gut. “Not this time,” he said. “Now, call and have them admit me, please.”

“You’ll find your quarters just as you left them.”

He laughed. “I hope there’s still porn under the mattress.”

* * *

There was. Though it was hideously dated and nowhere near as scandalous as he’d imagined it to be when he was a young man only just starting down the path of debauchery.

The head of palace hospitality had ushered Layna to her room, and his father’s advisor had walked him to his own quarters. The man, as old as the king, was blustering, shocked and trying to get answers from Xander who was, unfortunately for him, not in the mood to answer questions.

Instead he shut the man out, shut the door and looked around. That was when he found the magazines, just as he left them. They used to thrill him. He remembered it well. Now they just left him with this vague feeling of the stale familiar.

But then, life in general didn’t thrill him much at this point. He’d seen too much. Done too much. He was less a carefree playboy than he was a jaded one. It was hard to show shock or emotion when one barely felt it anymore.

The glittering mystery had worn off life. Torn away the day his mother died. Forcing him to look at every ugly thing hidden behind the facade. And so he’d walked further into that part of life. The underbelly. Into all the things people wanted to revel in, but could never bring themselves to discard their morals—or their image—in order to do so.

But he’d done it. Morals didn’t mean a thing to him. Neither did his image.

It was too hard to go on living in a beautiful farce when you knew that was all it was. So he never bothered. He was honest about what he wanted. He took what he wanted. As did those around him. Whether it was gambling, drugs or sex, it was done with a transparency, an unapologetic middle finger at life.

He’d found a strange relief in it. In being around all that sin in the open. Because it was the secrets, the pretense of civility, he couldn’t handle.

And now he was back in the palace. Center stage for the show. Back in chains. Pretending to be someone he was never born to be.

He threw the magazines down onto the bed and looked around. He’d expected a few more ghosts. Or something. But he felt the same as he had before returning home.

Shame and regret were his second skin. They existed with him, over him. And so he’d spent his life reveling in the most shameful things imaginable. He would feel it either way. At least if he sought it out, it was his choice. Not something forced upon him by life.

Like standing beneath water that was too hot. Until you were scalded to the point where you didn’t feel it anymore.

In truth, it had worked to a degree.

But only to a degree.

He pushed his hands through his hair and turned toward where his suitcases had been put. He would need ties, he supposed. He didn’t wear ties. One of the things he’d cast off when he’d left Kyonos.

For now, he just had his suits and shirts he wore open-collared, but it would have to do. Just the thought of ties made it feel hard to breathe. Or maybe it was the palace in general.

Her pulled open the door to his room and stalked down the corridor, not sure where he was going. He grabbed the passing housekeeper. “Where is Layna?”

“Oh!” She looked completely shocked. “Your Highness...”

“Xander,” he said. He had no patience for station and title. “Which room is she in?”

“Ms. Xenakos is in the east wing, in the Cream Suite.”

“Great.” He started in that direction. Because there was nothing else to do. There was no one else in the palace he wanted to talk to.

He wasn’t certain why that was. He should seek out his father’s major domo. He should go and see his father, who was in the hospital. He should call his sister.

He didn’t do any of those things. He just walked through the expansive corridors, past openmouthed palace staff, and toward the Cream Suite. He got lost. Twice. It was an embarrassment, but he just kept going until he got his bearings again.

Then he pushed open the heavy wooden doors without knocking, and saw Layna, sitting on the edge of the bed. Her face snapped up, and again, he was shocked by her appearance.

It hit him like a slug to the gut. She had been so beautiful. So many beautiful things had been destroyed in that time. Either by his actions, or his very birth. The fault was bred into him, in many ways.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m here to speak to you. And to...escort you to dinner.”

It had been a long time since he’d escorted a woman to dinner. Usually he had sex with them, then they ordered room service and ate it naked. Although, on a good night, he kicked the woman out quickly, then ate room service by himself.

She blinked. “Escort me to dinner? Where?”

“Here will do. The staff has been alerted to my presence, and I have no doubt they’re eager to welcome me back with my favorite food,” he said, his tone dry. “Or at the very least they won’t let me starve.”