Page 68 of Striking
“She’s. Not. My. Queen.”
Fuck no.
“Father,” Atticus chokes out through gritted teeth as he joins us, but it’s too late.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” I growl, my chest vibrating with hatred, and the smug smile on his face is all the answer I need. “Get out.”
“I will do no such thing,” he snaps like he has a fucking choice. “You?—”
“I am your king, and you are no longer welcome in my home, Father.” I turn and nod at one of the guards, then wait as he approaches. “Please escort the duke out, and please advise the security team that he is no longer welcome.”
“Rhys . . .” Father sputters.
Atticus shakes his head, having battled with him as much if not more than I have over the years. “Go willingly, Father. Don’t make a scene and keep what dignity you have left.”
“You’d chose this commoner... this American, over your own father?”
“Yes,” Atticus and I both answer as I wrap my arm around Bellamy’s waist and step forward, shielding her from the man I no longer know.
“The choice has been made and celebrated and will go down in the history of my reign as the single best decision I made while I walked this Earth, you miserable fuck. You don’t deserve to breathe the same air that she breathes.”
Father’s grin is cold and cruel, and I’d like to knock it right off his face.
“I tolerated you for Mother’s sake,”—I take another step closer and lower my voice—“because even with her gone, I knew she’d want you involved. She’d want you to have a place.” I thinkback to those last few words from my mother. To the advice she gave me on her death bed. “But unlike you, I protect those who matter to me. And you no longer matter. I’m not sure you ever did.”
“You will regret this, son.”
“I expect to regret many things in my life but banishing you from court will not be one of them. Now I suggest you go willingly unless you’d like to be stripped of your titles, and home, and your royal stipend, too.”
His mouth opens and I shake my head in warning. “Don’t?—”
“Leave now, Father,” Atticus cuts in before I can threaten to kill the man who raised me. “Before you make this worse.”
Bellamy lifts her hand to my face as Father is escorted out of the ballroom and out of my life. “I’m so sorry, Rhys.”
I clasp her wrist in mine and press a kiss to her open palm. “There is nothing for you to be sorry about. Every man has his breaking point. The one that forces his hand. And my father hurting you and our family is mine. Now dance with me, my queen.”
RHYS
Rumor has it that King Rhys will have a battle on his hands today with the opening of Parliament. Royal sources have been whispering for the past two months about the legality of his wedding to our American queen. If their marriage isn’t legal in the eyes of the law, is it binding in the eyes of the church? Could it be that our American queen might very well be sent back to America without her title or her king?
Stay tuned, royal watchers.
The opening of Parliament is a Mornea tradition.
Each year, on the third Monday of January, the king is expected to open the first session of the year. And today, I sit here as the right and left fight like arrogant children, growing more bored by the minute. As always, taxes are the main sticking point, something I have very little say in, but today, that’s not the hot topic.
No, today that topic is me.
“A king is meant to uphold the law, not rewrite it for his own benefit,” spews Lord Allington, a particularly heinous prick whose family has held a seat in Parliament for nearly as long as mine has held the throne.
“Does he not have the right to be happy, the same as you or I?” One of my mother’s best friend’s asks from the other side of the aisle. “The right to love? Do we not think the king will be a better king if he is in a steady, happy marriage?”
Viscount Lindsey, a particularly older member with a particularly unruly beard, stands and blusters, “He’s the king of Mornea. Are the women of Mornea not fit to be his queen?”
“He is already married, gentlemen,” the sole female member of parliament stands and states the obvious. “As the head of the Church of Mornea, he cannot be divorced. We have no choice but to sanction his marriage. Now I suggest we do so and move on to the things that actually have an effect on our country, like how the middle class is going to keep food on the table while we ride out the downturn our economy has taken.”
“He cannot change the law at his whim,” Allington demands with a fist against the table. “He is a king, not a god.”
