Page 1 of A Ring to Claim Her Crown
PROLOGUE
ATTHERIPEold age of nineteen-and-a-half, Crown Princess Minerva of Arqaleta was quite sure that she was completely immune to any kind of romantic attraction. She certainly wouldn’t do something so foolish as fall in love with the surly, redheaded prince she was destined to marry.
The old-fashioned betrothal agreement between her mother and the King of Cisneros had begun when she’d been fourteen and, every year since, Minerva had obeyed and undertaken her scheduled four-week summer visit with Prince Oliveiro. There could be no two people more opposite in this world forced to spend weeks together in one another’s company. Minerva despised reading and she despised silence and, by the time that first summer had come to an end, she’d been pretty sure she despised Prince Oliveiro too.
But...when she and the Prince had set eyes upon one another at this year’s summer garden party...everything had changed.
A simple dance had turned into hours of talking and soon she’d found herself introducing him to her favourite place in all of Arqaleta, a teardrop-shaped lake on the edge of the palace grounds. She had found it when seeking out an errant arrow as a small child and had taken it upon herself to cut back most of the thorns and weeds, cleaning and polishing the old stone benches and statues and stringing up solar-powered fairy lights.
She told him all of this in a flurry of nerves as he took in every inch of her den, not knowing why it was so vital that he liked it, but that it was. She needed him to love this place just as much as she did. As usual, he hadn’t spoken much, but, as he’d taken in the lake and the full moon reflecting upon the calm waters, she’d noticed his body visibly relax.
‘It’s so peaceful,’ he’d whispered. ‘Like we’re the only two people in the world.’
Then he’d turned to her, their eyes meeting in the glow of twinkling lights, and everything else had ceased to exist. No duty, no differences, no watchful parents...it had just been them, boy and girl... Her hands had trembled in his as she’d closed the space between them and pressed her lips against his. Her first kiss...and his too, he’d later confessed.
They’d kissed for so long, her lips had felt swollen and her body had ached. He’d stopped every so often, staring down at her as though he were afraid she’d disappear at any moment. Then he’d taken her lips again, their bodies writhing against one another in the dark.
He’d asked her to call him ‘Liro’ that night—a name that only his mother had used for him, before her passing when he’d been a young boy. A name his father forbade him to use, as he did with everything that reminded him of the beloved wife he had lost.
He could barely look at the son who resembled her so closely. No one else knew of the name. For the first time, she’d seen a glimpse of something wild and furious beneath Liro’s silent exterior. He was like an animal confined to a cage, pacing the length of the bars, consumed with the possibility of breaking free.
Their secret lakeside meetings became a nightly ritual over the following weeks. In the dark, she soon found herself offering up her own secrets too. Such as the long-drawn-out truth behind her parents’ supposedly amicable divorce and her father’s subsequent abandonment of her in favour of his new family. Liro always listened, her hand cradled in his.
They had never once spoken of the marriage arrangement that bound them, but she always felt it hang between them like a gauntlet of sorts. She knew that this summer eventually had to end and, when it did, Liro would leave. Only, this time, he would leave for obligatory military training in his home kingdom for two whole years and she would go to university in America. They’d be half a world away from one another.
On their last night together, she went ahead of him to the lake and waited, her mind swimming with all of the fears she’d tried to ignore. Would he think of her? Would he visit? Or would he abandon her without a thought, just like her father had?
That last thought stopped her in her tracks. Her own parents’ marriage had been a royal arrangement, a public front for the good of the kingdom and their allies. As a child she’d been unaware of the tension but, as she’d grown older, their turbulent relationship had become impossible to ignore or escape. She had witnessed Papa’s misery and resentment grow with each year he’d spent playing his role of King Consort.
Once they’d completed the terms of their betrothal...would Liro grow to feel the same way about her?
Her increasingly anxious thoughts were interrupted when Liro appeared at the lake’s edge and made his way towards her in the moonlight. There were no lamps—nothing but the glow of the moon to illuminate the stern set of his mouth as he came to a stop a few feet away. She moved towards him, reaching up to claim his lips in a kiss, only to find his movement stilted and off.
‘What’s wrong?’ she demanded, tightening her grip on his hand in a firm squeeze. His fingers were cold and he didn’t squeeze her back.
‘My father is here.’
Minerva inhaled sharply at the news, instantly understanding the change in him. King Guillermo didn’t usually join his son in Arqaleta. Liro despised his father and they had spoken of him often, now that Liro actually spoke to her. She reached out to touch his shoulder, only for him to turn away and pace towards the lake.
‘My father came to the archery arena yesterday to seek me out and instead he saw us...’
Minerva fought the wild urge to clap a hand across her mouth and scream like one of the characters in her mother’s favourite soap operas. Liro had accompanied her to practice to watch her as usual, but then her best friend Bea had cancelled and unexpectedly they’d had the whole arena to themselves... She had barely taken a breath before both of them had been semi-undressed and writhing against one another on a pile of soft mats behind one of the equipment lockers.
Only, instead of stopping at the usual point of safety, for the first time they had gone all the way—another first for them both. It had felt special. A uniquely real and private moment in a life where so much had to be prearranged and approved by others.
Now, to learn that they’d been seen, and by King Guillermo of all people... She felt her stomach turn. For all that Arqaleta had become more modern and free, the kingdom of Cisneros was old and staunchly traditional in its culture. Would she be blamed for corrupting their son?
‘What did he say?’ She squared her shoulders, all trace of the previous excitement fully quashed by the reality of their situation. She noticed how Liro avoided her eyes, how his hands were clenched together so tightly the knuckles glowed white.
‘He said he would speak to the Queen...’ Liro’s eyes searched hers. ‘That we would need to be married straight away in case there was a child.’
‘We were completely safe.’ Minerva shook her head, furious. ‘How dare he act as though we are a pair of errant children in need of punishment?’
A strange emotion shifted across Liro’s face. ‘Is that really how you would view marriage to me, Min? As a punishment?’
‘That came out wrong.’ Minerva inhaled a deep breath. ‘What I mean is that it’s too soon. I thought we would have years before we fulfilled the royal betrothal agreement.’
Liro’s handsome features hardened at her words, his voice a low whisper in the semi-darkness. ‘You knew about the agreement?’
