A Bride for the Lost King Read online

  She was scrubbed, she was combed, her hair was cut by one of the ruthlessly thin females, who took her mane from the middle of her back, up to the bottom of her shoulder blades in a blunt, asymmetrical line.

  They put foils in her hair, and the scent of chemicals was strong. It made her eyes prickle, because it reminded her of dyeing her hair when she and her father had been running, or creating new identities.

  Blond. Brown. Black. Red.

  Her hair had spanned every color of the spectrum. This was different, though, as what they did didn’t transform her entire head. No. Rather her black hair faded to a sort of caramel brown at the ends, and she looked grown-up in a way she never had before. And never really thought about.

  Her nails were painted, and so was her face, with a thick liner making the already turned up corners of her eyes even more dramatic, and a pale blush staining her high cheeks, along with a gloss on her mouth.

  And then there were clothes. Not the gowns that she had tried on earlier, but a knee-length, cashmere skirt in a camel color, and a pair of sky-high black shoes. A buttery soft gray sweater, and a coat that matched the skirt and nearly touched the ground.

  She didn’t recognize herself. But one thing she did comfort herself with was the fact that the lines of the outfit did allow for weaponry.

  And just like that, the team who turned her into this entirely new being vanished, never really speaking to her, never really acting like she was anything more than a life-size doll. The stranger in the mirror was disquieting. Because though it was certainly something more than what had happened when she had changed identities when she and her father had changed locations, it still reminded her of that time.

  That shape-shifting that had been born out of a necessity to... To live.

  And now, even as she was being true to Lazarus, she was part of a lie.

  But you are loyal to him. You are true to him.

  You are still Agnes of the forest.

  And not Agnes of lies.

  She looked at herself again and felt a strange sense of...pride. She looked soft. She felt beautiful.

  Like a woman.

  She rejected that. Hard.

  She took a breath, and walked over to her suitcase, where she had concealed a sword.

  Is this not a lie?

  She did not listen to that scathing tone in her voice. She didn’t have the time for it. Nor the patience. And she took a rather substantial-size dagger out of the bag, and lifted her sweatshirt, undoing her skirt before strapping it ruthlessly beneath her clothes, and then she went out into the living area to await her orders. But she was not prepared for what awaited her there. For there was Lazarus, but as she’d not seen him. Wearing a superbly cut black suit, and a long black coat. His black hair was pushed back off of his face, showing the sharpness of his cheekbones, the extreme perfection of his features.

  And for the first time, she fully appreciated who she was looking at. He was Lazarus, a prince of Liri.

  A man who should’ve grown up in splendor, in a palace, had he not been left to his own devices in the woods. Had he not been taken in by the people of the forest.

  And for the first time, she wondered that he was not more angry at them. For they had taken him from a life of luxury, and brought him into a hard, hard world.

  And though it was one that she personally loved, her own destiny had not been a palace, but death at the hands of the men who had killed her father. She would have died in a French alley if not for Lazarus and the people of the wood.

  But Lazarus would have been a prince. Lazarus would’ve had a family. A mother and father.

  He would have been beautiful, not scarred.

  Though his scars were beautiful to her.

  They represented all he’d suffered. And her own salvation as a result.

  “Come, Agnes,” he said, extending his hand. “For we have dinner reservations.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  HE HAD NOT anticipated just how beautiful he would find her. He had never looked at her and seen a woman.

  She was a creature that he had rescued, and for the better, as she had been such a small, soft thing when he had first discovered her.

  Not much more than sixteen and cowering in terror in an alley, about to be killed. But likely not before she endured other travesties.

  Her father had already been gone, his blood spilled on the pavement.

  He would not allow the same fate to befall her. And he had known that. He had also known in that moment that they were bonded.

  It had been the same for him.

  When he had been a boy, and he had wandered off into the woods from a palace he could now no longer remember, he had been backed into a corner by wolves. Flat against the side of a cliff, those evil beasts snarling at him.

  And in a breath, they had fallen on him. His skin torn away from his flesh.

  Being devoured even while he screamed.

  He had waited for death. Hoped for it. Even as a small child.

  But then Agamemnon had come.

  Agamemnon of the Wood.

  He had taken Lazarus, bleeding and broken, back to the village. Had given him rest and medical attention.

  He had told him going home was not safe at first. And indeed, at first, he had lacked the strength.

  Agamemnon had explained if he were to ever show his face out of the wood, their people would be destroyed. And Lazarus, young though he was, had asked why.

  And what he had learned was the hideous history of how the conquerors who had come to their land had renamed it Liri. Had pushed the original inhabitants to the outskirts. Tried to snuff out their culture.

  He had said Lazarus’s parents would search for him.

  That they would find him and then the people of the wood would be rewarded and not harmed.

  They had never come.

  Scouts had watched for them. No one had ever looked.

  Agamemnon had become like a father to him. It was not the same soft childhood he’d had at the palace, but the memories of it had faded soon enough.

  He ran around the campfires with the other children. He was fed by the women there too. He grew strong outdoors.

  Eventually, Agamemnon had introduced him to his dogs. Hulking, great beasts that helped keep the people safe.

  Lazarus had looked at them and seen only wolves.

  Terror had streaked through him, and his memories of pain had been too much to bear. Agamemnon had not let him run. He had been firm.

  You will learn to care for them.

  They will be yours.

  You will overcome your fears.

  I saved you, and you will swear yourself to me, Lazarus. It is the way of things. I saved your life, and it is mine.

  And Lazarus had done so. And his parents still had not come.

  He had grown into a man without fear, a man without pain, and his parents had not come.

  But Agamemnon and his adopted people had been enough.

  * * *

  If it had not been for Agamemnon, he would’ve been consumed by those beasts. Eaten, as he had found out his brother he had never met was. The brother who had replaced him.

  It had been too late to save him.

  Lazarus mourned that.

  He mourned the loss of that boy.

  He did not mourn the loss of that life he would’ve had at the palace, though. Though the distinction of how heirs were chosen in Liri was important. A brother could challenge his brother for the throne. And the people could choose a new leader.

  It was his great-grandfather who had sidelined his people. Who had destroyed their way of life. His blood. And when he swore allegiance to his new family, he had been clear that he would see all things put to rights.

  It was his duty, sworn and solemn, to avenge them. To restore balance, and we
ll he knew it.

  It was his duty to do as was his right. To challenge the heir to the throne. To seek that which could be rightfully his. Rightfully his people’s.

  Yes, he had known, the moment that he had rescued Agnes, that she had consequence in his life. For was it not simply—she had come to understand later—that the person you saved must swear their allegiance to you, it was only that being entrusted with that life was incredibly weighty, and binding. For both members of the blood bond.

  Just as her life was his, that responsibility held meaning. There was a purpose behind it.

  The purpose behind him being saved by the people of the wood was that he might restore an entire nation to its rightful place, and Agnes was a key part of that. Deeply important to the cause.

  And so, it should not surprise him at all that she was perfect to play the role.

  She was elegant, a quicksilver beauty who he knew to be deadly, but what surprised him the most was that she could still be soft.

  For the first time since he’d first met her, Agnes looked hesitant.

  Perhaps it was because they were back in Paris. He had not fully thought about it, but it made sense that she might be... That she might be frightened. Of Paris and all that it represented. Of the memories that lurked here. He could well understand.

  He was not looking forward to going back to the palace of Liri, but fear did not live inside of him. Not anymore. He had banished it when he had first touched the dogs that looked so much like the beasts that had savaged him. The lesson in that had been that a man must be stronger than pain, than weakness.

  Agnes was young. A warrior, yes, but she had also been sixteen when she’d left Paris. It was possible there were memories here for her she had not yet come to terms with.

  “Are you well?”

  “I am as ever,” she said, lifting her chin. He held his hand out to her, and she took it reluctantly.

  And the moment that his skin touched hers, he felt a kick of extreme arousal. It echoed that which had roared to life in him when she’d begun to try those dresses on. Showing her body in a way that was undeniably feminine.

  It was unwelcome. This was Agnes. And she was not a woman that he could use in such a fashion. She was his... His ward in many ways. His responsibility on a deep level. There were many willing, round women back in the forest who could satisfy his urges as they satisfied their own. A pleasing transaction all around. It was the way of things.

  His adopted culture was open about sex. But it was something that must be kept in its place.

  He was a warrior.

  Female warriors were to be treated as brothers-in-arms. With Agnes being even more complicated because she was his responsibility.

  His.

  It was the power that he wielded over her life, the power that he had, that made it unacceptable.

  She was looking very serious as they walked out of the penthouse and onto the elevator. But he did not waver. They arrived down at the lobby to the building, and he moved nearer to her, and he could feel her every muscle tighten, get twitchy.

  He put his arm around her and pulled her yet more closely. And felt hard steel beneath her clothing. As soon as they were out on the street he turned his head and pressed his mouth to her ear.

  “Agnes,” he said. “Do you have a sword beneath your clothes?”

  She did not look at him. But for the first time, her expression became sanguine. “I’m committed to my duty.”

  “I believe I told you no swords. And already you nearly created an international incident in the dressing room of a very nice shop. Why is it that you saw to ignore my edict and arm yourself?”

  “I have sworn a duty to protect you, my Lord, and I will do so. To the best of my ability and as I see fit.”

  “You will do as I see fit,” he said.

  “I believe it is within my right to judge whether or not I believe the situation calls for added protection. And in that you do not have the right to tell me what to do.”

  “I have every right,” he said. “I have every right to tell you exactly what you should do for me.”

  “I have agreed to this,” she said. “Do you not think that perhaps I have a fair idea of what my function is. Even if you have replaced it entirely.”

  “I value you, Agnes, and I do not take our bond lightly, but please drop this idea that I require you for protection. That you could do anything for me that I cannot do for myself.”

  He heard her gasp, but she swallowed it quickly, and the two of them carried on down the street.

  The crowd parted for them, and Lazarus took it as his due. Royalty were given deference because of their position in society, because of the fear that people felt that they might face consequences should they fail to genuflect as expected. Or the hope that they might be rewarded should they behave in a certain manner. Lazarus did not need to be raised a prince to create a parting of the seas. It was not that he was royal, but that he was a man of consequence. A man of consequence did not need status in order to influence the crowd. He simply needed to breathe.

  They continued on down the street to the restaurant, which was a building with a simple limestone facade. Exactly the sort of place that one might go if they wished to avoid the paparazzi. Lazarus did not wish to avoid the paparazzi, quite the opposite. He intended to court them. But the paparazzi were always where they felt they might not be wanted, and so it made the perfect location for such an endeavor.

  They walked in, where they were known by sight, and were ushered to the finest table, in a corner of the restaurant that allowed them to see out over the room and place no one at their backs.

  Neither he nor Agnes could ever bear sitting with their back to a door, or to a room of people. A wall it must be.

  “Are there menus?” Agnes asked.

  “A waste of time and paper. We will be served only their finest. And all of it.”

  Agnes, for all that she was trying to be casual, glittered with interest then.

  That was one thing he appreciated about Agnes. She liked food. She liked it quite a bit.

  There were certain little things that she seemed to enjoy, hearkening back to a time, he knew, when she had little.

  For all that he had not grown up in a palace, Lazarus had always had plenty. Agnes, he knew, had experienced having nothing.

  And when there was a feast, she ate her fill and then some.

  “I do hope there is steak,” she said.

  Agnes was not disappointed on that score. There was steak. Marrow, cheese and bread. And a host of the desserts. And for a moment, he allowed the mission to fade into the background as he watched her enjoy all that was set before her.

  And he felt... Self-congratulatory. For on this, he had kept his word, and his honor. Her life was his. In his care, and he had presented her with true finery. He had been much softer to her than Agamemnon had been to him. He had not had her sleep upon the rocks in order to earn her right to a bed by proving her strength.

  She was better for having met him.

  She looked up at him, her expression suddenly narrow. “And what is it you’re thinking about?”

  “Your good fortune,” he said. “To be in my care.”

  The corner of her mouth went tight. “Oh, is that so?”

  “Yes. Look at this food that you enjoy.”

  “I have eaten the food that I enjoy,” she said. “I did not spend any time looking at it. Nor will I.”

  “A beast you are, Agnes. We must work on that.” He had spent time in the world, it was why he had found her. How he had saved her.

  It was, perhaps, one area of his responsibility where he had been remiss with her.

  Agnes was in his care, and it must be acknowledged that her life with him had been... Narrow. And if that was so, it was a failing.

  The concept of ownership, when
it came to things, to land, was loose among their people. Yes, the King was steward of the riches of the people, but it was not the same as ownership.

  Even his own life was not his possession, for it belonged to the people who saved him.

  But a lifesaving bond, as the two of them had, was binding.

  Agnes was the one thing that was truly his.

  “I shall work on nothing but this cake,” she said, taking a large slice of chocolate cake from the dessert platter that sat on the edge of the table.

  “Careful. You do look a bit feral.”

  “I am a bit feral. It is not my fault that you elected to take me to this restaurant without any forewarning. Trussed up in finery I may be, but I am what I am.”

  “We both know that isn’t true. You have the ability to fit in wherever you go. You were raised to do so.”

  “I don’t like that part of my life.”

  “When you were in Paris did you ever go to places such as this?”

  “No,” she said. “I did not. And I think you know that.”

  “A question. For I wondered if this return to Paris was one filled with memories.”

  “I do remember the alleyways,” she said sharply. “Particularly when I nearly died in one. Why were you in Paris then?”

  “Part of my education,” he said. “Agamemnon never intended to keep me in the forest, wholly uncivilized. I’m only mostly uncivilized. But I have to be able to blend in with my surroundings when it is required, and it is required soon. I’m grateful for that time.”

  “I had no such time. But I don’t want it.”

  She was his. His to do right by. His to protect. And now he was having thoughts about her that were not honorable. He had kept her apart from the whole world, which was not as Agamemnon had done for him later. And he was...

  He could not trust his intentions toward her entirely.

  He had to think about her. And her healing. About her potential.