“It’s not that smart,” I said.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Piper snapped, looking at me again. “And why the fuck are you here?”

  “Oh,” Paige looked over at me. “You must not have heard.”

  “Heard what?”

  “Jax is dead,” Paige said, turning back to her sister. She spoke flatly, as though this was the most boring information she’d ever heard.

  Piper paled completely. She tried to hold it together, but she couldn’t. Everything went white, and she shook her head. She bit her lip, frowning. It looked like she was on the verge of tears.

  “You’re lying.”

  “I’m not, actually,” Paige told her. “He’s dead, and this is my new husband. Meet Ryssi.”

  “No,” Piper said again, shaking her head. “It can’t be...what? No!”

  “Yes,” Paige said.

  “You fucking bitch!”

  Piper launched herself at Paige before I could say a damn thing.

  I moved forward, darting over to them, but the two women were already tangled in a mess of arms and legs and clothing. One of them screeched, and I couldn’t tell which one it was, so I backed up and watched.

  Piper threw a punch, and then Paige kicked her hard. They went back and forth, wrestling wildly with one another, hitting each other, and I got the feeling that this wasn’t the first fistfight they’d shared.

  If nothing else, the princesses of Gideon were very capable fighters. They were each hitting the other with precision and force, and they kept the hair-pulling to a minimum. Instead, they chose to actually tackle one another over and over.

  Finally, there was a slight break in the struggle, and I grabbed the girl I knew to be Piper and tugged her away from Paige. I pinned Piper easily to myself, folding her arms behind her.

  “Let me go!”

  “Not a chance,” I told her. I looked over at Paige, who was getting to her feet. She wiped her nose off. It was bleeding, but she otherwise looked okay.

  “I’m fine,” Paige said. “I have to get to my dad.”

  “Go,” I told her. “I’ll take care of...this.”

  I gestured to Piper, who was obviously disappointed that things had ended this way. Too bad for her. Piper had such high hopes when it came to being queen, but she was about to discover that greed carried with it a high price, and unfortunately for her, she was going to have to pay that price.

  “She’ll never make it in time,” Piper whispered.

  “I think you’ll be surprised at what your sister can do.”

  Chapter 20

  Paige

  The walls of the castle felt like they were closing in on me as I ran. I didn’t know where my parents were, but I had a pretty good idea. Judging by Piper’s words, I figured I had at least a little bit of time before it was too late.

  Then again, I’d been wrong about so many things lately.

  I didn’t want to be wrong about this.

  Scurrying up a spiral staircase and down a lengthy corridor, I had to remind myself to breathe as I ran. Soon I’d be approaching my parents’ private chambers.

  What was I going to find there?

  Would they be okay?

  I passed someone dusting the paintings in the hallway, but I ignored him completely as I ran. I had no time to stop and ask where my parents were. I had no time for anything.

  Approaching the entrance to their private chambers, I found a guard stationed outside of the door.

  “Your majesty,” the guard said, looking me up and down. “What’s wrong?”

  “I need to see my parents,” I said.

  “I’m afraid they’ve given me strict instructions not to disturb them,” the guard said, but I ignored him and darted past him, pushing the door open.

  He hollered and started chasing me as I ran down this hallway. It curved to the right, but I was prepared, and I didn’t slow down at all until I reached the door to their bedroom, pushed it open, and ran inside.

  “Dad!” I called out as I threw myself into the room.

  Had I gotten there in time?

  Was I too late?

  Was my mother already trying to kill him?

  “Why, Paige,” my father said cheerfully, looking over at me. “So, you are alive. What a wonderful surprise.”

  “Dad?”

  He was standing in the center of the room and my mother was kneeling in front of him. She was holding a goblet of wine and my father had a knife to her throat.

  It wasn’t just any knife.

  It was his personal, private knife that he always kept on him at all times.

  “Paige,” my mother said, looking over at me. She looked scared. “You have to help me.”

  “I’m afraid that our daughter has been through hell, my dear,” Dad said. “I don’t think she has much interest in helping you. Isn’t that right, Paige?”

  “Um, yes, actually,” I said. “I assume you know Jax wanted to kill me.”

  “I suspected that when he announced that he was marrying you instead of Piper and that she was taking a lengthy vacation,” Dad said. “Weddings can be planned in a day if necessary, but it didn’t seem like something you would likely do.”

  Only, I had done that.

  I’d gotten married after knowing someone for a day. Granted, it had been almost two days when I’d married Ryssi, but I’d done it all the same.

  “So, you know Mom wanted to kill you off so that Piper and Jax could rule Gideon?”

  “Quite right,” Father said.

  “Lies!” Mother cried out.

  “Are they? Then drink from the goblet you’re holding, dear,” Dad said. “Drink from the goblet and show me that it isn’t poisoned.”

  He was speaking so calmly, as though my mother hadn’t been in the midst of trying to kill him. I was shocked by what I was witnessing, but I was also wildly pleased.

  Apparently, my father wasn’t a fool.

  Obviously, that had served him well during his time as king.

  “I’m not thirsty,” Mother said.

  Father laughed, but it was a cold sort of laugh.

  The guard rushed in behind me and gasped.

  “Leave, Terrance,” Father said. “And tell no one what you have seen.”

  The guard said nothing, but turned and left. He had been trained well, and my parents paid him handsomely for his silence. What happened at the castle had to remain private in order for the kingdom to survive.

  My father kept his eyes on my mother, but he spoke to me.

  “Your brother-in-law tried to kill you.”

  “Future brother-in-law, but yes.”

  “He sent you to Malum.”

  “He did.”

  “And tell me what you learned while you were there.”

  I looked at my parents. Ryssi had told me many things about my parents: things I didn’t want to be true. Then again, I hadn’t believed that my sister would be capable of trying to kill me, and she had tried.

  “I heard stories that you were...”

  “A murderer,” my father glanced over at me. There were tears in his eyes, and he nodded before turning back to my mother. “So, you know my crimes.”

  “So, it’s true?” I asked.

  All of the things Ryssi had told me.

  All of the tales he’d recounted about Gideon.

  They were true.

  I swallowed hard as I tried to absorb this information. My planet hadn’t been helpless or naïve. We hadn’t simply disliked Malum because the people there were horrible and mean. Nope. We’d hurt them, destroying them, and they had not retaliated against us.

  They had shown us kindness when we had shown us pain.

  “It’s true,” my father said quietly.

  “Lies!” Mother said, calling out. “Don’t believe him, Paige. Whatever he’s saying...he’s gone senile...that’s it! Senile!”

  “Paige, I did many wrong things. The breeding program...the enslavement of Malum women...that was your mother’s idea.”

  “Shut your mouth!” Mother cried out, obviously not wanting him to finish.

  If I thought my heart could handle anything else, I was wrong.

  “Dad?”

  “Our kind is dying. The humans are dying out. We needed people to help us continue. We needed their resources. We needed their bodies. We took what we liked, and we killed so many of them.”

  I could feel the tears streaming down my cheeks. My face burned as I cried. My father had taken people against their will. He’d taken people and brought them here to carry human children.

  “They look human, but many of our citizens have Malum blood running through their veins,” he said.

  “Why?” I whispered.

  “I didn’t think I had a choice. You’ll be a better queen one day. I know it.”

  I nodded.

  This seemed like a good time to drop the news.

  “I got married,” I told my father.

  Both of my parents turned to me, shocked. My father loosened his grip on my mother enough that she tried to use that moment to dart away, but he grabbed her again, shoving her back to her place on her knees. Once more, the knife was at her throat. She still held the goblet in her hands.

  “Who?” My father asked.

  “Me,” Ryssi said, stepping into the room. He was holding Piper by the throat like she was some sort of captive. My father noticed this but said nothing.

  “The prince,” my father said.

  “So, you recognize me,” Ryssi murmured.

  “I’m sorry for what I did.”

  “It’s too late for apologies,” Ryssi pointed out. “You hurt our people for too long.”

  “Then you betrayed the people of Gideon by not being honest,” I added. We’d lost years where we could have been trading, communicating, and helping each other because my father had decided to be money-hungry and power-hungry and just...hungry.

  He’d taken people, held them hostage, and killed them. I didn’t know all of the details, and I doubted if I’d ever find out everything that happened, but I knew one thing was for sure: he’d screwed us.

  The people of Gideon hated those on Malum with a deep vengeance. My entire generation had grown up believing that the people on Ryssi’s planet wanted to harm us, but that hadn’t been true, had it?

  Not at all.

  “I understand,” my father said. “Paige, since you have a mate, a husband, you will be queen when I’m gone.”

  I nodded, understanding what he was saying. My father had just confessed to a horrible crime. Ryssi and I had both heard him. So had Piper.

  So had the guard.

  My father was a brave king, but he was the kind of king who wasn’t going to subject himself to a trial, no matter how great his chances of winning might be.

  “I love you,” he told me.

  Then he grabbed the goblet from my mother’s hands and poured it into his mouth. He dropped the knife, grabbed her dress, and hauled her to her feet. He kissed her passionately, deeply. He kissed her with the power of a thousand moons, and then they both fell to the ground.

  Dead.

  I heard screaming. I couldn’t tell whether the sounds were coming from me or Piper as I threw myself to the ground. My parents were dead. My childhood had vanished. Everything I had known and loved about my world was gone.

  And I was to be queen.

  Chapter 21

  Ryssi

  Once we explained what had happened to the king and queen, Piper was hauled off to some sort of prison for princesses, and Paige was crowned queen.

  I was crowned king, destined to rule alongside her.

  The decision for us to stay on Gideon was an easy one. I was ready for a change from Malum, and Paige wasn’t ready to leave her planet. Now, she wouldn’t have to. She could stay here forever. She could grow old here.

  She could be happy here.

  There was no funeral for her parents. As Paige suspected, the guard had heard her father’s confession and had spread the word. Oh, he’d taken a vow of silence, but some gossip was just too juicy not to share.

  That had basically ensured that both the queen and king died being wildly hated by the people of Gideon.

  Paige proved to be a good queen: kind and loving. She donated a huge sum of money to Malum in order to launch a program that would help young parents on the planet get the resources they needed to raise their children well, and she instituted a new curriculum in all of the Gideon schools that discussed the real conflicts between Malum and Gideon.

  She’d been queen for nearly three weeks when she broke down crying in our royal chambers, and I knelt beside her and held her.

  I tugged her into my arms, unable to bear the sight of her tears. Every day that I got to spend with Paige was better than the last. Each day, she showed me more and more what it meant to love and be loved.

  I’d never dared to dream that I’d be able to find someone as wonderful or incredible as her, yet I had. I’d been lucky to find her when I did. We’d both been lucky. As much as I hated Jax, he’d basically ensured I’d been able to find the woman of my dreams. I had to be thankful for that.

  “What is it, princess?” I whispered.

  “I’m a queen now,” she corrected.

  “You’ll always be my princess.”

  She looked up at me, and something in my face seemed to make her cry even more.

  “Oh, Ryssi,” she murmured, grabbing me. She kissed me over and over, and then she pulled away. “Do you want to divorce me now?”

  The question caught me off-guard, and I pulled away.

  No.

  Never.

  Not her.

  I didn’t want a divorce from her. I wanted nothing of the kind. The only thing I wanted was to love her, to cherish her. I wanted to take care of her forever and always.

  “No,” I told her.

  “What?”

  “No,” I repeated. “I do not want to divorce you.”

  “I know that our marriage was something you did as a favor to me,” she whispered. We’d talked about this before, but she still wasn’t used to the idea that someone could love her for her. She didn’t hadn’t fully accepted the fact that I viewed myself totally as her mate: her one and only.

  That was what she was to me, too.

  I stroked her cheek, looking at her.

  “Darling, you were the one who did me the favor.”

  “Really?”

  “I was living in a cave,” I laughed, kissing her nose. I gestured to the room we were in. “Do you really think that was better than what we have now?”

  “So, you married me for my money, is that what you’re saying?”

  “Definitely,” I winked sarcastically. I kissed her again. Then I pulled away and looked at her carefully.

  Paige was brave.

  Brilliant.

  Wonderful.

  She was the kind of woman most men could only dream of falling in love with one day, but she was also scared. She’d lost everything in the world. She’d lost the history of her planet. She’d lost her twin. She’d lost her former fiancé. She’d lost her parents.

  She wasn’t going to lose me, too.

  “I know what we said,” I told her, “but I meant our marriage vows. You’re mine, princess.”

  “I am?”

  “You are.”

  I lifted her up and tugged her toward the floating platform in the center of the room. The bed hovered a few feet off of the ground and I placed her on it. She bounced on the soft mattress, which didn’t have blankets or pillows. It was made of a soft material that was so wonderfully bouncy that we didn’t need anything else.

  It also warmed or cooled automatically, adjusting to our natural body heat, which meant it was just about the perfect bed.

  “I love you,” I climbed up onto the platform with her.

  “I love you, too,” she said. She kissed me, and as we started to lose ourselves in one another, I knew that I really was the luckiest bastard in the entire world.

  I got to be married to Queen Paige of Gideon, and I was going to do everything in my power to show her I was worthy, and that she was loved.

  She was so, so loved.

  Epilogue

  Andy

  My brother had himself a bride.

  Good for him.

  Ryssi and Paige were going to rule Gideon together, which honestly shocked me. It wasn’t that my brother would make a bad king. On the contrary – he’d be a fantastic ruler. I’d always known he would be.

  The reality was that he was basically born to rule. He was strong and quick-witted, even-tempered, and he was charismatic as fuck.

  Everyone he met either wanted to fuck him or fight him, which was a pretty damn good way to live your life, if you asked me.

  Still, I hadn’t expected a human to sweep him off his feet the way that Paige had. She’d crashed into Malum like a tornado, and she’d broken down my brother’s defenses. She was everything he’d ever needed and more.

  Good for them.

  As I made my way down the halls of the castle, I thought about their new position in life. The two of them were going to rule over Gideon. They were going to change the way the citizens of their planet viewed the rest of the universe, and hopefully, with their heads together, they were going to create a beautiful future for both of our planets.

  It was the ultimate love story.

  I reached my private office and paused outside of the door. Someone was inside waiting for me: someone I really, really didn’t want to deal with. I took a deep breath, and then I placed my palm on the door.

  “I can hear you breathing,” the feminine voice called out.

  Fuck.

  “You might as well come inside and get this over with.”

  Did I have to?

  I had to, didn’t I?

  I sighed and pushed the door open. Sure enough, standing at nearly seven feet tall was the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid eyes on.

  She was also the wildest.

  “Andy,” she said, smiling.

  “I see you’ve made yourself comfortable at my desk,” I pointed out the fact that she was leaning against my desk that sat in the center of the room. It had been carved out of wood from the planet Sapphira, which meant that it had a beautiful deep-blue hue. “Also, I prefer to be addressed as King Andryssi.”

 

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