The knight in the corner snorted a laugh.

Her brother glared at the knight. In response, the knight covered his mouth with the back of his hand and struggled to control another burst of laughter.

“Emmaline,” said Flint. “Why don’t you take a seat while we talk about this?”

“I can stand just fine.” She crossed her arms. It wasn’t completely a lie. She was afraid she wouldn’t be able to get back up if she sat. “Who am I marrying? I know you didn’t like the old Marquis, but there are plenty of of nobles who’d take his place.”

The knight choked again.

“Get out!” Flint snarled at him.

The knight quickly bowed and left the room. Closing the door behind him.

Flint broke the silence by sighing and pressing the back of his fist to his forehead. Then he rounded the desk and lowered himself to a knee in front of Em.

She squirmed.

Wanting to move back but not daring to. She couldn’t give him even an inch of space if she wanted to keep the upper hand here!

Not that she was entirely certain she had the upper hand.

And… more silence.

Flint tightened and relaxed a fist on his knee several times. Pressing his lips firmer and firmer together.

Scary.

“Are you going to tell me or do I have to find someone else to?” Tears welled up. Dang it! Why was she such a crybaby in her dreams?! She’d stopped crying years ago, when she realized how stressed it made Maddie. “I already know I’m a burden and that’s why you want to get rid of me, so you can skip that part. I just want to know where I’m going.”

“Damn it!”

She flinched as Flint abruptly slammed a fist into his own knee.

Unconsciously, she lost her composure and took a step back. Shrinking away from the big, scary man.

“I have no experience with children.”

That was unexpected enough that Em stopped inching away to stare at him. Momentarily forgetting her tears.

“I was advised to be… sensitive.”

So?, thought Em with growing confusion. She stared blankly at him. Which seemed to agitate him further, and he decided the blunt approach was better than wondering what the hell to say that would be ‘sensitive’.

“You’ll be going to Silver Vale with me.”

Em’s mouth fell open.

“Silver Vale? What’s that?”

“Where’s that,” he corrected. “It’s my March. Or, soon will be my March. The official appointment isn’t for two more months, but I have a lot to do to make it presentable for the Crown Prince’s visit.”

“I still don’t know where it is.”

A few minutes later, she found herself sitting in her father’s old chair with a map spread out on the desk. Patiently, the big man pointed at various places on the map. The Empire, where the border now extended into the old Lycanthrope kingdom of Wyngarde, and Silver Vale.

Silver Vale was a March along Wyngarde’s northernmost border.

“Won’t the land be filled with angry lycans?” asked Em anxiously.

A muscle jumped in his jaw and she saw his eyes darken with anger as he looked away.

“There are a few left, but most of them have been moved to different parts of the Empire. Either as slaves or as resettled refugees. The Crown Prince has been sending people to replace them and work the land.”

Poor Prince, thought Em sadly as she looked back at the map.

His home had been completely torn apart and his people scattered.

“Do you feel sad for them?”

Surprised to be called out, she looked up at Flint’s face. Which had… softened somehow with the question.

“I know what it’s like to lose my home,” she told him. He raised an eyebrow. Oops, she couldn’t tell him about being in an endless coma and her impending death. Well, maybe she could, but she didn’t want this dream to end in a psyche ward. “Everyone leaving me counts.”

Flint closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

Awkwardly, he put a hand on her shoulder, grunted, and went to work folding the map to put it away.

“Why am I going to Silver Vale with you?”

“Because I have no one to leave you with.” Then, under his breath, he muttered, “No one I trust, anyway.”

“Then you’re not going to marry me off?” she pressed. She had to be sure.

“Why the hell would I marry off a child?”

“Felix was going to.”

Angrily, Flint yanked open a drawer in the cupboard to put the map away. “Felix was a greedy idiot who wouldn’t do an honest day’s work if I held a knife to his throat.”

Em laughed. And Flint stared at her, hand on the open drawer.

What was so funny about that?

Taking a deep breath, Flint controlled his anger enough to not slam the drawer.

“Besides, there are too many people who would take advantage of you. I can’t trust just anyone with your safety.”

“What do you mean?”

Instead of answering, Flint strolled across the room and opened the door.

“Now that I’ve answered your question, I have more work to do before we leave. And you need to oversee your packing. Pack only one trunk for the initial journey. Everything else we’ll ship later, so make sure your maid knows what things you want to be sent.”

There was no arguing with that tone, so Em once again found herself standing outside the office.

This wall was becoming too familiar.

As she trudged back to her room, her mind raced with the one question he wouldn’t answer.

Was he…?

Was the openly horrible brother trying to protect her?

***

Crown Princess Madeline Dulce.

It was ridiculous to call her ‘Crown Princess’ yet. She was still seven months away from the dreaded wedding, after all. Shouldn’t she be called by such a lofty title after the knot was tied?

She suspected it was her fiance’s doing.

If the Crown Prince referred to his soon-to-be bride by the title, who dared disagree?

What was even worse was this damn boring tea party! Don’t these women have better things to do than gossiping like a bunch of crippled hags over the washing?

No, no they didn’t.

The ones hand-picked for her to associate with were mostly idiots who knew little beyond the end of an embroidery needle. Oh, and what affair the most eligible man in the Empire was involved in.

It was nauseating.

So in protest, Madeline Dulce came to this tea party dressed like a glamourized version of a mercenary and sat at a table with the silliest of the women. Just so she could at least make fun of them in her mind as she slouched in her seat and purposefully held her teacup wrong.

Most of the women held her in too much contempt to be seriously nervous about the presence of ‘the Crown Princess’. With a rare exception here and there.

That was fine.

She wasn’t here to intimidate them, anyway. She had more serious business to do, but she had to endure this damn tea party first.

“Did you hear?”

The woman, Countess Penelope, sat forward with sparkling eyes. Or was it Countess Terrisa? Madeline got them mixed up and didn’t feel a need to correct herself. (Because their annoyance at her was amusing.)

Right now the other woman was purposefully pretending Madeline wasn’t there. By skimming her eyes around the table and ridiculously looking up and over Madeline’s chair instead of looking at her.

“Hear?”

“Yes,” probably-Penelope went on eagerly. “It’s about Baron Grimshaw!”

“Wasn’t the Baron’s memorial last week? Do you mean him or Flint Grimshaw?”

For once, Madeline’s ears pricked at the conversation. She usually listened anyway (there wasn’t much else to do), but she knew that name.

And that man.

Her heart fluttered, and she had to take a deep breath to calm it.

“The new Baron, Flint.” Penelope clapped her hands, eyes widened in horror. “There was a duel at the memorial!”

Exclamations ran around the table, and Madeline took a sip of her tea. Heart racing but for other reasons.

“What happened?!”

As Penelope went into all the details, Madeline’s hand shook and she had to put her tea down. Instead, reaching for a cookie to cover the trembling.

Relief washed over her as Penelope got to the ending.

Madeline should have guessed the ending. After all, he was being referred to as ‘the new Baron’.

The only reason these stupid girls were taking an interest in a mere Baron was because he was soon to be a powerful Marquis…

And because he was handsome.

… Very handsome.

She bit into a third cookie and slowly chewed.

It had not been a waste to give him that charm after all. It had been funny to see the look of consternation on his face when he found out that the Crown Princess had summoned him merely to bestow a trinket in secrecy.

It was a dangerous move. If her fiance had so much as suspected she might like another man…

She shook her head.

The Crown Prince may not actually love her, but he was possessive. She wouldn’t risk anyone’s life that way.

Technically, Flint Grimshaw wasn’t even an essential part of her plans. She could have ignored his existence and still been able to proceed.

It was just… it was Flint Grimshaw.

So she’d taken a chance.

She’d done it in the name of gratitude, and that was all. Grimshaw had watched her back during her mercenary days and deserved a reward.

She shuddered remembering how the Crown Prince had cornered her afterward.

Thiago Cyrin, Crown Prince of the Cyrin Empire. Respected, feared, and monstrous.

As though he’d been waiting for the interview to end, he’d stalked into her sitting room the instant Grimshaw left and… She shuddered.

Not wanting to remember what she’d had to do to appease his anger.

Until her personal nightmare was over, she couldn’t hope for even friendship from someone like Flint Grimshaw.

Much less what she actually wanted.

She’d lost track of the conversation as her thoughts wandered and was brought back with a start when she realized they were all staring at her. Even Penelope.

“What?”