“You want to know a secret?” Jasmine asked, as the waiter set her plate in front of her. Ryu sighed with relief when he saw that the entrée was prawn cocktails. It was a typical Iderhean dish, rather than a Galandanish one – an attempt to make their guests feel welcome, he supposed – but at least it was seafood, instead of the heavy meat dishes that were so popular in Arctesia.
“What secret?” he asked, telling himself he was being ridiculous. Up until thirty seconds ago, he’d had no problem at all with Jasmine and had even been enjoying her company.
“Parents don’t get any easier to deal with once you’re an adult,” Jasmine said, cocking a wry eyebrow at him. “I’m nineteen, I’ve started my own business – organic cosmetics, not that you’d be into that sort of thing – and I spend four weeks a year travelling while I’m campaigning for better environmental protections for our coral reefs. But at home, my mother still brushes my hair every night and reminds me to take a jacket in case it gets cold outside. There were these sweet biscuits I liked when I was a kid, with red currants and vanilla icing. She still makes the kitchen staff keep a packet in our villa because she thinks they’re my favourite. I have to sneak them out of the house every now and then and feed them to the neighbour’s dog, so she thinks I’m eating them.”
It seemed a lot of effort to go to when she could just as easily have told her mother she didn’t like them, and Ryu opened his mouth to say so… until he remembered that he allowed his own mother to think he had a fondness for ice cream, so that he could go for walks in the park without her fretting about his whereabouts.
“I get it,” he said. “They want to protect us, and they try to do what’s best for us, but even so, I wish they’d just realise that we’re all going to grow up one day.”
“Speaking of people being overprotective,” Jasmine said, “I’ve noticed that your bodyguard rarely takes his eyes off you.”
Automatically, Ryu glanced over at Kentario. Sure enough, he was watching Ryu. On seeing that he’d been spotted, Kentario quirked one eyebrow up in an expression of boredom, then returned his attention to his plate.
“Kentario’s cool,” Ryu immediately defended him to Jasmine. “Yeah, he wants to protect me, but he still lets me be my own person. More than most other people do.”
“So that’s why he watches you, is it?” The way she said it made Ryu look over at her, not quite understanding what she was getting at.
“Why else would it be?”
He glanced over at Kentario again. The man’s eyes were once more trained in his direction.
“It’s just that we’re all sitting around a dinner table, inside the palace, nothing dangerous going on,” Jasmine said, a coy undertone to her voice. “I thought perhaps there might be another reason.”
CHAPTER NINE
Five o’clock in the morning was a truly hideous time to be awake. Even in summer, Galandanish nights could be cool, and Ryu hunched his shoulders as he stood at the podium that had been set up at the top of the hill, trying to stop the wind from stealing down inside his suit jacket. They were positioned at the high end of a wide, grassy park situated above the city, and up here, there was nothing to stop the wind surging in from across the plains, bringing with it the last hints of icy drifts from the mountains far to the north.
“Gosh, it’s a bit fresh out here, isn’t it?” Jasmine said from beside him. She was dressed in a flowing gown, swirling colours little more than muted greys in the dim light, and Ryu felt a rush of sympathy for her. He, at least, had a jacket to keep him warm. The poor woman looked half frozen.
Sadly, though, decorum prevented him from offering her his jacket. The day of the Festival of the Goddess had finally arrived, and in just a few minutes, they would begin the Dawn Ceremony, the early morning prayers and the offerings of flowers and grain for the Goddess televised across the nation. After the priestesses gave their opening prayer, Ryu and Jasmine were to read a prepared speech, thanking the Goddess for her gifts over the past year and reciting a traditional request for her blessing for the year to come.
A bevy of television cameras were set up just metres away, while the king and queen sat in the front row of a bank of chairs, alongside Jasmine’s aunt and a handful of other distinguished guests. Kentario was waiting off to the side, staying out of the way of the cameras, but still keeping a close eye on things. He was in a foul mood this morning, having had an argument last night with Maro over whether or not the Captain was going to pull him off duty again during the Festival. Maro had basically told him to pull his head out of his ass, and Kentario, predictably, had taken exception to thecomment. Even so, he still looked absolutely gorgeous in his Royal Guard uniform – or perhaps even more so, given his brooding air – and Ryu was having trouble concentrating on his official role in the ceremony.
Gamely, a few hundred members of the public had also come out for the ceremony, and they stood just down the hill, the podium’s elevated position giving them a prime view of the speeches and prayers to come. Off to the side, a handful of priestesses were gazing at the sky, eagerly anticipating the exact moment that dawn would arrive, so they could begin their prayers.
“I take it you’re not a morning person either?” Jasmine asked, keeping her voice low so that the waiting cameras couldn’t pick up what she was saying.
“Not at all,” Ryu said. “Until last week, I didn’t even know five o’clock in the morning existed.”
Jasmine laughed, though her teeth chattered at the same time. “I would kill for a cup of coffee right about now. What do you bet that by nine o’clock, there are four different rumours that you and I are getting married?”
Ryu raised his eyebrows, a sardonic smirk on his lips. “I said the exact same thing to my mother when she told me you were coming to visit.”
“It’s only to be expected,” Jasmine said, sounding far calmer than Ryu felt about the ongoing intrusions into his private life. “After all, I’m nineteen and I haven’t announced my soulmate yet. You’re seventeen and you haven’t even registered your mark yet. There are plenty of blanks people want to fill in, and if we don’t give them answers, they’ll just make them up. Odin’s balls, it’s cold up here!” she complained, swiftly changing topic.
“Dawn will be here any moment,” Ryu said, trying to sound optimistic. Then, to try and distract her from the cold, he asked, “Do you know who your soulmate is yet?” Just because she hadn’t announced it publicly didn’t mean she didn’t know. And though he didn’t want to admit it, he was curious to know whether she was actually serious about that marriage comment. It wouldn’t be the first time a foreign princess had started eyeing off the Galandanish throne.
“Nah,” she said dismissively. “I got a notification from SoulWorks, but I never followed up on it. I just think I’m too young at the moment to be worrying about marriage. I want to work on my business and travel a bit more…”
“You’re worried someone’s going to pressure you to start having babies,” Ryu guessed, and from Jasmine’s grimace, he knew he’d hit the nail on the head.
“Maybe I shouldn’t be so worried,” she said, shrugging her narrow shoulders. “After all, my mother’s an omega, and the queen, and she justdamn well puts her foot down whenever anyone gets in her face. Maybe I could do the same thing.”
“But?” Ryu prompted her, when she didn’t continue.
“But it’s all just so stupid. Everyone said an omega could never be queen – or king, for that matter – but my mother’s dad was an only child, and she was an only child, and by the time her father died, there were no other real options but to let her be queen. But even though she’s proven an omega can wield power just as effectively as any alpha, people still look at me and think ‘oh heck, she’s an omega, she’s never going to be a decent queen’. Can I ask you a really personal question?” Jasmine asked suddenly. “I don’t mean to be rude. I really don’t.”
“What do you want to know?”
