He folded his arms across his chest. “No.”
She froze. “No? You can’t say no.”Is that his favorite word?she thought sourly. “Go. Away.”
War looked between them, and Violet considered asking him to drag Roman out by the scruff of his neck. Roman stared at her long enough to make her fidget, and she glanced at the door. If she opened it and pushed him hard enough, maybe he would stumble and she could close the door before he regained his footing.
“Is there something fun under there?” Roman mused.
She bristled at his teasing tone. “I will drag you out myself.”
Roman’s slow grin promised a fight if she tried, and she turned to War. “Are you strong enough to drag him out?” The beast nodded, and Violet pointed at the infuriating prince. “I will give you all the juicy steaks you could ever want and pet you for an hour every day if you’ll get him out of here.”
Roman shot forward and hauled Violet over his shoulder. She shrieked and struggled to escape his hold, but it was futile. He tutted. “That wasn’t very nice.”
“Put me down,” she ordered, trying to see around the prince’s body. “War, a little help would be nice.”
“He won’t hurt me while I’m holding you,” Roman informed her. She could practically feel his shit-eating grin. To his credit, War looked disgruntled at the fact. “We can do this one of two ways. Either you tell me willingly, or I tote you around for the rest of the day until you do.”
“Grow up and put me down,” Violet commanded, pointing at the ground.
He squeezed her thigh. “No.”
“Is that the only word in your vocabulary?” she asked tartly.
“Only when you make demands of me that I cannot deliver,” he affirmed. “I won’t let this go.”
Resigning to her fate, she dropped her arms and hung like a dead body. “I feel safe under things, especially my bed.”
Roman lowered her to the ground, wrapped one of his hands around the back of her neck, and tilted her chin to look at him with the other. “What’s frightened you?” She tried to extract herself from his hold, but he wouldn’t budge. “I’m not letting you go until you tell me who has you scared enough to hide.” The way he spoke promised of death, and it sent a chill down her spine.
“When you knocked, I thought it might have been rebels,” she admitted.
Roman’s murderous look turned stricken. “Princess,” he whispered and pulled her against his chest. “Nothing I say or do can make up for leaving you under that bed.” He buried his face in her hair and held her tight. “I’ll never forgive myself for doing this to you.”
He thinks it’s his fault?She pushed back and he reluctantly let her. “What happened wasn’t your fault. You know that, don’t you?” She watched him carefully, astonished to realize hedidblame himself. “Your duty is to the people of this kingdom. You couldn’t protect any of them had you stayed with me. Therebelstried to hurt me that day, not you.”
“What’s going on here?” Vivian’s sharp voice cut through the air from the kitchen doorway. Violet tried to jump back, but Roman tightened his hold.How did I not hear her open the back door?Her sister must have seen Roman’s horse outside and deliberately snuck inside.
Violet tried to free herself again, but Roman simply stared down at her as though Vivian didn’t exist. “Let me go,” she whispered hotly.
Broken from his trance, he unwrapped his arms and faced his mate. “I scared your sister.”
Vivian’s astute gaze slid between Roman and Violet. Fighting with her sister was the last thing Violet wanted. They didn’t have much of a relationship to begin with, and Vivian’s barbed tongue always hit its mark when they squabbled. “He banged on the door, and I hid under the settee,” Violet explained.
Vivian pinched the bridge of her nose as if Violet exasperated her. “You can’t hide every time you hear a loud noise, Vi.” Violet ground her teeth together and reminded herself Vivian could beat the shit out of her, but gods did she want to grab Vivian’s braid and yank her to the ground. “She hid under her desk once at school and the teacher had to send for our father,” Vivian told Roman. “It’s ridiculous.”
Two years ago, Violet hadn’t known they were renovating the school building’s roof. The workers scaled the building undetected, but something slipped and a loud crash sounded against the roof, followed by yelling and footsteps above. Violet’s vision had tunneled and she’d fallen to her knees to hide. Slayton had crouched on the floor beside her and held her hand until her father arrived.
It had been humiliating, but Slayton had threatened everyone in class within an inch of their lives when they’d laughed. Violet couldn’t prove it, but she suspected someone told her classmates about the rebel attack after she left because other than the day it happened, no one made fun of her again.
Violet didn’t want to be gossip fodder, and until now, she hadn’t thought about that day in a long time.
War snarled and his blade-like quills shot out of his mane. Vivian stumbled backward and tried to hide behind Roman, but the prince slid out of the way.
“What is wrong with you?” he fumed. “She isyoursister.”
Vivian regained her wits and whirled on Roman with vehemence. “Rebels are a part of our lives, and she needs to be ready to defend herself instead of running to hide at every little sound.” She motioned between herself and Violet. “How long until a rebel confuses her for me again?
“Everyone in the kingdom knows what I look like. Your parents made sure of that on our eighteenth birthdays when they sent a royal announcement to every news post in the kingdom with our pictures,” she said bitterly. “As long as I’m a target, so is she.”
