Keeping the queen from killing Vivian and Titus would be a feat. Her innocent face didn’t fool Roman for a second. How many people had his mother madedisappear, he wondered.
“If they’re found, I want them brought tome,” Roman added. “They’re mine to deal with.”
The queen smiled brightly. “As long as I can watch.”
* * *
Low murmurs and a closing door roused Violet from a fitful sleep. The morning’s events crashed into her, and she stared blankly into the abyss. Vivian might not like her, but this was unforgivable. All she’d had to do was tell Violet Titus had once been hers and Violet would have backed off from the start. Instead, she’d waited until Violet fell in love before she ripped him away.
Titus wasn’t innocent either. He’d lied their entire relationship and had the gall to spend time with her and tell her he loved her while secretly meeting Vivian. The hurt in her chest burned to ash, engulfed by her rage.
She sat up and grabbed the closest thing she could reach, her alarm clock, and threw it against the wall with a scream. The metal bells clanged loudly along with the shattering of the glass face.
The door to her room slammed open and Roman’s wild eyes landed on her, assessed her for injuries, then traced the room. He glanced from the broken clock on the floor to her and lifted a brow. “I didn’t take you as a thrower.”
She raised her chin. “There’s a lot about me you don’t know.” The smirk on his face taunted her as if to say,No there’s not.
He backed out of the room and Violet fell back on her bed, jumping when War’s tongue coated her hand in slobber. “Ew.” She shot up and glared at him. “You know I hate when you do that.” She didn’t have proof, but she was certain he could produce extra slobber on demand.
Things clattered in the other room, piquing her curiosity until she climbed out of bed to investigate. The queen and her lorix were nowhere to be seen, and the afternoon sun sat low in the sky.How long was I asleep?
She stalled in the kitchen's doorway and stared slack-jawed at the battlefield of Roman’s making. “What the hell are you doing?”
The four-person rectangular table lay on its side, the flat tabletop surface facing the far wall. Her wall décor was missing, and the shelves on the side wall, once filled with extra dishes, were now empty. Said missing dishes sat in neat little stacks on the underside of the turned-over table.
Roman twirled around with an armful of plates and lifted them. “Getting ammunition.” He strolled to the table and set the plates next to the other dishes, then tapped the floor next to him. “Get down here.”
Too shocked to argue, she grabbed one of the table legs and lowered herself to her knees. “Have you lost your mind?”
In lieu of an answer, he passed her a ceramic teacup. “As soon as you throw it, duck behind the table so the shards don’t bounce back and hit you.”
She stared at the teacup in her hand. “Throw it?” Her brain worked hard to catch up to the absurdity.
“Like this.” He rose to his knees, took the teacup from her, cocked his arm back, and let the very breakable object fly. The cup collided with the far wall just as he ducked back down behind the table.
Violet gaped at him, disarmed by his boyish smile. She peered over the table to where the ceramic shards littered the ground. “You broke my teacup.”
Roman jerked his thumb over his shoulder, in the direction of her room. “You broke your clock.”
Her heart swelled, which surprised her, because she thought it’d been smashed to bits like her innocent little teacup. Holding out her hand, she said, “My turn.”
Chuckling, Roman grabbed two saucers and handed her one. “On three?”
She grinned. “One. Two. Three!” The plates soared through the air, and Roman pulled Violet down behind the safety of the table. The satisfying crash of the dishes shattering against the wall released another sliver of the anger threatening to implode her world.
They locked eyes, and a plate appeared between them, slotted in Roman’s giant hand. Violet held out her own and wiggled her eyebrows. “Again, prince.”
Roman barked out a laugh, and she realized she’d not seen him laugh so freely in years. Sure, he’d laugh, but not like this. It never reached his eyes as it had when they were kids. She’d thought it was who he was now but watching him hide behind an old table with a stack full of dishes, she wondered if he’d been happy with Vivian after all.
Armed with more plates, Roman counted them down, and for the next hour, they broke down the rest of the barrier Violet had erected between them years ago.
* * *
Roman picked up Violet’s massive kitchen table as if it weighed nothing and flipped it upright.
A knock pattern rattled the front door. Announcing their presence for the entire world to hear to keep from spooking Violet wasn’t sustainable, so her friends and family created their own secret knocks. Roman didn’t have one yet, a fact she was reminded of when he frowned at the door seconds before Slayton burst through.
He opened his arms wide to pull her into a hug, but a massive hand shot out above Violet’s head and landed on Slayton’s forehead to push him back. “Touch her and I’ll kill you,” Roman warned.
