Page 34 of King's Heir of Hate

“Are you mad? I am the king. I live on no terms but my own.”

“Can you imagine,” she said, as if he hadn’t spoken, even more quietly this time, “who you would be if you hadn’t let your father’s fear transform you?”

Tadeo wasn’t even aware of moving back, of staggering away from her as if she’d hauled off and punched him. All he knew wasthat she asked him that question, and he was gone. He had to put distance between them. He had todosomething.

Anything.

He didn’t know how long it took him to make it back up the hill from the lake. He was soaking wet, dressed in his dripping clothes when he came back to himself somewhere in the palace. He was also dripping on the floor.

He stood there, his head ringing and that question repeating again and again and again, until he became aware of Arturo there beside him.

“Your Majesty appears to be in need of a towel,” said the older man, with his typical restraint. And understatement.

“Among other things,” Tadeo muttered.

But he allowed the old servant to usher him up the back stairs through the palace, so that no one needed to see the King in his waterlogged state. A glance in the mirrors they passed suggested that his appearance would likely scare off anyone unlucky enough to venture near.

He rather alarmed himself.

His team would faint dead away.

“The Queen is in a similar state,” he told Arturo when they reached his rooms. “It would be better if she did not parade through the palace as I suspect she will want to do.”

“Say no more, sir,” Arturo said.

“You can bring her to my office when she is dried off,” Tadeo said darkly.

He showered, then dressed. And found that he was still vibrating with that same fury. Because that’s what it was, he assured himself. Sheer, unadulterated fury at her temerity. At her games.

Ather.

He walked back through the palace, taking his usual route this time. Now that he was dry and looked like himself again.Tadeo walked from his rooms, out of the private wing and down into the public areas, where courtiers bowed and curtsied as he passed and everywhere he turned his head, there were more emblems of the rich history of his country. His family.

His future.

What was important, he told himself sternly, was that a man keep a cool head so that he could better navigate the demands of his position.

As he thought that, it was like he could suddenly hear an echo from the past. From that part of his past he much preferred to keep locked away.

He could remember walking down this same hall, headed to the same office where his father had once sat, always so clear-eyed and reserved.

Tadeo remembered how excited he’d been to share the good news about his meeting with Princess Esme with his father at last. The miraculous news, to his way of thinking—though he cringed when he thought about it now—that he had met Esme of Clarebonne, and it had gone… Better than merelywell. Much, much better. An entire year of better.

That they were in love.

He could still remember how he’d felt that afternoon. It had been late summer outside, the lake sparkling with all the light, yet no match for how he’d felt inside. How he had been nearly bursting at the seams, so certain that his father would be delighted.

His father had impressed upon him—repeatedly—that Tadeo could make no decision more important than who he chose to marry. As a king, Tadeo would need to rely on his queen and trust her to carry out her own duties in concert with him. Royal marriages required cool heads and careful planning, King Hugo had always told him.

That was why Tadeo’s marriage had been planned for him.

Never had Tadeo been so grateful for a good plan.

She is…nothing short of amazing, he had gushed when his father had waved him toward a seat and asked him what he had to say for himself. King Hugo’s preferred conversation opener, even with the son he hadn’t seen in many months.She is a marvel. I do not know how it is you and her father managed to set us up so brilliantly, but I couldn’t be happier. Neither one of us can believe our luck.

He wasn’t certain when it had occurred to him that his father had not responded in some time. That he only sat there, his gaze seeming cooler and more distant by the moment. Tadeo remembered when the chill in the room had finally penetrated the haze he’d been in.

How he’d felt it roll through him, like he’d suddenly found himself standing outside in a snowstorm.