“If you want to go back,” she says hesitantly, offering herself up if it’s what Forsythe needs, what we need. “I could manage.”
“No,cor mea. No. There isn’t a chance in hell that I would put you through that. We’re staying.” He sounds grimly determined as he says it. “It was our plan all along to move here anyway.”
“It was?” Ren and Lizzie ask at the same time.
Ren tilts in his arms to look up at him. “Really?”
“Yes, really.” He smooths her blond hair back from her face. “This is your home, where you feel safe. Your family is here. Haven and Ginny and Moira. The Calloways, though I still don’t fully understand how you can view those savages as your family.”
She lets out a choked laugh and shakes her head. “Butyourfamilies are in Bravonne. You’re a prince, Sythe! You can’t just… you can’t just walk away from that.”
“I can,cor mea. If it means I get to have you, that I get to love Piers in the open for everyone to see? I can do fucking anything.” Oh Jesus. I blink back the tears that have suddenlysprung to my eyes as he lifts those warm brown eyes to mine, making me the same promise he’s made to Florence.
“We’ll get dual citizenship,” Thayer adds. “It shouldn’t be too terribly hard. Once things calm down in Bravonne, we can go back whenever we want.”
“This has always been the plan, bubbles.”
Her head whips in Grieves’ direction. “Really?”
“Really, Pix. We wouldn’t ask you to give up your family for us. What kind of villains do you think we are?”
“I’ve never thought of you as a villain, pretty boy.”
I can’t help but snort at that and she gives me a sharp look. “I mean it. Did you hurt me? Yes, undoubtedly. But I always knew your reasoning for it. Iunderstoodit. Having a sense of duty doesn’t make you a villain.”
I give her a soft smile. “I know, little bird.”
“So in the meantime we just wait?” Ren asks, turning her attention back to the phone.
“We can go house hunting!” Court all but crows. “I’ve been looking at houses near Haven. I like the larger sizes of the lots there, and most of them already have security fences and systems set up, so Grieves’ job would be pretty easy.”
Elizabeth’s warm chuckle comes through the speaker. “That sounds like a plan. Spend time together, figure out what your life is going to look like. I’ll handle things on my side.”
“What kind of things?” Ren asks.
“You know I’ve been working on getting her to abdicate,” Lizzie says and Florence goes still in Sythe’s arms. So still, I’m not even sure she’s breathing, while the princess continues on like she didn’t just drop a bomb on our pack. “Once that’s happened you’ll be welcomed back with open arms. You’ll have to weather her disdain of course, but that's not anything new.”
“How long?” Ren chokes out.
Elizabeth pauses. “Pardon?”
“How long have you been trying to get her to abdicate? How long has Forsythe known about it?”
“Ren,” the prince starts, but she holds up a hand to stall his words.
“How long, Lizzie?”
There’s a reluctance in the princess’s voice as she says, “I told him about it the night of the party at the palace.”
“So before the theater?”
“Yes.”
The look our omega turns on our prime is pure hurt. “Is that why you felt safe to choose me? You knew Elizabeth would be queen soon?”
He cups her cheeks in his hands, his side of the bond pulsing with sincerity. “No,cor mea. When she told me I’d already made my choice, had already decided to make my mistakes up to you, to choose you in as public a fashion as I could.”
“He made a point of very publicly putting Isadora in her place and claiming you as his omega that night,” Lizzie is quick to add. “I think we might have a recording of it, if you’d like to see it.”
