I stare at him hard. “Duty over love, huh?”
“Always.”
There’s a pricking behind my eyes and I shake my head. “What a fucking joke. What a coward you are.”
“Florence,” Courtland warns. “Don’t say something you’ll regret.”
“Oh, don’t worry, Court,” I say, rounding the table until I’m less than a foot away from the seething alpha. “I won’t regret this.”
“Come on then,” Sythe says, eyes hard. “Let’s hear it,cor mea.” He seems resigned to letting me rage, to letting me spew my angry words at him, and I’m not gonna lie, it takes some of the heat out of me.
“Why won’t you fight for us?” I ask, softly. He doesn’t answer, just stares at me. “If you didn’t marry Isadora, if you picked us instead, pickedmeinstead, what is the worst that could happen?”
“I’d be disowned,” he says back. “Stripped of my title, tossed out of the royal family.My family, cor mea.”
I nod. “Okay, and then what?”
He blinks. “Is that not enough?”
“That’s a lot. I’m just asking, what happens after that? You’re no longer a part of the royal family, you no longer have to follow the orders of the queen, then what?”
I’m trying to see if he can see what I do. How happy he could be if he’s just let go of his duty. He doesn’t want to bond with Isadora. I know that down to the depths of my soul. None of them do. But because of duty, they’re willing to tie themselves irrevocably to someone they don’t even like.
He shakes his head like he can’t even fathom not being tied to the royal family, like he never considered what it might be like to let go of his duty.
“I’m trying to give everyone what they need.”Duty above all else. Always.
“At great cost to yourself and to the rest of your pack. They don’t deserve to lose you.”
His hand reaches toward my face, like he might cup my cheek, but he stops before making contact. “You deserve to have a pack, Florence. You deserve to have yourfatedpack.”
I swallow and close the distance between his hand and my cheek, pressing into it. “I do,” I agree. “And that includes you.”
“If I did what you’re asking,cor mea, if I went against my family, I would havenothing, Florence. Don’t you get that?”
I flinch and he sees it, all of them do. Grieves releases a low warning growl. Not for me, but for his prime. Remorse is written on the prince’s face. “Ren, that’s not-”
“No, that is what you meant. And I actually- Fuck, I understand, Sythe. I do. You’ve been raised to believe you can only be one thing. The prince of Bravonne. The spare. The one that has to scramble to keep his grandmother happy. Become what she needs because if you don’t… then what the hell would your purpose be, right? I’ve been there, Forsythe. I lived it. My entire world shattered in one freaking second and suddenly I had no clue who the hell I was anymore. Without ballet…” I shake my head. “I’m not equating a job with your family.” Even if dancing wasn’t only a job to me. It was my passion, everything I’d worked for for years. I gave up having a pack for it. Gaveup creating a family for it. “I know that’s not even remotely the same thing. But Jesus, Forsythe, your family is asking you to commit to a lifetime ofmisery, for what exactly? So you can stand around like the good little spare you are just hoping and praying that you’ll finally earn your grandmother’s approval?”
I stare up at him, reach out and curl my fingers into the soft fabric of his shirt and wiggle him the slightest bit, trying to get him to be a little more flexible. Less rigid, even in the way he’s standing.
“So,” I say softly. “Let’s say you don’t do as your grandmother says. Let’s say you choose me. You choose all of us. You’re no longer the spare. Your grandmother is disappointed. Elizabeth is thrilled for you because she loves you. You aren’t bound by your duty. You don’t have to serve the crown every second of every day. You have time for hobbies and things you enjoy. No more press conferences. No more long intolerable meetings. You can spend your days doing what makes you happy once you figure out what that is. And at night you get to have us. Piers and me. Your pack. We can love you out in the open and you can love us in the open. And you can be happy.”
“Without my family. Without my purpose,” He grits out.
“Without yourgrandmother.And you’ll find a new purpose, Sythe. You just have to be brave enough to try.”
He stares at me for a long minute and I think maybe I’ve gotten through to him, maybe he’s finally starting to realize that he could have this, could have me and his pack, if only he would reach for us. But then he gives a sharp shake of his head, squaring his shoulders and clasping his hands behind his back.
“I will leave the pack and bond with Isadora. That should actually make my grandmother even happier. She’s never liked that Elizabeth and I both formed packs.”
“And her happiness is the most important thing in the world, of course,” I say sarcastically. “Not yours. Not mine. Notany of theirs.” I motion to his pack lined up behind me, before carefully, cautiously placing that same hand on his chest, right over his thundering heart. “You’re forgetting one very important thing, Forsythe, in all your grand scheming for martyrdom.”
His brow wrinkles and his gaze flicks from where my hand rests against him up to my eyes. “What’s that,cor mea?” The question is forced out of his throat. Tension rides his body, his arms flexing as though he’s restraining himself from reaching for me.
“If you break your bond to the pack, you break the scent match too.”
“What?” He growls.
