Page 39 of This Is Not True Love’s Kiss

“Your Majesty!” I looked over to see Ceri, Marsten, and Meera with their heads tipped downward while Ronan sat in a chair staring at me with his dark expressionless eyes.

Marsten stood, twirling a long strand of his brown hair around a finger. “Are you joining us for wine and cheese night?” He put a hand to his chest.

“No,” I said slowly. “I am here because I heard our prisoner is getting drunk.” I shot a look at Meera. “You’re supposed to be guarding him.”

It was my idea to have my advisor look after the prisoner, and the last thing I needed was for Meera to mess this up and Lor to hold it against me as a reason I should cede my crown. I couldn’t afford any mistakes to be made right now.

“Ceri always serves warm milk,” Meera said as if that was a good explanation for why she’d brought the prisoner along.

Ceri’s eyebrows shot up. “He’s not drinking. Just enjoying a little cheese.”

I wasn’t sure how everyone could be treating this man like he wasn’t their sworn enemy. He’d been part of a group actively trying to destroy them for years, and they were just welcoming him to wine and cheese night.

Like Ceri could read my mind, she said, “Everyone deserves a second chance. Ronan’s been telling us a bit about his journey. The brotherhood recruited him when he was just a child after they killed his parents.”

I sighed heavily and looked at Meera, who was lapping up milk from a shallow bowl on the ground. “Don’t you dare take your eyes off him for a moment.”

I half turned to leave when Ceri spoke. “Do you want to join us?” She gestured toward the yellow couch and bright blue polka-dot chairs on either side of it. “We have plenty of wine.”

“Just like the old days,” Meera said, whiskers twitching.

Marsten looked between my advisor and me. He crossed his legs, his colorful yellow skirt swishing around them. “Okay, color me intrigued. What happened in the old days?”

I stared at the jug of wine sitting on the round coffee table. “We’d often sneak wine from the cellar and get drunk. It turned into a weekly tradition. A wine night.”

“No cheese?” Marsten wrinkled his nose.

“We didn’t exactly have access to cheese as slaves.”

“Ah.” Marsten grimaced. “Right.”

Ronan hadn’t said a word, just watched me with his dark eyes.

Maybe it was better if I stayed and kept an eye on him. I didn’t trust him, not one bit.

“Alright, then.” I reached out a hand. “Give me a glass.”

* * *

I was no longer sure my head was attached to my body. I sat in one of the polka dot chairs, drinking my eighth—no, ninth?—glass of wine.

“I still can’t believe you broke up with Brock,” Ceri said, nudging Marsten from next to him on the couch..

“Who’s Brock?” Ronan asked, sitting in the chair opposite mine. He’d said very little over the course of the night, just watching and taking everything in.

“My boyfriend,” Marsten said.

“He’s one of your guards,” Meera added, from where she lay on the floor, belly distended and full of warm milk.

I leaned back in my chair, swirling my wine and thinking through all the royal guards’ faced. Lor had made me sit down with him and meet each and every one after we’d first been coronated. “Is he the one with the dark complexion?” If I was thinking of the correct guard, he was very handsome. Ebony skin and tight curls that haloed his head. A bit like Ronan, actually.

“Ugh, that’s the one.” Marsen slumped and took a huge gulp of his wine.

“I still don’t get it,” Ceri said. “Things were going so well.”

“You talked about him nonstop,” Meera grumbled, and Marsten shot her a look that made me laugh.

Everyone looked at me, and I held out a hand. “Sorry,” I said. “I can’t feel my face so I’m a little loopy right now.”