2 Chapter 1

Two years ago

I was curled up on the chaise longue in our library, reading, when a knock sounded. Victoria's head rested in my lap and she didn't even stir when the dark wooden door opened and our mother stepped in, her dark blond hair pulled back tightly and fasted in a bun at the back of her head.

Mother was pale, her face drawn with worry.

"Did something happen?" I asked.

She smiled, but it was her fake smile. "Your father wants to talk to you in his study chamber."

I carefully moved out from under Victoria's head and put it down on the pillow. She drew her legs up against her body. She was small for an thirteen year old, but I wasn't exactly tall either with five foot four. None of the women in our family were. Mother avoided my eyes as I walked toward her.

"Am I in trouble?" I didn't know what I could have done wrong. Usually Victoria and I were the obedient ones; brother was the one who always broke the rules and got punished.

"Hurry. Don't let your father wait," Mother said simply.

My stomach was in knots when I arrived in front of Father's study. After a moment to stifle my nerves, I knocked.

"Come in."

I entered, forcing my face to be carefully guarded. Father sat behind his mahogany desk in a wide black armchair; behind him rose the mahogany shelves filled with books that Father had never read, but they hid a secret entrance to the basement and a corridor leading off the premises.

He looked up from a pile of scroll sheets, long grey hair slicked back. "Sit."

I sank down on one of the chairs across from his desk and folded my hands in my lap, trying not to gnaw on my lower lip. Father hated that.

I waited for him to start talking. He had a strange expression on his face as he scrutinized me. "The rebal and the Triad are trying to claim our territories.

They are getting bolder by the day. We're luckier than the Lamisil royals who also has to deal with the other issue but we can't ignore the threat the rebels and the Triad pose any longer."

Confusion filled me. Father never talked about work business to us.

Girls didn't need to know about the finer details of the royal business. I knew better than to interrupt him.

"We have to lay our feud with the Rousseau Royal Family rest and combine forces if we want to fight back the Rebels and the Triad."

Peace with the Rousseau Royal Family? Father and every other member of the Chantelle Royal family hated the Rousseau Royal Family.

They had been killing each other for decades and only recently decided on ignoring each other in favor of killing off the members of other crime organizations, like the Rebel and the Triad.

"There is no stronger bond than blood. At least the Royalties got that right."

I  frowned.

"Born in the blue blood.

Sworn for the blue blood. That's their motto."

I nodded but my confusion only grew.

"I met with his majesty the king of Atmos Rousseau yesterday."

Father met with the King of de neighbor Capital , the head of the Atmos Rousseau Royal Family ?

A meeting between Rousseau and Chantelle royals hadn't taken place in a decade and the last time hadn't ended well.

It was still referred to as the Bloody Monday. And Father wasn't even the leader.

He was only the prime minister , the current adviser to His highness who ruled over our nation. and with it the crime in the Aroma kingdom .

"We agreed that for peace to be an option we had to become family."

Father's eyes bored into me and suddenly I didn't want to hear what else he had to say. "His Highness and I agreed that you would marry his oldest son , the future King of the Atmos Rousseau."

I felt like I was falling. "Why me?"

"Our Majesty and The King of Atmos have been talking through the letters several times in the last few weeks, and Rousseau King wanted the most beautiful girl for his son.

Of course, we couldn't give him the daughter of one of our soldiers.

His majesty doesn't have daughters, so he said you were the most beautiful girl available."

Victoria ( her younger sister the sixth princess) was just as beautiful, but she was younger. That probably saved her.

"There are so many beautiful girls," I choked. I couldn't breathe. Father looked at me as if I was his most prized possession.

"There aren't many Nobel girls with hair like yours. The king described it as golden." Father guffawed. "You are our new hope for peace into the Atmos Rousseau Royal Family."

"But, Father, I'm sixteen. I can't marry."

Father made a dismissive gesture. "If I were to agree, you could. What do we care for laws? we have the law maker right beside us. "

I gripped the armrests so tightly, my knuckles were turning white, but I didn't feel pain. Numbness was working its way through my body.

"But I told The king of Atmos Rousseau that the wedding would have to wait until you turn eighteen. Your mother was adamant you be of age and finish all that lady schooling. His majesty let her begging get to him."

So The king had told my father the wedding had to wait. My own father would have thrown me into the arms of my future husband now.

My husband. A wave of sickness crashed over me. I knew only two things about the Crown Prince Nikos ; first that he would become the head of the Atmos Rousseau once his father abdicated or died, and he got his nickname 'The Zuko ' for crushing a man's throat with his bare hands.

I didn't know how old he was. My cousin Vivian the sixteenth princess had to marry a man twenty years her senior. Luca couldn't be that old, if his father hadn't abdicated yet. At least, that's what I hoped. Was he cruel?

He'd crushed a man's throat. He'll be the king of a nation .

"Father," I whispered. "Please don't force me to marry that man."

Father's expression tightened. "You will marry Nikos Rousseau . I shook hands on it with his father the King.

You will be a good wife to Nikos, and when you meet him for the Engagement celebrations, you'll act like an obedient lady."