Stolen (Royally Hot 1)

“The way you’re looking at me now, I’m not so—”

Bors growled. “I said that hasn’t fucking changed. You’re mine, Sara. Don’t you dare ever doubt it. Your father will have to kill me to take you from me.”

“My father? I thought the marriage would put an end to his claim?”

He rose naked before me. He placed his hand to his jaw and dragged his fingers down his stubble with a sandpapery hiss as he turned on the spot, muttering to himself, and I knew in my heart something had changed the moment he saw that particular birthmark.

“Bors,” I insisted, “what does my father have to do with this?”

He met my eyes, chewing the inside of his cheek, then dropped his voice, falling back to his knees, his long arms pulling me into his hard chest where I heard the thumping of his heart as he rumbled into my ear.

“The man that raised you is not your father,” he said, and the warmth and love I’d felt moments earlier turned to ash in that moment.

Bors

In one second, she went from being my future wife to my future queen.

Beneath her left buttock, right where she would never see no matter how she twisted herself, she bore the unmistakable mark of the stolen royal—a crescent moon with a star in its hollow. I had seen the image many times over the past eighteen years, on banners that hung from the castle battlements a hundred miles to the east, on the royal guards’ ornamental shields, on parchment pinned to inn walls in every town close to the capital.

Once a year, the town crier in the capital shouted the same words, holding aloft the symbol for all to see:

Hear ye, hear ye, one and all. Should any subject of this kingdom see this mark upon the body of a young woman, present the woman before King Rowan, for she is the lost daughter of the realm and the heir to the throne. Hear ye, hear ye…

I was fucking stunned. Of course, the town crier had never mentioned where on the young woman’s body that mark would be found. It would be a shocking disrespect to the kingdom to mention such a place. I could hardly believe it myself, and yet it wasn’t hard to believe at all. She’d been my princess from the beginning. This was just confirmation of what I’d known in my gut all along.

“What do you mean, the man that raised me is not my father?” Sara asked, tears glazing her brilliant-green irises. “Bors, what’s going on, what do my birthmarks have to do with it?”

She was the missing royal. Chosen. Fucking blessed by God himself.

All the instincts that had told me I wasn’t good enough for her were true.

More true than I could have imagined, yet it didn’t make any difference. She was mine now, and the king and God and the entire fucking army would never take her from me.

Their authority would never take precedence over the authority of my heart.

I took her face in my hands, sweeping her tears aside. “Sara, you’re the lost princess. You’re the heir to the throne.”

Her smile broke through her confusion, then she laughed. “I’m no such thing.”

Now I made sure she could tell I was serious, deadly serious. “You are though, Sara. Your father…” I reached down to her ass, slipping my fingers under her lush flesh, revealing the mark, tracing it. “Your real father is the king.”

Her hand darted to mine as I splayed my fingers, letting hers feel the mark. “That’s crazy. Because of one birthmark? It’s just a birthmark, Bors, it’s not some divine symbol. I have dozens.”

“Not like this.”

She shook her head. “I’m just a girl from Weschail. You know that.”

She was anything but just a girl, princess or not. Still, I knew I was going to have to prove it to her. I grabbed my britches, searching through the pockets, but not finding what I was looking for.

“Wait here,” I said, and went to my bags, returning with the paper clutched between my fingers. It had the name of a contact written on the back, from the last mission I’d run for the clan when I had to grab the nearest thing that could be written on. I thrust it into her hand. “Read it.”

Her eyes widened as she read, her cheeks flaming. “No, it’s not. Bors, it can’t be. It’s just coincidence.”

Casting around the room, I spotted a looking glass and grabbed it. The silver beneath the glass had crackled slightly, and the edges of the pattern made reflections from the firelight scatter around the room.

“See for yourself,” I said, handing her the mirror.

“It’s impossible,” she said, her eyes watery with disbelief as she shifted and turned, trying to maneuver the glass so that she could see the mark that dipped into the crevice of her ass. “I can’t be who you think I am. It looks like a moon, perhaps, but there’s no star. You’re wrong.”