Felix and the Prince (Forever Wilde 2)

I clenched my hand into a fist. “That fucking bastard.”

Usually she would admonish me for speaking about my king in that way but she remained silent. Which was pretty much confirmation she agreed with me.

I let out a long sigh. “I’m not ready for this,” I admitted.

She turned to gaze into my eyes. “It’s time for you to grow up and take his place, Lior.”

I felt a thick lump form in my throat at the sound of my name. My mother had only ever called me LJ. To her, Lior was a name reserved for the king. My mother, with her American ways, had jokingly referred to me as Lior Junior from early on, while my father and everyone else called me Lio.

“I don’t know if I can,” I said.

She shifted on the edge of the love seat next to me and sat up straight again, all signs of fatigue slipping away with a clearing of her throat. This was the queen of Liorland in all her glory.

“Whether you can or not remains to be seen, Lior. The fact of the matter is… you will.”

Chapter 2

Felix

When I woke up, I was pretty sure a band of malicious teens was slamming my head in a door. I heard snickering and giggling, which only made it worse. Way worse.

“Fuck,” I mumbled. Someone’s nasty breath just about knocked me out until I realized I was shoved face-first under a pillow, alone. Which meant it was my own noxious breath, and clearly my head wasn’t being slammed in a door. It was a hangover, something I wasn’t overly familiar with.

“Fuck.” This time it was more of a whimper.

“Open up, buttercup.” It was a voice as familiar as a sibling’s would be if I had one. My older cousin Hudson was a pain in the ass.

“Go ’way,” I croaked. “Dead. Dead and dying.”

The door next to me opened more fully. I recognized the furnishings of Doc and Grandpa’s bunkhouse and I blinked, trying to remember how I’d ended up here, especially since I had a permanent bedroom in their house as well as my own small cabin on the property. The night before had been the big annual holiday party with all my family and half the town in attendance. I’d probably decided to stay near my cousins by taking one of the beds in the bunkhouse.

I regretted the decision the minute the pillow was snatched from my grip by an overeager morning person.

“Wake up, sleepyhead!” Hudson’s smiling face needed to be shot point-blank.

“Fuck.”

“Damn. Here I thought maybe you had a man in bed with you. Didn’t get lucky last night?”

“Last time I got lucky was three years ago in grad school,” I mumbled. “And that shitty Grindr hookup you and West arranged last year doesn’t count.”

“You said the guy sucked you off,” Hudson said with a laugh. “How does that not count?”

“I was too worried about disease to enjoy it. I’d been studying glass disease that day, and all I could think about was the chemical process of crizzling and how it was described as glass syphilis. So I made the guy use a condom, which… just ugh.”

Hudson’s laugh was way too loud for me, and I groaned.

“Thanks for that mental image. I’m going to try to pretend you didn’t say that. Felix, it’s after ten. If you stay in bed any longer, you’re going to miss breakfast before it’s time to drive into Dallas to catch your flight.” Hudson sat on the side of my bed and put his hand on my shoulder. “We’re going to miss you, you know.”

I peeked at him through the tiny slit of one eye. His face was sincere, and his eyes were kind as usual.

“Yeah,” I admitted. “It’s gonna be weird spending Christmas and New Year’s without you guys.”

“Grandpa was telling us all about your trip this morning. It sounds amazing. Are you excited?”

I closed my eyes and imagined the two weeks ahead of me. It was time to finish my doctoral dissertation, and I wanted to do it surrounded by the subject I’d spent years researching. In the process of studying art history and the fine art of stained glass during my undergraduate and master’s education, I’d become obsessed with discovering the real identity of one of the most mysterious, intriguing glass artists in medieval history.

The unidentified stained glass master of Gadleigh.

Gadleigh Castle was an old historic keep located on a tiny island in the North Sea off the coast of Scotland. Known only for its boutique line of specialty glass, the castle was primarily a summer tourist destination. People came from all over to visit the castle and enjoy the unique colors found in the glass made from the special sand of the island’s nearby beaches. The combination of mineral deposits on the island couldn’t be found anywhere else on earth, and the glass colors created with it were exquisite.