The Royal and the Rebel (Royally Pitched 2)

1

12 December

Xavier Hall

Abarrage of impressions came at Rowan as he woke, but he couldn’t say what he noticed first. The quiet, cavernous room lit with weak beams of sunlight filtering in from what must have been massive windows, the dull ache when he moved his head, or the hot poker of pain when he shifted his hips. A sound—stationed between a groan, a gasp, and a whimper—escaped from his throat. Shame and embarrassment heated his face. He quickly shuttered his eyes, hoping to black out the pain and humiliation. He counted in his head, the mindless task pulling his spiraling thoughts from where he was and the state he was in. By the time he reached three hundred, he was calmer. And then he was asleep.

When next he opened his eyes, it was dusk. The colors streaming in from the windows were blues tinged with pinks, and the dusky evening sky bathed the room with gray light. This he could deal with. It reflected his mood. As an experiment, he slowly turned his head, left and then right. The ache remained.

He glanced down at his leg and shuddered at the sight. Black steel, screws, pads, harnesses, and thick bolts secured his thigh all the way down to his ankle. It looked like a complicated Lego erector set. The sides of his leg were sliced open, like someone gutted a fish, and blood ran out to prevent a literal explosion. His toes, mangled from years of being stuffed in boots and kicking soccer balls, taunted him with their pudgy appearance. He was reminded of sausages, and he gagged on his disgust. He choked and coughed, his stomach muscles tightening. The ordinary, everyday action wreaked havoc on his body. A vise tightened around his head, and pain raced through his body like a wildfire through dry kindling. Beads of sweat covered his chest and head as he quivered with sudden chills.

“Try to stay still,” came a soothing but unfamiliar voice from his right.

A cold, damp cloth landed gently on his forehead. He closed his eyes again, allowing himself to sink back into the darkness for a moment.

“Is it time for his medicine?” she asked.

He heard footsteps as someone else entered the room.

“It is.” This voice was familiar to him but most unwelcome.

Rowan wanted to catapult off the bed and leap out of the nearest window with the intent of putting as much distance as possible between him and this place. But of course, he couldn’t run away now. He was a captive audience, and rage consumed him. Fighting to keep his eyes closed was his only defense. Maybe if he didn’t see the man, Rowan could make him disappear.

A gentle hand touched his cheek. “I’m going to put some pillows behind your back to help prop you up.”

He opened his eyes. A petite teenager hovered over him. Her collarbone protruded from under the flimsy cover of her tank top. Her blonde hair was secured in a bun on top of her head. Unless his eyes were playing tricks on him, it looked like two pencils were sticking out at haphazard angles from the knot of hair. He blinked.

“Are those pencils?” he asked, his voice gravelly from disuse.

Deep chocolate eyes met his. Round and doe-like, they were framed in thick lashes and swimming with concern. A huge grin broke across her face, and it warmed him.

“Yes. A bad habit. By the end of a school day, I might have four or five sticking out. Whit, one of my best friends, likes to call me Hell-Raiser. Not like I’m a hell-raiser. I’m basically a straight-A student, and I don’t ever get in any trouble, but he says I look like the guy from the horror movie who has pins sticking out of his face.”

Her rapid-fire speech caught him off guard, and he found himself smiling up at her.

“So, kind of like my leg,” he quipped, surprising himself. His well of good humor was shallow on the best of days.

The girl glanced down at his leg and winced. She tried to hide her response, but it was too late. Rowan was able to catalog the horrified fascination and banked disgust. Her skin paled before she turned those big brown eyes to meet his.

“Your leg does look like it could be the star of its own horror movie.”

Her honesty was endearing.

“Facts,” he muttered.

She didn’t weigh more than one hundred pounds, yet she slid her hand around his chest, gripping his back. She heaved him forward and dropped an additional pillow behind him. He was impressed. She released him slowly, and he leaned back against a fluffy wall. With supreme efficiency, she dropped his medication in his hand, shoved a cup of water at him, and then took it from him after he swallowed the pills. She placed the glass on a small tray and sat in the chair next to his bed. Instinctively, he realized he could rely on the kid. But to do that meant he had to formally acknowledge who she was to him, and he found he wasn’t ready to do it.

Yet, her presence distracted him from all the questions he knew he should be asking.

There was a vague memory of a jostling helicopter ride and some hazy images of beeping machines, hushed voices, and antiseptic smells. It wasn’t the first time he’d been awake since his injury. He remembered a conversation with his mother and doctors at the hospital and another with Nico Ramsey, his national team coach and close friend. He wished he could forget those early discussions, which detailed the extent of his injury and the demise of his career.

He took a quick glance around the ostentatious room, noting he was alone with the kid. Thank fuck.

Rowan had never been to this house before, but he knew where he was anyway. Without exploring, he knew what he would find. Ornate ceilings, molded and painted; walls draped with expensive papers; marble columns and woven tapestries; life-sized portraits; and book-lined shelves. The grounds would rival botanical gardens, stables would be bursting with championship horses, and the garages would be filled with exotic cars.

He’d spent his life avoiding this place, and a white-hot lance of betrayal burned through him. If he ended up here, his mother had been in on it. It didn’t matter how he’d gotten here; right now, there was nowhere he could go. His helplessness made him restless. He shifted, stifling a groan of pain.

He needed her to start talking, to distract him, but she remained quiet. Curious, he turned to look at her. Her legs were drawn up to her chest, her whole body shoved into the corner of the recliner, emphasizing her tiny stature. She appeared to be engrossed in whatever was on the screen of her cell phone.

“Insta?” he asked as the silence between them began to feel heavy.

She raised one finger in his direction as her gaze remained locked on her device. Impatience and affront gnawed at him. Rowan wasn’t used to being made to wait. With no alternative and nothing else to do, he peered down the length of the bed to the roller coaster of rods and screws. He knew, in addition to the scraps and pieces of metal in his right leg, his left was sliced from knee to groin, where the surgeon had taken the saphenous vein. He had hours and hours of rehabilitation to look forward to. And even with that, even with the surgeries and physical therapists and the bevy of doctors at his disposal, his career was over. He should feel lucky. He’d won a World Championship Cup trophy for his country, played with his best mate, been coached by a legend. He supposed being thankful for still having his leg should make the list. But he was unable to see beyond the swirl of anger, despair, and dire notions of misfortune.

“Sorry, I was in the middle of a chapter,” the girl said.

Rowan, whose eyes remained locked on his bionic leg, turned his head to look at her. Her answer surprised him. “What are you reading?”

“A Week to Be Wicked,” she answered.

“Wicked at what?” he asked, confused.

With a careless lift of her shoulders, she said, “Life.”