Masked Prince (Fated Royals 2)

He leaned in close to me, as if to get the scent of a lie on my breath. But I wasn’t lying about the cider, thank goodness; Randal and I had finished off what I had, because I insisted his best cider was too expensive to drink all the time.

But as my father began ransacking my things, I saw that Randal’s gallantry backfired on me badly—my father opened the cupboard to reveal that Randal had generously replenished my stash with the royal orchard’s most expensive variety. I gulped hard and braced for an explosion of anger.

“You always were a terrible fucking liar. Might be the only good thing about you,” he said. He yanked one of the corks out with his stained teeth and spat it into the milk and glass on the floor.

From behind me, I heard footsteps—but they weren’t Bonny’s. For one instant, I thought it might be Randal, but as I turned, I was horrified to see three uniformed guards. They weren’t the same men who had come for Randal, I knew that much. They walked into the shed like they owned the place, and I knew right away that their intentions were neither helpful nor good. They looked like criminals, not guards at all but when I thought of the guards that can to take Randal, I surmised they were here to chastise me for distracting him from his work.

“Can… can I help you?”

One of them drew his dagger, staring straight at me as he flipped it end-over-end, catching the hilt in his palm again and again. “Fuck yeah, you can help me,” he said, grabbing his groin and giving it a pump as he guffawed like a sailor in a bawdy house.

Oh my God. If their intentions hadn’t been clear before, they were certainly clear now. Behind the guards, I saw Bonny peeking into the shed, just one eye visible past the door frame. She locked eyes with me, and I willed the words through the air, without speaking. Go! Run! Get help!

She nodded and took off down the path, moving silently through the chickens who had known her since they were chicks.

My father’s responses were slow and sloppy, and it had taken him that long to realize the guards were in the shed with us. He staggered around in a confused circle, looking at them in astonishment.

“What the fuck are you doing here? Who the fuck are you?”

The guards glanced side to side at one another, all grinning.

“Save it, you worthless piece of shit,” the one with the knife said to my father. “Go back to your house to get your drink on. We have some business to take care of with your daughter.” The second guard, the one on the left, began to undo his belt.

Once, I’d seen a salmon frozen in crystal-clear river ice. Eyes wide, gills open…stuck and terrified. I’d worked hard to free it and send it deeper, hoping it would make its way downstream. I felt exactly like that, except I doubted anyone was coming to help me.

I was paralyzed, for one terrible instant, by the purest fear I have ever known. I glanced around for any kind of weapon to use to defend myself, but my father’s poor judgment extended to trying to grab the guard’s dagger—blade first.

“Fuck!” He screamed. “Now just look what you’ve done! Get out of here! Get off my property!” He grabbed a spade from a nearby shelf and tried to use it as a weapon, which got him nothing but a roar of laughter from the guards.

The third one, who was by far the biggest and most imposing, picked up a pitchfork from where it lay leaning by the wall. The other two guards nodded their approval and stepped aside. And then in one, astonishing, horrible movement, the guard plunged the pitchfork straight into my father’s belly. With a sound like a knife cutting into an apple, the four prongs ran him straight through and emerged, dripping with blood, from his back.

I shot backwards, sending the milking stool flying, trying desperately to help him. He lay face-up on the floor, his eyes red and bloodshot, looking confused and far-away. He placed his hand to his bloody stomach and stared at his red palm in amazement feeling like this was some horrible nightmare.

“Father, just…” I wanted to tell him help was on the way, but I didn’t dare. “What have you done?” I screamed, looking up at the three men. “How could you do this?”

The one that seemed in charge grinned at me. “We had our orders. And now, we’ve got some orders for you, pretty little thing.” He looked straight at my sex, while he spun his blade again and again.

Ignoring the pain in my leg, I scrambled up the main post of the milking shed, while the guards grabbed at my ankles and the hem of my skirt. I had made the climb a thousand times, and I was grateful for my own strength, as much as it hurt. I scampered up and over, so that I was above them on a horizontal beam, clinging to it with both arms and pinching it with my knees.