Shaye waited for me in the hall. I tried to zigzag through the other girls to avoid her, but she caught up to me. “Gwyneth, a word.” She sighed. “Please.”
“Fine.” I didn’t want to talk to her, but it was better than getting stuck near Tamara, who was bragging loudly about the prince’s kissing abilities and what the size of his hands suggested about the rest of him.
“Let’s go outside,” Shaye suggested.
But a guard blocked the door to the eastern grounds. “You may go out, my ladies,” he said, “but only with security.”
He motioned to two nearby sentinels. “Accompany the ladies out on the grounds.”
The four of us stepped outside, but the guards hung back a bit. At least they were giving us some room to talk. I side-eyed Shaye and sighed, suddenly wishing they were crowding us. I wasn’t sure I was ready to hear whatever she had to say.
“I’m sorry I didn’t stick up for you more.” She gave me a miserable look. “But Tamara had been beating me down relentlessly, insisting that you and the prince were being inappropriate.”
“I can’t believe you listened to her!” I cried.
“I didn’t.” She shook her head. “I mean, I did because she’s loud, and she doesn’t stop talking, but I never believed what she said.”
I shrugged. “It’s fine. And the irony of it is, Tamara would be the first one to brag about riding The Royal Stallion. She was just trying to turn everyone against me.”
“True.” Shaye watched the stone pavement as we walked. “I wouldn’t even care if you were getting special treatment in exchange for something. I’d just be worried about you.”
I put my hand on my hip. “I know it’s hard to believe that His Highness actually likes me for me, not for any other reason, but it’s true. At least, I thought it was.” I shook my head, as if I could dislodge the images of him kissing Tamara.
“Of course he does.” Shaye finally looked at me. “I think I was just letting jealousy get the best of me. I really am sorry. I wasn’t being a good friend.”
I sighed. Any trace of anger I’d been holding onto dissipated. “I’d love to say I had no idea what you meant because I was above being jealous, but of course I do. I acted like a cow after I saw your episode.”
She laughed a little. “It can be hard to watch.”
“I owe you an apology, too.”
Shaye smiled. “I accept. And speaking of episodes, you did very well in yours.”
“They edited it so it barely resembled real life.”
“I know. The part with Tamara and the prince kissing?” She leaned closer, conspiratorially. “They filmed that last night. Her maids got her out of bed and had her put on the same dress, the one she’d worn when they played chess. Tariq arranged the whole thing. She said they had to do several takes.”
My temper rose. “Several takes of them all over each other?”
Shaye nodded. “Tariq told them he wanted the kiss to be more dramatic.”
“And the prince did as he was told.”
“Don’t be too hard on him. I’m sure he didn’t enjoy it.”
I scoffed. “It’s not as though he were kissing a blob fish.”
Shaye started laughing, and even though my blood was practically boiling, I joined her.
“I don’t know what a blob fish is, but yeah, I get your point.”
I stopped laughing. “I don’t know what to do.”
Shaye linked her arm through mine. “You have to ignore it. Otherwise, the next few weeks will tear you up.”
“I don’t know if I can ignore it.”
“But you have to learn to deal with the un-pleasantries,” Shaye said. “If you were to become the princess, can you imagine how much more you’d have to deal with than all this?”
“I wouldn’t have to deal with Tamara’s boobs in the prince’s face,” I quipped.
Shaye bit her lip. She seemed to choose her words carefully. “It might not be Tamara, but the prince is in a position of unparalleled power. He is also handsome and charming. Someone will always be shoving their boobs in his face, I’m afraid”
I stopped walking. “That’s not very encouraging.”
Shaye tilted her head, inspecting me. “I was not being a good friend yesterday. Today, I am trying to make that right.”
“By scaring me?”
“By telling you the truth. If you think the competition’s intense, imagine what being a royal would really be like. You’d have a new family to navigate—which is a whole new world, really, filled with vampires—and then you have the political side of it, not to mention a new husband and a large household to run—all of the other tasks that would consume a young princess.”
My jaw dropped. “Are you trying to talk me out of the competition?”
“No. Absolutely not.” Shaye smiled, surprising me. “These are the things I remind myself of when I’m confronted by the fact that the prince seems to vastly prefer you. But I also think they’re real and that you should be aware of them. Do not let Tamara’s heaving bosom distract you from the competition. And be sure that if you beat her, it’s because you really want to win.”
We walked in silence for a moment, circling the reflecting pools. “Do you want to win?” I finally asked.
Shaye shrugged. “I thought I did. I’m certainly not ready to go back to my muddy little village. But when it comes to the prince and all the trouble surrounding the palace, I don’t know what I think.”
“Did you hear about the rebel who escaped?” I hadn’t mentioned a word to anyone, but Shaye usually heard about these things from her maids.
“Yes, I did. And that’s exactly the sort of trouble I’m talking about. I don’t know if it’s safe to be a princess. Who knows what the rebels have planned?”
I nodded. “It’s scary to think about.”
“Much scarier than Tamara,” Shaye agreed, “and that’s saying something.”
I glimpsed Dallas with the king later that afternoon. They were talking in hushed tones with one of their advisors.
He caught sight of me, and our gazes locked for a moment. I felt that pull toward him, an undertow threatening to take me under.
He nodded curtly then strode off with the king and the other man. He didn’t give me a backward glance.
Do not doubt me. His words rang in my ears. But as I watched him disappear down the hall, my heart still twisted. He’s trying to protect you from the king, I reminded myself.
An image with his tongue jammed down Tamara’s throat flashed in my mind. I shook my head, as if to clear it. I refused to doubt him. And yet, a tiny part of me worried. That current, the torrent of feeling coursing through me, felt dangerous. If I gave into it and let it take me under… And if he wasn’t there to meet me, waiting back at the shore…
I might never recover from this. So I did not doubt him. But in that moment, I started to doubt myself.