6. 6

6

Kalle

I see how Mathias looks around the bar.

Like it's beneath him to be there. His eyes flick past my sports memorabilia without interest or the admiration I usually see. I'm the third Laandian who has played professional baseball, part of the only Laandian team that has won the Worlds, and curling wasn't even a serious sport here before I started.

I've created a generation of athletes who know that even though they're from a tiny country on the edge of Canada, they will be able to compete on a professional level on the global stage.

I've done more already than Mathias ever will, but still, the way he looks around brings me right back to twelve-year-old me, overhearing how I won't ever amount to anything.

I finish my beer and try to control my breathing: inhale for four, hold, exhale. Edie made me watch this meditation stuff she found online to help with my "ball of anger that won't go away."

That's what she calls it. I'm not angry. I'm just mad some of the time.

Tyler makes Edie a gin and tonic before pouring me a second beer. "Care for a drink, cousin?" I ask Mathias, trying for polite but it ends up more scornful .

Polite scorn.

"Why would I drink in here?" Mathias asks in a cool voice. "There's nothing but heathens who can't control themselves."

Wow. He's not even trying to hide his superiority complex. I really hope Edie heard that because she's just as proud of this place as I am.

But no. She's settled onto the stool beside Fenella, reaching down to slip off her shoes, and misses that. I resist the urge to ask Mathias to repeat himself. I may not think much of him, but I'm not petty.

Instead, I point at Edie. "Because she's having a drink. Unless you want to cut your evening short, which is fine by me, because then she can get back to work."

I've never had a man look at me with such dislike.

I wouldn't make Edie go back to work. She asked for tonight off, and that means the whole night.

There's a lot of reasons I don't like Mathias. When we were kids, he'd find a way to get me in trouble every time he came to visit. When I was a senior in high school, he came for a visit one weekend and ended up stealing the girl I was head over heels for. And when I was twenty-seven and skipping on the Laandian national curling team, he showed up at my last tournament and made me look like an idiot on television.

Truthfully, me losing my temper was the reason I looked like an idiot, but it was Mathias who got me mad.

That's only a few of the reasons. And I'm not one to air the dirty laundry of my family, so I don't say much about him. For the last few years, it seems we've settled into an uneasy truce brought about because we haven't been around each other .

The truce is starting to crumble and I have a feeling it's because of Edie.

I can't let her know that though, because I don't want her to think she's come between me and my family.

"Scotch. Two fingers. Neat," Mathias barks and Edie looks up with surprise.

"You can really tell they're related, can't you?" Fenella asks and Edie's shoulders shake with sudden laughter.

The sight of the two of them seated together, being friendly, is strange. They aren't friends. They are nothing alike—Fenella, heir to a billion-dollar empire; Edie, daughter of Bob England—save being beautiful women.

But Fenella, with all her bling and pretty eyes, pales in comparison to Edie, and that gives me a jolt because not many men would think that.

"What?" I demand.

"He sounds just like you," Edie says with a tired smile before turning to Mathias. "Mathias, thank you for your concern, but this is all part of my job. I manage a bar; there are often bar fights. I know how to handle myself when they happen."

I try not to let my gaze rove over Edie to make sure she didn't get a bump or bruise from wading into the fray. She hates me checking up on her. "Guys were just blowing off steam," I add.

"There has to be better ways than starting fights in a bar around to do that," Mathias protests.

Dillon rolls his eyes and I agree. They should check paternity tests because Mathias can't be related to me.

"Jubblie Mark and Ken McKibbon are both fishermen. Most of the men here tonight are as well," Edie explains to Mathias. " With such a bad storm coming in, they won't go out on their boats tomorrow. They'll be stuck on shore, worrying about the storm and what it can do to their boats and their catch, which they need to feed their families. No one meant any harm, and it'll all be forgotten by the morning but they need to blow off some steam. It was bound to happen tonight or tomorrow. Maybe both." She shrugs. "It's just how it is here."

Some days, I'm just so proud of her because she gets it.

Being a member of a royal family means a certain amount of pressure. Constant pressure. And that's for us, one of the lesser monarchies. I can't imagine what it's like for the Windsors over in the UK.

My family has come up with ways to relieve some of the pressure when it gets too much. Odin has his sword fighting; he'll disappear into the fitness centre at the castle for hours at a time, swinging a sword against imaginary opponents. He's so good that if I were a medieval king, I'd want Odin to be the head of my kingsguard. Jaime Lannister has nothing on my brother.

Odin has his swords and Bo has his axes. Bo will walk into the forest, find a dead tree somewhere and chop it up. Give him a stressful day or one of those fancy engagements we sometimes have to go to, and half a day later, he'll have a nicely stacked cord of firewood.

Sometimes he gives them as presents, just a load of firewood dropped off in the middle of winter at a random house.

Gunnar has speed, and now he's finished racing, he'll just leave and travel to some exotic country. Lyra has to work on her outlet because when the stress gets to her, she usually ends up in trouble with the police, a foreign government or with some guy's girlfriend.

It used to be sports for me—the rush of winning, the heat of competition, the cheering and, yes, the admiration of the crowds was the best way for me to get rid of the pressure. A game or a match, something where I could use my skills, would give me a clean slate, ready for the next time things would get tense.

But I don't play anything now, except for darts, and I get wanting to be in the middle of a ruckus to get rid of the pressure bearing down on you.

Edie gets that. I've never had to tell her. She just gets me.

Does she get Mathias too?

She drains her glass and sets it on the bar. "Good drink," she says to Tyler. "Give the lime a squeeze before you drop it in, everyone likes extra lime. I think I'll head up," she adds to me but is looking at Mathias.

Being able to swing a couple of punches got rid of some of the tension, but that knot in my stomach tightened even more with the thought of Edie inviting Mathias upstairs to her apartment.

"Thank you very much for dinner," she tells him. "If you're here for a few more days, maybe we can do it again."

And then I click to what just happened. Edie has just dismissed Mathias in front of everyone and his surprised expression sours, but he's too polite to say anything.

I feel like I've just hit a three-run homer. I wave as Edie leads Mathias out through the kitchen.

"Did you stage that fight to ruin her night?" Fenella asks in a lazy voice. She's still there at the bar, taking in everything with those eyes .

I set down my glass with a bit more force than necessary. "What?" I growl. "Her night wasn't ruined."

Fenella sighs, rolling the delicate stem of her glass between her fingers. "Are you always this observant?"

"I observe."

"She was wearing a dress that cost at least two hundred dollars, wearing shoes that kill your calves because you have to tiptoe in them. Neither of those things are a big deal to me, but I suspect they're not part of her usual wardrobe. Plus, the two of them came in through the kitchen, which means they were probably in the alley and I know for a fact that's how you get to her apartment."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying you getting in the middle of that fight ruined her night. You interrupted her, Your Highness."

"I don't know what they were doing," I mutter. "I didn't tell her to come in."

"Right."

"Right," I echo. I didn't ruin anything. It's not my fault Jubblie Mark took that moment to curse Ken McKibbon, or that Ken—who has an even worse temper than me or his cousin Jonathan—would throw the first punch.

Fenella smirks and turns those purple eyes on me. "Still want to take me out tomorrow?"

What does that have to do with anything? "Yeah."

"Yeah?"

"Yes, I want to take you out tomorrow," I say, enunciating each word.

"Okay then." Fenella slurps up the rest of her drink. "You asked for it."