Prince Brendon Takes Over the Narration

Prince Brendon Takes Over the Narration

As an only child and heir to a kingdom, Prince Brendon Banes had experienced an odd mix of pampering and responsibility thrust onto his shoulders from a young age. He was allowed an extra cookie at teatime if he widened his eyes and made his smile as charming as possible. He was also trapped in tutoring sessions from morning to night to learn how to rule a kingdom.

During one of his lessons, he learned the importance of having a proper queen to rule by his side who would help him serve the people. She should be generous, intelligent, and understanding. Since he only knew one girl his age—Katherine Holmwood, the Captain of the Guard’s daughter—he had proposed to her that very evening.

She’d punched him in the face.

When he confessed the reason for his black eye to his mother, she sat him down and calmly explained to him that he didn’t need to find a wife—he was already engaged.

That burden lifted from his small shoulders, he proceeded to forget about his fiancée for the next twelve years. He didn’t even remember her existence until he turned eighteen and his mother said, “At some point, you should probably get to know Francesca before you marry her.”

That night he wrote his first letter to Princess Francesca Woeful.

He did not receive a response.

In case the letter had gotten lost along the road, he wrote her another one.

No response.

Every month he wrote her one, treating it more like a journal than correspondence with a stranger. Then he forgot one month, and since it didn’t really matter, he simply wrote it the next month. Then he forgot for two months, three, six …

Until the day came when a letter did arrive. However, it was not from his fiancée, but from her parents, asking when a good time would be to have the wedding.

Brendon hadn’t even talked to his fiancée yet, and her parents already wanted them to marry? He understood why they must—his mother gently reminded him of his duties and the spell that protected the kingdom any time she saw him even talking with someone—but couldn’t he at least get to know her first?

The perfect opportunity arrived—an anniversary ball hosted by the Kingdom of Misfortune. All the most important people of the Desolated Lands were invited. Brendon buzzed with excitement at the thought of finally meeting the woman he would spend the rest of his life with.

His mother pointed Francesca out in the crowd, standing next to a lanky teenage boy with her same dark hair and bronze skin. She fussed with his collar and wiped something off his face, and Brendon grinned at the little domestic scene. She’d be a good mother, which should translate well into being a good queen.

Shortly after that scene he’d been distracted and wasn’t able to introduce himself. When he went to look for her later, she had left the ballroom. Prowling the ballroom unaccompanied invited too much attention—ladies needed dance partners, after all—so he dragged Kit away from a vigorous conversation with one of the Misfortune soldiers. Together, they searched the gardens for Francesca.

They found her behind a hedgerow, straddling another woman, kissing so fiercely and messily that both of their hairstyles were ruined beyond repair, their clothes soon to follow.

Brendon returned to the ballroom and promptly drank half a bowl of rum punch, desperately trying to erase the memory. Whatever else he’d forgotten that night, the image of his fiancée’s impassioned embrace was seared into his mind.

He knew two things without a doubt: his future wife would never love him.

And he had no choice but to marry her anyway.

Returning to the current trouble, Brendon stumbled through the woods, burdened with the weight of another man. His fiancée’s brother, to be precise. Her kidnapping, troublemaking, feverish, and possibly dying brother.

Brendon was supposed to be spending this week with Francesca. His mother had suggested arriving on the wedding day, marrying her, and then returning home. It was Brendon who insisted he should come a week early to give himself and Francesca time to acquaint themselves. Time to see if they could be friends, even if they would never fall in love. Time to find a solution so they could both be happy.

Time to run, if all else failed.

Before he could even meet his bride, her damned meddlesome brother had taken matters into his own hands. Perhaps Brendon would have thanked him if his plan involved more than ‘lock the groom in a magic tower.’ Although now the plan apparently included ‘and then get my stupid ass poisoned.’

Alright, that probably wasn’t planned, but it certainly was a giant pain in Brendon’s ass. And arms. Rick might not win any weightlifting competitions, but he had enough muscle on his slender frame to slow Brendon down.

If Rick had been a true villain, Brendon would have abandoned him in the tower, but he had to admit that being kidnapped hadn’t been too bad. The bed was comfortable. There were plenty of books to read and no other demands on his time. Though the kitchen fare was simple, it was plentiful. Rick had even gone out of his way when he was clearly sick to bring Brendon new clothes. The last few days had been oddly pleasant, lacking the awkwardness and misery Brendon had anticipated for the week leading up to his unfortunate nuptials.

That didn’t mean it could continue. At some point, Brendon had to meet his bride. He just hadn’t expected to be in the middle of saving someone’s life at the same time.

It was almost dark by the time he arrived at the castle. He didn’t want anyone to misunderstand why he was carrying the unconscious prince, especially since Kit had apparently taken his place these last few days. There would be questions, possibly accusations, definitely confusion, and Rick might not have time for any of that.

So, Brendon carried Rick to the stables first. He could stash the unconscious prince in an empty stall while he searched for help. Preferably someone who would recognize him.

As Brendon set Rick down in the hay, a noise drew his attention to the back of the stable. He froze and listened, wondering if the stable hands would catch him in an awkward position. No one raised an alarm, but the noises increased in volume, pants and grunts, something clattering against the wood, all coming from the last stall. It sounded like one of the animals might be in pain.

Brendon approached the stall, worried he would need to fetch both a human healer and an animal one. To his surprise, the door was unlocked and hanging open an inch. He pushed it all the way open and arched his brows in shock at the scene before him: two bodies entangled in a passionate embrace, oblivious to the world around them.

Crossing his arms, Brendon leaned against the wall and waited for an opening. With the way they moaned and squirmed, he didn’t think they’d hear him unless he shouted, and no one else needed to witness this. After the panting increased in pace, there was a long, drawn-out gasp. Then the figure on top slumped over, revealing their partner’s face.

Kit glowed with happy, sated pleasure. Until those brown eyes landed on Brendon and widened to comical proportions. “Your Highness!”

“Mm, you don’t have to call me that,” Francesca murmured dreamily, sprawled over Kit’s chest. One hand remained tangled in Kit’s short hair, twisting the curls around her fingertips.

“Not you.”

“Oh, fuck. Fred—” She propped herself up and half-turned around. Her words dried up at the sight of Brendon.

He stared back in shock at her breasts spilling out from her bodice, covered in love bites. She fumbled with the cloth, and he finally covered his eyes to give her some semblance of privacy. “I’ll give you a moment to make yourselves presentable, shall I?”

Frantic rustling and whispers followed, along with the clank of armor and, “No, no, don’t bother with that now.”

“Alright, we’re ready,” Kit said.

Brendon uncovered his eyes, glad to see Francesca had tucked her breasts away. Even more glad that it had been her, and not Kit, who had been mostly unclothed. Though Kit had somewhat mellowed over the years, she would still probably punch him out of embarrassment alone. “Would you care to explain yourselves?” he asked. “Or should I make an educated guess?”

It took less than two seconds for Francesca to go on the offensive. “Explain ourselves? Why don’t you explain yourself! You’re the one who disappeared, leaving poor Kit to take your place! She’s been boiling in that armor for four days now. She almost fell down the stairs. Twice.”

He opened his mouth to tell her exactly what had happened—how it was her brother who had kidnapped him. It would clear his own name, tarnishing Rick’s in the process. Rick, who had only been trying to secure his sister’s happiness. Whose eyes sparkled with mischief whenever he outsmarted Brendon. Whose moans were so sweet and tantalizing. Who Brendon knew ten times better than his furious bride-to-be.

“Regardless of where I have been, I’d like to discuss what you two have been doing in my absence. When, exactly, did you discover Kit’s identity?”

Pursing her lips, Francesca admitted, “The night before you arrived. I went to the Tipped Over Cup, wanting to meet you in private first.”

She and Rick had had the same idea, Rick had just executed his more quickly. Had Rick known about Francesca’s plan, or did the siblings simply think alike?

“Instead, I found Kit and your attendants frantically searching the place after you’d run away.” She fluffed her frazzled black curls, not quite looking at Brendon as she explained, “I’m the one who came up with the story about not seeing the groom before the wedding. Though I wish I’d thought of something better—there were too many questions. Even Fred was suspicious, and while I adore my dear brother, he isn’t the sharpest sword in the armory.”

Of course Rick would be suspicious, since he was the real reason Brendon had disappeared. “And what were you planning to do if I never returned? If the wedding day arrived and your groom was a fake?”

Mutter, mutter, mutter.

“What was that?”

She sighed deeply. “I had hoped that … perhaps the spell would work anyway, so long as your name was on the marriage certificate.”

“I see.” Apparently, what he’d said to Rick a few days ago had been accurate—anyone would be fine except him. “Well, not to burst your happy bubble of sapphic bliss, but there’s something wrong with your brother.”

Franny heaved a long, drawn-out sigh. “What’s he done now?”

Not that she was incorrect, but the immediate accusation made Brendon clench his teeth. “He’s unconscious and feverish. I left him at the front of the stables.”

To Franny’s credit, her annoyance immediately changed to concern as she shoved Brendon out of the way to reach her brother’s side.

Brendon decided to give them a moment alone—she knew her brother and the kingdom better, she would hopefully know what to do—and turned his sights on Kit. A muscle jumped in his jaw as he tried to figure out what to say to her. “Tell me about the armor,” he said, gesturing to the pile of gleaming metal discarded to one side of the stall. “Where did you even get it on short notice?”

Kit fidgeted nervously. “I, uh, already had it.”

“Why would you have armor that hasn’t been used in over a century?” He could understand her owning it for historical purposes—adventures stories and war histories had always fascinated her—but why had she packed it for a non-violent wedding?

She refused to look at him as she asked, “Do you remember what happened that night we first saw Francesca?”

A lump formed in his throat. That scene was all too close to the one he’d just walked in on. “I remember enough.”

“I don’t mean the … gardens,” she said carefully. “I mean afterwards.” She finally looked at him, scanning his face for some recollection. “You tried to abdicate.”

His brow furrowed. “I tried to what?”

“You stole the punch bowl at one point and had it on your head.” She delivered this absurd narrative with no trace of humor in her voice. “I’d chased you all over the castle until you found some random guest room with a balcony. You stood at the rail and made a grand speech to a non-existent audience. Honestly, I couldn’t understand most of it, and probably wouldn’t remember anything if I did. I do remember, at the end, you took the bowl off and held it in your hands like it was a crown. You looked me dead in the eye, and for a moment I really thought you’d somehow sobered up. Then you said ‘she doesn’t want me, and I don’t want this. You can have them both.’”

A long moment of silence followed. Brendon didn’t know if he should laugh or cry. Was that Kit’s horrible idea of a joke?

When he didn’t say anything, she added quietly, “And then you passed out.”

“So,” Brendon began, trying to compose himself and speak steadily. “Based on a drunken rant from five years ago, you decided that, not only had I run from my responsibilities to my family and my kingdom, but it was now your duty to romance and seduce my poor, abandoned fiancée.”

“No!” She rushed toward him, hand outstretched. She pulled it back at the last moment and clutched it against her chest, as if she might break his fragile control with a single touch. “No, it wasn’t like that! I didn’t—it wasn’t on purpose—we just … we had so much in common. One thing led to another and …”

“And you ended up fucking in a barn?”

She cringed and murmured again, “I’m sorry. If you want to send me back home, tell my father what I’ve done, remove me from the guard—all of it! I’d understand.”

A soft groan came from behind them. “I’ll deal with you later,” Brendon said before returning to Rick’s side.

Francesca hovered above him, flitting around, her hands gripping uselessly at nothing as if she could pluck some cure from thin air. She looked to Brendon, eyes filling with tears, and demanded, “What’s the matter with him?”

Brendon crouched next to Rick and carefully lifted his hand to show her the bitemark. During the walk from the tower to the castle, it had swollen to four times its size and now oozed a viscous, purple puss. “Something nasty bit him, I don’t know what.”

“How do you not know?” she wailed, as if Rick’s condition was his personal failing.

“I wasn’t with him at the time,” he gritted out.

“But why are you with him now?”

“Is that really important?”

“How do I know you weren’t the one who injured him?”

Brendon threw one hand up in the air, the other still holding onto Rick. “Because I have spent the last four days locked in his stupid magic tower! And if I had done this to him, do you really think I would bring him back here to find help? He showed up this afternoon with a bite and a fever, that’s all I know!”

“It must have happened in the marketplace,” Kit said behind them.

Brendon glanced at her. “You saw it happen?”

“No, but he didn’t have a bite before we left, and he went off on his own to speak with someone for a while. It probably happened then.”

“And you didn’t say anything?” Francesca demanded. The bliss of their evening together could not withstand the fury of seeing her younger brother injured.

“I didn’t exactly know how to bring it up. All I saw was that he was upset after he came back to me, and that he was sweating profusely after we returned to the castle. For all I knew, he was just out of shape!”

“Whatever,” Brendon said, “we need to find a way to cure him before he loses that hand.”

“I’m not sure that’s possible,” Kit said, her voice low and filled with regret.

Brendon refused to accept that because this was a comedy, dammit. “What about the Good Wizard? Has he arrived yet?”

Francesca shook her head. “He’s not supposed to arrive until tomorrow.”

“Do you have any health potions or anything that could help him?”

“Maybe,” she said. “I’ll go check our supplies.”

“Go with her,” Brendon ordered, waving Kit off.

She hesitated. “What did you mean, he locked you in a tower?”

He glared at her. “Do you really think now is the time to discuss that?”

She bit her lip, then shook her head and obediently ran after Francesca.

Once he was alone, he tried the only thing he could think of. History books were filled with stories from the time before the defense spell, and a kiss always woke the sleeping princesses—or in this case, prince. Running his hands through Rick’s sweaty, greasy hair, Brendon lowered his head and muttered, “Sorry that I can’t ask permission,” and pressed his lips to Rick’s. They felt like two dead slugs under his, decidedly unromantic.

Nothing happened.

Well, it wasn’t exactly true love’s kiss, but he’d really hoped that ‘mild aggravating affection’ would be enough to cure some mysterious, evil ailment. At least he’d sent the others away before the attempt, or he would have been extra embarrassed when it didn’t work.

A puff of purple smoke appeared before him. It clouded his vision and clogged his nose and mouth, and he gagged on the acrid taste.

A high-pitched voice exclaimed, “There you are, slippery bastard!”

Thinking some evil fiend was taking an opportunity to attack, Brendon blindly lashed out. “What do you want?” he asked, then coughed horrendously as the smoke burned his throat.

“Stupid prince. Stupid antivenom. Stupid job. I should quit, see how he does without me to run his errands,” the voice muttered in irritation. After a few minutes, someone else gasped and choked, and then a hand wildly clasped Brendon’s wrist.

The purple smoke slowly cleared, and Brendon saw Rick gazing up at him, pupils huge. The hand that gripped him was still slightly swollen, but the small puncture wounds were closing before his eyes. Brendon relaxed and grinned down at Rick. “Feeling better?”

Rick muttered something unintelligible. Brendon leaned down to hear him and Rick’s hand shot up, fingers twisting through Brendon’s hair. “You’re pretty.”

Brendon stared at him in shock. “What?”

“You’re so pretty,” Rick slurred, tugging until Brendon’s face was barely an inch from his.

He didn’t know if it was an improvement or not. With every passing second, the wound looked better, but before, Rick had just acted like a little kid in pain. Now he seemed almost drunk.

“Yes, yes, I’m pretty,” Brendon muttered, trying to disentangle Rick’s fingers.

“Nooo, doooon’t.” Rick clung onto him, crying softly. “Don’t go.”

“I’m not going anywhere; this is just an extremely uncomfortable position.”

“’S not fair,” Rick cried, tears streaming down his cheeks.

“What’s not fair?”

“All of it.”

Well, that cleared things up.

“I don’t want you to marry her.”

Brendon’s lips pressed into a thin line. “Yes, everyone has made that abundantly clear, but I don’t know what other choice we have.”

Rick sobbed softly and curled into a ball, pressing as much of his body against Brendon’s as possible. “Me.”

“You what?”

“Why can’t it be me?”

“Why can’t what be you?”

Brendon never got an answer. The sobs subsided into soft, sniffly snores as Rick fell asleep.

Two minutes later, Francesca returned with a bottle of potion. She didn’t see that Rick’s wound had already closed and the swelling had receded, so she forced the whole bottle down his throat. Since it couldn’t hurt, Brendon didn’t stop her.

“What are the conditions of the spell?” Brendon asked.

Francesca blinked up at him. “What?”

“The Kingdom Defense Spell. What are the exact conditions? You said you’d hoped Kit could act as my stand-in as long as my name was on the marriage certificate, but what does the spell actually say?”

“Oh, um, I don’t know the exact word choice, but it says that a member of each royal family must join hands in blessed matrimony.”

“Does it say husband and wife? Bride and groom? Anything gendered?”

After a quiet, thoughtful moment, she said, “No, I don’t believe so.”

He nodded and clutched Rick’s hand tighter. “Good. I need both of you to help me with something.”