Chapter One

Chapter One

The castle had entered full-on Wedding Mode preparing for the upcoming nuptials between the Princess of Woe and the Prince of Bane. It was the final wedding needed to seal the Kingdom Defense Spell for another generation, so of course it had to be perfect. Everyone had their job to do and their place to be. Well, almost everyone.

As the younger brother to the bride, I was mostly left to my own devices. After dutifully offering to help and being rebuffed by everyone from my parents to housekeeping, I decided to simply get out of everyone’s way. But first, I had to let my sister know I was leaving the grounds so she wouldn’t worry.

I ducked around two burly men transferring a couch from one sitting room to another and had to flatten myself against a wall when another servant scurried by, carrying a precariously stacked tower of boxes. Despite our alliances with the other four kingdoms, we rarely hosted other royalty, so a frantic energy filled the air as everyone tried to make everything perfect for the prince’s arrival. It probably didn’t help that we’d only received notice a few days ago that he was coming tomorrow, a full week before the wedding.

At least he was coming alone—well, as alone as a prince accompanied by guards and attendants could ever be. If the king and queen were also arriving early, the castle staff would probably all fall over from exhaustion in their panic to prepare everything.

After completing the obstacle course our hallways had turned into, I finally arrived at Franny’s office and knocked on the door. “Franny, can I come in?”

“Yes—yes!”

Her reply was more enthusiastic than I expected, but she probably needed a break from the chaos. I opened the door and said, “I’m heading over to—” but stopped and stared in shock at the scene in front of me.

A maid sat on Francesca’s desk, eyes closed, face flushed, head thrown back, legs spread wide to accommodate the figure in pink half covered by her uniform skirts. Her hands clutched the edge of the desk as she panted, “There—right there—yes!”

“Francesca,” I hissed and slammed the door shut behind me, hoping to cut the scene off from any other witnesses. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Franny startled and extracted herself from the skirts while the maid shrieked in exaggerated shock and covered her face with her hands. Still kneeling on the floor, Franny looked over her shoulder at me and exclaimed, “Fred! I had no idea you were home.”

“Rick,” I corrected with a scowl. I’d been telling my family to call me Rick for ages. Crossing my arms, I tapped my foot, doing everything I could to broadcast my irritation. “I repeat, what are you doing?”

“Thank you for not using an expletive this time,” Franny said as she stood up and smoothed the wrinkles from her skirt with one hand while discreetly wiping off her mouth with the other. Half of her dark hair had fallen out of its careful styling, probably from the maid’s hands tugging on it, and tumbled around her shoulders to add to her dishevelment. “Marnie really doesn’t like them.”

Since Marnie had just had her legs spread wide and a princess’ head between her thighs, she seemed perfectly willing to throw around an extra fuck or two.

“You still haven’t answered my question.”

“Well, that’s because I thought it was obvious,” Franny replied as she helped Marnie off the desk. “You should recognize cunnilingus when you see it.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I meant—why are you eating out a maid? First, that’s an abuse of power—we’re her employer.”

“Oh, no, please don’t blame Her Highness!” Marnie exclaimed, clutching her hands to her chest. “Really, this is all my fault, I—”

“Shush now, darling, or you’ll derail him and then I’ll never find out his second point,” Franny replied, smiling sweetly at her paramour.

“The second point,” I said through gritted teeth, “is that you’re supposed to meet your groom tomorrow. For the wedding. Where you are the bride.”

“That is an awful lot of italics, Fred, I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“Rick!” I reminded her again. At least she hadn’t reverted to Freddy, yet, or I really would get derailed.

“Rick,” she murmured to appease me, “I know what tomorrow is. This is just my way of saying goodbye to Marnie. I’ll be trapped with a husband for the rest of my life, why can’t I have some fun first?”

Something about her phrasing made me pause. She hadn’t said ‘a husband I don’tknow,’ which would have been understandable. Franny and the prince had been engaged practically since birth, but they’d never actually met.

She also hadn’t said ‘a husband I didn’t choose.’ As the spare, I’d been mostly left out of our parents’ machinations. To carefully manage the royal bloodlines, the second generation of marriages for the spell had all been planned out a long time ago. Princes from Gloom and Calamity married twin Princesses from Misfortune—thank the gods that seven straight generations had produced twins—and so Woe and Bane had been paired up by default. I’d never dealt with the burden of an arranged marriage, but I could imagine how it must feel to have your fate decided for you before you could even walk.

But Franny had simply said ‘husband.’ It wouldn’t matter if she’d known the prince her whole life, or if she’d personally chosen him from a wide selection of potential grooms. The problem would always come down to the fact that he was a man.

I glanced at Marnie and said, “Someone is probably looking for you.”

She looked to my sister for instruction and received a small nod in response, then scurried out of the room on wobbly legs.

“If I could take your place …” I trailed off. I’d never actually considered it before. By the time I was born, everything had been settled. No one ever suggested ‘Well, maybe we could arrange a marriage for Rick instead.’ I was probably as enthusiastic about having a wife as she was about having a husband, but I’d do it if necessary.

Franny was my big sister, she’d been there for me ever since I could walk. Our parents were busy ruling the kingdom, and although we were only five years apart, it was enough distance for her to seem wise and experienced. She taught me how to talk, how to ride a horse, how to climb down the trellis without breaking my arm—after the first two unsuccessful attempts, she finally figured out what was going on. Even when others turned against me, I never felt truly alone because she’d been by my side. I’d never before been in a position to repay her.

She’d never needed me like I needed her—until now.

I didn’t even know if taking her place was an option. “Is there a Princess of Bane?”

“Not that I’ve heard of.”

I hardly knew anything about the Prince of Bane, only what I’d learned from a mix of gossip and information from our parents and tutors I’d barely paid attention to. Half the time, I couldn’t even remember his name. I’d seen him once at a party, from behind, but then he ducked out of the ballroom with a lady on his arm. I honestly wondered who had seduced more women—Franny or her groom. From the rumors, I suspected the prince, but who knew how many other skirts Franny had been under.

“I wish you didn’t have to shoulder this burden,” I whispered.

“Oh Freddy,” she sighed, and dammit, I’d really hoped to avoid that. She raised her hand to cup my cheek, but I remembered where those hands had been and scooted out of her reach. Bashfully, she hid them behind her back. “I will do whatever I must for our kingdom.”

The only way to continue protecting our kingdom was the defense spell. The spell required their marriage. I knew how important their wedding was and I had always just assumed that Franny would find a way to be happy. But the word trapped kept bouncing around my brain and now I wasn’t sure that would ever be possible.

Long after she left me to finish her rendezvous with the maid, I still stood in her empty office. There had to be somehow … I had to do something … there must be some other solution … Whatever it was, standing around, succumbing to the spiral of doom wouldn’t help anyone. I slapped myself across the face, shook off my misery, and set off to save the princess.