Chapter 2

Sigurd

The first unusual sight upon my arrival at the cabin is the royal blue bike wedged between the hedge and the exterior of the place.

The style of it is familiar. It's one of those rental bikes they have on the street corners in the village.

That's strange. And it's not a good sign.

Seems I have a trespasser on my hands.

It's not the best way to hide until the royal mess blows over. I've survived the first week or so in my lean-to in the woods since the abdication of my brother, Prince Torben. I have no intention of staying at the palace to witness the chaos surrounding my other brother, Prince Etienne. I did my part already. But after all eyes turned to Etienne to be the next in line to the throne, I saw the writing on the wall. Things won't go well for Etienne, and then the king and queen will come knocking on my door to find a wife and start producing heirs.

Finding a wife and making babies is all fine and good, but I have no interest in ruling as king. That will cut into my hobby of avoiding interacting with the public.

It's best to lay low and stay hidden.

A week in the woods is nothing for me, but it will start getting colder soon, and I need a plan. I need a place to get warm and cook food over the unpredictable winters in rural Gravenland.

Fortunately, the palace has plenty of rustic hideaways all over the kingdom. There was a time when kings and queens spent all their downtime out in nature. The royals aren't like that much anymore.

A puzzling keypad lock on the door blocks my entrance to this particular cabin. I take a guess at the code—the king's birthday—and push inside.

And now, I realize I don't have a trespasser on my hands. No, it's much worse than that.

I have a squatter. Someone left a jumble of clothes on the bed. Well, not clothes. Underwear in all different lurid shades.

Wait, no, those are swimsuits. I pick one up by one of its delicate neon green strings and examine it. This one can't be a swimsuit because it's all strings and not much else.

My palms sweat, and I drop the flimsy thing on the bed.

At my feet is a pair of shredded denim shorts, a crop top, and something that might be called panties but is again mostly made of string. Someone is naked and prancing about the place?

I bend down and pick up the shorts, examining the pockets for a wallet, but all I find is a small plastic compact mirror.

My nose automatically goes to the crotch of the shorts. I inhale a clean, sweaty, not unpleasant sort of scent on this one. I … don't know why I did that.

But I liked doing it.

Doesn't matter. Whoever this scent belongs to is not welcome here, and I have to figure out how to get rid of them.

If I find them.

I'm thirsty from the hike from my last hideout, about fifteen miles deep into the woods. Fifteen miles is nothing for me, even laden with fishing and hunting gear. Nonetheless, I'm thirsty.

I move to the kitchen to pour a glass of water and find the cabinets and shelves stocked with half a dozen different crackers. I open another cabinet to grab a cup and see that dishes have been pushed aside for more crackers, snacks, and other abominable processed foods. Oh, gods, she must be American. And she clearly thinks she's staying for some time, judging by the sheer amount of food.

Even so. Something doesn't add up here.

The place looks different from the last time I visited for the autumn bird count. There's a television over there, where there didn't used to be. The fridge is not the ancient one but a big stainless side-by-side that overwhelms the rustic kitchen. And the front door…the keypad lock.

Oh no. Oh, shit.

Has my mother…did the palace list this place on a vacation rental website?

Fuck me with a damn chainsaw.

I throw open the fridge and see yogurts, sausages, a distressing amount of cheeses, creams, and strawberry milk. In the freezer, things only get worse. A bag of store-bought frozen fish.

Frozen…store-bought…salmon.

I need to sit down.

I'm going to be sick to my stomach.

I slam the freezer door and whirl around, spotting a handbag carelessly tossed on a kitchen chair. Inside, I find the pocketbook and work open the snap, pulling out the identification.

Before I see the name, I see hair. Thick, wild, red hair almost overwhelming a face with startling blue eyes, pink cheeks, and full, smiling lips.

She looks strangely familiar.

I stare too long at her ID, and a moment passes before I realize the sound I hear is coming from me. That was a groan, for whatever reason.

I must be hungry.

I ignore my hunger and examine the ID. Anastasia Keskkula, 179 centimeters tall, 90 kilos.

Inappropriately, something stirs at the front of my trousers.

This is perfect. I'm getting hard from staring at the ID of a sturdy woman I've never met.

A woman with a good zesty scent between her legs.

Gods, what's wrong with me?

What if she's here with her husband? And here I am, driven to horniness over a full set of rosy lips in a bad photo ID, and a cupboard full of junk food.

There are a dozen possible scenarios for a woman to want to hide out in a tiny hunting cabin with no hunting gear that I can see.

Unfortunately for this Anastasia, she'll have to leave. For both our sakes.

And I'll make sure she's well compensated when she relocates.

I suppose there's nothing left to do but wait for her to return to the cabin from wherever she is at the moment. This conversation will go badly, and I will feel like shit no matter what.

I'm anxious and fidgety as I pace and wait, and now I have to take a leak.

In the bathroom, I've relieved myself before I notice a bra hanging over the edge of the tub.

I pick up the damp satin thing and stare at it, turning it over in my hand. Judging by the size of the curved metal wire, the lace at the front seems like it covers little. I read the size on the tags and the phrase "push-up." Sweat forms on my brow.

I bring the thing to my nose and inhale.

The elastic smells like female and the most decadent coconut cake. Anastasia's scent has me closing my eyes and recalling fond memories. Childhood birthday parties. Rolling down the dunes in the summertime. My father, when he used to be fun, cracking open a coconut on a family vacation and letting all of us siblings drink the juice, standing under him like baby birds.

Something stirs low in my belly. Nostalgia—a useless feeling.

And something else—imagination and curiosity. I flatten out the cup of the bra and measure it with the span of my hand. She is…a large one.

I sniff the bra once again and close my eyes, and my brain immediately conjures the image of two overflowing, heavy handfuls. Soft, feminine flesh. Her rosy, pert nipples peeking out between my fingers.

The stirring in my belly burrows lower and deeper, transforming. This isn't nostalgia but a deep ache for female company that I haven't felt…ever.

Yes, I've held breasts in my hands before. I've been with women. Discreetly, covertly. Furtively. Between the nosy royal family and the vetting by security and non-disclosure agreements—dating is an unbearable headache for a prince. There's no lack of women who want only casual sex with a prince. Enough to satisfy when the rare need arises.

But it's been a long time. A very, very long time since I felt that need rise. The king and queen's hyper-fixation on marriage has driven out any and all interest in that type of fun.

And now? The mere sight of a stray bra in my bathroom gets me hard. Clearly, it's been too long.

It's not just the bra, though. Anastasia's scent is all over the damn place. Is that normal?

I don't entertain women in my domicile, not at any of my hunting cabins, and certainly not at the palace.

I rarely stay at the palace, anyway. And I don't feel right bringing people to Callum Black's cottage, where I often reside.

Outside the palace, the royal gamekeeper's home is the most civilized place I stay regularly.

As my best friend, Callum is the only palace staff with a vague knowledge of my whereabouts, but even so, he only has a general idea of which county I've been camping out in.

He's good at keeping secrets, that one. We have a mutual agreement—I stay at his place when the world gets to be too much. And I disappear whenever he has a girl visiting.

That one has a lot of female visitors. I've never seen a single one face to face, because that's none of my business.

I adjust my cock inside my trousers, and when I do, I look out to the main room and out the window. The rowboat is on the lake, away from the dock. My rowboat.

And it's moving. It's headed this way, more or less. Could it be my large-breasted trespasser?

I swallow hard as the sunlight catches the red hair that's twisted on top of her head.

Anastasia.

I stalk out of the bathroom, eat up the distance to the screen door, push that open, and don't stop until I'm perched at the end of the dock.

Right. It's better to position myself for a confrontation when she returns my boat so we can get this over with.

For gods' sakes, the woman is rowing backward, facing the bow instead of the stern. She's not doing a terrible job, but she looks ridiculous. And cute.

"Hi! Can I help you?"

The woman stops rowing and eyes me up and down.

Her eyes land on my chest, then on my crossed arms. To my chagrin, I feel excited when she looks at my body. Then, her gaze lands on my right hand, and I see one eyebrow go up.

"Sir? Is that my bra?"

Sir? Clearly, she doesn't realize who I am. And what was that she said about a bra?

Oh…oh, no. I uncross my arms, and there, crushed between my sausage fingers is her lacy, satiny push-up bra. Somehow, I'm still clutching it.

Fuck me.

I clear my throat and dryly say, "Madame, I…"

I what? How could I explain why I'm holding her bra like the ultimate creep?

Then I see it. Familiarity dawns on her face. Anastasia's face pales. She gasps and stands up in the row boat.

"Oh fuck, pardon me, Your Highness!"

Waving her bra in the air like a semaphore, I warn her not to stand up, curtsy, or do anything because she's…

And she's done it. The boat lists to one side, and the beautiful, sturdy, surprised Anastasia is in the water.

Here we go.