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whatever piqued his endless curiosity. A mind for science, my mother used to murmur with a sad smile. What a pity he’s a prince.
I might not be as cunning and calculated as my aunt or her daughters, but I have noticed that all of my mother’s jewelry has steadily gone missing over the past few years. Every piece but the one she gifted me on my sixteenth birthday. A necklace my father once gave to her. …and the same one Asher untangled from my hair the day he kissed me for the first time.
She likes married men, she once told me after half a bottle of wine, because they’re always the most willing to pay handsomely for a woman’s silence. Since she’s made dating advantageously into a career of sorts, the preference for guys who need to keep her quiet about their extracurricular activities makes a horrible sort of sense.
I spend hours every week working on the urban homelessness issue in Crenmore’s cities, so I know every statistic there is. Tens of thousands are actually starving under our rule. People I do everything I can to help, despite Parliament’s desire to divert funding to every godforsaken military endeavor and land entitlement they can come up with.
Little do they know; logic and duty aren’t the reason I won’t ever find my match. They’re the reason I already lost her.
I’ve been chasing that itch—the need to destroy pristine things—my whole life. All in all, I’ve done pretty well. Ruined my family’s proud lineage. My own reputation. And now, I’m slowly poisoning our pack, too. It’s a wonder any of them put up with me. Let alone… care. God. Can you imagine?
Would you really say no to a duke? Turns out, she would. And did. Despite me spilling my miserable guts to her. Telling her things I never should have thought, let alone said out loud… Addison did, in fact, say no. Ivy Addison. No idea why the girl decided to go by her last name, but that detail annoys me. Along with pretty much every other thing about her. I can’t stand the way she flinches and trembles like a nervous dog. I hate watching her work, having her in our space. Especially after nights like last night. Mostly, though, I really can’t stand how damn nice she is.
The king is a sledgehammer, but our queen is a scalpel. There’s a precision and an elegance to how she wields her power. His Majesty is lucky he wound up with someone so much better than his sorry ass.
Because I’m not the kind of person that people love easily. If at all. And the ones who do? Learn better eventually.
For a member of the manor’s staff, she’s actually pretty terrible with formalities. I’ve noticed it’s a little too easy to lure her into conversation—and she has an adorable habit of eavesdropping. That might bother me, if she wasn’t also the single nicest person I’ve ever met.
Okay. Well. That’s… fucking adorable. Am I just supposed to go on with my life? Like knowing there’s a squirrel named Nigel wandering our grounds hasn’t made my entire year?
I’m struck by the sudden feeling that, really, I couldn’t do much better than this woman and her kindness. Her soft, strong spirit. Her friendship—the way she looks at me and waits. Listens. Here if I wanted to talk. Always here. Someone we rely on for a hundred things and never thank. Someone who never complains or contempts. She’s lovely. And I hate that I’ve noticed. Because now I have to walk away. And stay away.
And even though I knew I’d never see the girl I sent away again, it still felt like a betrayal every time I loaned out everything that ought to have been hers.
suck in a deep breath, inhaling absolute heaven. And it smells like shortbread.
This couldn’t actually be her. Because Ivy was a beta. And this omega smells like all my wildest dreams and darkest fantasies, dusted in a fine layer of sugar. She inhales sharply as our palms meet. I understand why when an answering snap of electricity thunders through my veins. Crackling up my arm, right down to the quiet corner where my heart sits. Covered in ivy.
At the end of the summer after I turned sixteen, he asked me to leave the manor. It was too hard for him, he explained. Caring for me and knowing he had to preserve his heart for his mate.
I scrub toilets and talk to squirrels and can’t apply blush without looking like a clown. I have no graces or title or money or poise. My only jewelry is a now-missing locket and my one pair of shoes has plastic soles. I can’t be a princess.
“My friend,” she whispers. “You’ve tried to be my friend this whole time.”
She blinks at Dair. “You don’t like me, remember?” His face splits, teeth gnashing. “No, little dove. I don’t like me. It never had anything to do with you—other than how badly my body wanted yours. I was just too fucking stupid to realize it.”
Her crystalline gaze drops to the tattoo branded there, the image I got to remind me of her. A perfect anatomical rendering of my heart, wrapped in delicate vines of ivy.
“If you’re the same girl I knew,” I murmur, “then you are the one I’ve loved and missed every damn day since I made the mistake of letting you go. And that makes you my queen.”
I can either find the courage to go back to the city with the princes and let them court me… or I can stay here and find some other omega-approved job.
So I smile. “All right, Princess Ahmad. You have a deal.” The gorgeous future empress grins. “In that case, you should probably call me Jasmine.”
“When he sent me away to boarding school and I met Asher and Bast… I came up with a solution.” Sadness salts Ivy’s sweetness and fills her sparkling eyes. “You decided to join their pack and become a prince instead.” Hearing her say the words… for the first time, it occurs to me that they’re hurtful. To Asher. I used him. His name, his title.
“Your heart is a thing of beauty, Ivy. If that means we have a queen who talks to ducks, we’ll all be better for it.”
I should have known that would make her a fantastic future queen. The fact that I ever spent a moment doubting whether she could handle life as a royal shames me.
When I sent Ivy away, part of me did it to protect the girl I loved. She seemed so soft and innocent. I worried she’d be miserable in the face of all the pressures and injustices we manage.
“I actually think that would be my favorite part. Never feeling alone. Never…”
I get it. This moment, the rain. It’s perfect. And he knew I would want him to give it to me now instead of waiting for it to be sunny. Because he knows me. Because he— Asher looks right into my eyes, ignoring the raindrops falling from his brows. “I love you, Ivy.”
If I weren’t already madly in love with her, I would be a second later when Ivy flicks a sly look at her two incapacitated alphas and then smirks at me. “They seem less grumpy now, huh?”
“You matter, Dair.” Those three simple words hit me like a bullet to the heart. Pain explodes where the pounding organ twists, squirming away from that…
I still feel like a piece of shit for using Asher, but the realization helps with the rest of it. I can apologize for being an opportunist dick a whole lot easier than I could for ruining his “real pack.”
She nods, shortbread sweetness brightening with excitement that has me hiding a grin against her crown. I press a button on the small remote, illuminating the constellations I installed above us. It took hours to get that shit right. I spent two afternoons sitting up here with a map of the stars laid out in front of me, carefully adhering pinprick LEDs in the correct patterns. Now, our girl has an exact replica of the night sky in her nest. Ivy gazes up at the lights in awe. A choked cry catches in her throat. “Dair! It’s beautiful! How—why did you—”
“This way, you always have a star handy. I figured my girl deserves as many wishes as she can make.”
Jasmine fists her hands on her hips. “I’m basically your Fairy Frickin’ Godmother!”
Her gray eyes widen with shock when she finds me standing over her and hears me snarl, “Haven’t you heard? I’m not a princess. I’m their queen.”
“Not sure I’ve ever loved anything quite like this,” he confesses, an adorable beat of bewilderment evaporating some of the worry furrowing his brow. I try to smile, but it just sends new droplets down my face. “I love you, too, Bast. You’re my—” I pant around a stabbing cramp. “—best friend.”
