Claimed By the Maharaja (The Maharajas #2)

PROLOGUE

Rewa Palace, Central India

The storm broke over Rewa Palace late in the evening.

Thunder rolled across the sandstone domes, shaking the glass panes in their frames. Rain lashed against the tall arched windows. Lightning flashed across the courtyard, lighting up carved pillars and ancestral statues for a moment before plunging everything back into darkness.

Rani Suchitra Devi had just finished nursing her infant son, but instead of taking rest, she walked along the corridor with purpose. Her silk saree whispered against the marble floor.

As she neared the grand staircase, she heard the whispers.

“That boy is not normal.”

“It must be the Jogra blood. The last maharaja was known to be mad too. Heard he took his own life.”

Suchitra stopped.

The two newly hired palace attendants froze when they saw her standing there.

“No one in this palace is allowed to speak of my children with disrespect,” she said, her tone calm yet firm. “Collect your wages for the rest of the month and leave before sunrise.”

“Rani Ma, we—”

“Leave.”

Suchitra did not raise her voice. She didn’t need to.

The attendants lowered their heads in shame and hurried away.

Another crack of thunder echoed through the palace.

Without hesitation, Suchitra turned toward the Eastern suite.

Her eyes moved swiftly across the room until they settled on the seven-year-old boy she had come looking for. Her second-born son was crouched beneath a carved wooden console table, knees drawn tightly to his chest, fingers pressed tightly over his ears.

“One. Two. Three. Four. Five.” Bharat was counting softly.

Ram stood a few steps away. “The thunder is bothering him, Amma,” Ram said.

Nine years old, and already tall for his age, broad-shouldered, sun-tanned like his late father, Ram carried quiet authority in the way he stood. He was alert, but not afraid.

Suchitra nodded in acknowledgment before she slowly knelt on the marble floor.

“Bharat,” she said gently, not wanting to startle him. “It’s mouj.”

“Six. Seven.”

Lightning flashed again.

Bharat flinched, his small shoulders trembling slightly. His fair skin caught the pale light, and his light-brown eyes were unfocused yet alert.

“It’s too loud, mouj,” his small voice whispered.

Suchitra’s chest tightened. She extended her hand carefully, knowing he disliked sudden touch or movement.

After a pause, he placed his small, trembling hand in hers and crawled out from under the table.

His hand stayed stiff in hers. She knew he tolerated her touch rather than draw comfort.

“It’s only sound,” she murmured, gently releasing his small hand.

“It’s loud,” he replied quietly. “It hurts my head.”

“I know, my love. But it’ll pass soon.” She smiled reassuringly. “Why don’t you solve problems from the new book I bought you?”

She knew he enjoyed them.

“I finished them this afternoon,” he said softly. “I don’t like leaving things unfinished.”

A faint smile touched her lips. She wasn’t surprised that he had finished an entire book in a day.

Earlier that week, the mathematics tutor had come to her study looking deeply unsettled.

“Your Highness, I would like to speak to you about something,” the tutor had said carefully. “It’s about Bharat.”

Ram had forgotten his homework after spending the afternoon playing cricket in the palace courtyard. The tutor had wanted to discipline him, so he had given him a week’s worth of advanced math problems.

But the next morning, the notebook was complete. Every answer was correct, and every step was written clearly. The tutor had assumed that Ram worked through the night.

But Ram had told the math tutor the truth. It wasn’t Ram. It was Bharat.

The tutor hadn’t believed Ram, so he had asked for Suchitra to intervene and find out the truth.

When she and the tutor went into the study, Bharat had been sitting at the far end of the table, not looking at anyone.

“I didn’t want Ram punished,” Bharat had said calmly.

“You understood all of it?” the tutor asked, disbelief clear in his voice.

Bharat had looked up then, his light-brown eyes steady and unblinking.

“They weren’t difficult.”

The tutor, feeling unsettled, gave Bharat more problems. Harder ones and from a much higher level. Bharat had completed them in less than ten minutes.

“Do you have something that takes longer?” he had asked quietly.

The tutor had fallen silent.

Suchitra had not been surprised. She had known Bharat’s mind worked differently.

What warmed her heart was not the brilliance itself, but the reason behind it. Bharat was protective of his older brother.

While Ram protected his younger brother with his presence. Bharat protected Ram by removing the problem efficiently.

“Let’s buy more books tomorrow,” she said to Bharat with a smile.

She rose from the floor. “Come. Both of you must be hungry. Let’s have dinner.”

The three of them walked together to the family dining room.

Ram took his seat and sat upright, composed and steady. Bharat sat next to him, equally composed but with his eyes lowered to the table.

Samar, nearly three years old and already hot-tempered, was protesting loudly when his water cup was taken away. But the sight of his older brothers calmed him down instantly. Samar adored them, especially Bharat.

Suchitra recalled the event from a few months ago when Samar’s expensive foreign mechanical horse had shattered across the corridor floor. The palace staff had desperately tried to fix it and calm Samar while he wailed loudly in frustration.

While everyone else tried to soothe Samar, Bharat crouched beside the broken pieces and studied the toy.

The next morning, the mechanical horse worked again.

“The parts didn’t break. They were misaligned,” Bharat had said calmly. There were slight shadows beneath his eyes from lack of sleep.

Suchitra knew he must have stayed up the night working on the toy to fix it.

Bharat hadn’t sought appreciation, and neither had he felt any pride for fixing a complicated toy. But he had stiffened slightly when Samar clung to his leg in gratitude.

Suchitra had gently pried Samar away from his brother and placed him on the toy horse.

Since that day, she had realized that Bharat did not let go of broken things. He studied them, understood them, and then worked on them until they began to work again.

Some called it an obsession, but she thought of it as dedication.

“Rajmata,” the staff member standing outside the dining room greeted in a deferential tone.

Suchitra turned towards the entrance to see her mother, Rani Vasundara Devi, entering the dining hall.

Normally, Suchitra’s mother chose to eat in her private suite. But on rare occasions, the family matriarch joined Suchitra and the rest of the family at the dining table.

Rani Vasundara Devi’s gaze swept over the royal dining table, where everyone stood up and greeted her, including Bharat. But her gaze remained fixed on him.

“Why are you not looking at me?” she demanded. “How many times must I tell you to look people in the eye while greeting?”

Bharat did not respond immediately, even though he knew his grandmother was addressing him.

The Rajmata’s voice hardened as she looked at Suchitra. “He should be disciplined until he follows orders. People are already talking about how Rani Suchitra Devi’s second-born son is mad.”

Ram immediately came to the defense of his younger brother. “Bharat is not mad,” Ram said firmly.

Rani Vasundara Devi glared at Ram for daring to speak back to her. “Your brother avoids royal ceremonies and festivals because they are loud. He doesn’t look at people or talk to them. He doesn’t cry or laugh. He is cold and emotionless. He is unfit to be the Jogra maharaja.”

The last words lingered in the air.

“Enough, mother,” Suchitra said with calm authority that broke the royal protocol.

Even though Suchitra held four royal titles, she was still a princess at the Rewa Palace, where her mother held the highest authority.

Rani Vasundara’s lips thinned at being silenced.

“Bharat is already the Jogra Maharaja,” Suchitra said, her voice calm but edged with steel. “The title passed to him the moment his father died. And no one in this palace will question his birthright or call him names.”

Silence followed.

“My son may not cry or laugh loudly,” Suchitra continued. “But Bharat feels deeply. He simply expresses it differently.”

Bharat raised his head and met his grandmother’s gaze. “I am not mad,” he said with quiet intensity. “I understand everything.”

Suchitra’s heart ached and then swelled with pride watching her son standing up to authority.

Rani Vasundara Devi's gaze wavered at the intensity in his eyes. She didn’t say anything more as they sat down and continued with their meal.

After dinner, Suchitra once again returned to her suite to nurse her youngest son. Viraj was barely a year old and already trying to walk after his older brothers. She knew he would join them soon in playing in the courtyard.

With a smile, she rocked Viraj to sleep.

The storm softened into a steady rain when she carried Viraj along towards the Eastern suite.

Inside the large suite, Ram and Samar were asleep in their beds. But Bharat sat by the window, watching the clearing sky. Suchitra carefully placed Viraj into a cradle before joining him.

“You should sleep, my love,” she said.

Bharat didn’t move. “The air still feels heavy,” he murmured. There was a slight tremble in his small shoulders.

She sat beside him, making sure she kept a slight distance.

Slowly, his shoulders relaxed. “Mouj… do you think I’m mad?” he asked softly.

Suchitra’s chest tightened.

“I hear people whispering about me,” he continued. “They say Moul was mad, and so I must be too.”

Her heart ached for her son. His eyes were clear, sharp, intelligent beyond his years.

“You are not mad,” she said, placing her hand next to his to reassure him without touching. “You just see the world differently. That’s not wrong.”

He was quiet for a long moment.

“Will they let me stay as the Jogra maharaja when I grow up?”

He asked it quietly, like a child asking permission to remain where he belonged.

“Yes,” she said firmly without hesitation. “You will be the best maharaja.”

He looked thoughtful for a moment, and then slowly nodded as though determined to make his mother’s words true.

Suchitra waited while he got up from the window seat and calmly walked towards his neatly made bed. When he lay down and then drifted to sleep, she slowly stood up.

She watched over her sons, her heart feeling full.

She had been married four times, but she had fallen in love just once. The world remembered her powerful marriages, but she remembered the men.

She knew people often gossiped about her, some calling her lucky and some calling her cursed. But she never regretted her choices.

Four marriages gave her four children. All of them maharajas who would take over their legacies.

But she didn’t want them to grow up believing that kings were made in palaces. She wanted them to know that kings were forged in storms.

And even the boy who now feared thunder would grow up to conquer storms.