Chapter 2
Kellen
I always thought being banished to a centuries-old manor on the edge of the royal compound would be a punishment.
Turns out, I quite like the privacy. There’s no waking up to my mother’s shrieking voice, or my father’s stoic shadow crossing the breakfast nook, and the only footsteps I hear at night are my own.
Well, and those of my assigned bodyguard, but Elliot’s been trailing me for so long he might as well be a second pulse.
Most days I can forget about the reason I’m here—apart from the fact that my existence is a living, breathing ball of public obligation.
Tonight is not most days.
I drag the straight razor along my jaw with a trembling hand and debate whether I can get away with a little stubble.
The answer, obviously, is no, because my mother has already texted me three times to make sure I am “prince presentable” for the event.
I rinse the razor in the sink, splash cold water over my cheeks, and force myself to look at my reflection.
I look exactly like my father did at twenty-seven, except with better taste in hair products and—if you asked Royals Anonymous before it closed down—sadder eyes.
The suit I’ll be wearing tonight is navy and tailored perfectly.
I hate it. It makes my shoulders feel like they belong to a linebacker, not someone who spends his free time piping rosettes onto gluten-free wedding cakes for charity.
I glance at the clock. Seventeen minutes until I’m meant to be at the palace’s main ballroom for the fundraiser, and already my throat feels like it’s been lined with tacks.
Footsteps echo outside the bathroom’s door.
“Kellen,” Elliot’s voice comes muffled through the wood of the bathroom door. “Your mother just called. She says if you’re not at the ballroom on time, she’ll disown you.”
“She says that every week.” I towel off my jaw and open the door. He’s standing there in his own version of evening wear: black suit and shoes so polished I can see the anxious twitch of my own foot reflected in them. His security earpiece radio curls around his ear.
Elliot looks me up and down. “You cleaned up well. Too bad you can’t show up in a baking apron, but you know.” His lips twitch in the faintest suggestion of a smile. “Royalty.”
“I’m convinced the dress code is some kind of population control,” I mutter, but my heart isn’t in it. Elliot’s presence is usually steadying, but today, even his sarcasm tastes bitter.
“You okay?” he asks, lowering his voice as he scans the hallway behind me. “You’re vibrating.”
“Am I?” I check my hands, but they’re steady now. “Just excited to make a six-figure donation to a charity and then have my family take credit for it.”
Elliot snorts. “Want to pregame with something stiffer than water? Kitchen’s clear.”
He knows me. Maybe too well.
The kitchen is my favorite room in the house, possibly because it’s the one place I can make a mess and nobody—except maybe the cleaning service, who I over-tip—will ever know.
But even here I’m pacing as soon as we step across the threshold.
I settle for a single shot of whiskey, then push the bottle toward Elliot, who raises his hands and shakes his head.
“Not on the clock.” Elliot’s silent for a beat. “You know, you used to be less… Cynical.”
I study him for a long moment. Elliot knows exactly why I hate these functions. And despite my earlier comment, it has little to actually do with money. “My parents are constantly looking for an omega, Elliot.”
He raises a carefully measured eyebrow that I know is more for show than anything else. “You don’t want one?”
He says it like that’s the only part of the package that matters. Alpha plus one omega, the end. But it’s not. Sure, some alpha princes get their own omega and that’s it. But oftentimes, it’s a whole pack.
I don’t have a full pack, but I do have Elliot. My best friend. We’ve never discussed the bond, but it’s there no matter how much my parents might rather prefer it’s not, given Elliot’s station.
You’re going to form a royal pack. That’s the directive I’ve had since I presented as an alpha. I don’t get to pick my pack, that is chosen for me by others, so that only nobles and other royals fill those ranks.
I could have the largest pack in the world, but if Elliot isn’t in it, the pack will never be right.
“I used to think I’d get to live my own life,” I shoot back, but the heat’s gone out of it. “I was young.”
He leans against the counter. “Remember that time in secondary, when you signed us both up for the winter bake sale just so you could avoid fencing with your cousin?”
“Are you kidding? I still have flour in my shoes from that month.”
“I was just thinking about that,” Elliot says. “You made four hundred cookies, and only three of them survived the first hour. You cried when they broke.”
“I was twelve.”
“Yeah, but it mattered to you.” He looks away, suddenly intent on a spot on the marble.
“You could barely see straight from exhaustion, but you finished every single batch. That’s all I’m saying.
This is hardly the same sort of affair. It’s a single event, and if your parents truly find an omega there worth you courting, you still don’t have to say yes. ”
The hard line of his jaws says I should say no.
I fall quiet. The room is too big, the lighting too warm for this conversation. “Thanks, Elliot.”
He shrugs, but his jaw is tight. “You should get going. I’ll drive.”
“Yeah.” My hand is on the door, but I don’t open it.
Something’s crawling up my back, something I haven’t let myself feel for a long time.
I turn, and Elliot’s just there—his face is very close, and I can smell the faint trace of his cologne, sandalwood and something sharp. His eyes are almost black in the light.
It would be so easy. To lean in, to close the last inch and finally admit what we both know.
I’ve thought about it every day for years, and every day I’ve told myself: after the next event, after the next obligation, after the next “someday.” Then I will tell my parents that Elliot and I have had feelings for each other since either of us can remember, and that while we’ve not acted on it in certain terms, there’s a bond here that feels like we’re already the start of a pack together.
But there is never a someday. Not while I’m a prince and Elliot’s a commoner.
No matter how much we might hope.
I do it anyway. I lean, and Elliot meets me halfway.
Our noses bump before our lips finally align.
His stubble scrapes my chin as I lean in too hard, too hungry.
His hand trembles against my neck. This is all we’ve had over the years.
A few stolen moments and short kisses that end before they ever truly begin.
When we break apart, Elliot’s breathing hard. “We can’t—”
“I know.”
He looks wrecked. “Your parents would have my head on a spike.”
“I’d insist they mount it above the piano.” My voice breaks. Jokes have no place here. There’s no amount of deflecting I could do that Elliot couldn’t see straight through.
Elliot holds my face in one hand. I lean into it and kiss his palm. “I wish things were different, Kellen,” he says quietly. “That this bond would mean something to them.”
“Me too.” We stand there with our foreheads touching. There is one way, of course. If Elliot always remains my bodyguard, then he could join any other pack I’m forced to also join.
A sharp knock sounds at the front door. Time to be a prince again.
Elliot pulls away first, face professional and his voice flat. “I’ll check the car.”
I nod and force my feet to move. I check myself one last time in the mirror before leaving the foyer.
I wonder if anybody will notice, under the perfect grooming and practiced smile, that I’m falling apart inside.
That if I could have anything in the world it would be no royal duties and a stocked kitchen to bake to my heart’s content.
Elliot’s waiting by the car when I finally make it outside.
He’s already holding the back door open like a proper security detail.
I slide in, and as the car pulls out, I glance back at the manor.
I try to imagine it full of children and a real pack to support them.
But I can’t picture their faces. I can’t even picture my own.
What I can picture, in excruciating detail, is the way Elliot’s hand felt on the back of my neck.
The palace’s main ballroom is an insult to subtlety. You can’t take five steps without tripping over a marble column or an expensive vase. The chandelier is so big it needs its own structural support, and every bulb is set to “blinding.”
I walk in to a chorus of press camera flashes. My mother, in her signature shade of lavender, stands near the entrance, with her arms folded and eyes already narrowed. “Smile,” she hisses, and I do.
“Darling, you look perfect,” she adds through her own frozen smile, then drifts away to greet the next most important guest.
I count four duchesses, two former heads of state, and a whole flock of socialites before I’ve even made it to the first bar station. A waiter hands me a glass of champagne, and I take it mostly for something to do with my hands.
Elliot is, as usual, just outside my periphery. He’s dressed like a guest, but his eyes sweep the room with practiced perfection. Even long before he joined Ravenwood Shield Security, Elliot had a knack for picking out danger around every corner.
The first hour is a blur of handshakes, fake laughs, and awkward small talk.
Everyone wants to know if the rumors about me are true: that I’ll be “settling down soon” since my mother has already started Omega Selection prep.
Omega Selection day is only a few months away, so clearly I’m spending all my free time secretly screening and auditioning possible mates like I’m on a reality TV show.