The Reluctant King (The Star-Crossed Series) (2 page)

              I tried not to laugh. “Vegetarian option? Do we have very many vegetarians attending the party?” I was not the best at paying attention, but I was certain in the countless dinners and affairs I’d been forced to host over the past three years I had not once been asked my opinion on a “vegetarian option.”

              “For Princess Amelia,” the chef explained and I ground my teeth at the word “princess.” She was only a princess by association to the Kendrick line and no matter how well I get along with my brother in law these days I had been working very hard at disassociating all of us with Monarchial terms. It was nothing personal against Amelia, I didn’t even really know the girl.

              “Well, I’m sure whatever you come up with will be fine,” I nodded to let him know I was finished speaking with him and then tried that benevolent smile again. He scurried from the room.

              Yep, I needed to practice that some more.

              “Somebody please explain to me why I have to waste my day away making menu plans and talking about vegetarian options?” I demanded when it was finally just my board of advisors and me alone in the throne room.

              “You’re awfully testy today,” Angelica clucked her tongue from her place in between Silas and Gabriel. She was more of a mother figure than an advisor, but when I decided to choose one from each kind I knew there was no Witch I trusted more than her.

              “I have a headache,” I mumbled, letting my head fall into my fingertips.

              “You don’t have a headache,” she scolded me. She stood up to busy herself with something on the other side of the room and that was how I knew she was worried about me even if I couldn’t technically get a physical headache. Her hair had turned a blinding shade of white and I could swear it was from the stress of three years ago. She aged over the yearlong battle with Lucan. She was still stunning for a grandma type, all handsome, gentle beauty, but that year was hard on all of us.

              “Trust me, my head hurts,” I complained.

              “Only because you refuse to use it,” Gabriel snapped. I sat up, ready to argue, but he was already on his way to a lecture, there was no stopping him now. “Avalon we get it, you don’t want to be King, but right now you don’t have a choice. This was the future you wanted for your people; tyranny is dead, they are free, and the magic is whole once again. Granted it’s not exactly how we imagined life after Lucan, I understand that, but this is what your people want. And by acting like this…. this… petulant child you are refusing to give them what they want, what they
deserve
. You are as bad as Lucan at this point.”

              “Don’t compare me to him,” I growled, standing up from the dead King’s throne to distance myself as far from his memory as I could. “We are not comparable.”

              “What he means is, you’re as bad as Lucan
today
,” Silas clarified in his thick Jamaican accent and if it was anyone else he was talking about I would have laughed.

              “Oh, now I feel better,” I rolled my eyes and turned to Angelica for help. I could always count on her.

              “Maybe if you got married, things wouldn’t seem so difficult,” she offered and I realized sharply I couldn’t count on any of them today. “Maybe if you had someone to share the burden of the throne, things wouldn’t feel so impossible. You wouldn’t be so grumpy.”

              “No, no, I am not having this conversation again!” I sighed. “I already have someone to share the throne with. Actually I have two somebodies to share the throne with, they are just never here! Although, maybe I should follow their example and find someone to marry just so I can go on a two year honeymoon!” I threw myself back into the hard, golden chair and ignored the pain shooting up my back from my childish tantrum.

              “Sure, if that’s the kind of incentive you need, then by all means marry someone and take your extended honeymoon. You will get no argument from any of us,” Gabriel laughed humorlessly.

              He knew I would never leave the Kingdom in someone else’s hands for that long, not even Eden’s, not without a stable government in place to fill my stead. And he also knew I was so far from getting married or even thinking about getting married. I hated it when he called my bluff.

              “What do you want from me?” I asked Gabriel, knowing he would tell me whether I wanted to hear it or not.

              His orange eyes flashed with gravity and he rubbed his hand over his closely shaved head. “I want you to be the leader you’re destined to be. You’ve done an adequate job so far, but we know what you’re doing Avalon and the Kingdom isn’t going to dismiss the Monarchy just because you are trying to prove to them they don’t need you. They want
you
, and your sister and her husband. So, instead of pouting around and not paying attention, why don’t you try taking your role seriously? Why don’t you explore all the good that could come out of that?”

              I opened my mouth to respond, but then closed it. Gabriel had a point. Who was I kidding? I knew he had a point; I just didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of telling him so. Which I also knew was very immature. But they were the ones that demanded I become King at eighteen years old.

              Now at twenty-one I was very worried resentment had stunted my growth.

              My mental growth.

              Talbott’s phone beeped, interrupting the pregnant pause and saving me from having to reply verbally. Although by the look Gabriel sent me and the dull suppression of his eye color, I knew he knew I thought he was right.

              “That was the front gate,” Talbott announced after clicking off his cellphone. “Jericho is here. I told them to have him meet you in the receiving room.”

              I rolled my eyes at Talbott’s formal behavior. I was the one that appointed him head Titan, so I really couldn’t complain. But still, the receiving room? I didn’t need to meet Jericho in the receiving room. I needed to meet Jericho wherever I damned well pleased and then we both needed to get the hell out of Dodge, or uh, the Citadel in this case.

              Gabriel glared at me, sending me one of his “I know exactly what you’re thinking right now” looks and I swallowed back the leftovers of a Rebellion I was supposed to be done fighting.

              “Thank you Talbott,” I replied formally.

              I started to leave the room before I made myself turn around and act like the responsible ruler of a nation I knew I was. “You’re right Gabriel. I need to stop pouting. The people want a king and I am in no position to argue with them since I killed their last one. Besides, Eden will be back in today and she can share the responsibility. I will do my best to embrace this position and do what I can to better the existence for our people.” I finished a little bit dramatically, but overall I thought it was a very diplomatic speech.

              “So you’ll consider finding a wife?” Angelica piped up.

              And I needed to get out of the room. I could try to be diplomatic, but not that diplomatic. I watched right along with the rest of the Kingdom how love turned my sister’s world upside down. And not in a good way…. There was absolutely no way in hell I was going to get sucked into the rabbit hole called Love.

              It wasn’t worth it.

Chapter Two

              I walked through the somewhat empty corridors of the old castle trying to suppress my love for the ancient building. The stone walls and worn tapestries should feel cold and distant. The massive size of the building itself should feel overwhelming.

              But it didn’t.

              I reluctantly loved it here.

              I was always trying to talk myself out of it. My people were tortured and imprisoned here, some were even killed. A tyrant walked these same halls and brought the magic that ran through my people’s blood to near extinction. The walls that surrounded the Citadel had been impenetrable for centuries. I was nearly murdered here. My sister was nearly murdered here. My parents
were
murdered here.

              I should definitely hate this place.

              And yet…. it had crawled its way into my small, skeptical, unfeeling heart and made a home. This was where my grandfather was originally chosen to be King, where it all started. This was where my people had realized that Lucan couldn’t continue to hold them under his thumb and had fought back. And this was where I could feel my parents…. Not because of some creepy reason like their ghosts haunted the grounds. But because this was where they had fallen in love, this was the last place they had really called home before they went on the run. And this was where we had spent the majority of our relationship.

              Until they were murdered.             

              Lucan was so lucky he was already dead.

              When Eden had exchanged herself for me, she had not only saved my life, but she had given up the one thing that could never be taken from me. The one thing I could never repay her for.

              Time with our parents.

              I opened the door to the receiving room before I could have another thought about it. My best friend in the world turned from the window and looked at me incredulously. There was no awe in his expression, no reverence, not even a hint that he’d missed me.

              Thank God for Jericho.

              “What are you so pissed off about?” I huffed.

              “You make people wait for you now?” he rolled his eyes. “You really have turned into a pretentious prick.”

              I laughed, loud and full, a sound that felt foreign, even to my own ears. “That’s what happens when all your friends abandon you! You lose sight of the little people and embrace the douchebag crown you were given.”

              He cracked his wide grin and walked forward to take my hand. “It’s good to see you again, Avalon, even if you are a complete and utter sell out.”

              I let out another burst of laughter and my lungs definitely felt underused. “Where have you been?”

              Jericho’s face turned serious, his smile faded and I noticed the lines around his smile and near his eyes. He was by no means old, only in his early twenties, but there were signs of stress since I saw him last. Or maybe I hadn’t noticed them before, maybe Angelica wasn’t the only one showing signs from that year.

              “I needed some time away,” he cleared his throat uncomfortably and dropped my hand roughly. “I needed some space from this place, you know?”

              Ok, so I
was
the only one that still felt attached to the castle. There was definitely something wrong with that.

              I cleared my throat too. “Yeah, I know what you mean.” I lied.

              We were both silent for a few seconds, turning our attention elsewhere in the room designed to be welcoming and comfortable. I wondered if it was a wasted effort as I looked at the chocolate-leather upholstered couches that had stiff, dark wood bench seats and a matching coffee table on top of a burgundy oriental rug. The walls were still stone and the windows were long and narrow barely letting any natural light in.

              “So, where am I staying?” Jericho interrupted the comfortable silence, his eyes meeting mine again.

              “You decided to stay?” I asked, trying to disguise the hope I felt with a masculine tone.

              “Yeah, I, uh, I don’t have anything better to do,” Jericho shifted uncomfortably, which in turn made me shift uncomfortably.

              I knew he was over my sister. Well…. for the most part. But I knew seeing her again after all this time was not going to be easy for him either. He had loved her; like the real deal loved her and she had chosen someone else. Well, truthfully, he had walked away before she could officially choose Kiran, but he had been hurt pretty bad.

              That sucked. Just another reason to avoid the whole love fiasco waiting to happen.

              “Oh, I get it,” I smirked, needing to ease the heavy tension in the room. “You missed me.” I winked at him, knowing it would get under his skin.             

              “Geez, it’s like that gold has seeped right into your brain and made you so damn sure of yourself. It’s disgusting really,” he joked. God, it was good to have someone around with a sense of humor. “Are you sure they counted those votes right?”

              “They better have,” I growled, more serious than Jericho was. “I made them recount them by hand five times.”

              “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Jericho sighed.

              I walked to the door and held it open for him to pass through. “Oh, I’m sorry, do you want this job? Because you can have it! I will take this crown off right now and give it to you.” I lifted the heavy piece of gold off my head and held it out to him, internally wishing he would actually take it from me and release me from the impossible burden.

              “No thank you,” he laughed. “But uh, I’ve been meaning to ask you…. the whole lopsided thing? I mean, that wasn’t just a Lucan-fashion-statement? Or are you simply trying to emulate our dearly departed former leader?”

              “It’s heavy as hell, dude,” I slipped the questionable piece of jewelry back onto my head and it fell to the side so that it lay crooked on my long hair. “You try keeping this thing on straight. It’s impossible.”

              “Huh,” Jericho mumbled thoughtfully.

We caught up as I walked him to the room he would be staying in during the homecoming festival. We spoke every other week on the phone, but it wasn’t the same. Jericho and I had always been like girls with how much we talked to each other. It was kind of annoying. And kind of awesome at the same time. He wasn’t technically on salary, but he had been traveling all over the world, checking in on different settlements of Immortals. As much as I hated being King, we were all worried about another rebellion.