I’m supposed to be a Princess in Förening—the compound in Minnesota where the Trylle live. My birth mother is Elora, the Trylle Queen. After spending a few weeks in Förening, I decided to head home. I had a falling-out with Elora, who had forbidden me from seeing Finn Holmes simply because he’s not royalty.
I escaped and took Rhys with me. In Förening, Rhys had shown me genuine kindness, and I felt he deserved some of that in return. I brought him here to meet Matt, since he is really Rhys’s brother, not mine.
Of course, I couldn’t tell Matt all of that. He’d think I was completely insane.
Growing drowsy, I thought again how good it felt to be home. It only took ten minutes for Rhys to shatter that comfort when he crept into my room. I was almost asleep, but the sound of my door opening made me alert. Matt had gone downstairs, presumably to make the phone call I suggested, and if he knew Rhys was in here, he’d kill us both.
“Wendy? Are you asleep?” Rhys whispered, sitting gingerly on the edge of my bed.
“Yes,” I muttered.
“Sorry. I can’t sleep,” Rhys said. “How can you sleep?”
“It’s not that exciting for me. I lived here before, remember?”
“Yeah, but…” He trailed off, probably because he had no argument for that. Suddenly he tensed and sucked in his breath. “Did you hear that?”
“You talking? Yes, but I’ve been trying not—” Before I could finish my sentence, I heard it too. A rustling sound outside my bedroom window.
Considering I had just had a horrible run-in with some very bad trolls known as Vittra, I was alarmed. I rolled over and peered at the window, but the curtains were drawn, blocking my view.
The rustling turned into actual banging, and I sat up, my heart pounding. Rhys shot a nervous glance at me. We heard the window slide open, and the curtains billowed out from the wind.
TWO
interruptions
He stepped into my room in one graceful move, as if entering through bedroom windows were nothing out of the ordinary.
His black hair was slicked back impeccably, but he had stubble growing along his jaw, making him look even sexier. His eyes were so dark they were nearly black, and he took one discerning look at Rhys before settling them on me, making my heart forget to beat entirely.
Finn Holmes had snuck into my room.
He still managed to stun me the same way he always did. I was so happy to see him that I almost forgot how angry I was with him.
The last time I had seen Finn, he was slinking out of my bedroom in Förening, per his deal with my mother. Elora told him that he could spend one more night with me before leaving. Forever.
We had only kissed, but Finn had failed to let me in on Elora’s plan. He didn’t even bother to say good-bye. He didn’t fight it or try to get me to run away with him. He just crept out of my room, leaving Elora to explain to me exactly what had happened.
“What are you doing here?” Rhys asked, and Finn pulled his eyes off me to glare at Rhys.
“I came to collect the Princess, of course,” Finn said, but irritation saturated his words.
“Well, yeah, but … I thought Elora reassigned you.” Rhys seemed thrown by Finn’s anger, and he fumbled for a minute. “I mean … that’s what people were saying around Förening, that you weren’t allowed around Wendy anymore.”
Finn tensed noticeably at Rhys’s words, his jaw flexing, and Rhys looked down at the floor.
“I’m not,” Finn admitted after a moment. “I was preparing to leave when I heard that you two had vanished in the middle of the night. Elora was deciding who would be best suited to track Wendy, and I thought it would be in her best interest if I went after her, what with the Vittra stalking her.”
Rhys opened his mouth to protest but Finn cut in.
“We all know you did a wonderful job of protecting her at the ball,” Finn said. “If I hadn’t shown up, you might’ve protected her right into getting murdered.”
“I know the Vittra are a threat!” Rhys shot back. “I just … we came here to…”
Hearing his confusion, I got up off the bed, moving to intercede before Rhys figured out why he’d let me talk him into coming here.
The truth was, Rhys didn’t agree to come here. He wanted to meet Matt, but he was adamant about my safety and had flat-out refused to let me leave the security of the compound. Unfortunately for Rhys, I had persuasion. When I looked at people and thought about what I wanted them to do, they would do it, whether they wanted to or not.