His Majesty's Forbidden Temptat - Maisey Yates Page 0,4

her breast bone, the cut around her legs coming up over her hips.

He’d been entranced by her body.

And it had angered him.

The press makes it their mission to get photographs of our family outings. You must be conscious of that, Tinley.

What’s wrong with this? It’s not a bikini, and this isn’t the Dark Ages! Should I make sure I’m covered from crown to ankle?

You are to be my brother’s wife. You must conduct yourself with a bit of decorum.

Then perhaps you ought to cover yourself. What will the world do if it gets a glimpse of your royal chest hair?

She’d planted her palm in the center of his chest to give him a shove and he’d caught her wrist, their eyes locking together.

And he’d nearly been lost then. He’d been able to see clearly that Tinley had no idea why their eyes made sparks when they clashed. Why the air suddenly felt thick.

But he knew.

He knew and she didn’t. And it was all the reason he’d needed to release her.

Protocol had not come into it.

“Well. It’s a shame that your protocol wasn’t functioning when you let Dionysus get lost in the woods.”

“I did not over consume alcohol on my brother’s behalf. Neither did I beseech him to try and impress the equally drunk and luxuriously curvy woman he was with.” He knew that was unkind. To bring up the woman. That betrayal had hurt Tinley then. He didn’t care. He couldn’t afford to care. And he had no patience with her accusations. “And finally, I did not direct a pack of wolves to tear him limb from limb.”

He felt something in his chest that might have been pain once. But the years had left him too hard and scarred to feel it.

He wore grief like a cloak. As much a part of him as the crown. It was not painful. It was not sad. It simply was. There was a weight to it, but it was not unbearable.

The grief for Dionysus, though, it was tinged with anger.

For he should have known better.

He knew the stories of how Lazarus had vanished.

He had gone in anyway. Brash and bold to impress a woman. For the forest would surely deem him worthy. As everyone had deemed that golden child, born after the King and Queen’s first loss.

Worthy, more than worthy. Invincible.

But it had proven not to be so.

Dionysus had been lost in the wood, cementing Alex’s reign as inevitable. Cementing his reputation as a fated ruler.

It was the Lion who remained. The Lion who claimed the throne.

The Lion who now found himself alone with the woman who had once been his brother’s. Soft and delicate. And not for him.

It was all a bit gothic.

“How can you talk about it like that? You don’t have a heart.”

“No,” he said, and that at least was true. It had been replaced with granite long ago. And without a heart, all he could fathom was duty.

Tinley was a duty. No matter how she might try him.

Her animals, her yarn, everything she came with. They would be his problem for just a little while longer.

“But I do have the means to find you a husband. And I will do so, Tinley, you have my word. I will return to you that which I stole from you. I will find you a husband. You have my word.”

CHAPTER TWO

TINLEY HADN’T BEEN back to the palace since King Darius’s funeral. It had been just two weeks after Dionysus’s funeral and she’d been shocked the palace hadn’t crumbled around them all.

To lose both of them so quickly had been... It had been unthinkable, and yet it had been real.

Her life had felt like an absolute parade of grief. One blow after another. Her father. Her fiancé. The man she’d thought of as an uncle.

Her mother was still alive. She had her mother, but...they had never been...close. She had always been such a disappointment to her mother.

When King Darius had told her that she would marry Prince Dionysus she’d been so honored. She’d been young enough she hadn’t fully understood what married meant. But she’d felt...approved of. She’d felt special.

Her mother had been so upset. Why Dionysus? Why not Alexius? Why not the future King?

A princess, not a queen. A slight, her mother had said.

Because of her tromping footsteps, frizzy hair and dizzy demeanor.

That was the first time she’d realized her mother had had loftier plans for her than she would ever reach. The first time she’d realized she would never be what