How to Catch a Queen (Runaway Royals #1) - Alyssa Cole Page 0,101
gone.
“We should talk now, before we get to your office,” Lumu said, his gaze on Musoke like a man watches a snake a few meters away.
“Right,” Sanyu said.
Shanti would understand. He’d see her afterward, and they’d celebrate this first giant step toward a new Njaza.
Chapter 19
Shanti was drenched in sweat and her arms were exhausted from whirling and jabbing the ceremonial spear Sanyu had brought her to replace the broomstick she’d been practicing with, but no amount of imaginary beheading or gutting was enough to quell the shocked disappointment that had washed over her in those last moments of the advisory meeting.
She was trying to focus on the fact that she had achieved her initial goal of helping her husband become a better king and helping Njaza move toward a better future, but it all felt wrong. She should have been elated, but she felt nothing but a strange kind of emptiness.
Her mind kept replaying two moments where her dream of finally finding her place in the kingdom had crashed into a brick wall. The first, when Musoke had said there would be a trial. The second when she’d held her breath waiting for Sanyu to get to possibly the most important point on the docket—the decree that would truly begin a seismic shift for those people fighting for their voices to be heard—and he’d ended the meeting instead.
She’d been watching him intently, and she’d seen the exact moment when he’d made the decision not to address the most basic of steps forward. The moment when her hope that he wasn’t sacrificing her and the women of Njaza Rise Up because things were going well and he wanted to keep it that way.
She’d tried not to think of the other, bruising result of Sanyu’s unilateral decision. By striking that last item from the docket, he’d denied her the goal she’d pursued for most of her life—her queendom and her future. Allowing her to speak, to lead a committee, and to make decisions were powerful statements, ones that declared she was the True Queen without having to say it. One that backed up his words when he’d asked her to stay.
But he’d looked her in the eye and then happily ended the session.
Why?
There was a knock at the door.
“Shanti?”
She placed the spear down and stared at the door, drawing on her years of training. It was funny how so much of that training was in how to make herself calm, quiet, and unobjectionable in order to have a chance at being heard.
“Come in.”
Sanyu walked in with that lightness in him that made him extra handsome, even though he also looked exhausted. He was smiling at her like a football player smiles up into the stands after scoring the game-winning goal. He closed the door and leaned back against it, shutting his eyes.
“I’ve never spoken this much in one day in my life. My brain feels like goat stew,” he said with a chuckle then held out his arms. “Come here, Warrior Queen. We did it.”
“I’m sweaty,” she said stiffly, and the skin around his eyes tightened and his smile faltered.
“You’re mad at me,” he said.
“I’m not mad. Okay, yes I am mad. I’m also confused.” She sighed. “We need to talk. I feel like some of the teamwork wires got crossed.”
She walked toward him and leaned the spear against the wall and held his hand because even if she was frustrated, and betrayed, she didn’t like this awful feeling growing between them.
“What do you mean? We achieved so much today,” he said.
“We?” She shook her head. “You didn’t mention I was involved in any way. You didn’t address the last points on the agenda. The ones left for last because of their very importance.”
You didn’t tell them I was your queen.
His fingers tensed in her hold, and she watched as displeasure dug the trough in his forehead again.
“The other points were also important,” he said. “Don’t forget, the Rail Pan Afrique was what we originally wanted to get the council to consider and they did without argument. That’s huge.”
“That was what you wanted the council to consider,” she said. “And even then, you handed out the packet I made without even letting the advisors know I had anything to do with it.”
“It would have been strange to point that out when you had just been accused of treason,” he countered. “I was just trying to make sure they considered the project on its merits with no distractions.”