Rule of a Kingdom (Kingdom Duet #0) - Rina Kent Page 0,2

him up, I sit him on my lap, so he can have a better view of the simulation game I’m setting up. He grins up

at me, his little features breaking in joy.

I didn’t know he could smile like that, and not in front of Alicia or James or Levi, but in front of me.

That’s a first.

Who knew my son and I would be able to bond over chess? I will teach him to be the striker, to defend not only his

name but also himself and anyone he holds dear.

I might not be the best father out there. I’m not as affectionate as Ethan or as good in expressing emotion, but I

have one point over him.

I will not sugarcoat life for my son. He’ll learn early on that he needs to be a wolf so he won’t be eaten by wolves.

He’ll be the king everyone bends the knee for.

That’s my legacy.

Somewhere along the way, Aiden falls asleep in my arms, his long lashes fluttering over his chubby cheeks. His lips

are open and his tiny fingers clutch my shirt as a safety net.

I brush my lips against his forehead.

Aiden will grow up to be the son I’m proud of.

2

Jonathan

I carry Aiden in my arms to his room. His head falls against my chest and he snores softly while his small hands

hold on to my shirt.

Persian carpets spill under my feet and dim yellow chandeliers lighten the way. The halls are silent, eerily so. It’s

nothing like the times when my grandfather and my parents were alive.

We used to keep more staff than we needed and my mother desperately tried to breathe life into the mansion.

It’s useless to revive the dead. It’s better to refocus that energy on creating something new and make sure it never

perishes. Besides, silence is good. Silence means I can hear when something goes wrong.

Like right now.

My feet come to a slow halt at the sound of the balcony’s curtains flapping inside. Margot knows not to leave

anything open at night so that can only mean one thing.

Fuck.

Holding Aiden tight, I cross the distance to the open balcony at the end of the second floor. I contemplate dropping

him in his room but that will take me time I don’t have to spare. I also can’t leave him on one of the huge chairs

positioned near the walls because I don’t trust he’ll be safe.

My only son shouldn’t be fucking unsafe in my own house, but the danger to his life isn’t a situation I can ignore. I

can’t remove it either since he’ll never forgive me.

Nor can I forgive myself.

A hissing sound reaches me first as I stand at the threshold of the balcony. Then, murmuring follows; low, and

haunted.

This should become normal considering that I witnessed such scenes countless times before.

It isn’t.

Far from it.

I’ll never get used to seeing my wife gradually losing her mind. Or the fact that I can’t even recognise her

sometimes.

Like at this moment.

Alicia stands on the balcony’s stone railing, her frail arms open wide as she walks on the edge. Her white

nightgown is thin and reaches her ankles. The cloth and her long black strands fly behind her in the night wind.

I approach her slowly to not startle her while still keeping a deadly grip on Aiden. The last thing I want is for him to

see his mother this way. We’ve been both trying our best to protect him from this side of her, but she loses

complete control during the night.

It could be insomnia, the depression, the hallucinations, or the neurosis. It could be all of them combined.

What’s for sure is that she’s been getting worse over the years. When I first met Alicia, she was a soft and laid

back woman who loathed the spotlight. At the time, she lost her mother to suicide and soon after, she was in a car

accident with her friends in which she was the only survivor.

Both incidents messed with her head, especially since they happened close to one another. However, she didn’t

have hallucinations. She didn’t roam the halls in the middle of the night then break down in tears. Or perhaps she

did, but maintained a perfect job at hiding them.

Alicia was always the type who suffered in silence, talked with silence and expressed her pain with silence. Maybe

that silence suffocated her after all.

It definitely suffocated me.

Her intelligible words become clearer when I stand a small distance away from her. They’re still murmured,