EPILOGUE

RHYS
Six months lat­er

“Do you solemn­ly promise and swear to gov­ern the Peo­ple of Eldor­ra accord­ing to their respec­tive laws and cus­toms?”

“I solemn­ly promise so to do.” Brid­get sat in the coro­na­tion chair, her face pale but her hand steady on the King’s Book as she took her offi­cial oath. Her grand­fa­ther stood beside her, his face solemn but proud, and the rest of the cathe­dral was so qui­et I could feel the weight of the occa­sion press­ing into my skin.

After months of plan­ning, the big day was final­ly here. In a few min­utes, Brid­get would be crowned Queen of Eldor­ra, and I, as her fiancé, would offi­cial­ly be the Prince Con­sort in wait­ing.

It wasn’t some­thing I’d ever dreamed of or thought I want­ed, but I would fol­low Brid­get any­where, from the small­est, shit­ti­est town to the grand­est church. As long as I was with her, I was hap­py.

I stood with Niko­lai, Sab­ri­na, Andreas, and the oth­er von Aschebergs in the front row, clos­est to the coro­na­tion. The cer­e­mo­ny took place in the sprawl­ing Athen­berg Cathe­dral, which was packed with thou­sands of high-pro­file guests. Heads of state, for­eign roy­als, celebri­ties, bil­lion­aires, they were all there.

I clasped my hands in front of me, wish­ing the arch­bish­op would speed things up. I hadn’t talked to Brid­get all day, and I was itch­ing to get to the coro­na­tion ball so we could have some alone time.

“Will you to your pow­er cause Law and Jus­tice, in Mer­cy, to be exe­cut­ed in all your judg­ments?” the arch­bish­op asked.

“I will.”

Pride seeped through me at Bridget’s strong, clear voice. She com­plet­ed her oath, and a col­lec­tive hush fell over the cathe­dral when the arch­bish­op lift­ed the crown from Edvard’s head and placed it on hers.

“Her Majesty Queen Brid­get of Eldor­ra,” the arch­bish­op declared. “Long may she reign!”

“Long may she reign!” I repeat­ed the words along with the rest of the guests, my chest tight. Beside me, Niko­lai dipped his head, his face shin­ing with emo­tion; next to Brid­get, Edvard stood ram­rod straight, his eyes sus­pi­cious­ly bright.

The arch­bish­op fin­ished the cer­e­mo­ny with a few vers­es from the King’s Book, and it was done. Eldor­ra offi­cial­ly had a new ruler and its first female monarch in over a cen­tu­ry.

A low, elec­tric hum replaced the hush. It skit­tered through the soar­ing hall and over my skin as Brid­get rose for the exit pro­ces­sion; judg­ing by the way the oth­er guests shift­ed and mur­mured, I wasn’t the only one who felt it.

It was the feel­ing of watch­ing his­to­ry being made.

I caught Bridget’s eye dur­ing her pro­ces­sion, and I flashed her a quick grin and a wink. Her mouth curved into a smile before she tamped it down, and I fought back a laugh at her over­ly seri­ous expres­sion as she left the church.

“That was the longest cer­e­mo­ny ever.” Andreas yawned. “I’m glad I wasn’t the one who had to sit up there.”

“Good thing you’ll nev­er sit up there, then.” My rela­tion­ship with Andreas had devel­oped into some­thing resem­bling gen­uine friend­ship over the months, but his per­son­al­i­ty still left a lot to be desired.

He shrugged. “C’est la vie. Let Brid­get shoul­der the bur­den of a nation while I live like a prince with none of the respon­si­bil­i­ties.”

Niko­lai and I exchanged glances and shook our heads. While Andreas and I nev­er missed an oppor­tu­ni­ty to sneak a dig at the oth­er, I had a much eas­i­er rela­tion­ship with Niko­lai. Anoth­er broth­er, albeit by mar­riage rather than blood, and I didn’t want to mur­der him half the time.

After the for­mal exit pro­ces­sion, the guests filed out of the cathe­dral, and soon, I found myself in the palace ball­room, impa­tient­ly wait­ing for Brid­get to arrive.

Only five hun­dred peo­ple received invites to the coro­na­tion ball com­pared to the thou­sands at the cer­e­mo­ny, but that was still too many peo­ple. All of them want­ed to shake my hand and say hi, and I indulged them half-heart­ed­ly while eye­ing the door. At least my lessons with Andreas came in handy—I remem­bered everyone’s titles and greet­ed them accord­ing­ly.

My pulse kicked up a notch when the Sergeant at Arms’ announce­ment final­ly rang through the ball­room. “Her Majesty Queen Brid­get of Eldor­ra.”

Tri­umphal music played, the doors opened, and Brid­get swept in. She wore a lighter gown than the ornate affair she’d donned for the cer­e­mo­ny, and she’d replaced her crown with a more wear­able tiara.

She waved to the crowd, her pub­lic smile firm­ly in place, but when our eyes met, a hint of play­ful­ness crept in.

I excused myself from my con­ver­sa­tion with the Prime Min­is­ter of Swe­den and made my way through the crowd. For once, I didn’t need to use my height or build—everyone part­ed when they saw me approach­ing.

The perks of being the future Prince Con­sort, I sup­posed.

By the time I reached Brid­get, she had half a dozen peo­ple fight­ing for her atten­tion.

“Your Majesty.” I held out my hand, cut­ting off a woman who’d been gush­ing over her dress. The crowd fell silent. “May I have this dance?”

A grin played at the cor­ners of Bridget’s mouth. “Of course. Ladies, gen­tle­men, if you’ll excuse me.”

She took my hand, and we walked away with six pairs of eyes burn­ing into us.

Brid­get wait­ed until we were out of earshot before say­ing, “Thank the Lord. If I had to lis­ten to Lady Feath­er­ton com­pli­ment my out­fit one more time, I would’ve stabbed myself with the spikes from my tiara.”

“We can’t have that, can we? I very much like you alive.” I rest­ed my hand on the small of her back as I guid­ed her across the dance floor. “So, you’re offi­cial­ly queen. How does it feel?”

“Sur­re­al, but also…right.” She shook her head. “I don’t know how to explain it.”

“I under­stand.”

I did. I felt much the same way. I wasn’t the one who’d been crowned, of course, but we’d wait­ed and planned for so long it was strange to have the cer­e­mo­ny behind us. We’d also had time to get used to the idea of Brid­get being queen, and now that she was, it felt right.

We always end up where we’re meant to be.

“I know you do.” Bridget’s eyes glowed with emo­tion before she made a face. “I can’t want to get out of this dress, though. It’s not as bad as my coro­na­tion dress, but I swear it still weighs ten pounds.”

“Don’t wor­ry. I’ll rip it off you lat­er.” I low­ered my head and whis­pered, “I’ve nev­er fucked a queen before.”

A chuck­le rose in my throat at the deep blush spread­ing over Bridget’s face and neck.

“Do I have to stop call­ing you princess now?” I asked. “Queen doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as nice.”

She nar­rowed her eyes. “Don’t you dare. By roy­al decree, you’re nev­er allowed to stop call­ing me princess.”

“I thought you hat­ed the nick­name.”

I spun her around, and she wait­ed until she was in my arms again before say­ing, “As much as you hate when I call you Mr. Larsen.”

I used to. Not any­more.

“I was jok­ing.” My lips grazed her fore­head. “You’ll always be my princess.”

Bridget’s eyes shone brighter. “Mr. Larsen, if you make me cry at my own coro­na­tion ball, I’ll nev­er for­give you.”

My smile widened, and I kissed her, not car­ing if PDA was against pro­to­col. “Then it’s a good thing I have the rest of our lives to make it up to you.”

---

BRIDGET
Three months after my coro­na­tion, Rhys and I returned to the Athen­berg Cathe­dral for our wed­ding.

It was as grand and lux­u­ri­ous as one would expect of a roy­al wed­ding, but I worked with Fre­ja, the new com­mu­ni­ca­tions sec­re­tary, to keep the recep­tion as small as pos­si­ble. As queen, I couldn’t have a friends-and-fam­i­ly-only par­ty for diplo­mat­ic rea­sons, but we cut the guest list from two thou­sand to two hun­dred. I con­sid­ered that a major vic­to­ry.

“I’m jeal­ous,” Niko­lai said. “You only have two hun­dred peo­ple to greet. My hands near­ly fell off at my recep­tion.”

I laughed. “You sur­vived.”

We stood near the dessert table while the rest of the guests ate, drank, and danced. The actu­al wed­ding cer­e­mo­ny had gone off with­out a hitch, and as much as I enjoyed see­ing my friends and fam­i­ly let loose, I was count­ing down the min­utes until I could be alone with Rhys, who was cur­rent­ly talk­ing to Chris­t­ian and a few of his friends from the Navy.

He hadn’t expect­ed his mil­i­tary bud­dies to come, since he hadn’t spo­ken to them in so long, but they’d all showed up. What­ev­er wor­ries he might’ve had about see­ing them again, they seemed to have dis­ap­peared. Rhys was smil­ing and laugh­ing and looked per­fect­ly at peace.

“Bare­ly,” Niko­lai joked before his smile fad­ed. “I’m glad things worked out for you and Rhys,” he added soft­ly. “You deserve it. When I abdi­cat­ed, I didn’t think…I nev­er want­ed to put that kind of pres­sure on you. And when I real­ized what it meant…what you had to give up…”

“It’s okay.” I squeezed his hand. “You did what you had to do. I was upset when you first told me, but it all worked out, and I enjoy being queen…for the most part. Espe­cial­ly now that Erhall is no longer Speak­er.”

Erhall had lost his seat by half a point. I’d be lying if I said the news hadn’t giv­en me immense plea­sure.

I had, how­ev­er, wor­ried Niko­lai would be upset or jeal­ous about the repeal. Would he be bit­ter I got to stay with Rhys and keep the crown? But he’d been noth­ing but sup­port­ive, and he’d admit­ted he enjoyed his new life more than he’d expect­ed. I think part of him was actu­al­ly relieved.

Niko­lai had grown up think­ing he want­ed the throne because he didn’t have a choice to not want it, and now that he was freed from those expec­ta­tions, he was thriv­ing. Mean­while, I’d tak­en up the man­tle and grown into the role.

Iron­ic, the way things turned out.

“Yes, he was a bit of a toad, wasn’t he?” Niko­lai grinned and glanced over my shoul­der. “Ah, it seems my time is up. I’ll talk to you lat­er. I need to save Sab­ri­na before Grand­fa­ther forces her to name our baby Sig­mund after our great-great-uncle.” He hes­i­tat­ed. “Are you hap­py, Brid­get?”

I squeezed his hand again, a messy clog of emo­tion tan­gling in my throat. “I am.”

Did I feel like the weight of the world was on my shoul­ders some­times? Yes. Did I get angry, frus­trat­ed, and stressed? Yes. But so did a lot of peo­ple. The impor­tant thing was, I no longer felt trapped. I’d learned to mas­ter my cir­cum­stances instead of let­ting them mas­ter me, and I had Rhys by my side. No mat­ter how ter­ri­ble of a day I had, I could go home to some­one I loved who loved me back, and that made all the dif­fer­ence.

Niko­lai must’ve heard the sin­cer­i­ty in my voice, because his face relaxed. “Good. That’s all I need to know.” He kissed my cheek before he bee­lined to where a five-months-preg­nant Sab­ri­na sat with our grand­fa­ther, who’d spent his post-rul­ing days fuss­ing over his future great-grand­child and try­ing to find a suit­able hob­by to fill his time.

Edvard had forced Rhys to teach him how to draw for a few weeks before it became clear his tal­ents did not lie in the artis­tic realm. He’d since moved on to archery, and I’d had to add a haz­ard pay bonus for the staff accom­pa­ny­ing him to prac­tice.

I turned to see what had made Niko­lai leave, and my face broke into a smile when I saw Rhys approach­ing.

“Long time no see,” I teased. We’d only had one dance togeth­er before we were pulled away by var­i­ous friends and fam­i­ly.

“Don’t remind me. My own wed­ding, and I bare­ly see my wife,” he grum­bled, but his frown eased when he drew me into his arms.

“We should’ve eloped.”

“The palace would’ve had some­thing to say about that.”

“Fuck the palace.”

I sti­fled a laugh. “Rhys, you can’t say that. You’re the Prince Con­sort now.” The King Con­sort title didn’t exist in Eldor­ra, so even though I was the queen, he was called the Prince Con­sort.

“Which means I can say it even more than before.” Rhys grazed my jaw with his lips, and goose­bumps of plea­sure dot­ted my arms.

“Speak­ing of Prince Consort…what ben­e­fits come with the posi­tion?”

“Um.” I tried to think through the fog in my head as he caressed the nape of my neck. “A crown, a love­ly room in the palace, med­ical ben­e­fits…”

“Bor­ing. Bor­ing. Even more bor­ing.”

I laughed. “What do you want then?”

Rhys lift­ed his head, his eyes gleam­ing. “I want to bend—”

“Hi guys, I’m so sor­ry for inter­rupt­ing.” Ava appeared beside us. She looked love­ly in her mint green brides­maid dress, but her face was etched with con­cern. “Have you seen Jules and Josh? I can’t find them any­where.”

“She’s afraid they’ve mur­dered each oth­er,” Alex added, com­ing up behind her.

Ava rolled her eyes. “You’re exag­ger­at­ing.”

“Not by much. I saw Jules with a knife ear­li­er.”

“I hope they haven’t. Bad press if there’s a mur­der at my wed­ding,” I joked. “But no, I haven’t seen them. Sor­ry.”

Still, I swept my eyes around the room just in case.

Booth, whom I’d insist­ed attend as a guest instead of a guard, was deep in con­ver­sa­tion with his wife and Emma, who’d flown in a few days ago so we could catch up before the wed­ding. Appar­ent­ly, she’d got­ten more attached to Meadow’s cud­dli­ness and Leather’s foul mouth than expect­ed, and she’d adopt­ed both from the shel­ter. I was delight­ed, espe­cial­ly when Emma promised to send me pic­tures and videos of them often.

Stef­fan was danc­ing with Malin. I’d called him after my press con­fer­ence to apol­o­gize for not giv­ing him a heads up, but he hadn’t been upset at all. He said it’d giv­en him the courage to stand up to his father, and con­sid­er­ing he was attend­ing the most pub­li­cized event of the year with Malin, it must’ve all worked out.

Chris­t­ian stood in the shad­ows, chat­ting with Andreas, but his eyes strayed to something—someone—on the dance floor. I fol­lowed his gaze and winced when I saw Stel­la.

That’s not good. Or maybe I was read­ing too much into the sit­u­a­tion.

Even Mikaela was in atten­dance, hang­ing out with some of our old school friends. I’d invit­ed her as an olive branch, but it would take a while before I trust­ed her again.

Almost every­one who played a major role in my life was there… except Jules and Josh.

“I haven’t seen them either,” Rhys said.

Ava sighed. “Thanks. I just want­ed to check. Sor­ry for both­er­ing you, and con­grats again!” She dragged Alex away, prob­a­bly to look for her broth­er and Jules, even though Alex looked like he would rather eat nails.

“Well, that ruined the mood,” Rhys said dry­ly. “We can’t even have a con­ver­sa­tion with­out get­ting inter­rupt­ed.”

“Per­haps we should wait until after the recep­tion because that’ll keep hap­pen­ing. I already see Fre­ja com­ing toward us. Unless…” I low­ered my voice, a spark of mis­chief kin­dling inside me. “We hide.”

We stared at each oth­er for a beat before a slow smile spread across his face. “I like the way you think, princess.”

Rhys left first, slip­ping out under the aus­pices of using the restroom, and I fol­lowed soon after. We couldn’t be gone long, but we could steal a few moments for our­selves.

“Your Majesty!” Fre­ja called as I passed her. “Where are you going? We need to dis­cuss—”

“Ladies’ room. I’ll be back.” I quick­ened my steps and con­tained my laugh­ter until I reached the small draw­ing room where Rhys was wait­ing.

“It’s like we’re sneak­ing around again.” I shut the door behind me, my heart rac­ing with the twin thrills of final­ly being alone with him and doing some­thing we weren’t sup­posed to do.

“Just like old times,” he drawled. The lights were off, but enough moon­light fil­tered through the cur­tains for me to see the carved planes of his face and the ten­der heat in his eyes.

“So, tell me.” I looped my arms around his neck. “Was this where you expect­ed to end up as a kid? Hid­ing in a roy­al draw­ing room with your wife on the night of your wed­ding?”

“Not exact­ly.” Rhys brushed his thumb over my bot­tom lip. “But some­one once told me we always end up where we’re meant to be, and this is where I’m meant to be. With you.”

For­get but­ter­flies. An entire flock of birds took flight in my stom­ach, soar­ing into the clouds and tak­ing me with them. “Mr. Larsen, I do believe you’re a secret roman­tic after all.”