Claiming the Prince: Book One Read Free

ago. She had no desire for the Crown, and yet . . . it was in her blood. As much as she’d left it all behind, she was a Rae, inheritor to one of the seven noble families, descendant of the first Crown, who was mother to them all. The Crown’s seven daughters had brought order and peace to the Lands, but then, after the Crown’s death, they had killed each other off until only one had remained—the first Ascension.
    “Then may she travel the High Road to the Godlands,” she said, after choking back the sudden resurgence of her old ambition.
    “Magdalena—”
    “No,” she said. “I am done with that life, Damion. If you wish to return, that’s your choice. But I won’t. I’m happy here.”
    He looked around, sneering openly. “Are you?”
    The knot in her chest cinched tighter. She scowled, crossing her arms, annoyed, both at him and at herself. After all these years in relative peace and safety and happiness, all it had taken to revive that restless energy, those old merciless aspirations, was word that the family and the province were up for the taking. That she could be Radiant . . .
    But no, she was better off here. She didn’t want to go back. And she wouldn’t. For what? To deal daily with her petty, scheming, backstabbing family? To subject herself to the tedium of governance over the Eastern Cliffs and all its thousands of inhabitants? To fight and bleed over and over, always sleeping with one eye open? Who in their right mind would wish for any of that? Let alone risk their life to take it on?
    Not her.
    Not again.
    Never again.
    “Where is your Prince anyway?” Damion asked.

“I S THAT HIM?” Damion asked, before she’d pointed Riker out from the many beautiful young men crowding the beach.
    Another atypically hot day had brought out the locals and tourists alike, which was both a boon and an annoyance. Damion, hidden behind large sunglasses and one of Riker’s trendy straw fedoras, was still a strange sight. But while many people saw him, the crowds were so thick that no one had a chance to stare too long.
    She didn’t need to ask Damion how he’d spotted Riker. He’d spotted him the same way they all knew each other. The scent of the Lands remained in them. The magic they kept hidden released a heady powerful odor, at once specific to an individual and yet immediately recognizable as belonging to the Lands.
    Down on the soft pale sand, under a blue-and-white-striped umbrella, Riker was buried in the shade, his lips sunk against the neck of a lanky golden-haired human.
    Damion let out a menacing growl and took a step forward, but she threw her arm out in front of him.
    “You should not allow—”
    “He’s not mine, Damion,” she said. “He’s free to do as he likes.”
    “What are you talking about?” Damion squared off with her. She glared back at him. The longer they lingered on the boardwalk, the more attention they would draw, especially if they continued to argue.
    “You are a Rae. He is a Prince. You are living together—”
    “Yes.”
    “And have you slept with him?”
    “How could I not? You know how it is.”
    “Then what—?” He flung his arm out towards Riker and the blonde, almost smacking a passing older woman in the face. She yipped, clutching her purse to her chest.
    “We’re sorry,” Magda said, smiling as sweetly as she could with her teeth clenched. The woman hurried off down the boardwalk without another squeak.
    Magda seized Damion’s shirt and tugged him off the boardwalk onto the congested beach.
    “You listen to me,” she said, lowering her voice. “I haven’t performed the claiming ritual with him.”
    “Why not?”
    “He doesn’t know what it means. And there’s no need, besides . . .” She folded her arms and gave the blue-and-white umbrella, which was all they could see now, a dark look. “We’re happier this way. He would despise me if I claimed him fully. He wouldn’t understand and what would be the point? I don’t