Page 158 of Modern Romance May 2026 Books 1-4
I know a lot about the physiology of the human body. Necessary for medical research. But I can’t explain the way that the air seems to exit my lungs in a gust, uncontrolled, and without my bidding.
“I will walk with you.”
I have to tilt my head upward to actually look at his face. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”
“I’m going to be your husband,” he says. “You shouldn’t be afraid of me.”
I feel as if ropes are tightening around my body. I’m trapped now and it’s official. I am going to be his bride.
I’ve succeeded.
In ending my life as I know it.
“I think in your case a lack of fear will have to be earned,” I say, craning my neck upward and looking at him as directly as I can.
Those ice-colored eyes glitter. “I don’t think you’re afraid of very much.”
“No.”
He steps down off the last step, and walks around me in a slow circle, like he’s evaluating a horse. “You’re very small,” he says. “You remind me of a sparrow. The way you move your head, looking like you want to hop off. Or perhaps fly away.”
I don’t like the characterization. My sister would have been some glorious tropical bird. Of course I’m a sparrow. Small and plain. I don’t know why it bothers me. It shouldn’t.
“And you’re a dragon,” I say. Because for all that I am intimidated, for all that I feel unequal to this moment, shamed by it, even, I have pride.
Had he been a dragon in truth, I would’ve seen smoke curl out of his nostrils then. He smiles, the slow satisfaction spreading on his face filling me with a strange sort of terror.
There is something villainous about that smile. It isn’t a show of happiness or warmth.
“Come with me, sparrow.”
He begins to walk away from me, leaving me to run to catch up with him. “You can’t walk that quickly,” I say, my legs working as quickly as they can. “You’re too much taller than me.”
“You seem to be keeping up just fine.”
I am overcome by a sense of surreality. This can’t be happening. I cannot be chasing after the king of my country, on the verge of becoming his wife.
His wife.
I am not meant to be someone’s wife. I’m going to be a scientist.
Except no. I’m going to be a queen.
There are so many girls who dream of things like this. Of finding out that they’re royalty. That they were always destined to be. Not me.
But I think again of poor Eve, and how much she wants to marry Marcus. And I think maybe I’m actually wrong. I’m not sure that most women dream of marrying strangers. I think they dream of being safe and happy, of knowing that their problems will be taken care of, and sometimes that fantasy takes the shape of becoming a princess. But when given the choice between royalty and love, Eve chose love.
And I chose love too. The love of my sister.
I chose it over my own dreams.
Not for the first time, I wonder if I’ve made a terrible mistake.
We exit the throne room, and cross a great antechamber, heading to a spiral staircase, tight and narrow, that winds up and up and up.
“Are the stairs the only way of getting there?”
“Yes,” he says.
