Page 13 of Retrograde

“You are her main priority! All of them, child!” she shouted. “This is yourhome. They merely work here. You rule a nation and protect all of them. If they cannot give you comfort and help you, then get new staff who will! Stop letting their incompetence make your life more difficult.” She let me go and focused on Darren and Maple. “How did you not notice?”

“I’ve never seen her complain about food ever,” Darren admitted after a moment. “I thought she just wasn’t picky or—I’ve cared about a lot, Belinda. We’re drowning.” He gestured at all the mating prospects and then guards and ancients I hadn’t even met yet.

“Fair,” Belinda sighed, blowing out a harsh breath. “Very fair. I apologize.” She looked back to Raquel. “You will make amends and—I will teach you.”

“I don’t need to disrupt everyone—” I started to argue.

“No, I agree with this, Your Majesty,” Joris cut in. “You don’t like anything prepared? Even the Alpha normally gets a favorite at big meals, and all of your meals—there’s no reason they cannot make adjustments.”

“I really like him,” Belinda praised, still focused on Raquel. “She constantly gets mocked for not being a real citizen of Thovudin, and all of this is normal Thovudin food. None of which sheatein her decades abroad.” She snorted and crossed her arms over her chest. “So you knew that, never took it into consideration, but you listened to every elder’s whim?”

Damn. Like… Okay, I agreed when she put it that way.

And clearly,allthe staff did from their reactions.

Raquel bowed deeply to Belinda. “We do care. Greatly. Please, educate us and I will fix our innocent but egregious oversight. I promise.” She looked at me. “Please, let me fix this, Your Majesty. I was—I thought I did what would help.”

I was going to accept graciously but then decided to say it more for Belinda. “You’re the one person I can’t fire, Raquel. You know that. Your family has served mine since the beginning of time. You and Benson could kill me and still be forgiven, but I would never be if I kicked you out of the De la Rosa castle.”

I ignored the gasps and turned to leave, but Belinda wasn’t having any of that.

“Nope, you don’t get to retreat with your mask in place after that and you need to eat,” she cooed as she brought me over to the first section of the table. “Even I have already noticed that the queen doesn’t like regular brewed coffee. Eggs—scrambled, and she likes to build her own mixture depending on her mood or what is on her agenda for the day.

I noticed that Raquel and someone else were taking notes.

“She doesn’t like runny yolks or things already mixed in. Especially greens.” Belinda moved us pretty much past all the carbs and pastries.

“None of them?” Maple asked as she joined us, viewing the show from the other side of the table next to Raquel.

“She likes fruit tarts and scones.”

I shot Belinda an exasperated look before focusing on Raquel. “Please don’t have those every morning. I’ll eat them. Lots of them.”

Her lips twitched and she made notes. “A few times a month then. Any preference on the type of fruit in the tarts?”

“Better,” Belinda muttered. “She likes all berries or like tropical fruit. Keep them separate instead of the ones that just have every fruit possible.”

“Kiwi doesn’t go with everything,” I confirmed when Raquel checked with me.

“True,” Maple agreed.

We went over several other things and I realized Belinda was annoyed again and glanced at her.

“Are men of this generation morons?” she asked, gesturing to the candidates. “They’re here to woo you to be your mate. Why are none ofthemtaking notes or caring?”

“Because they’re here to be prince, not her mate, and think if they act perfect enough to the Alphas, media, and general public, she’ll be forced to mate them no matter what,” Velle said as she loaded her plate. “I have better hearing than anyone in the castle as a griffin and several have said they just have to be in the last five since she caved to this contest and it’s done.”

I snorted, shocking people more than what Velle said. “I’d rather jump in an ice chasm and let Fraser take over.

“Please don’t even joke about that,” Fraser growled. “I don’t ever want the job that way—I don’t want it. None of us want it…” He sighed when a few snickered. “None of us want it because they broke you with this crap. We’ve made that clear.”

They had, but I knew a few wouldn’t like getting the job that way.

But they’d get over it because they got to be king or queen.

I wasn’t sure how to respond, but phones started going off all over the place and people realized something was up.

“Sunborough is making the announcement,” Thorn said quietly as he joined us. “Do you have screens in here or do you want to watch it privately?”