Page 101 of Uncrowned

Pushing back my hood, I spun in a circle, taking in all the Masters. I took my place next to the crown above the lion.

“Royal blood now seals the claim.”

“Crown and kingdom, true to name.”

Their returning chant had me lifting my palm to settle over the crown. Pain seared into me as I drug the sharpness over the center. Blood poured down my hand, slashing and adding a bright red to the crown below. I let it hover, coating the symbol of who I was. Who I was meant to be.

Darkness increased in the crest, and I began to circle around it, letting my hand hover.

“By my blood, the line is restored.”

“Rise again, forgotten lord.” They rang out.

More, I let my blood mix with theirs.

“Old blood honored, new blood sworn.”

“Now the rightful crown’s reborn.”

I holstered the dagger at their yell, grabbing the cloth to wrap around my hand.

“The old blood is honored. The Order fills the crown, and the blood of the rightful line awakens it.”

“The true kings are honored.

The brotherhood is bound.

The royal blood will return.”

I nodded at their chant.

“Only by blood we remember.” I lifted both of my hands. “It is done.”

CHAPTER 33

King Lawrence

If I had thought I’d gone crazy at Penelope’s disappearance, it didn’t compare to how maddening I was becoming at her return.

Four weeks.

Four fucking weeks and I still couldn’t find her.

How was that possible? How was it that she was alive, but she was being hidden from everyone, including me? It was almost unbelievable that any of this was happening. I saw no proof other than the stories that appeared in the paper. I had no control or say concerning her wellbeing.

I was the king!

If anyone should have been overseeing her traumatic return, it should have been me. After all, she’d been held against her will. She’d been taken and…

My eyes nearly rolled, and I held in the moan at my own fantasies.

Taken and tortured. Or so the papers claimed. It’s not like I could see proof. I knew only what the rest of the world did, and that’s what the papers reported. I couldn’t stand it. How could I find her? How did I bring her here?

It was impossible.

No one seemed to know anything but the damn papers. And they only knew what they were being fed from an anonymous source. When the palace demanded truth behind the speculation at the beginning, we got it. Pictures of Penelope, beaten but well. The slight bruising on her cheek had been fading, but she was alive. And… she wasn’t the same woman I remembered.

She was harder around the edges.