The Missing Monarch. Rachelle McCalla

The cr—”

      Thad gave her a look that silenced her. She gulped a breath, took a step closer to him and spoke in a rushed whisper. “The crown has passed from him, and he can’t be king anymore. You’re his successor.”

      “Parliament formed an oligarchy to rule for now. My sisters are a part of it. It’s fine.” Thad’s words were mostly silence and crisp articulations punctuated by anger.

      “It’s not fine. Octavian wants you to—”

      “I refuse to do anything Octavian asks me to do.”

      Monica realized her hands were in fists. She slowly unclenched them, thinking of Peter. Octavian knew about Peter—he’d even given her the opportunity to call her mother and leave a cryptic message about having to go away on urgent unexpected business for a while. Her mother had been confused and concerned, but happy enough about spending more time with her grandson.

      Peter was in good hands. He’d be safe—as long as she could convince Thad that he needed to cooperate with Octavian. She had to make Thad understand. But the last thing she wanted to do was tell him about Peter like this.

      She had to make him see that Octavian’s way made sense. “The oligarchy was intended to be only a temporary solution until the rightful heir could be determined.”

      Thad crossed his arms over his broad chest. “It’s simple. They can crown Alexander. He’s the oldest after me. He’s a perfectly capable leader.”

      “But your father didn’t name Alexander his successor. He named you. Unless you renounce your claim to the throne—”

      “In order for my renunciation to be recognized, I would have to travel in person—”

      “Precisely. If you don’t intend to rule—”

      “I don’t intend to appear publically—”

      “You have to—”

      “They can declare me legally dead.” Thad’s voice boomed, silencing their war of whispers.

      She stared at him. No, maybe those weren’t Thad’s eyes after all. Maybe this person in Thad’s body was someone she didn’t know anymore. “You’re not dead.”

      But the stranger’s eyes bored into hers with a foreign sameness that gave her chills. He leaned close and whispered with intense authority, “The Crown Prince Thaddeus of Lydia is dead. I am Thad Miller, an engineer who left his wife to work in the oil fields of Alaska.”

      Monica pressed her back against the wall and studied the stranger who looked so much like the man she’d once loved. He had Thad’s tall stature, his booming voice. He had the same blue eyes, but the sorrow that simmered in their depths was utterly foreign to her, as was his thick beard, his unruly hair and his attitude.

      The Thad she’d once known would never have uttered any sort of lie. Certainly not about something as critical as whether he was even alive. But then, this Thad seemed to honestly believe the man he’d once been was buried and gone, and could never rise again.

      A hot lump burned in her throat, and she bit back the reminder of all she’d lost. Her husband. Her life’s love. Her son’s father.

      Octavian had given her more to say, but in the face of this unexpected stranger, she realized those words belonged in another world—a world that still cared about rules of succession and time-honored traditions, and the sanctity of life and death.

      She’d gotten a hint of it, traveling from oil rig to oil rig, of the desolation the men endured working there, living off the dregs of greed at the edge of the earth. What had they told her time and again? Most men worked in two week shifts—on the rig for two weeks, and then back to civilization and their families for two weeks. It was the only way to keep them sane.

      If a man missed his shift swap, he’d be near buggy by the time he got off the rig. Men did desperate things, and went near suicidal under those conditions. It wasn’t any way to live. Not for a few weeks. Certainly not for six years straight. But Thad, as so many had noted every time she’d asked for him, didn’t seem to be a man at all. Instead of rotating off the rigs, he hopped from rig to rig.

      Never stopping. Never resting.

      More like a machine than a man.

      Maybe the man she’d married was gone. But that didn’t change the threat to her son.

      “If you don’t cooperate, Octavian has threatened to hurt my family.”

      “Why would he do that? There’s nothing he could gain from that.”

      Monica forced herself to breathe in and out slowly. Steadily. Thad would be thinking only of her parents and sister. Though he’d never met them personally, she’d spoken of them often enough. Her father was a medical doctor. Her mother had been a nurse decades before, but ever since Monica’s birth, Sheila Miller was mostly an at-home mom and volunteer of the year at half a dozen different places. And Monica’s little sister was a lawyer—perfectly capable of defending herself.

      No, she wasn’t too worried about them. Lydia’s enemies had little reason to go after them—not when she had a more vulnerable relative with closer ties to Thad’s country.

      She had no other option but to tell him. Her son’s life depended on it. Her hand shook as she pulled out the pictures of Peter. “We have a son.”

      Thad’s face blanched white under his beard, and he seemed to stop breathing for several long seconds as he stared at the pictures with unblinking eyes. “No.” He closed his eyes firmly, as though to shut out the evidence she held in her hand.

      Monica waited patiently for him to open his eyes again, to take in the images of the child who strongly took after his father. “His name is Peter.” She quoted the name she knew her husband loved, his favorite apostle from the Bible. “He’s five years old—almost five and a half, as he tells everyone whenever they ask. He has your eyes.” She looked him full in the face, comparing him to the photographs of Peter. “Almost your eyes—his are a little more greenish-blue.”

      Thad reached for the pictures with trembling hands, but then drew back as if touching the photographs would confirm a truth he didn’t want to accept. “No.”

      But Monica could see that he’d spotted the resemblance. She watched the truth sink in. “Peter is your son.”

      Still he shook his head. “No, no, no,” he stuttered mournfully, no longer protesting the truth of what she’d said, but rather, expressing deep regret that it was true.

      She’d told herself he wouldn’t likely be happy about the news, but his response—utterly appalled—cut at her heart. She loved her son more than anything.

      Thad looked as though he wished the boy had never been born. “This changes everything.” He looked weary, almost sorrowful.

      His expression pierced her heart, but she leaped on the hope he offered her with his words. “So, you’ll come with me?”

      “Where is he?”

      “Peter? He’s staying with my parents in Seattle.”

      “Octavian knows he’s my son?”

      She didn’t know how Octavian had figured it out—unless he’d only guessed. But even if it had been only a guess, she’d already confirmed the truth with her terrified reaction to Octavian’s barrage of questions. “Yes.”

      The sorrowful look in Thad’s eyes glimmered with fear, and Monica felt an uneasy terror grip her.

      Thad’s respiration rate increased. He took the pictures from her, tucking them back away into her wallet and slipping it inside her bag as though he could just as easily hide Peter from anyone who might be looking for him. “The pilot is working for Octavian?”

      “Octavian hired him because of his familiarity with the area. But I don’t think the pilot knows him. He’s