Reign: A Royal Military Romance Read Online Free

think. I smell like weird coffee and those Ukrainian cigarettes they sold on the train and stranger sweat and God only knows what. Please sit somewhere else. Please.
    My heart thuds against my ribcage. I clamp my arms to my sides like I can seal the odor into my armpits.
    Konstantin sits across from me, settles himself, and looks at me again. I feel pinned, but less than the first time, and a tiny bit disappointed that he didn’t sit next to me, despite my Eau de Thirteen Hours On A Train .
    “Did you have a good trip?” he asks.
    His English is perfect, and he barely even has an accent. That was in the brief, of course, but I’m relieved all the same that I won’t be spending a month trying to overcome a language barrier.
    “Yes,” I say. “Beautiful and uneventful, just the way travel should be.”
    I’ve set U.S.-Svelorian relations back enough already without telling everyone about my passport debacle.
    “The ride from Kiev is quite lovely, if long,” he says, his face still stony.
    My dad gets in and sits next to me, and the limo starts moving.
    “I started feeling like cattle after about eight hours,” I say. “And, judging by the smell, I think the guy across from me was smuggling goats in his luggage.”
    I smile at the prince, waiting for him to laugh politely. He frowns. Now the king and queen are also looking at me, and it’s very, very clear that my stupid joke didn’t land.
    “I would love to take that ride someday,” my mom says, saving my ass. “Without the goats, naturally, but it’s supposed to be the best way to see some parts of the Black Sea coast that are difficult to reach otherwise.”
    I take a deep breath. I’m tired and more than a little loopy. My dad pats my knee affectionately.
    “Glad you made it, Freckles,” he says quietly. “Goat smells and all.”
    I wrinkle my nose but laugh anyway.
    “I wish that was everything,” I say.
    He raises his eyebrows.
    “Later,” I say.
    Prince Konstantin is still glaring at me, his wide shoulders squared, his spine very straight, his hands clasped in front of him. I smile just a little, out of nervous habit, and he doesn’t return it.
    Okay then. Guess we won’t be friends after all.
    I give up and pay attention to the conversation my mom is having with the king and queen.
    At least one of us is in her element right now , I think.

    * * *
    T he castle is massive and beautiful. Even in person it looks like something that’s been put together by the Svelorian Tourism Committee: stone turrets, towers, and ramparts, all perched on a cliff overlooking a white sand beach that stretches down to the perfect, blue waters of the Black Sea.
    If you told a kid draw me a castle , they’d draw something like the Summer Palace. It’s not the first castle I’ve stayed in — my mom’s a diplomat, after all — but it’s definitely the most castle-like.
    My parents and I have a whole wing to ourselves, in two towers at either end of a hallway, and both of our suites are glorious . I’ve got a giant four-poster bed facing tall, iron-framed windows. Outside there’s a balcony that’s more like a patio, complete with an outdoor sitting area.
    Inside the bedroom is another sitting area, complete with a big TV, two couches, and a miniature kitchen. A quiet, solemn man carries my bag for me and ceremoniously places it on a luggage rack, nods once at me, and leaves.
    “This is nice ,” I say to my parents. “How did any of this survive the Soviet occupation?”
    “It was a backwater,” my mom says. “If this had been closer to Moscow, or strategically important, it wouldn’t have. Sveloria is lucky it didn’t find out that it had oil until the late nineties.”
    Some backwater , I think.
    “Try to enjoy yourself,” my dad says, smiling at me.
    “I had most of your clothes shipped over from Boston,” my mom says. “They’re in the closet, along with some other things I took the liberty of getting you.”
    She glances at my outfit