Reign: A Royal Military Romance Read Online Free Page A

again, and I cross my arms in front of myself.
    “You don’t think I impressed them?” I ask. “Oversized sweatshirts are the thing right now in Paris, you know.”
    My mom just laughs.
    “Svelorians are very serious,” she says. “It takes some getting used to, but underneath, they’re very kind, warm people.”
    “Way, way underneath,” my dad says, adjusting his glasses. “But that’s why they’ve got vodka. So they can smile sometimes.”
    “Tom, stop it,” my mother says, playfully.
    He shrugs, smiling.
    “I’ll let you unpack and get some rest, sweetheart, but come to our suite an hour before dinner. We want to hear everything , and we’ve got a bottle of the finest South Svelorian wine.”
    I raise my eyebrows.
    “Is it good wine?” I ask.
    “It’s wine,” my father says evenly.
    I laugh. They both hug me again, tightly.
    “I’m glad you’re here,” my mom says, still squeezing me. “I know you’ve had a rough year.”
    Yeah , I think.
    My dad hugs me too, and then they leave and shut the big wooden door behind them.
    I set my alarm, then get in bed without even washing my face.

    * * *
    A fter a long , deep nap I shower, do my hair, and venture into my closet. A tiny portion of it is taken up by the clothes I left at my parents’ house after my fiasco this spring, but most of it I’ve never seen before. Hell, most still has the tags on it, and I wade through it piece by piece.
    There’s a couple designer things, but it’s mostly nice-but-normal clothes. Lots of J. Crew and Banana Republic, the kind of thing a diplomat’s daughter should be wearing when visiting foreign royals. It’s a good thing that my mom picked all these out, because I’m clueless about this stuff.
    Still wearing a towel, I pick out a V-neck black cocktail dress. Miraculously, there are bras and panties in a drawer, and they even fit. Thirty seconds later I’ve gone from towel-wearing mess to perfectly respectable, and I look in the mirror and take a deep breath.
    Definitely better , I think.
    Then I put on a pair of black heels, touch up my eyeliner, and head for my parents’ suite. They’re both in their sitting area, drinking glasses of red wine and looking ready for a formal dinner.
    When my mom sees me, she sighs and crooks one finger at me. I try not to laugh as I walk over. She reaches up, beneath my hair, and pulls a price tag off my dress.
    “Thanks,” I say.
    They pour me a glass, and I take a seat on a velvet couch.
    “Tell us everything,” my mom says. “Start at the beginning.”
    I tell them about the past two months of backpacking across Europe: London, Dublin, Paris, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen. I met a friend there and drove through to Switzerland, then through the Alps to Italy, where she immediately met a Florentine man and decided to go to Capri with him.
    After Italy, I traveled the Adriatic coast. I meant to go to Istanbul but that train was sold out, so I went to Vienna instead, then Prague and Berlin before it was time to head east. I went through Poland, the Ukraine, and finally to Kiev and then here.
    I stayed in hostels and cheap hotels, for the most part, though I did spring for a room with its own bathroom a couple of times. I slept on a lot of trains and busses. I asked a lot of strangers for help or directions and I tried to do it in the local language, though most people answered in English.
    Most of the time, I was alone. I went on the trip alone, and I traveled with other people sometimes, but I was mostly by myself, and I loved it. When you travel alone, there’s no one else to hurry you along or make you stay behind somewhere. There’s no one to say haven’t we eaten enough gelato? or I don’t really want to see the catacombs, or let’s just hang out in the hotel room today .
    There’s also no one to help carry things or walk next to you when it’s three in the morning and your train just got in, but I thought the tradeoffs were worth it.
    “Then I got on a train,