The Sinuous Bargain of a Cowardly Prince (book 1) - undergoing edits

Prologue | edited |

Lady Bernadette Ferle held the feather-soft babe in her arms, fresh from his mother's womb. She lulled him in her warm bosom and cradled his red, delicate head in her small palm. Such a handsome infant, for having been born just an hour prior.

The birthing room smelled of crushed rose and peony, the scents associated with life and novelty. The Lady continued to soothe the sleeping child, refusing to think about the prophetic whisperings of maids and doctors surrounding his birth.

The eldest nurse took the babe from the Lady and nestled his little body into the crook of her elbow. A tear spilled from her dry ducts as she wrestled with a smile.

"Prince Ramiel, would you like to see your mother?" the nurse whispered as she turned to the birthing bed.

The woman in the king's bed was not the queen, nor a lady of any nobility, but those who saw her would never believe she had no title to her name. For her beauty was beyond comprehension, almost inhuman in its loveliness.

Black hair spilt in thick waves around her, drenching her bed in a deluge of onyx. Her hazel eyes drifted, exhausted, to her son sleeping in the arms of the tanned nurse. A pained smile plastered to her pale face, she lifted her hands to receive her child.

His body was warm and soft and vulnerable, enough to make his mother weep for him. Her sorrows spilled over her high-boned cheeks and wetted her bare breast. She held him closely and breathed in his scent.

"Ramiel," she sobbed, no happy note to her lament, "life will be difficult for you. A prophecy teases death over your head, around your neck, diseasing your heart and mind." Her pale lips curled in on themselves as she swallowed back more tears, but her chest heaved a sob. "But we mustn't allow this to happen, my child. For you've been born to me pure and true, and will be protected by royal blood."

The baby prince's mother had barely finished speaking when the doors to the room were thrust open. The maids and nurses bent their backs and receded to the walls, eyes trained on the stone floor. With the child still cradled in her arms, the obsidian-haired beauty ceased her weeping and watched the heavily-armored royal move to her bedside.

The king, who'd impregnated her, was not her husband, but someone she once loved. She searched his glassy eyes for the kindness she'd fallen for, but she only saw lingering anger. A crooked smile lifted his brown beard and his eyebrows shadowed his darkening expression.

His hand folded rough and heavy around her arm. She turned the babe to her other side and allowed the king to entwine his fingers with hers.

"You heard of the prophecy, I presume," he said, softer than she'd anticipated. She offered a slow nod as his gray eyes traveled to his son. "Let me hold him."

She trembled, afraid that her refusal would only earn her more torment. But she was weak now, and could not struggle against his prying hands.

He took the child and frowned when it began to cry. A thought wrinkled his forehead as she returned the sobbing babe to its mother. She warmed the infant in her thin arms. "If you wish to keep him safe," the king began, his voice now the harsh one she'd grown familiar with, "you will remain quiet about who you are, and you will not challenge the throne. We will do everything to prevent seeing this prophecy through."

"We cannot defend ourselves from that which is destined," she whispered, lips shaking. "If a son is to crush his father's skull, he will crush his father's skull. If he is prophesied to rule over the land, he will rule over the land."

The king stood with a growl, whipping his robes around him as he approached a cowering nurse. It was just then that the newborn's mother saw the elder prince, only three years old, teetering behind his father. Dressed in hosiery and a bright orange tunic, he already looked the part of a crown prince. No longer the age to be nursing from his mother, the Queen of Arioch, he now followed his father on errands around the castle.