3. Breaking Their Fast
2710 Words
"Are you going to sit in your room like some spoiled little child while your future mate waits patiently downstairs?" Lexi asked Kolton as she bounced up and down, trying to calm a screaming Kate.
"Sounds like a great way to spend the day to me," Kolton told her as she rotated her trunk in time to Kate's wailing. "Why won't she shut up?" He gestured to Kate whose face was a flood of tears.
"She's a sensitive baby, Kolt!" Lexi told her. "She can tell when things aren't right with people. She's been off and on bawling since you and Kane butted heads the other day about taking a mate!"
Kolton looked doubtful, and eyed the 1-year-old with a skeptical eye.
"She doesn't look like the type to be into Dionne Warwick's Psychic Friends Network," Kolton said scathingly and looked back to the magazine he was reading. Lexi snatched it from his hands before he could get into the article about the highest rated motorcycles and their safety ratings.
"And you don't look like someone who wants to babysit my children all day because you were too stubborn to come downstairs and eat a meal with your family and future bride!"
If it was a threat, it was a damned good one. Karter and Kate were very different as siblings, but they were a handful indeed. Kate was sensitive, picking up on every little nuance and word. Karter was just a little machine, constantly getting into anything and everything and laughing when he wrought mayhem. The boy was lucky his grandma loved him so much, or the Ming vase he had destroyed when he first started crawling could have been the end of the little tyke.
"I'll come down to breakfast, woman," Kolton gritted out. "Just don't threaten me with babysitting your progeny again. It's like trying to fight a fire and cooking over a gaslit stove at the same time. An utter disaster in the making."
"Oh, like you know what cooking would be like," Lexi said. "If you've even cooked yourself toast I'd be surprised."
"Went camping once," Kolton choked out.
"Yes, Kane told me," Lexi retorted. "He also said that he's not altogether sure you weren't the cause of that wildfire in Yosemite that year."
The vexing female took her pregnant belly and now-sniffling daughter out of the room before calling back to her brother in law.
"I'll expect you down within 15," she said. "If you're not there, I am sending Kade up with Duplos, Legos and two cranky children. I'd like to see you not cry when you have a Lego nearly impaling your foot!"
She slammed his door and Kolton was left in silence. Since he had already showered, he decided to put on his least pleasing outfit and get ready for breakfast. Since he never had to comb his hair with it being so short, he simply ran a hand over his whiskers and deemed he could go another day without a shave. As far as he was concerned, he had no one to please but himself, and if his mother or sister in law didn't like it, it was just too damn bad.
Pulling out his oldest pair of sweatpants and a tight t-shirt with a hole in the armpit, he deemed himself ready to go and walked out in a pair of his oldest loafers. His mother would probably order his maid to extract and burn the clothing he was wearing today, but he didn't care. It was worth it to him.
His journey to the breakfast room dragged on as he slowly made his way to the ground floor. He couldn't hurry if he tried. He had zero interest in being at breakfast with his family and their guests.
Even if one of the guests had been a pretty redheaded female he had seen constantly when he had closed his eyes the night before.
He could hear lighthearted chatter as he made his way down the hallway to the breakfast room. He walked in and stalked to his place at the table without catching anyone's eyes. All was silence as he took his seat, and after a few moments, someone cleared their throat.
"Good of you to join us this morning, Kolton," his father told him as the sound of cutlery being used started up again. "I'd like to introduce you to-"
"The DeWitts," Kolton interrupted. "Yes. You told me about them yesterday."
Kolton was not a complete Neanderthal and knew he should greet them as guests of the former king. He nodded to Mr. DeWitt, who was a large man with shovel-sized hands, and then scanned the table for the daughter.
His eyes slid over to the female with the brightest hair in the room and wanted to cuss when his throat locked up on him. He swallowed, ridding himself of the imaginary blockage and nodded the faintest of nods to the female. She was prettier than her profile and hair had suggested last night, and he cursed himself for the definite stirring in his sweats.
He had known she would be pretty, but his father hadn't done the girl justice. She had large blue eyes almost too big for her face, and deep red hair that fell in waves to her small waist. No freckles, it was a pity, for he adored them on a female, but her skin was milky-white and flawless. She was flawless.
His c**k stirred again and he cleared his throat before grabbing a pot filled with steaming coffee. One of the servers came around and laid an omelet on his plate before adding a bit of bacon and sausage.
"Mr. DeWitt's daughter is across from you," his father told him, as if the young man had gone blind overnight. "Her name-"
"Yes, I caught it last night when you told me. Eliza."
He said the name as if it were filled with venom and he heard a gasp as he went to take a sip of his coffee. Black and scalding. Just the way he liked it.
"Kolton-" Lexi began.
"I told you I would breakfast with you," Kolton stated harshly. "I did not say I would be on my best behavior. Not when I am forced to be, or being forced into something I wish not to deal with until I am ready."
The table was silent and he caught the red head of the female guest as it looked down at her lap.
"Kolton-" Xavier began.
"If you wish that I make lighthearted small talk or chat up the guests, you are looking at the wrong person," Kolton interjected. "I am neither in the mood to make idle chitchat or discuss my mating at this hour of the morning. Strike that - I wish to never discuss any of that as I have no need of meddling in my love life, as it were."
Lexi went to open her mouth, but Kolton silenced her with a look.
"What would you have me say?" Kolton asked his Queen and sister in mating. "Yes, she is a pretty thing, but so is jewelry and I have very little need of that as well. I am sure the girl is lovely and docile and everything you wish for me to be, but I am not. I am cross and sullen and I like it that way. I just wish you people would quit with your matchmaking and leave me be." Kolton stood only having finished a few bites of his food. "This was a mistake. All a mistake. I suggest you stop trying to make me bend to your will and leave me be. I am not wishing to make enemies of friends, and that is all that this would do. I am not gentle nor kind and I cannot change that. I suggest you heed that and leave me to my own devices."
Kolton walked off, having had enough of everyone sticking their oar in where it didn't belong. If he didn't want a mate, he should be allowed to be without one. The common folk were not forced to mate so neither should he.
There was silence for a while as people started to eat again, Eliza still gazing at her lap. She suddenly stood and bowed to the table, all manners even when her heart was breaking again.
"If you will excuse me for a moment," she told the room in a small, clear voice.
She walked toward the door Kolton had left out of a few moments before, and headed to the safety of a bathroom, all the while making sure she kept a steady walking pace when she only wanted to run to the solitude of the room she sought.
Eliza wanted to know why. Why no one wanted her. She was not unpleasant to look at. Even Jonathan - before his rejection - had told her how proud he was to have such a beauty as a best friend. So why was everyone rejecting her?
She washed her face, the light lashes catching the water droplets and making her vision blurry.
No. That was tears that made her vision blurry. A sob rose in her throat, but before it could be spent, a knock on the bathroom door had her jumping in place.
"Eliza?" It was the Queen.
"I'll be out in a minute!" she called and tried to quell the bubbling emotion that was making her chest ache so.
"Open up," Lexi called. "Please."
Eliza went to the door and allowed the Queen entrance, though there was nothing more that she wanted than to be alone in her grief.
"Kolton, he-" Lexi started to say.
"-hates me," Eliza finished. "I don't see why he wouldn't. It is obvious to me that he wants no mate and that I am being thrust upon him. I would hate me too."
"He doesn't hate you. He-" Lexi sighed. "Kolton has always been stubborn. Sometimes I think he'd claim the sky was green if Kade or Kane insisted upon it being blue. He's arrogant and willful, but he is not a bad guy. He just hates that he doesn't have the freedom the common people have. He would be completely happy if he were a commoner and not born of royal blood. He hates his predicament, not you."
There was a brief silence as Eliza gathered her wits.
"Do you know why I'm here?" Eliza asked of the Queen, who shook her head in response. "I am here because my true mate, the one who I was destined to be with, rejected me. He is in love with another, and that other person is human."
Queen Lexi drew in a short gasp, her eyes widening slightly. "Rejected you? But - he is your mate!"
"He didn't want me as a mate. He wanted me only as his friend," Eliza told her. "I was as surprised as he was when I turned 18 and we both felt the bond. But he had been dating a human for a year or so by then and he was deeply in love with her. He didn't want me. No one does."
Lexi didn't know how to act or what to say to the girl's admission. It had to be mortifying to be rejected by your true mate and then sent away only to find your arranged future mate doesn't want you as well.
"Please don't tell anyone," Eliza pleaded. "I don't want the pity in people's eyes. I had enough of that back home. It was one of the reasons my father asked to come here. That and... I was not taking the rejection well."
"I would think not," Lexi said. "Rejection of any kind is horrible, and I can't imagine if Kane were-" She cut herself off, shaking off the bad could-have-been's stirring in her brain. "I won't say anything. If you wish to tell anyone about your situation, it will be up to you to tell them."
"Thank you," Eliza said, the sting of tears still pricking the backs of her eyes. "I think I would like to go to my room now. Can you make my excuses to the rest of your family? I don't... I'm not feeling very well."
"I'll send a maid up with some tea if you like," Lexi said, nodding. "Tea always seems to make me feel better when I am feeling low."
Eliza nodded and left the bathroom behind the queen, turning left to make her way to her bedroom and climbing the stairs to the second floor.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"You really have a way with words, big brother," Kade said as he walked around a cluster of blueberry bushes, a sardonic little smile on his face. "As soon as you bolted, the little redhead soon followed. Charm and grace are all that is asked of you as a Prince, and you've handled both like a bear in a claw-trap."
"If people would leave me be, I wouldn't have to be as ungentlemanly and sour as all that," Kolton said, standing up from his spot. "I wished not to have to be there and yet I was forced in pain of... babysitting my brother's evil twins."
"Oh, I'm sure our dear older sister is quite angry with you," Kade said, chuckling. "I was hearing her go on about gathering up some toys and bringing it to the east wing. You know what that means, big bro."
"f**k," Kolton said, closing his eyes. "She's having me babysit anyway."
"Bingo," Kade said, pointing a finger at him. "And Kate has been a pleasure and a half with all her sobbing and sniffling she's been doing since you left the breakfast salon."
"Shit."
"Yup," Kade said, sounding almost gleeful. "And since the girl left and didn't come back after you wandered off, I'm sure you have hurt her feelings as well. Lexi came back to the table after going after her and said Eliza was feeling ill and wouldn't rejoin us. Nice work. Pretty soon we'll let you loose on the town and you can alienate them with your gruff demeanor as well. I'm actually happy Kane was first-born now. If you were king, we'd have a revolt on our hands. You are singularly unpleasant lately."
Kolton felt bad about hurting the girl's feelings, but it couldn't be helped. It's not like he could go to her and apologize and give the girl false hope. It wouldn't be fair. He had no want of a mate. Even one with lovely hair, pale, flawless skin, and large cornflower blue-
"Are you listening to me, Kolt?" Kade asked, interfering on his brother's unwelcome thought processes.
"What?"
"I said, Father wants to speak with you in his office soon," Kade told him. "I'm sure he'll have some choice words for you, so you may want to get the browbeating over with as soon as possible. That way you can get on with completely irritating the rest of the family and staff. I promise, though, if it comes to a lynching, I'm not on board. I loathe crowds and violence."
"Go away, Kade," Kolton grumbled. "I do not enjoy being a s**t, and I enjoy it less that you remind me of being one."
"Well, if anything, I am glad to hear that being a d**k isn't a pleasant pastime for you, no matter how well you play one. Perhaps if you-"
"I said leave, Kade," Kolton gritted out. "There are books to be read and worlds beyond these to be explored in them. I have no use of you and your airy fantasies."
"I don't read fantasies, Kolton," Kade told him. "I prefer mysteries and thrillers. But maybe you should read a fantasy or two. Or a romance. It might get your mind in the right place for your bride to be. She is very pretty indeed. I know how you like your redheads."
"f**k off," Kolton growled.
"Later, big brother."
Kolton couldn't help it. Once Kade left, his eyes went up to the room on the second floor just in time to see the curtains being drawn by a slender arm. Just a swift peek of red hair and it was gone.
- Writer
