The Princess Swap

12.

To save face, we had to be seen in public the next day. A great strategy according to his mother who I never went to see that evening. My thoughts took away my peace. My day went downhill with it.

What caused me to be upset? Why did I react to his anger that way?

“You haven’t been out together in a while. Don’t forget to smile and wave if you encounter a crowd. Be gracious, Ariana. That’s your duty as Queen.” Marcella said, smoothing down the pads of my dress.

“I thought the Queen’s duty is to rule beside her king. I didn’t know all it requires is gracious smiling.” I shrugged off her hands. “It an irrelevant duty, don’t you think?” I asked, holding her gaze.

Marcella had started to get on my nerves. At first, I thought it was her constant bickering, the pressure for perfection, the nagging to be the Queen’s replica and more. But it was more than that. I didn’t mind her nagging. She cared for her daughter. Who wouldn’t want their child to rule over a kingdom one day?

She irked me. Simple as that.

“This isn’t the time to be smart, Ariana,” She answered, her eyes tired.

I managed to age her in the week since my arrival. It had everything to do with me. I embarrassed her on a regular basis. But rather than be concerned for her daughter, she assumed she was being punished.

‘Are you trying to get back at me, Ariana?’ Were her favourite words. I never asked her about what but I thought often of it. What had she done that would require getting back at? Asides from being an awful mother, that is.

No one listened.

Between herself and the Prince, I didn’t know who listened less.

“The Queen makes ruling easier for her king. If it takes smiling and waving to do that, then I’m sure Queen Gwen does not mind. You shouldn’t either.” I started to scowl just to annoy her but her next words cut me off. “You are to render all assistance to your king, Ariana. Remember, there’s no king without a queen.”

She said it like it meant something more than it did. But then –

“Don’t you mean there is no Princess without her prince?” I asked, raising a brow in question. I liked to do that. Raise a single brow. Not only did it infuriate Marcella who called it ‘undignified’ but I couldn’t raise a brow as Selene.

“You know he can’t be king without being a Pack Alpha. And you know he cannot lead a pack without his Luna.” She smiled then at my incredulous look. “Why do you look so surprised? Don’t tell me you never thought of why he doesn’t lead his pack despite his age.” She raised her brows but it didn’t look as cool as when I did it.

“His age – How old is he?” I asked, tilting my head to the side. He had to be in his late twenties to be betrothed to the princess. He didn’t look to be that old but Alphas had a short term. Usually around twenty-five years; the reason a lot of them didn’t wait to meet their mates. They had to find a partner to start procreating as soon as possible to ensure leadership stayed in their lineage.

Sometimes, I felt bad for alphas. At least, Omegas could wait as long as they wished to meet their true mates. If an obnoxious alpha didn’t come from nowhere to force a mating on them using their power and influence.

Goddess, our ways were too barbaric to delve into.

But the Princess had put a stop to forced matings. She had the power to do that and by her decree, well, her initiative supported by a decree from the king, non-true mates had to be registered to make sure both parties were willing to take part in the mating.

No alpha would want to go through that process to claim an Omega they didn’t like, I’ve heard.

“He turned twenty-seven last month. I’m not even going to ask how you can forget that. I suspect you must have suffered some sort of trauma when you fell into the river. You’ve been acting strange ever since.”

In the first days after I arrived, being accused of acting unusual made my heart race and my mouth splutter some rubbish. But I had come to realize that no one would think, no one would even dream that something as absurd, as impossible, as a body swap could happen to the beloved Princess. Or anyone for that matter.

Things like this only happened in the imagination. And not in everyone’s.

“Maybe I did. Or maybe I’m just deleting the memories of that jerk, one detail at a time.” The atmosphere of light banter disappeared faster than a ghost at those words. She turned stern. Her hands patting down my dress, readjustment and dusting, suddenly tightened on my shoulder. Her small smile dissolved to a familiar scowl, one I had seen her wearing more times than I cared to recollect.

“Listen to me, Ariana –“ I cut her off. My stubbornness had come out to play and no one could whip me back into submission. Who would whip a princess? Such a man would first be hanged before they finished that thought. No one listened but I had power. Much more than Selene from a small, nameless pack could ever dream of.

“Why am I the one who has to do the listening when no one ever listens to what I have to say?” As expected, my words fell in deaf ears. She shook her head and continued like I hadn’t spoken. It sent a shot of irritation up my spine.

 Here was something I had to endure in my life. Something I thought I would be above as the Princess. Yet, no matter how loudly I spoke, my words always fell on deaf ears. Why would someone like Princess Ariana speak only to be ignored by those that would one day be under her rule as Queen? Even if the person was her mother or friend or the Prince she was to be married to?

“Listen to me. No one must know that you are having problems with your Prince.” Her nails dug into my shoulders as she gripped me, keeping her eyes on mine. “He reacted badly yesterday to the news that those useless men from the South brought. He reacted badly and it’s affecting his image.” Her eyes tried to tell me something but all they succeeded in doing was to annoy me further. “It wouldn’t be fair to him to come out to mend his image only to have his Princess snob or spite him in view of the public.”

“It would not be fair to me to have to help him mend an image that he ruined himself.” I hissed. For the hundredth time, her wolf pushed to the surface as she failed to keep her emotions in check.

“You are his princess. You are to be his queen.” Her words slurred as they turned into spitting growls with eyes that flashed red with every second. “This is your duty as his queen and you must carry them out.”

I stepped back to look at her very well. To be sure I was seeing a woman who I called Mother. I had a mother once. Though not for long. But even in the bad days, she never got like this. I could never say that my mother didn’t care for me. She cared enough to meet with a man she swore she would never associate with again just to make sure I had contact with family when she could not care for me anymore.

That’s what I remembered my mother for. She never pushed. She always cared. Even when I was wrong, she supported me in public. But not this one. This one only cared about a daughter fit to be Queen. A daughter that pleased a Prince even after the Prince almost drowned her. I knew a power-hungry person when I saw one.

“You seem to know a lot about being Queen. Maybe you should marry him and become his queen. You seem a perfect fit.” The moment the words fell from my mouth, I regretted them. Even before I felt the sting of her palm on my cheek.

**

“Why are your cheeks red?” He whispered to me, hand clasping my elbow.

Wilhelmina wasn’t around to cover up the marks the Princess' mother had made.

For her part, she apologized, she cried and whispered something about the devil and me being too brazen. But I followed the Prince in some kind of dazed state, my hands mechanically waving to a few small groups we encountered as we walked hand in hand, a royal entourage trailing behind us, Beta Callan leading us.

My cheeks hurt from my fixed smile. I could only hope I didn’t scare people with it. My cheeks hurt from smiling. They hurt from the sting of hard, angry palms on them.

We walked hand in hand, my legs weary as we continued to walk, the Prince doing annoying things like squeeze my hand, touch my hair and smile a creepy smile that made it look as though he had stomach cramps. I wondered if his smile could be more genuine if he wasn’t in the Princess’ presence. He seemed to hate her. That much I had gathered.

We sat in an open space at a table, with enough space for people to watch us while guards loitered. It made me nervous, having so many big and burly men stand as still as stone, some of them pacing up and down.

“Did you fall, my clumsy princess?” He snickered, taking a sip of water as we sat, me with my reddened face and him with two buttons opened on his chest.

“I don’t want to listen to you b***h about stupid things, Zion,” I said, feeling all my bravado drain from me. “Just sit and look pretty so people don’t remember what a jerk you were yesterday.”

His face contorted in anger before his features relaxed. He leaned back into his seat, his grin big and false.

“I told you I would frustrate you out of this engagement.” He took another sip of his water.

 I could not even act surprised. I knew where all these headed. Everyone in the South knew that our relationship with the Crown was not amicable. Something happened, I didn’t even know what, but we were as fascinated with the monarch as much as we sneered at them.

Princess Ariana was like our very own Princess in the South. Our Fair-haired, sweet and kind Ariana. If she could be with someone like Zion, then maybe he wasn’t so bad. I never gave it much thought, too many things bothered me without thinking of people who ruled with absolute power, people I never expected to meet. But right now, it seemed almost too obvious to have missed.

“You don’t have to frustrate me anymore. I’m already frustrated enough,” I snapped, feeling my emotions return. Getting slapped by Marcella made me go numb but nothing could ignite my strongest emotion faster than taunting from an arrogant Prince. “It’s your loss if this engagement ends, anyway.” And so it was. Even if his eyes shuttered off in anger.

“How can it be my loss? What makes you a princess if not your prince? What do I gain out of this asides from a simpering, foolish girl with a head filled with roses rather than a working brain? You disgust me and if you are to be a loss, it’s one I would be very glad to bear!”

You disgust me.

I could cry but another wave of numbness had washed over me.

“You bastard –“ I hissed, rising from the squeaky seat despite Marcella’s voice in my head warning me to pretext his image.