1 - Time for a Change
1239 Words
One year later
~~Carter's PoV~~
“Carter!”
My father's growled yell echoes through the darkened room as he slams the door behind him. The woman on her knees in front of me is so surprised at the interruption that her jaw tightens.
“F*ck!” I gasp in a whisper as her sharp teeth come perilously close to severing my most important body part, or at least that's what it feels like to me, and I quickly pull out of her mouth before she can do any further damage.
“I'm sorry, Your Highness,” she whimpers in apology, but I'm only half paying attention as I tuck myself back into my pants before my father can find me like this.
“Carter, I know you're in here, I can smell you.” His menacing tone is getting closer, and I shove the woman at my feet further under my desk.
“I'm working,” I claim, grabbing some papers and shuffling them around to try to look busy.
“In the dark?” he snarls, not buying it for a second. A moment later he stands in front of me, glowering down at me. “I know exactly what kind of work you're doing. Whoever's under the desk, get out of there, now!”
Obviously he's not fooled, so I roll my chair back to let the woman escape. She gets to her feet, her cheeks burning red in the moonlight that's coming in my office window.
“Your Majesty, I was just...”
“I know what you were just doing,” he cuts her off. “You're Cedric's daughter?”
She bows her head. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
She was? I didn't know that. I had just noticed the pretty face at the ball, I hadn't bothered to get her life story.
“Go tell him that his services are no longer required,” my father tells her, and her face immediately drains of all color.
“No, please, Your Majesty, it's not his fault.” She sounds close to tears. “My father loves serving you.”
“Then he should have raised his daughter better. Get out, now!”
The tears start to flow as the girl, whose name I still don't know, runs out of the office and out into the hall, leaving the door open behind her. I can see my father's face a bit better, and as I expect, he's furious. I can't help but find it all a bit funny though.
“It hardly seems fair to punish her father when it's your own son who she was fooling around with,” I point out. “Doesn't that make it equally your fault?”
“Everyone at this court knows what kind of man you are,” he answers me. “If my advisors can't even convince their own daughters to stay away from you, how can I trust their judgement on anything else?”
I shrug. This conversation is starting to bore me already. I'm just disappointed I didn't get to finish the blow job before we were interrupted. Guess that means I'll be flying solo when I get back to my room.
“I want to see you first thing tomorrow morning in my private office,” my father says, turning to head back to the door. “This has to stop, Carter. I'm running out of advisors.”
It's not exactly first thing in the morning by the time I get up and get down to my father's office, but it's pretty early by my standards. I'm surprised when I walk in to see that not only is my father there, but my mother is too.
She doesn't usually get involved in my father's business, so I have a bad feeling that whatever they want to talk to me about, it's personal rather than professional.
My father sends everyone else out of the room. When the door closes, my mother turns to me with a serious expression. “Carter, we're worried about you.”
I try not to smile, knowing it'll only upset them more. “Because I'm having a little fun while I'm young? It's hardly a crime. No one is with me against their will.”
“You're not a boy anymore,” my father argues. “You'll be 25 soon, and it's affecting not only your reputation, but the whole court. I'd like to retire before long, but who's going to trust you to run the empire when you can't even control yourself?”
“If only you could have your destined mate...” my mother sighs, but my father doesn't let her go too far down that path.
“There's no use in 'if onlys',” he reminds her, a little harshly, but we all know his harshness is partly because of guilt. It's his fault I'll never have a mate, after all.
Is that why I am the way I am? Maybe a little bit. After all, what's the point in saving myself for the perfect partner when I know she's not out there? When my mate bond was broken beyond repair, I lost all chance of ever finding the kind of connection that my parents have, or that half the wolves in the castle have. Even the lowliest omega in the royal pack gets to have a mate, but not me.
“There's no reason you can't have a chosen mate,” my father says to me now. “Humans do it all the time, after all. You just need to pick a woman to settle down with. Surely with all the ones you've tried, someone must appeal to you.”
I wrinkle my nose at the thought. “They're all the same. They're only interested in me for my position. My mate would have been meant for me, but everyone else, they only want to be Queen someday.”
“So maybe you need to get to know a woman before she knows who you are,” my mother suggests.
“And how would I do that?” I ask, genuinely curious. “Everyone in the whole empire knows my face.”
I was on TV, on the cover of magazines. I'd never met anyone who didn't know who I was. The idea intrigued me, but I couldn't see how it would work.
“Leave that to me,” my mother insists, her fingers twitching in anticipation. “If you promise that you'll give it a proper chance, I'll make the arrangements.”
Do I actually want to do this? It might be good for a laugh, if nothing else. I was getting a little bored of the endless parade of women who fell into my bed, after all. It would be a new challenge to try to seduce some who didn't just see my crown when they look at me.
I can't imagine that I would actually fall in love with any of them, but there didn't seem to be any harm in giving it a try.
“Alright, go ahead,” I tell her and she smiles in delight.
“Just give me a few days to set it all up,” she requests, and I nod, turning to go back to my own office.
“And no more whoring before then,” my father calls out after me.
I roll my eyes and keep walking.
- Writer
