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trouble, always stirring up his brothers, poking his nose where it shouldn’t be. He must be lying!
    “He is lying, I know it!” Arianna cursed under her breath as she took a corner too fast, her heavy skirts catching on a stone wall, halting her for a moment before she jerked the fabric free. She huffed out an irritated breath, and let go her death grip on her skirts, determined to regain her composure. She could hardly approach the king in a frazzled state. She walked as fast as she could through the maze of halls until she neared her destination.
    Arianna swept down the hall outside the king’s study, the tall, dark oak doors closed. The long hall was empty, which if the king had been inside then there would be two guards stationed just outside the doors. Arianna looked over her shoulder, and saw no one, so she hurried forward. Asking the king directly if what Mason had told her was true was less attractive than going through his desk and finding the facts for herself.
    The doors weren’t locked. She opened one, blessing the well-maintained hinges that let her enter silently, and she shut the door behind her. The hearth was cold, the lights out, the only illumination coming through the drawn curtains. King Henry’s desk was along the far wall, which meant anyone coming to speak to the king had to cross the whole room while the king watched them, a tactic his majesty used to intimidate petitioners and his ministers.
    Skirts rustling over the rugs, Arianna walked to the desk, breathing ragged, an unlady-like sweat building under her dress. If she were caught, she had no idea what the king would do. Being caught by anyone other than him would be simple—but for Malcolm and the king, she outranked everyone in the building, and the blood princesses were all back at their respective homes. Being the future queen came with plenty of protection, but nothing could protect her from King Henry if he decided to punish her for going through his personal belongings.
    Not that she knew for certain how he’d react. The king she knew, and the king painted by Mason in the outlandish story he told her a few nights back, were drastically different. The king she knew, while arrogant and demanding, was a devout family man and dedicated ruler, doing his best to keep Cassia and her people at the top of the power scale. There was no country to match Cassia in the whole world, with Elysian, the late queen’s home country, being a close second.
    So surely that’s what Mason’s tale was—just a tale, something he concocted to while away his hours spent being punished for letting Eddie disappear. Though why the king and Malcolm would be so upset over a single breeder when there were literally hundreds of them in the country for them to choose from left her equally confused. Mason’s explanation for that was equally ludicrous.
    King Henry would never let a single minister mess with the affairs of his children, not even the rich and influential Minister of DNA Engineering and Cloning, no matter how much money was involved. There was no way, just no way that King Henry would bow to the wishes of a minister, and persecute a blood prince and legally bonded royal consort, one that if what Mal and Mason both claimed was true, was carrying a Cassian Royal.
    It boggled the mind.
    That’s why she had to find proof—one way or the other. Either Mason was being his typical prick self, or something horrible was happening. Something so horrible that if true, meant that for the last forty years, from the king to her youngest babe, all of them lived a lie.
    A lie that drove a father to chase his own son like a common criminal, and in the ultimate irony—the only one of them not weighed down by the broken laws of the king.
    She tore through the drawers of the desk that would open, scattering papers here and there. Just thinking about the wretched things that Mason claimed left her composure in tatters.
    Tears found their way past her withering control,