Nothing

Killian’s POV
If I saw one more painted simpering lady try to make a pass at me, I would abdicate and leave the throne for Cillian.
I never agreed for the girls to be brought here so why was I suffering for this?
“I am done with this.” I informed my brother.
Cillian merely looked at least though I was exaggerating.
“I came out of my bathroom and that one with the curls, Ash or something, was in my bed. Naked.”
“And since when do things like that irritate you?”
Okay, Cillain had a point. I liked my women with imagination, silence, willingness and spread legs.
If she was already in my bed, all the better. Which was the reason I told the council I wanted to mate for love. I already had so much meaningless interaction with women. If and when I got mated, it had to mean more than that to me.
“It irritates me when said naked woman is the daughter of a powerful family and wants to trap me with sex.” I poured myself a glass of wine.
“Besides I never asked you to meekly follow the wishes of the council.” I reminded my brother.
Cillian sipped on his juice. He didn’t take anything even remotely alcoholic and wine gave him headaches. Sometimes I wondered how we could be so similar in looks yet so dissimilar in character.
Cillian sighed softly. “They might have worded it as a request but both of us know it was anything but that. The council has been restless for the past couple of seatings. They are planning something.”
I glanced at Cillian in shock. I thought I was the only one following the inner court politics while he was wrapped up in Rosalind. It would seem like there was a lot about my brother that I didn’t know.
“Do you know what it is?” I asked.
“No,” Cillian shook his head. “But you know who will? Their daughters. Not only will we be privy to the councillor’s secrets if we take them as rides but we will also calm them down so much so that when we are officially crowned kings, they won’t expect it when we depose them.”
With every word out of his mouth, I became certain that my brother’s amiable nature was just a mask covering his mind which might just be as ruthless as mine.
“If we do that will we not give even more power to their families?” I shook my head. “Those geezers are wilier than you think, Cillian. They already had the game planned out before they even dent their daughters here. I refuse to play.”
Aunt Lilly would probably come around to threaten me into doing exactly what she wanted and even though she wasn’t my birth mother, she had the same sway in my life that mothers had on their children.
That all-consuming need to make your mother happy. But I had to go with the choice I felt was good for me now.
Cillian was adamant.
“You have a duty to this country.”
I rolled my eyes, almost sickened by the surety in his voice. “Don’t you ever get tired of saying so much self-righteous bullshit?”
Cillian glared at me over his glass.
“This isn’t about self-righteousness. This isn’t the first time nor will it be the last that royalty will have arranged matings. Besides, we don’t have to choose any of them now. We are merely meeting with them.”
His words triggered my memory of Rosalind when I had seen her on the rooftop after their ‘breakup’. After listening in on their inevitable breakup, instead of feeling smug, I felt pity for Rosalind for a hot second before disregarding it.
Then hearing her cry while attempting to be brave had undone something inside me.
Cillian still intended to marry one of the brides but that was fine but the way they acted around each other seemed as though they had made up. I wondered what he had told her about this entire bride business.
“Arranged marriages huh? Is that what you told your whore?” Cillian growled and I laughed cruelly. “I’m curious now. You always claimed to be the noble one but even today you have surprised me with your callousness.”
Cillian’s face was still but his eyes shone with unbridled anger. “You don’t know what you are talking about.”
Didn’t I? I wondered if he was lying to her because maybe he had begun to ascribe too much value to her but she didn’t seem like the kind of person who would sit by and let herself be the other woman.
“I know exactly what I am saying. What is your plan? To have a trophy wife with Rosalind on the side?”
Cillian slammed his fist into the table and my glass of wine spilt over while his cup of juice fell and shattered.
“Don’t talk about her like that. I know you don’t like her and that you believe that everyone has ulterior motives but it’s different with her for me. I would never make her like that.”
He didn’t intend to keep her as the side piece and he didn’t want to mate with her just yet?
Then what exactly was his plan? He couldn’t eat his cake and have it too.
Then I finally understood as in my head I connected the dots.
I looked up at my brother.
“You want me to get mated, so you won’t have to.”
Cillian’s face coloured but he didn’t deny it. Instead, to my ever-increasing surprise, he responded contritely.
“I know it is a lot for me to ask of you. You have always wanted to rule. If you take a bride before me and have an heir, you will be able to take better care of the kingdom the way you have always claimed you would.”
I couldn’t believe Cilliab was repeating the very same thing Aunt Lilly had told me. He was telling me how to unseat him for Rosalind’s sake. I had to ask. “You would give it all up for her?”
Cillian smiled serenely as though he was high on something. He probably was. The thought of Rosalind must keep him floating in the clouds.
He sounded confident when he responded.
“I wouldn’t be giving up on anything. I would be gaining the world.”
It sounded like he had put in a lot of thought into this. He sounded like his mind was already made up but I had to warn him. This was a dangerous decision.
“The court will never accept her.”
Cillian shook his head.
“I will take that chance. I want to fight for what we have.”
I scoffed and sipped on my wine now considering it now that there was an opening.
“And I am supposed to sacrifice my shot at finding my mate so you can be with your whore.”
The idea was laughable. We were princes but we weren’t closely knitted that I would even consider doing something like that for him.
Cillian looked at me without even a trace of humour in his eyes.
“You have always wanted the throne to just yourself. It won’t be much of a sacrifice.”
Okay. He had a good point. I had always wanted him to realize his inadequacies and step down for me and if he was doing it because of a girl anyway, how could I stop him?
I shrugged.
“True. If you are so desperate to give up your throne for a fling, who am I to stop you?”
Cillian acted like my barb just rolled off his back. It probably had. “Rosalind is more than just a fling to me, not that I would expect you to understand.”
No, I wouldn’t. I had never been in love before and I wasn’t planning on it even though thoughts of Rosalind randomly popped up in my head.
I thought of the way she absent-mindedly rolled her around her finger and bit down on her lower lip when facing something that she didn’t quite know how to handle.
The way her dark brown hair spilt down her back, the way her pupils dilated when she was turned on, the way her anger flashed in those expressive blue eyes, the sound of her laughter, the sound of her moans.
I struggled to bring my mind back to the serious conversation we were having.
“The council will be aware if you ignore their daughters.”
Why was I finding reasons to convince Cillian to pick a bride? I was going to get the throne because of his stupidity, so why was I stopping him?
Was it because I wanted to sabotage him and Rosalind or was I actually bothered about the consequences for him?
Oblivious to my inner conflicts, Cillian responded.
“I won’t. I will go on my required dates and you will do the same. Once you pick your mate, I will declare disinterest in all of them.”
That was a good plan. A wonderful plan so why was I thinking of Rosalind’s smile?
I shook my mind free of the strange intrusive thoughts of Rosalind.
“It’s a deal.”
******
Keeping my side of the deal was more difficult than I had anticipated.
It shouldn’t have been so difficult to just pick the most quiet out of the lot of them but I just found myself disinterested in anything they had to say.
I was currently having lunch with one of them.
She was young, blond, pretty and within the first five seconds of meeting her, I had already forgotten her name.
“What sort of attributes would you prefer in your partner?” She spoke sultry, her fingers playing with her hair in a way that brought attention to her chest.
Her breasts were close to spilling out of her dress due to how low-cut the gown was.
Goddess, save me.
I looked away from her breasts which somehow did nothing for me as I responded.
“Modesty and silence.”
Though that wasn’t strictly true. I liked when Rosalind snapped back at me. I also liked when she spread her legs easily for me as though she felt so intensely attracted to me so much so that she couldn’t control herself.
I heard a choking sound after I finished reading only to see Rosalind at the entrance to the dining room with a glass of water in her hands.
Our eyes met and I could tell how amused she was by my current predicament.
It took everything for me not to smile back.
**********
Rosalind’s POV
The prospective brides looked and acted nothing like me.
They acted like the world revolved around them and the place seemed more bubbling with their arrival as one servant or the other was assigned to help them with their needs.
Thankfully, I was almost always at the hall with the princes when they weren’t on little dates to know their brides.
It had taken me a lot of reasoning to come to the conclusion that I had promised Cillian my trust and I had to give him that so why it hurt to see him on dates, I comforted myself with the fact that I was the one he kissed senseless like he couldn’t get enough of me.
I was about to enter the hall when someone stopped me.
“The princes will not require your services from now on, consider yourself dismissed.”