Rejected Royalty (Rime & Pyre Book 1) Read online

  Rejected Royalty

  Rime & Pyre, Book 1

  C.M. Cevis

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  REJECTED ROYALTY

  First edition. June 29, 2018.

  Copyright © 2018 C.M. Cevis.

  Written by C.M. Cevis.

  To Noelani and Rain, for believing in me without having read a word.

  1

  SEN GRUNTED AS HER FATHER’S fist connected with her jaw. She spat the blood out of her mouth for what seemed like the hundredth time in the eternity that he’d been at it. She wished he was drunk—at least then he only beat her until he passed out. Tonight, he was stone cold sober, which meant there was no telling how much longer this was going to go on… But there was no way that he was going to let that man anywhere near Onan. Sen was seventeen; she could take it. O was only nine.

  She could hear him through the closed door, in the hall closet where she’d shoved him when she heard her father coming. She’d made him promise that, no matter what, he wouldn’t come out until she told him it was OK. She’d been trying to get him to her room so that she could lock the door, or any room other than his, really. Him being in the closet meant that he could see through the slits in the decorative door, and she didn’t want him to see, but it was better than him being the recipient. Her father had been looking for her younger brother when Sen had stepped in and antagonized him by refusing to tell him where Onan was, until he took his anger out on her, which was what she’d been going for.

  She closed her eyes as a solid fist connected with her eye socket so hard that it sent her head, and then body, flying back and slamming into the door of the closet. She had the presence of mind to keep herself up against it, but that was about it. That one had pretty much knocked every ounce of sense out of her. Say what you want about the man, he could hit like a damn truck. And that was going to swell up and turn all sorts of pretty colors. Well shit, that’s what a girl wanted everyone to notice her for. A spectacular shiner.

  Their father was just a miserable soul. He’d been happy once, years ago, when Sen and her twin brother Seth’s mother was still alive. She’d been Fae, and had loved their father with everything she had, or so they’d been told. They’d seen pictures of her and instantly saw what their father saw in her. She was absolutely beautiful. Her skin was a few steps past sun-kissed, with a caramel and red tone that seemed to match the deep ruby red of her hair. So deep that, unless she was in direct light, it looked like her hair was black. Her eyes had been a vibrant emerald green, with an outer ring of gold that was so bright that it almost looked like gold leaf flakes had been placed in her eyes. The twins looked just like her. Every picture she was in, her eyes were wide with wonder, her smile bright and contagious…

  She’d died giving birth to the twins, and their father had blamed them for it as long as they could remember. It had been the house staff that had raised them, made sure that they ate, had clean clothes for school…

  It had also been the house staff that kept the secret: that the King of Artifice couldn’t stand his children, abused them when he wasn’t ignoring them, but was in control of everything that happened in the country. Sen and Seth had been optimistic when their father announced that he was getting remarried, hoping it would calm things down in the house, but it hadn’t.

  Elise had been a sweet, soft-spoken barmaid that he’d met during one of his many trips into town to get drunk in a dark corner. Apparently, she’d taken a liking to him during his trips, and he’d taken a liking to her, naked. He’d married Elise because he’d gotten her pregnant. That was where Onan came from. Neither Onan or Elise deserved what that man put them through, but Onan was just a child, and Elise was trapped by the guards and her own insecurities. She wouldn’t leave, though Sen and Seth had begged her to on more than one occasion. Instead, she’d become cold, uncaring and bitter, withdrawing from the world around her to combat the loneliness and abuse, so that it was Sen and Seth that were raising their little brother. That was how it had come to this: Sen putting herself between her father and the others in the house. Thankfully, Seth wasn’t home, otherwise…

  “What in the hell are you doing, old man?!” a voice bellowed from the other side of the hall. Sen couldn’t look— apparently her eye was already swelling and didn’t feel like opening enough for her to see past the watering—but she knew her twin brother’s voice. Guess he got back early.

  “You stay out of this, you little shit,” their father growled. Sen let her back fall against the closet door as she sank to the floor.

  “Onan. I’m OK,” she whispered while her father was distracted.

  “You’re bleeding,” he whispered back through the door. She smiled, and hoped he saw it. She could barely see anything between the swelling and the wonderful blanket of spots and stars, which she prayed didn’t mean she had a concussion.

  “I’m OK, I promise. Stay quiet, alright?” she said. She heard a corresponding sniff and some shuffling—she assumed it was him scooting farther back in the closet. Her attention was brought back to the escalating screaming match.

  “Lay another finger on my sister and I swear…” Seth growled, considerably closer now.

  “What are you going to do about it, boy?” their father said, spitting ‘boy’ out like it was some sort of horrid disease.

  “Sis, are you OK?” Seth asked. Sen nodded. She had no idea if he’d seen it or not. She kind of wanted to take a nap. Which was bad.

  “This is between you and me, don’t look at her when I’m talking to you!” their father bellowed. Sen’s mind was starting to phase out, the yelling becoming more and more muted as her mind decided it was time for a shutdown. It was so subtle that she didn’t really notice it, until a bang on the closet door against her back startled the piss out of her.

  “Don’t go to sleep!” Onan screamed from the closet. Oh hell.

  “You’ve been hiding him from me this entire time?!” her father yelled. Double hell. It was probably good that O had done that, but still…

  “Don’t go near him,” Sen said, pushing herself shakily to her feet. OK, she could see enough to at least know where everyone was. That was something.

  “Get out of my way,” her father said, coming towards her. Seth reached for him, grabbing his arm as a sharp pain began in Sen’s chest. She doubled over, her hand against her ribs, but looked back up at the man who’d contributed genetic material to her and her brothers.

  “Don’t go near him!” she screamed. Her vision went white, the stabbing chest becoming a blinding and burning pain as she shrieked, unable to move. Her father seemed to be watching in horror at… whatever was going on. She was only catching flashes of what happened around her at that point.

  “Do you see it, father? You’re such an idiot that you didn’t even know who your wife really was, what she passed onto Sen and me. You’ve hated us for years, blaming us for killing her, for looking just like her. Well here is something else we have of hers.” Sen heard Seth say it to her father, but it still took a few moments to process. Then she calmed down, stopped screaming, and realized that she didn’t hurt anymore. She was, however, on fire.

  “Interesting development…” she mumbled, more to herself than anyone else.

  “Does it hurt?” she heard Onan whisper. She turned back towards the door a bit before she answered.

  “Not anymore,” she said.

  “You’re… What the…” Her father jumbled together stuttered partial sentences as her brother grinned at her from behind him. Sen had known that something was different about Seth for about a week now; something that he seemed to be holding
back from her. And they told each other everything, so it had been concerning for her. Now she understood.

  “Calm down, Sen. You have to calm down, or the fire won’t go out,” he said. One glance at her father caused a ‘whoosh’ as the flames went higher, licking at the ceiling with her anger… But she stopped, deep breaths, calming thoughts… She felt something slip around her and opened her eyes to see her brother had wrapped his jacket around her. Right, flame plus clothes equals naked. Gotcha.

  “Leave us alone, old man. All of us—Onan and Elise too,” Seth said. Their father looked like he was going to need a new set of pants, quite honestly. He nodded frantically.

  “Onan,” Sen said softly. She heard the creak of the hinges as O slipped out and came to stand on the other side of her. He wasn’t even slightly afraid. It was moments like these where she loved her little brother even more, if that was possible.

  “Mom doesn’t care,” he almost whispered. Sen sighed. Yeah, she knew that. Didn’t mean that she liked it.

  “We’ll take care of you,” Seth said, giving a warm smile to Onan, and taking his hand from behind Sen’s back. Onan smiled back and nodded.

  “Get the hell out of here,” Sen said to the man who had given them life. Their father turned and hauled ass out of the hallway. And Sen collapsed to the floor. She could see better, but she was hurt. Badly.

  “Damn it, Sen. Why’d you let him beat you like that?” Seth said, scooping her up into his arms and carrying her. Regardless of how badly she was beaten, he needed to get her out of that hallway. Onan trailed just behind.

  “He wanted O,” she whispered. Seth sighed and nodded.

  “Onan, go into Sen’s room and get her a pair of pajama pants and a tee shirt, quickly, OK?” he said. Onan nodded and ran off. Sen felt Seth walk a bit more, then sit down, cradling her in his lap. It was one of the times she appreciated the fact that they’d grown into different heights, she thought as she laid her head on his chest and forced her eyes open.

  “Why are we in the living room?” she asked as she looked around, trying to keep her mind focused on something other than the pain.

  “I need to take you to the hospital,” Seth said gently. Sen stopped.

  “I can’t go…” Seth stopped her sentence.

  “I’m tired of covering for our father. And you’re bleeding, Sen. It’s all down the front of me and I’m not 100% sure where it’s coming from. We’re going to the hospital, as soon as O gets back with clothes,” he said, as Onan’s footfalls came tearing into the room.

  “Here,” she heard O say, completely out of breath. He must have run all the way there and back.

  “Good. Here, take the keys and go start the car. We’ll be right there,” Seth said, the corresponding jingle of his car keys letting Sen know that he’d given them to Onan and sent him out of the room to preserve what was left of her dignity.

  “Thanks,” she mumbled as Seth gently shifted her off of his lap and began to put the clothes on her. She helped as much as she could, but that wasn’t much. Everything made something hurt and she was even more exhausted by the time she was decent.

  She let Seth lead her outside to the waiting car as Onan hopped over the armrests and into the back seat. Normally that would have driven Seth mad, but tonight it didn’t matter. There were more important things going on. Instead, he opened the passenger side door and helped Sen gingerly in, before walking around to the driver side. Onan leaned up and was pulling the seatbelt across Sen to buckle her in. Seth smiled and nodded his approval at his little brother, waiting until he had strapped himself in before pulling out.

  2

  THE TELEVISION ON THE OTHER side of the room showed the courtyard of the royal home, mere feet from the balcony that Seth and Onan sat in front of. The door was open, but neither of them dared go out there. On the TV, their father stepped up to a podium that had been set up an hour prior to this planned press conference. He was attempting to do damage control, but failing miserably.

  The media had gotten hold of the fact that the royal children were all at the hospital a lot faster than any of them thought they would. Eventually, they decided that someone on staff must have called them, but they had other things to worry about, like the information that the doctor had handed off to Seth. Thankfully, they’d been more than willing to let him know Sen’s injuries once they’d seen the extent of them, King be damned.

  “I don’t understand this one,” Onan said, bringing Seth’s attention back to the math homework that he’d been helping get done.

  “Let me see,” he said, leaning in to get a better look at the problem.

  Sen was in the closet, getting ready for the day. It took her a bit longer, since all of her injuries hadn’t healed up just yet, and the cast on her hand to set the fractured finger made maneuvering a bit harder for her. Seth and Onan refused to rush her, even if that meant that they were late for something, and she appreciated that. It was a Saturday, so thankfully it wasn’t school that they were getting ready for. She’d have been super late, if that had been the case. Today, Onan said that he wanted to go to the museums, because he had a paper to write, and wanted to write it on a piece of artwork. He just had to find one that he liked enough to write about. Once they’d heard about the impromptu press conference, they decided to wait until their father was finished making an ass of himself to leave.

  He’d tried to demand that they appear with him at the press conference the night before, over dinner. Sen had told him to go to hell, and her brothers had silently agreed. He’d started yelling and banging on the table, and Sen had gotten angry and mistakenly set the tablecloth on fire. That seemed to remind him of exactly who, or what, he was dealing with, and he’d let the issue drop.

  Sen had been trying to pull on her jeans one-handedly for at least ten minutes, and frankly she was starting to get irritated. She was making herself pause and take deep breaths, since the last thing she wanted to do was set fire to her closet.

  Catherine was the closest thing that she and Seth had to a mother. She was the head of the house staff, but her children were all adults and had moved out. She doted on Seth and Sen like they were her own, always had. She was probably the only one in the world who could hiss Sen into submission and get away with it.

  “Come here, child,” Catherine said, bustling into the closet.

  “I don’t need any…” Catherine hissed, and Sen closed her mouth.

  “Hush, and come here,” she said, helping Sen get her jeans handled, and pulling her shirt down over her head.

  “Thank you, Cathy,” she said softly. Catherine glanced down at the cast on her hand, and tried to ignore the healing bruises on her face. Looking at them made her cry, without fail, and she’d done enough crying over the past few days.

  “Think nothing of it,” she said, kissing Sen lightly on the cheek. She turned to leave, but Sen grabbed her and pulled her back, hugging her tightly.

  “Thank you for everything,” she whispered. Cathy wrapped her arms around Sen, and smiled against her.

  “No, thank you,” she said. Sen smiled, and watched Cathy go, before wiping her face, giving herself one last sniff, and walking into the room where her brothers waited.

  “Are we ready?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Seth said. Both pairs of eyes traveled to Onan.

  “Of course.” He grinned.

  *~~*

  THE MUSEUM WASN’T VERY CROWDED when they arrived, but it got crowded once people got word that they were there. Onan had his notebook, and was taking notes and snapping pictures here and there, as the curator told him bits and pieces about the paintings, and answered his questions. Sen had concealed the hell out of her face on the way downtown, so the mottled reds, blues and darker browns of the healing bruises weren’t as visible as they had been before she’d put on makeup.

  Once Onan had narrowed his choices down to two, and decided that he’d sleep on it before making a decision, the children waved, smiled, signed autographs and took
pictures with people, the way that they’d been taught that they always had to when out in public. Once they’d had enough, they climbed back into the car, and closed the doors against the press of cameras and shouts.

  “Where to?” the driver asked. The siblings looked at each other silently, but it was Seth who responded.

  “You know where,” he said. The driver, and big burly man who had driven all of the children for years nodded in the rearview, and pulled away from the curb.

  “For what it’s worth, I have enjoyed every moment I’ve spent with you all. I’ll miss that,” he said.

  “We’ll miss you too, Anton. And thank you,” Sen responded. She meant it, too. Anton was an amazing person, and she’d grown to think of him as a friend, and someone that they could trust.

  “The money is in your account, Anton. The King won’t catch it. Take your wife on that trip you’ve always dreamed about,” Seth said.

  “Oh I will. I’m sad that this is the circumstance that led to me being able to do that, but I am so glad that you won’t be with that horrible man anymore,” he said.

  “So are we,” Sen said softly.

  The car pulled up in front of a rather nondescript building, in a quiet, residential neighborhood.

  “This is good,” Seth said. Anton nodded.

  “The things that you asked for are waiting for you in the apartment,” he said. Sen frowned, and leaned up through the opening between the seats, hugging Anton.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “It was my pleasure, always,” Anton replied.

  The siblings climbed out of the car, and into the growing twilight, watching the taillights of the car until they were out of sight. Then, they turned, and started walking.

  That was the last time anyone saw the royal children.

  3

  Eleven Years Later