you were a princess who would rather be anything but a royal; he was the knight her father forced her to marry-a true match made in hell if there ever was one. but, as the wedding inches closer and closer, it seems that, perhaps, your father had fin...
pairing: knight!steven grant x fem!princess!reader x knight!marc spector x knight!jake lockley
series summary: you were a princess who would rather be anything but a royal; he was the knight her father forced her to marry—a true match made in hell if there ever was one. but, as the wedding inches closer and closer, it seems that, perhaps, your father had finally done something right by you.
chapter summary: you make your side known.
word count: 4,571
warnings?: inaccurate depiction of legal proceedings, kinda very angsty, mention of waterboarding, mention of death and dove wishing she was dead, pet name (dove), not proofread
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You felt like you were going to be sick. You probably were about to be sick. If you existed in a cartoon, your skin would have turned a nasty green color and your cheeks would have been puffed up comically large to show the audience just how sick you were.
"You're gonna be fine, dove," Steven said, rubbing your back, trying to soothe you. It wasn't working very much, but you appreciated the effort.
"Think of it this way," Layla said. She sat on the coffee table in front of you. She leaned forward a bit, her hand coming to rest on your knee, and she gave it a gentle squeeze. "the sooner it's done with, the sooner he'll be locked away."
"I thought I had a few more days," you said. Your voice was barely above a whisper. You were scared that if you spoke any louder, the force of using your voice might make you actually vomit. (And, okay, sure, that might have been an irrational thought, but you were allowed to be a little irrational—especially right now.) "They were delaying things. They were investigating. I thought it might not be until next week that I had to testify."
While the last two of the hearing had been cancelled so that Parliament could deal with the media frenzy of Kieran's reveal, as well as verify the authenticity of Benjamin's confession, your appearance before the committee was to proceed as planned. There would be no more witnesses to testify. There would be no one else but you. And that scared you shitless.
The realistic part of you knew that, at this point, your testimony was more of a formality than a necessity to put Benjamin away for good. Even if you fumbled and stumbled and fell, there would be enough to get Benjamin out of your life and off the throne. But the irrational part of you...It reared its ugly head, sneering at you, telling you that you were going to fuck up your own peace, your own happiness, because you couldn't coherently string together the words to describe everything Benjamin put you through.
Cleo hopped into your lap, peering up at you, and let out a soft, "Mew?"
"Oh, I'm gonna be fine, baby," you said, reaching out and scratching behind her ears. You sniffed. "I'm just scared."
