Royal Protection (Bodyguard Romance)

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It wasn't always like this, "this" meaning the life I live. The life of cold, deception, secrets, and fear. Though true, my life has always been in the spotlight of royalty, I never knew all the blood, and terror that came with it until now, until I have to finally take the throne, the same throne everyone has told me about since I was a kid. Something that now feels so long ago, but my only wish is to go back to my childhood, when things were simpler. 

My name is Medina Westerfield, I'm twenty years old, and this year, I am set to take the throne, along with my husband, to replace my parents, Ann and Phillip Westerfield, king and queen of the place I have always called home, but have never felt as though I belong. 

We live in a castle the size of at least two small European cities, right near the border of Cambridge, UK. My father is royalty by the bloodline, my mother is royalty by my father, he met her on a trip to Ireland, my mother's wealth and status however, had much to do with my father choosing her to share his throne, it wasn't just that he fancied her. 

They, along with the rest of their council and the citizens at the time had wished the new arrived king and queen to have a male heir, to carry on the legacy of the royal blood line, but after two, they decided that they were having just girls, and that they would settle, no matter how disappointed they were.

First, there's me, Medina Westerfield. I stand at a staggering 5'9, I get the height from my father though I have been told all my life it isn't the most attractive feature I possess. My hair is long, draping itself down my lower back, it has always been long, and I have dreamed about what it would be like to cut it off. My hair is mostly a brown color but has many streaks of ginger, which I get from my mother's long, orange hair. My eyes are brown, a deep brown, like the type that can see into anyone's soul if they stare into the abyss they create for long enough. I love the piano, at first I was forced to love it, but as things became so oppressed it was the only thing I could escape to, I've played since I was 6 with lessons almost daily. I love going on walks through the gardens of the property. 

Then, there's my sister Helen Westerfield. The youngest, and last of the Westerfield children. She's eighteen years old, shorter than me, blessed with purely jet black hair and blue eyes the color of the prettiest oceans I've seen. She too has a thing for music, but she plays the harp, the prettiest sister is always supposed to play the harp. 

It wasn't that I lacked what she was, or was any less pretty than she was, in fact many people I had met often told me it was good I was the child taking the throne because I kept a better image, rather it was her cooperation and her ease to follow rules, striving for constant perfection that made her more ideal to the people closest to our family, including my parents.

That was where I was the opposite. Some blamed it on the fact that all the pressure was laid on my shoulders, or the fact that I was the oldest child. I grew up with my family, but I wasn't raised by them. 

Each royal child was assigned a caregiver, almost like a nanny that would raise the child from birth until they are eighteen while their parents go off with royal duties. My care giver was my best friend, she still is, an older woman named Mary Turner. She was an orphan, from Denmark and striven to care for children once she was an adult. Mary was the one that exposed me to all of the great lessons, cultures, and the beauty of the real world that was always covered up by ballroom dancing, courtship, and the ability to be proper. 

Mary took care of me not just because it was  her job, but she had loved me because I was something out of the ordinary, something unlike all the other kids she had cared for before me. I was also her last child, and one of my very few wishes and requests in life, as a royal, is to keep her around at all costs. 

Our relationship was no secrets, no strings attached, no gimmicks, no fine print. It was real, and raw. I could share my truths, and she could share hers without being shamed, or banished to the dungeons at the bottom of the castle. We had our own little language, we kept things just between us, because we both knew that we were caught up in a messed up world. 

She could leave at any time she wanted to, but I think the only reason she stayed was because she knew a child like me, with a brain like mine would go insane if I didn't have someone who truly understood me raising me every single day, without the ability to walk away like she could.

Truth was, I always a spark beneath me that wanted to be free, that wanted to be a normal person with a normal life, no amount of dresses, makeup, money, riches, publicity, great food, and alliances could ever cover that spark, like they did Helen's. The only difference was I was just better at keeping the spark contained so no one would find out about it once it turned to a fire. 

This year, all of that changes for me.