STILETTO SISTERHOOD - Book Two

Shayne | Long live the (Interim) Queen

Stepping in to fill her brother's shoes had seemed like a great idea at the time. The added bonus of off her grandmother made it all the sweeter, but now that the adrenaline rush was wearing off, Shayne realized this was a quite possibly the stupidest thing she'd ever done.

And she'd done a lot of stupid shit.

Protestors lined up along the main street outside of the Spanish Parliament building, signs pitched and fists raised. Apparently news had leaked of her arrival to the country, and already they were baying for royal blood. Her Spanish was rusty, but she got the gist of what was splayed across those posters and banners.

The obscenities.

The anger.

The disappointment.

Her uncle had been a major advocate for gold mining within the country, and leveraged his support in favor of various American companies who came in and bled their country of its resource while destroying local communities as well as the environment. Making Americans and the crown wealthy, while leaving the people to suffer the consequences.

Marco had hoped to change all of that, and his wit and charm had given the people hope—confidence that they would soon have a leader they could trust. Turning his moniker of mockery—The Golden Prince—into one of respect. He was more than a prince; he was the symbol of their future.

And for the first time since touching down on Spanish soil, Shayne felt a lick of doubt ripple down her spine like rollerblades grinding a rail.

She brushed fingers through her choppy hair, the strands a vibrant emerald green, dressed in ripped jeans, over-sized tank cut low on the sides and braless...Puta madre, what the hell had possessed her to roll into the country like this?

Within an hour of the confrontation in her uncle's office, the Duchess had convened an emergency meeting with the entirety of Spanish parliament.

In her usual kneejerk way of handling the matter, Shayne had called for the royal limo and pounced in the backseat like she was James Bond about to face off against a supped up uber villain, and sniggered at the horrified shock that would befall the Duchess as she sauntered in, but that was the problem. A reckless move, but that was always the problem. Shayne was brash, impulsive and couldn't see beyond the tip of her nose when it came to assessing the consequences of her actions outside of the ring.

But as the car idled to a stop, Shayne had a single lucid moment of shocking clarity of the pictures about to be splashed across the evening news. And the message that it would spread to the country—her people, about the prospective leadership about to fill in her brother's barely vacated shoes.

She, the newly returned princess who had flown half way around the world at eighteen to escape the chokehold of propriety—the quintessential black sheep in the line of royal blue bloods—was about to greet her people for the first time looking like a typical queer twenty three year old LA hipster who knew fuck all about running a country.

Her door wrenched open and the roar of disdain washed over Shayne, a putrid flood that brought bile to rise in the back of her throat. Even with the wall of the closed gates between her and them, it was still alarming to be faced with such mobbish anger.

One of the royal household security team stepped into the opening mouth of the door and stuck out a hand.

"Princessa," he said gruffly. His square jaw was shadowed with a groomed beard, but she recognized the face immediately as one of the guards she'd taken down at the hospital outside of Marco's room when she'd rushed to his side after the accident.