Of Heirs and Havoc ✔️ | Of Crimes and Crowns Book 2

sixteen: of executions and emotion

"Please," Connor spoke, and that word was laden entirely too much need. He had forgotten in the past week the look of his wife when she wanted something, the passion that seemed to pulse through her body like a second heartbeat. It was something palpable, something tangible, something he wanted desperately to drown in. "Air your concerns, Majesty."

"Why have you been so distant these past few weeks?" The fire that burned in Natasha's eyes, that laced her voice, was not anger. No, it was vulnerable desperation, the sort that made her all the more impossible to refuse. Because few saw a side to her, to the queen, that was not regal, nor commanding, not icy but pleading, asking, not commanding. "And why are you calling me Majesty?"

The desire he held for her still raced through his veins, but it was mingled now with anger, anger he had kept bottled these past few days at himself, at Natasha, at the perpetrators of Grace's attempted assassination. "It is your title, is it not?"

"It is, but I held the belief that we were equals." Hurt—which he suspected had little to do with her ankle—flared in her dark eyes. "That we were partners."

Connor breathed in deeply, fixing his gaze on the portrait behind her head. It was gilt-framed, and had been commissioned sometime last year, early in Natasha's pregnancy. She was seated on a throne, Connor standing behind her, both of them with the barest hints of smiles on their faces. "You are the queen," he replied finally.

"And your wife!" Tasha snapped back. "I am your wife, and now you can hardly bear to look at me, let alone touch me. Please, tell me why that is. Tell me how I have erred, so that I may remedy my wrongs!"

"It is no fault of yours—only mine," Connor said stiffly.

"Really," she said, voice hardening, freezing over into brittle, sharp ice. "I myself can think of nothing you have done that could be construed as a fault, except ignoring me completely for the entire space of one week."

"Well, you wouldn't!" Fury rises in him, temper getting the better of him. "I failed, Tasha. Grace could have died—she could be gone. My child, my daughter could have died that night, and I would have been powerless to stop any of it. And you wish to know why I called you Majesty? Because I feel unequal to you! Because you are the queen, and all I am is prince consort, without even a crown, without any sort of power to protect my wife and my child from the dangers that surround us on every side!"

"Oh," she said, and then she was crumpling, hugging her knees to her chest, tears springing to her eyes as  they did to his. "But surely—surely you know. Surely you know that there is nothing you could have done—no way we could have known—"

"Really? Truly?" Connor spat the words at her with no real venom. "I had no inkling, no notion of your plans today. And you gambled with your throne, with all of our lives, Natasha! Perhaps there was no real danger, but you told me nothing of how you were going to face him! I refuse to be a figurehead. I refuse to be relegated to only—only your husband."

"Then what do you want of me? What would you have me do? Grace has your name—all of our daughters will."

That was Arlean tradition, he remembered numbly. If a queen took a husband who was noble but not royal, the daughters would take their father's surname but the sons their mother's.

"I am not asking for power!" He cried out. "I am not asking for control over you. I am simply requesting that in the future, you tell me of your plans before you carry them out. That you not risk all of our lives whilst your husband watches helplessly."