The Royal Series 0 - A Royal Archive

Chapter 2

He thanked her and hung up, relieved to know that something would be done and he did not have to fear for Norman all day, until the shop opened and Risteph arrived for his shift. No matter what he might have done before Norman was born – confront the man or at least shout out a warning that the guards had been called – he could risk no such thing now. Not with a young boy cuddled into his side, already drifting off to sleep again because he truly believed that his daddy and the guards would keep him safe.

He could risk nothing, with Norman in his life. Not when he knew that there were no family members left who could care for him, if anything happened to Elex. He knew that Spencer and his family would ensure he was well taken care of, but Elex did not want to find out what that might entail. He had lost enough. He would not lose his son, too.

***

Elex winced, a few minutes after the phone call, when the sound of the front doors shattering open resounded through the building. It seemed the guards had arrived and the wooden doors would need to be replaced.

He cared not, as long as Norman remained safe behind their apartment door. Nothing else mattered to him but that.

There were a few shouts, the sound of glass breaking, then the crack of more wood, all inconsequential to his brain until there came an unexpected pounding on his door. Elex shot to his feet and cursed when Norman moaned. He lay his sleeping son on the sofa and headed for the door, pressing his ear to it as he responded to the knocking; "Yes?"

"It is the Royal Guards, Mister Rezal. We have apprehended the criminal. It is safe for you and your son to emerge," a male voice called through the doorway.

Elex sagged against the wooden blockade in relief. It had only been a few moments of panic, but they were enough to make him question everything about their life here in Rolfesson. "Thank you, sir. My son and I will be out promptly." He let them know that it would take a moment, as he needed to dress a little better than his undershorts and a dressing gown.

When the guard did not respond, he presumed that he would wait for them to leave the apartment. Which suited him fine.

It did not take long for Elex to find a suitable pair of trousers and throw off his dressing gown. He did not bother with a shirt nor any other garments, as he was in a hurry and it did not seem wholly necessary. Then it only took a few whispered words to wake Norman, who was far more excited by the arrival of the guards than he should have been. But, if it prevented him from being scared or upset about the intrusion to their home, he would count himself lucky.

By the time he unlocked the apartment door and removed the side table from behind it, Elex was both mentally and physically exhausted, with the loss of life-saving adrenaline. He felt rumpled, inappropriately dressed, and as though he looked like someone had woken him from the dead. So when he opened the door and found a perfectly put together Adonis on the other side, his shoulders sagged.

Of all the times that he should see the Royal Guard, Rence Thilil, again it had to be when he looked as awful as he did right at this moment. Not that the last time had been much better; they had locked eyes over the body of his dead wife, after she had collapsed in the street and he had discovered her outside their home as he returned from work.

Rence had been compassionate and warm towards Elex, despite their history with each other. It must have been almost twenty years since they last saw each other, before his wife's death. Twenty years since they were young men together, barely sixteen and caught kissing in the alleyway outside Elex's home.

They had been so reckless back then, unaware of the danger or the way his parents felt about homosexual relationships. It did not seem to matter to his parents that the King had taken a male Consort. They simply passed it off as Prosper being King and, thus, able to do whatever he pleased. They, on the other hand, would not have an unnatural son.

Just two days later, he had been married to his wife and moved out of Ruiseart and into Rolfesson, which had better work prospects for a young man in need of a career. And was a better place to raise a family, according to his parents.

He had been so young, then. So incapable of fighting them, when they brought the local priest into their home and forced him to listen to all the reasons why his feelings were unnatural and sinful. Unable to say anything when, just the day after being caught and still protesting his innocence, they had told him that Rence had married a local man, a vampire.

What was he to do, then? With no lover to fight for, Elex had submitted to the inevitable. Just as his wife had, aged nineteen and still unwed. They had been shamed into their marriage and stayed together simply for the fact that they were all they had in the world.

He still remembered consummating their marriage and feeling ill at the thought of never seeing Rence or being with him again. The reality of Rence living his true life in the open, while Elex could not. That the man he loved could abandon him to such a fate; that he had done so of his own will meant he could not have loved Elex at all. It had been a heartbreaking moment of realisation. It was only later, when the family began to complain about no grandchildren that he and his wife submitted to one last humiliation at their request; they spent one more night together and were lucky enough that she had become pregnant from it. He could not have borne a third command to 'perform his duty'.

Yet, now...now Rence was standing before him, gazing down at his son as though Norman were something impossible. As though he had no concept of the things Elex had gone through, to try to heal his broken heart of the man who had tossed him aside so easily.

Clearing his throat, Rence stiffened his posture and gesture behind him. "If you would, Mister Rezel, my commander is awaiting your report of the incident. And the Royal Consort has arrived. He is eager to speak to you, once you have given your report," he said, as though the last twenty years had never happened. As if they had never met before this night.

All Elex could do was nod and step past him, his hand holding onto Norman's, who quietly trailed behind him.

If the intruder had not been nightmare enough for one night, he could not have imagined the pain of seeing Rence on his doorstep, eyes so wide before closing themselves off to him. He could not have anticipated the stab of betrayal that was still as fresh today as it had been twenty years ago.

He had thought himself past grieving. Only, now, he would not grieve the loss of his wife, but the reminder of the innocent lad he had once been and could never be again. The loss of the only man he had ever loved, who had never loved him back.