A/N: I own nothing but plot. Enjoy! Shoutout to JJEPrentiss and tango_megatop for always voting on this story. <3
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Percy had just exited from the bath wearing his robe when Annabeth stormed in through the doors adjourning their bedrooms.
"What the hell is this?" Annabeth pointed to the pink mark on her neck.
Percy lazily glanced at the pink mark he had made on her neck earlier that afternoon. Truthfully, he hadn't meant to make such a mark, but when his lips encountered such soft skin, they couldn't help himself.
"How pretty," Percy answered, moving to stroke her slender neck.
"Pretty, my ass!" Annabeth batted his hand away. "Do you know how embarrassing it is for everyone to see this on my neck?"
"I apologize," Percy said sincerely. "Next time I'll make sure to mark you where it isn't easy to be seen."
He glanced meaningfully down past her neck. The woman was brave for charging into his room wearing just a flimsy robe. Brave, or naive.
"You-" Annabeth sputtered.
Percy couldn't help but chuckle at Annabeth's flustered appearance. She was usually one who was collected and analyzed everything according to plan. He had long figured out that if he was unpredictable, Annabeth's usual composure would become flustered. How adorable, he thought. In the end, Percy decided to tease her some more.
"Fine," Annabeth announced. "Then you shall pay the same."
Of course when Annabeth pounced, Percy could easily sidestep due to his knight training. But he deliberately opened his arms and caught her as she jumped, causing both to fall onto his bed. Annabeth's hair was still loose from her bath, so Percy gathered the hair at the nape of her neck, letting the slightly wet strands slip in his fingers. With the enticing image of her golden hair cascading over her shoulders, she really looked like a siren who had just walked out of the sea. Percy's musings then faded away as Annabeth nuzzled his neck. He inhaled as her tongue soothed the little area where she had bitten him.
"I sincerely hope you're saving some of this energy for our wedding night," Percy said breathlessly.
He drifted his fingers against the curve of her shoulder. In the scuffle, Annabeth's robe had fallen open, exposing just the top of her bosom. His right hand was placed at her back, but it was ambiguous as to whether he was helping to keep the robe up or he was pulling the robe down. Thanks to that and her squirming on his bare chest, a certain part of his anatomy had woken up.
Before they could get to do any more shenanigans, Annabeth's answer was to hit him in the face with his pillow. "I'm afraid you'll have to wait longer to see then." She said, before fleeing the room.
It was a pity that the next day at the morning training, the Black Knights could not meet the Duke's eyes once they glanced at the pink marks on his neck and collarbone. Percy, however, hid his smile.
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When Kelli moved into the palace with her own personal maid, Princess Medea was not there to personally receive her and had sent only a maid. Quietly, Kelli shoved her displeasure down. She was a lady-in-waiting for Medea, so why couldn't Medea show a bit more courtesy to her? She stopped in her tracks when a procession walked across her.
"Who is that?" Kelli asked the maid.
The maid didn't like how Kelli had roughly grabbed her arm, but Kelli was a lady-in-waiting while she was a mere maid. "To answer the lady's question, that is Princess Piper McLean of the Cythera nation. She is one of the bridal candidates of Prince Jason."
Kelli frowned as she listened. She'd heard that the third princess candidate had arrived late, yet there was no punishment. This meant Kelli's benefactor would have a large obstacle. Even worse, this new princess was actually quite pretty.
Princess Piper turned to see Kelli and elegantly nodded her head in greeting. Kelli involuntarily took a breath, almost forgetting to curtsy. This new princess was beautiful, Kelli was reluctant to admit. Of course Princess Medea was beautiful and Kelli herself outshone the other ladies of Cuora. But this new princess had dark brown hair with even more luster than Kelli's, and her elegant beauty was different than Medea's flashy beauty. While the princess had a serene face, her eyes had glanced over Kelli sharply as if evaluating her. But it had happened in a split second before it vanished, so Kelli wondered if she was just seeing things.
Kelli watched the princess leave, slightly unnerved. But Medea was her benefactor, and of course, Medea would be the one to end up on the throne. She needn't pay attention to the other princess. Kelli hurried to her assigned quarters.
"You may leave now." Kelli ordered her maid, Miranda, who quickly curtsied before exiting the room.
The new room granted to her was clean, but barely large enough to hold Kelli's luxurious belongings. Kelli would have thrown a fit if she was forced to share a room with another lady-in-waiting.
How dare she, Kelli seethed at Annabeth. Her cousin was the one to cause Kelli to leave the townhouse to come to the palace. Sure, the townhouse was small, but it was at least close to Luke's workplace. It would be harder to meet Luke now that she had her palace duties.
Where had it all gone wrong? Luke was supposed to marry Annabeth, and then they would proceed with the plan to take over Annabeth's fortune. Annabeth had always been weak at Luke's good looks, before but now her demeanor was cold and even condescending towards him. Then, she would turn on the same set of eyes onto Kelli. At best, she was indifferent.
Soon, Kelli vowed. Princess Medea would be pushed onto the throne, and Kelli would have that uppity Annabeth kneeling at her feet soon.
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"Can't you do anything right?" The woman's voice spat at the maid.
Piper turned to see a lady-in-waiting berating her maid. Kelli Chase was the name of the lady-in-waiting. When Piper had heard that the newest lady-in-waiting under Princess Medea was Annabeth's cousin, Piper was surprised.
Kelli and Annabeth were different as day and night, not just in their physical attributes but in their personality characteristics. Annabeth had the demeanor of a scholar-warrior combined with her noble demeanor, while Kelli flaunted her noble status. Both were pretty in their ways, but Piper could at once see why Annabeth was worthy of the title of Duchess.
Turning her head away as Kelli and her maid walked off, Piper could barely keep her excitement as she watched a black carriage slowly roll up the palace gates. She was finally leaving the palace since Annabeth had promised to take her out to explore the Cuora capital city. Inwardly, she knew it was an occasion set up by the Duke to show that the princess of Cythera had the support of the Black Knights Order to counteract the fact that Princess Medea had the support of the White Knights Order.
Soon, Piper could put the tension and stress of the bridal candidacy far behind her as the carriage made its way into the city. Annabeth looked sympathetically at her and began pointing out locations of interest.
"How are things going on with the bridal candidacy?" Annabeth inquired. She passed over some veggie skewers from a nearby stall.
Piper happily took the skewer and bit into the nicely seasoned bell pepper. Her diet had been heavily controlled in the candidacy. Although she had lost weight from the assassination attempt on her life, Piper could hardly gain the weight back, especially since she was a vegetarian. The Cuora royal kitchen apparently did not know how to prepare delicious vegetarian food, and she missed the fried tofu dish her Cytheran chef made. Piper's diet had mostly consisted of boring salads and a few fruit that the watchful candidacy tutors allowed to eat. Her thinness often worried the people around her. Sir Leo sometimes slipped a few cookies when no one was watching, and even the Cuora Crown Princess once pretended to hate a plate of grilled veggies and given it to Piper to happily eat. With Piper's kind personality, she had won over the Cuora maids who also helped to sneak snacks. And now, Annabeth, too, was feeding Piper with every chance she could.
"They're fine...I suppose." Piper bit off another veggie from the skewer. "Prince Jason treats me equally to Princess Medea. Whatever he gifts her, he gifts me." She fingered the earrings she was currently wearing. "See these? Princess Medea got a pair of ruby ones while these are sapphire."
"I wonder why the prince chose sapphire for you."
Piper shrugged. "Princess Medea suits the color of red quite nicely. She's always wearing garnets, rubies, or red diamonds to pair with her scarlet dresses. His Highness probably just chose a random color for me."
"Maybe." Annabeth picked up a bottle of massage oil from a hawker's stall. "But we will turn this to our advantage by spreading the word that the prince has given you earrings the color of his eyes."
Piper recalled how Prince Jason's eyes were the color of sunny skies unlike the dreary grey skies of the winter, and appreciated Annabeth's shrewdness. Those same blue eyes had looked at her with an unreadable expression from their first official meeting when he had brushed his lips over the back of her hand. Recalling that memory now, Piper unconsciously rubbed her wrist where the mark had appeared.
To cover the flush that had taken over her cheeks, Piper turned to another topic. "That massage oil has aphrodisiac in it." Piper laughed.
She instinctively knew what the bottle was, since it was a product of her country. The Cythera nation was much knowledgeable in amorous affairs.
"Oh, right. I knew that." Annabeth coughed to hide her embarrassment before she quickly put the bottle down. Piper made a mental note to send Annabeth a few bottles of massage oil as wedding gifts.
They continued walking around the city where Annabeth introduced her to her favorite bookstore where they both began to enthusiastically browse the shelves. Unbeknownst to Piper, this bookstore was the exact bookstore where Percy had stolen kisses from Annabeth a week prior. Piper mentioned that she had seen Annabeth's cousin in the palace as Medea's lady-in-waiting. There was an indescribable expression on Annabeth's face, but Piper could tell that the future Duchess and Baroness Kelli did not get along. Piper, too, had been filled in on the gossip that Count Luke Castellan had been on the path of betrothal to Annabeth. But something had happened, and Annabeth and Duke Jackson were happily together. If Piper had to guess, that something that had happened would be Kelli.
"Yes. Watch out for Kelli," Annabeth warned.
Piper agreed. Baroness Kelli's maltreatment of her own maid and her haughtiness had made her an unfavorable topic among the palace staff. Annabeth seemed to be warning her of more than just Kelli's demanding personality.
"That woman is definitely being used as a tool. Fool," Annabeth muttered under her breath.
The two exited the bookstore with packages in their arms in an hour. As they walked, Piper noted down the state of the city. The capital city of Cuora wasn't as aesthetically pleasing as Cythera's, but the bustling citizens were happy and healthy. Soon, Annabeth took her to a newly-constructed orphanage that she had been sponsoring. Apparently, the orphanage building was something Annabeth had designed. In addition to the stately manner of the building, Piper was pleasantly surprised to see the orphans were taken care of quite well. She had seen many orphanages in Cythera that were not even one third as well-off as this one.
The door opened and a flood of ten or so children came pouring out. Annabeth fondly ruffled their hairs and pinched their cheeks. It was obvious that she visited the orphanage frequently and was a fan favorite of the children. Piper could also detect a sense of sadness in Annabeth's eyes as she interacted with the children, as if she empathized with their plight or had lost her own child.
"Big sister is pretty."
Piper looked down and saw a little boy peering up at her. He seemed to be no older than four, with a tooth chipped off. He held the hands of a girl even smaller than he was. At the children's adorableness, Piper bent down to their level.
"Why, hello there. I'm Piper." Piper said sweetly. She had purchased some fruit earlier and took out some juicy grapes.
The little girl reached out with her plump fingers to receive the fruit. "Tank you," the little girl lisped, still learning how to speak.
Piper smiled and poked at the girl's dimple, hiding her own sadness. She couldn't help thinking of her own siblings. Was her sister doing all right?
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From the building across the street, Prince Jason was lazily playing a game of chess on the third floor. Hearing the shouts of laughter, he turned towards the window and watched as the brunette woman lifted the little boy up in the air and swung him around. The lady slipped and both came tumbling down, laughing and unharmed. Other children crowded around them, and a tall blonde woman held hands with another little child. Then everyone soon stopped what they were doing and pointed at the sky. A cold chill had descended, with flurries of snowflakes soon falling softly from the sky. The first snowfall of the year had arrived.
"Such unbecoming behavior from a princess," Jason murmured as he played with the white queen chess piece. But his smile betrayed his disapproving words.
"Did you say something, Your Highness?" The head of Jason's intelligence network asked. He was playing against Jason in the game and moved a black knight piece.
"It's nothing."
Jason motioned for the curtains to be closed over the windows. He glanced over the reports of what each princess candidate did in the palace. So far, nothing too unusual had happened, but Jason could not afford to drop his vigilance.
Just a few days ago, an assassin disguised as a maid had tried to kill his sister. His sister had taken care to hide her martial skills from the genera public and easily took out the assassin so no harm was done. Still, the castle was on high alert. King Zeus was particularly furious, but his illness from the plague had worsened.
Despite having his fiance candidates picked out, there were also women being sent to his rooms, hoping to be set up as royal concubines. It was an open secret that both Thalia and Jason were born from King Zeus' now deceased royal concubine and not the current Queen. Queen Hera disliked Thalia immensely but tolerated Jason, probably because Zeus had given Jason to Hera to raise. Hera's idea of raising was apparently leaving him to a bunch of nannies and tutors. Luckily, Thalia treated him well or else Jason would have had no warm relations with his family.
Jason picked out the folder of one of the princess candidates. "Increase surveillance on her. It seems this one is going to do something reckless soon."
Memories flooded to how assassins had taken the life of his birth mother and even tried to take his life as a newborn. Jason waved his hand, and a servant automatically took the secret documents to be burned.
Jason moved his queen and took out a black pawn.
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A/N: Shoutout to JJEPrentiss and tango_megatop again c: Ya'lls encouragement always make me smile :D