A Royal Rebellion by Revella Hawthorne Read Free Book Online Page B

dismay. “You weren’t supposed to know.”
    Camilla stood just inside the door, a smirk on her lips, eyes full of manic delight. She walked into the room, lips twisting in derision. Arianna surged to her feet, enraged.
    “You knew! You bitch! You must have known!” Arianna screamed, rounding the bed, intending to rip her sister-in-law to shreds. How dare she take part in this travesty!
    “Of course I knew! I’ve known since Mason was called back from the army to marry me. He refused, the bastard.” Camilla’s face warped into a snarl, and she dodged Ari’s reaching hand. She darted across the room, a small table between them, Arianna panting in rage, bosom heaving. Camilla giggled, some of her insanity slipping out in the sound.
    “Why?” She was asking this of everyone. She was so confounded by the whole mess that it was all she could ask past her anger and confusion.
    “Why did he refuse? He was in love with a soldier! Because he caught some of Eddie’s perversion, that’s why,” Camilla spat. “Oh? Do you mean why did I go along with this? Easy, sister. I wanted to be a princess.”
    “For power?” Arianna gasped out, shaking. “You let them violate us for power?”
    “Don’t act so scandalized. You wed Malcolm for the same reasons. You were never told any of this because you’re too flighty, too spoiled. You’re dutiful and devoted one moment, and irascible and undependable the next. Too inconstant. Stubborn, even, and King Henry said you weren’t to be trusted.”
    “You let him put his seed in you? You knew what was really happening during our yearly exams?” Arianna demanded, again feeling sick. Her emotions were everywhere, all over the place.
    “I let King Henry fuck me,” Camilla admitted, and Arianna swayed on her feet. “There was no need to pretend with me, I let him knock me up the good old fashioned way. I’ve actually never slept with Mason, you know. He could never get it up for me.”
    “I don’t blame him one bit, you disgusting whore!” Arianna lunged for Camilla, but her sister-in-law ran back towards the door, laughing.
    “Don’t be rude, Ari. King Henry is going to be so mad at you! And Malcolm, well…he’s going to be so disappointed you know the truth.” Camilla smiled one last time, and then ran out the door.
    She would go directly to the King. Of that, Arianna had no doubt. She had little time before she ended up under lock and key, or worse, she ended up like Mason. There was no need for a queen-presumptive, not anymore—there were six heirs for the Crown Prince, after all. Arianna was decoration at this point.
    If the king was crazy enough to violate his wife’s right to choose, then to do the same to his daughter-in-law’s, and everything he’d done to Mason over the years, and now Edward…he was insane enough to kill her.
    She would never stay silent. This atrocity could not go unanswered.
    There was someone in this palace who could tear this secret apart, and stop King Henry’s madness. And there was someone out there now, who’s right to rule was pure and unblemished by his father’s insanity and duplicity.

Chapter Four
    Percy
     
     
    “Edward?” Percy called hesitantly, still not used to saying his master’s name when other people were around. Reynard was sitting in a chair next to their room’s door, long legs stretched out in front of him, gun in his lap, the TV remote in his other, switching through the channels on the unit on mute.
    “Yes, Percy?” Edward asked, coming out of the bathroom, drying his hands on a towel.
    Percy put a hand on his neck, the consort collar heavier than usual, with the skin underneath becoming irritated. This was the longest stretch of time he’d worn it without Edward removing it to provide his skin with some relief, and he was past the point of being brave and keeping quiet.
    Percy tipped his head to the side and lifted the heavy coils, the rope-like collar limp and silky, but the finely refined metal was