I sobbed in my apartment the rest of the night, too exhausted by the dawn to care when Alastair came to see how I was holding up. He sat down heavily at the end of my bed and simply watched while I cried, not quite sure what to say or how to react.

“I’m sorry,” he eventually said. “I know this must be hard for you.” I was too overwhelmed by the gross understatement to stop my tears.

“I’m sure April is very happy,” I eventually choked out. Alastair grunted.

“Maybe not. She wanted a son, I know that. And I don’t think she’ll make a very good mother,” Alastair confided. He very rarely criticized April, aside from his criticism of her lack of genuine feelings. Alastair had always been painfully aware that she didn’t love him, only his title as king. Most people didn’t see the difference between Alastair the King and Alastair the boy, just like most people only saw me as Selene the Mistress, not Selene the girl. When Alastair and I were together, we were just people, nothing more and nothing less.

“I’m sure she’ll rise to it,” I gently said, setting my tears aside for a moment. “Most women do; the maternal instinct often proves stronger than selfishness and other negative personality traits.” Alastair shook his head gently.

“You know, almost as soon as she became pregnant, she started asking me about nurses, and how much time she would have to spend with them. I’ve been dreading this day. She doesn’t want to be a mother.”

“Them?” My jaw dropped as Alastair’s eyes grew wider.

“Yes… The girls.” He stared at me blankly.

“But… last night…. I only saw one!” I cried.

“Oh…” Alastair’s eyes drifted away from my face. “There were twins. April must have had the other with her.”

“Oh my,” I sighed, leaning back into my pillows. We were both silent for awhile before Alastair climbed up to me and put his arm around my shoulders.

“I’m so sorry. I know you wanted children too. They should have been yours.” I started crying before I was even sure why.

“What makes you think I want to be a mother? Why would I want to raise bastard children in a backstabbing place like this?” I accused. Alastair frowned.

“I just always thought… I don’t know. The way you looked at other people’s children, sometimes. And I remember how you were with Lord Haillid’s little girl…” His voice trailed away. I knew he was right, but I wouldn’t let him know.

“We haven’t named them yet. I promised April she could name one, but I want you to name the other,” he said.

“Why should I name your child? Her child? Just to rub in the fact that I don’t have any of my own?”

“I just thought maybe you’d like to, given that you’ll be spending so much time with them.”

I stopped cold.

“Alastair, darling, why will I be spending time with April’s twins?”

“Because I want you to be their nurse. I’ve found someone else to be their wet nurse, but I want you to be the one to raise them.” I didn’t know what to say. There wasn’t anything to say.

“Won’t that be awfully suspicious? To have a nurse and a wet nurse? And besides Alastair… Use your brain for once, I can’t. I just can’t. I can’t do that to April. Everyone knows about you and me, it would only be a matter of time before she found out, and to take her children from her and give them to me… No. I can’t hurt her like that, no matter how strongly I dislike her,” I argued.

“I don’t care if she knows. You’re the person I want to raise my children. You’re smart, you’re genuine, you’re kind… I want them to grow up with that. I’m going to send you three away, away from court and all the evils that live here. I’ll visit, take them back for trips to see April occasionally, but I don’t want them raised in this kind of a world.”

“Alastair, I just can’t! This is crazy! Listen to yourself, it doesn’t even make sense…”

“It doesn’t have to; it’s what I want for my children. I’m the King. If I want it, it will be so.” We sat in silence again while I thought about what he was saying, turned it over and over again in my head. Yes, court was corrupt, but how were two princesses supposed to be raised as royalty anywhere else? Yes, it had been done years ago, but that was before things had become so complicated…. And to not be raised by their mother? I honestly didn’t see how I was any more fit than April was to raise two little girls. I was twenty-three, had never cared for children for more than two days at a time, and showed no significant nurturing skills. And the mere thought of April’s children made my stomach turn. And yet… I knew deep down why Alastair wanted me to raise them. He was right about April, she would raise two snobby brats. She would probably spend the least amount of time with them as possible. And it would be one more way I could have a little bit more control over my life…

“Alastair, if I do it, you and I both know that part of it would simply be my way of getting revenge on April. Because of that, I can’t.”

“You and I also both know that even if that is part of it, you’d still be a better mother than April. Selene, if you don’t agree to this willingly, I will order you to do it. I”ll have my guards tie you up and lock you away with these girls.” Alastair paused to emphasize his severity. “You know how stubborn I can be. I would do it.”

“But why? There’s no reason… You married April, you knew she would be the mother of your heirs—“

“If I have a son later on, these girls won’t be my heirs. “

“It doesn’t matter. You knew she would be the mother to your children, you chose to make her the mother of your children.”

“No, right now I’m choosing to make you the mother of my children. All she did was give birth to them. Selene—“ Alastair stopped speaking abruptly, and something amazing happened. He began to cry. In all the time I had known him, he had never cried, not even when his father died, not when his mother died. The mere sight of seeing him cry made me sob even harder than I had been before. We clung to each other and shook and sobbed together, neither trying to comfort or stop the other. Alastair changed completely. Within thirty seconds he had gone from Alastair the supreme jerk, asshole, king, conceited prat that I had known for these past few years, to the Alastair I remembered. The way he held himself changed, the way he looked at me changed.

“You know it should have been you I married. It was you I always loved.”

“Then why didn’t you marry me? Why did you end it all?”

“I had to. Or I thought I did. Before my father died, he had told me that I was expected to marry royalty. I thought I had to break up with you and stop loving you. Now I see that if I had defied tradition, it wouldn’t have been the end of the world. I’m sick of letting April have everything she wants. She can have the title, but I want to at least share my family with you. She has to be the mother of my children biologically, but I want you to be their true mother, just has you are my true wife,” Alastair declared, his tears drying as he spilled his heart to me. I stared at him.

“You don’t know what you’re saying, you’re being emotional.”

“I know exactly what I’m saying. I’ve had years to think this over, and this is the only conclusion I can come to. You’re the only thing that has ever made me happy.” I couldn’t look him in the eye, could hardly hear the words he was saying. I knew he was telling me the truth because I knew him. I could tell. And yet the words were so unlike him, too truthful, too honest. They fell like flames on my ears as I cringed, realizing what this all meant.

“Alastair, stop saying these things. Stop it!” He grabbed my hands and looked into my eyes, refusing to give in to anger. He gazed at me as docilely as a cow. “Alastair, you know that I’ve loved you all these years, and yet you never gave me anything for it. You put me through hell and for some crazy reason I stayed by your side. When you needed someone, I was there. But I can’t let you jeopardize everything to right some imagined wrong. People marry people they don’t love every day. People walk away from the people they love every day. When has a prince ever been allowed to marry whomever they choose? Certain privileges were taken from you at your birth, and you were given significant others. You knew that when you dashed my heart and you know it now, you’re just too selfish to abide by that old rule.”

“It’s only a rule because people have continued to follow it. I could have changed it, and I didn’t, so I’m changing it now.”

“No. You’re not changing it now. You can’t. You’d hurt too many people, myself and yourself included. Not to mention your wife, your new children… Oh God, your new children… You know, you really do have the worst timing,” I scowled, burying my face in my hands. What could I do? I loved him, I really did, but he didn’t know what he was saying. How could I really know that the next day he’d feel the same? “You’ll do what generations of kings have done before you—you’ll marry the girl you have to marry, and you’ll keep a mistress you love. It’s not right, but it’s how things have got to be. Marriages of love are luxuries only peasants can indulge in.”

“I know that. It’s too late for things to change too much. But Selene, I can at least make things right. We can be honest to everyone, and you can take the position I want you to take as my true wife. April can keep her position as Queen, she can be my legal wife. But I’ll never feel for her what I feel for you. I think we’ve both denied ourselves long enough.”

“Alastair, go get some sleep. You’ve been up all night. Come back and talk to me when you’re thinking straight, ok?”