All the King's Men (The Kingdom of Pacchia Book 2)

ALL THE KING'S MEN

The Kingdom of Pacchia Book 2

Lia Cooper

DISCLAIMER This work contains language and sexual content that may not be suitable for readers under 18. This work contains EXPLICIT SEXUAL  MALE/MALE CONTENT. Not your cup of tea? Don’t read it. Otherwise, please enjoy.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ALL THE KING’S MEN. Copyright © 2015 by K C Rumsey. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission.

Cooper, Lia (2015-12-06). ALL THE KING’S MEN, THE KINGDOM OF PACCHIA BOOK TWO. The Spec Press. Second Edition.

All rights reserved.

It’s been a weird year. I tried to own a tea room but it turns out I missed writing too much.

So this is dedicated both to that learning experience, let it never be repeated, and also to NaNoWriMo for hurling me back into the writing experience, and finally to all of my readers who—despite 10 long months with nothing new—are still here!

Other Works by Lia Cooper

Blood & Bone Series

The Duality Paradigm (Book One)

The Convergence Theory (Book Two)

The Symbiotic Law (Book Three)

A Sanguin Solution (Book Four coming in 2016!)

The Kingdom of Pacchia Series

The Omega Prince (Book One)

All the King’s Men (Book Two)

The Honorable Beta (Book Three)

The Line of Allora (Book Four) Coming May 2016

Stand Alone Titles

Hotspot (M/M Soulbonding Contemporary Magical Realism)

Cold Press (Palouse County #1 M/M Contemporary Holiday Novella)

Complete Works can be found on Lia’s Website:

http://liacooperwrites.wordpress.com/books/

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CHAPTER ONE

What's Past Is Prologue - Salsotoria Flats

He was Lord Riven now, thanks to one god-forsaken traitorous Duke. Eight years crushed under the weight of the title made that fact impossible to forget.

He was the last Lord Riven so long as his sister remained unmated and likewise childless. He could not die on this field. Not today. Not at the hands of foreign mercenaries—bought by his grasping neighbors, too cowardly to fight their own way to his door.

Dierik Riven pushed his black hair, lank with sweat and blood, out of his eyes. His gauntlets flexed, creaking under the weary pull of his fingers as he resettled his sword hilt in his right hand, the weight of it drawing down his shoulder.

Still, as he stared up at the cresting wave of the enemy’s cavalry, wishing uselessly for a pikeman at his shoulder, he reflected that there had to be something noble about an end such as this—though he denied the prospect in the same breath. What better than to fall in defense of one’s family? In embittered combat to hold onto one of the last good things he still possessed in this wretched life?

But no—no, better not to entertain such a thought as that, not even for a moment.

The last Lord Riven planted his feet in the muck and ducked low under the first rider’s swing, cutting the horse’s legs from underneath his enemy and unseating the man with a harsh cry and a flash of silver under the heavy sun. Dierik met the man’s sword, hacking at him, pushing the advantage to keep the taller man off guard.

Around them, the loyal vassals of House Riven, few though they were, the sons of farmers and fishermen who had worked his family’s lands for as long as the Lords Riven had controlled them, fell back a step against the mounted mercenaries from the north, their cries echoing now in Lord Riven’s ears, even as he pressed his assailant to the ground.

With a cry, his sword glanced off the man’s shoulder guard, catching the edge of his helm on the point and flinging it off into the melee.

Riven felt his guts freeze and his steps faltered. Perhaps, the hesitation truly would have met him his end as his opponent brought his sword around in a quick flash of steel. Might well have lost his own head but for an arrow loosed from forty yards over his shoulder and bearing the blue fletching of his house that sent the other man—did his eyes deceive him? Was it really?—fumbling for cover lest he lose an eye to the next missile.

The Lord Riven gasped for breath, half-formed words tumbling from his lips as the battle swelled and struggling bodies separated him from—but it could not have been, surely the Duke Briere would not be so brazen as to return to Pacchia’s shores now? Surely he would not—but why wouldn’t he? Why wouldn’t he return to finish the job he began on Dierik’s family eight years ago?

Iron steeled his blood and the last Lord Riven firmed his grip on his sword. Surely, he could strike hard enough now to find out one way or the other.

CHAPTER TWO

The Court of Vipers

Prince Aubrey sat in his father’s council, wreathed in an air of calm repose but for the rabbit-fast flutter of his heart beneath his well-dressed breast. His eyes roamed across the assembled lords, mostly betas and omegas, as their cool heads were generally considered the best attendants to matters of delicate political discourse. It was the reason Aubrey sat on his father’s left hand while his bearer reclined on the King’s right.

His unruffled expression hid a storm brewing under his skin and it took a not inconsiderable amount of concentration to keep his mouth a neutral line as one after the other noble hedged around the issue of Lord Riven’s claims.

Claims they spoke, as though the evidence of his suspicions—a plot against the King’s very life—did not sit shackled in the High Court’s deepest dungeon. Many now assembled there practically speaking over top one another to throw doubt on Lord Riven himself and divert it from Lord Bourn—and perhaps even themselves, a small, suspicious part of Aubrey’s brain whispered.

It was gross enough maneuvering to tarnish what little respect the prince may have felt for these assembled lords, watching them line up to try and divert the wolves from their own doorstep to the one man loyal enough to abandon the defense of his borders to follow a suspicion to the King’s halls.

That Prince Aubrey felt something akin to partiality for this particular Lord Riven’s face—as well as other parts of him—was entirely coincidental. Whatever he felt for Lord Riven was immaterial: facts were facts. And the facts clearly indicated that Lord Bourn had hired the King’s brother, the exiled Duke Briere to wage war against Riven. That it was Bourn money which had paid Briere’s way back to Pacchia’s shores. That House Bourn was not the only house which had, in the past eight years, attempted to forcibly wrest House Riven’s lands from Dierik and his sister, Sir Elsa—the only surviving members of that once proud and sprawling family.

Now, he wrapped his fingers in the hem of his jerkin to keep from fidgeting in front of this assembled witch hunt and thereby betray himself. Now, he grit his teeth against the words building up behind them, seeking but a moment to flay the next man or woman with a suspicious word to cast against Dierik.

"I simply do not see how we are to take… Sir Riven’s words at face value? Is there anyone who can corroborate his claims? Another who can say with some surety that Duke Briere was indeed spotted at the Flats sometime before high summer? My butler tells me that the Duke’s features are much changed from his time spent abroad. Could young Master Riven have been mistaken?"

Aubrey resisted the urge to snort aloud. Lord Astor said abroad like his uncle had not spent the last nine years exiled from Pacchia—expressly forbidden from ever setting foot on their soil again lest he face execution. His appearance inside the castle was, by law, enough to see him beheaded.

Indeed, it seemed to the prince, as he sat in his father’s court listening to the forked tongues speak around him, that this entire preceding was little more than an elaborate show. It made something rash and hot begin to boil under his skin. He clenched his hands together beneath the height of the High King’s long table with nary a twitch from emotion allowed to darken his features.

Would it do him any good to call Lord Astor, or any of them for that matter, out at this moment? He had to keep a cool head and catalogue the positions of the peerage before—

Before what? he asked himself. He had not, after all, thrown his lot in with Lord Riven. Not in any official capacity. Not in any manner that those gathered around him now could know about.

The prince’s mind drifted as another whining voice fell and rose over the combined rustling from the Lords of Pacchia—drifted to thoughts of a bright morning not a week prior, when the morning sun had warmed his skin, had lingered on the flesh of another, their hands grasped together in a secret promise spoken between…

But he was being fanciful, allowing his memory to run away from him like that.

My Lords assembly, please, let us pause here and cut to the chase, Baron Laidy Belgrave’s clear, ringing voice cut across the drone dribbling from a sleepy-eyed Lord’s mouth clear on the other end of the room. Laidy Belgrave stood with a commanding air, one hand resting on her sword pommel and the other tucked into her belt. "It is of little weight what we discuss today. There is nothing to be done but call a gemōt to discuss this most serious matter in an appropriately serious way. Do you not all agree?" And in the same manner, she hiked up one dark eyebrow in challenge.

At the head of the table, the High King steepled his hands and nodded. Your logic, Baron Belgrave, is as sound as I have long since come to expect it to be. He waved away the sound of protest gathering in Lord Astor’s mouth. "We will adjourn for today. The calendar will be consulted and a gemōt forthwith called. In the meantime, all of you return to your affairs, your homes, your families until the proper time."

Some grumbling accompanied the High King’s command but in short order the assembled peers began trickling from the king’s court, words carefully chosen so long as they remained in earshot of one another. The whole show made Prince Aubrey want to roll his eyes, sick of it.

The prince’s manservant, the Honorable Winston Dupuis, stood waiting for him in the hall. His posture told the inattentive eye something casual, but Aubrey knew his friend well enough to notice the tension lingering at the corners of his mouth.

They fell into step with one another, briskly making their way through the castle into the Royal wing. Guards along the way bowed their heads at Aubrey’s passing and let them through a series of locked doors until at last they arrived at the prince’s personal suite.

Life in the High King’s court had not always been thus. In fact, for the last eight or nine years, Pacchia had been relatively peaceful as far as the court had seen. There were always struggles and squabbles breaking out between the peers and minor lords, but those clashes had remained remote—removed from Aubrey’s own cosseted life as the only son and heir to the throne.

Never had he seen so many guards called to standing arms in the castle corridors. Never had there been so many locks and door braces erected between himself and the rest of the bustling castle. Not that his beloved father could be faulted for taking such precautions.

No, Prince Aubrey, despite being little more than a naive child—or so it felt when it came to war—could well appreciate the sick fear that must now permeate his father’s heart to know that an assassin had penetrated so intimately their lives and without raising an alarm.

If not for Lord Riven—but he couldn’t bring himself to imagine it.

By his side, the Hon. Winston clasped his elbow in a firm grip and steered him into his private study where a hot tea tray had been laid out for two.

Is it so late already? the prince asked in a distracted tone.

Aye. Winston’s blunt, calloused fingers looked almost comical against the delicate white china as he went about the business of pouring them each a cup and adding an obscene amount of sugar to his own—spooning in several teaspoons of the unevenly lumped brown sugar before he would be satisfied with the drink—and handing the plain, unsweetened one to Aubrey. You should eat something too.

The prince cracked his back with a pained groan before he accepted his cup, preferring to stand rather than sit after a very long morning of sitting.

I’m not especially hungry.

Well, I’m starved.

Please— Aubrey gestured to the silver plates full of cold cuts and the toast rack. Avail yourself.

Winston popped a pickled radish into his mouth and positioned the toast just above the fire crackling in the hearth.

The prince noted his friend’s muddy boots.

Were you out riding?

Winston squinted at the flames licking orange along the edges of his lunch. Something like that. Say, do you know Sir Riven?

Lord Riven’s sister?

Aye, the lass.

We were introduced at the fête but only briefly. I would not say that I knew her. Why?

She seems like a fairly capable young alpha, wouldn’t you say?

"A fine