Player's Princess (A Royal Sports Romance)(126)

I sigh. “Fine.”

I take his hand. It’s warm, and very strong. I lean on it as I stand, still shaking a bit. He releases mine and I walk with my hands folded in front of me.

He takes a more direct route to the armory.

“I though you didn’t want me in here,” I say as we step inside.

“You speak with a certain familiarity. You’ve been here before.”

“I was exploring. The doors were open.”

He sighs. “You are an unruly child. I wanted to bring you here myself.”

“Sorry,” I mutter. “What is this stuff?”

“Armor,” he says, gesturing toward the display cases. “The oldest belonged to my ancestor, the first to cement our family’s rule over these lands. Lacquered steel.”

I walk beside him, really looking at the armor this time. Each set is more intricate than the last, until we reach one that’s breathtakingly beautiful. The surface has been carefully shaped and beaten to the contours of the coat of arms across the chest, and the helmet is equally elaborate. It gleams like it’s brand new.

It’s the big one that catches my interest, though.

“I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“It’s the only one left,” the prince says, staring up at it. “This was my great grandfather’s. He built the first six suits when Hitler took power in Germany and refined them until they were needed. It’s diesel powered, a feat of miniaturization. The diesel engine actually drives a tiny dynamo that supplies electrical power to the limbs and body, allowing it to move.”

“That’s amazing,” I say. I start to reach out to touch it, but stop myself.

“Go ahead.”

I rest my hand on the steel. It’s chipped and dented, markings from old bullet impacts. It’s cold, though. Unliving.

“The whole of our country was turned into a fortress in preparation, and even then it was a close thing. We threw back the Nazis, then the Soviets. We could defend ourselves, but held no hope of retaliating. My grandfather told me when I was a child that he dreamed of liberating Solkovia.”

“Liberating,” I say wryly.

“Please,” he sighs, “not here.”

“What about the rest of them?”

“This one is was the first. My father and grandfather refined the design, converting from the diesel generator to increasingly compact and efficient batteries. My suits can run for three days on a single charge.”

“This is incredible,” I sigh, staring at one of the newer ones. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

He blinks. “What?”

“You and your family made these things. They’re amazing. No one in the world can do this. What do you do with this? Use it to kill people.”

“We should have let the Nazis win? There is a sizable Jewish minority in this country, Persephone.”

“I hate that name.”

“Would you have had them feed the ovens, too? You have a strange sense of morality.”

“Okay, fine, you needed the weapons, but the batteries in these things belong in cars.”

“They are in cars. The ones you attacked me for forcing on my people, remember?”

“You can’t just make people do the right thing, my prince. They have to choose it.”

“What does it matter?”

“It matters. I don’t know why it matters, but it matters. Look at me.”

I’m caught off guard when he does actually look at me. God his eyes are beautiful.

I was going to say something but I forgot what it was.

“I am looking at you.”

“I…” I look away. “I’m trying to make a point and I’m not doing a very good job, I admit it, but you’re wrong about people. They have to be able to choose. The have to be able to be the people they want to be, even if there’s a chance they’ll fail, even if there’s a chance they’ll hurt themselves.”

“Why?”

I look at the floor. “I don’t know. I’m not that smart. I’m not going to convince you. I should just give up.”

“You’re doing better than you seem to think.”

I look up, confused.

The prince steps close to me, quick and light on his feet, cups my chin in his hand, and kisses me.

I pull back, shocked, and his fingers grip my chin harder. They don’t have to.

I kiss him back.

His lips are warm. He tastes like juniper berries, and his hand is rough and callous, not soft like you would think a prince’s hand would be. He kisses me like he doesn’t know how, with an earnest intensity that makes my knees shake. He’s so much taller than I am that he has to step close and I have to tilt my chin up. His hand falls away, and the backs of his knuckles brush my chest, his palm coming to rest on my hip.

I step away from him quickly.

“What is this? What are you doing?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is that what this is about? Are you trying to make me a replacement for your dead girlfriend?”

“I—”

“I’m not going to let you play dress up with me and make me some kind of a doll. You’re not going to mold me into somebody else. I’m not one of your subjects, my prince.”