A Royal Deception

Episode 1

“Make it looks like an accident”

The voice of the man cross my mind for the hundredths time, with my head held high I stood on top of the bluffs staring at the road up ahead, watching the thick black clouds rise up from the west. The scent of damp soil and wet air indicate the oncoming torrent of rain. I shivered not from the icy breeze whipping at my long denim skirt, but from despair and desperation. What good could possibly come from deceit? I ask myself a hundred times in the past week. Every time my answer has been the same: none

“Did you hear me, Layla?” The man snarled. “ you must make certain they believe it was an accident.”

I turn and face the man whom I only knew his name Shawn,which I highly doubt it was his real name. I guess he is at least twenty five years older than me, probably in his mid forties, he is tall and sturdy, wore a black t-shirt, blue pants and black soldiers boots. His head is shaved clean and his face was covered in scars his expression flat and empty. He had a tattoo of a small axe on his left arm.

From who he took his orders, I don’t know but I’m certain that Shawn wasn’t the one in charge. He wasn’t the one who made the decisions and offered no room for negotiation. He carried out the orders and simply did what he was told to, without any question or hesitation.

They excepted the same from me.

“I’ll do what I can.”

He smile at my defiance, closing the distance between us with two long strides. I flinched when he reached out a hand towards me roughly grabbing my chin, then with his other hand he took a strand of my thick golden hair and twirled it around his fingers. I stiff a bit refusing to look into his eyes.

“You’ll do better than that.” His dull grey eyes skimmed my face before he lowered his graze to the top button of my long sleeved pink blouse. “You know what will happen if you don’t do as we say, Layla? You know what we’ll do if you don’t get us what we want?”

My heart slammed against my chest, pounding in my ears with the same intensity as the crash waves on the beach below. “Yes.”

He pulled out a phone from his t-shirt pocket and held it in front of my face. “Look one more time, so you’ll make no mistake.”

Even though I had already seen the picture of the man, I still glanced at the phone again. Short dark-brown hair, light blue eyes, a touch of noble with a bit of robust. The picture was posed and he was looking directly into the camera. His eyes, conveying great deal of intelligence with a hit of irritation.

Dear Lord, how on earth am I supposed to approach this man, I thought to myself.

Pulling away from Shawn’s touch, I gathered up all my courage. “I won’t make a mistake.”

The phone in Shawn hand starts to ring, he turn and answer the call, listened for a minute, then slipped it back into his pocket. “It’s time.”

I glimpsed at the paved road beside the rows of trees where we stood, knowing that the car will be coming around the steep mountain bend in a few minutes. My pulse raced.

“What if something goes wrong?” I gasped, ignoring the painful grip he have on my arm.

“You have to make sure nothing goes wrong.”he said firmly. “Now get on the bike.”

“But what if I’m not hurt, if—“

He swing his fist so quickly, I didn’t have time to dodge the blow, his knuckle slammed against my cheek bone making my head snap back, my vision blurred for a second as I struggled to retain my balance.

“Just get on the bike, Layla. No more ifs!”

I brush away the tears of pain from my eyes, and with my ears still ringing from Shawn fist, I climbed on the bike.

The faint whine of a car’s engine accompanied by the sound of tires on pebble was my cue. Breath held I waited

Damien PoV

“She certainly is a beautiful one your highness, as my father used to say.”From the back seat of the limousine, I glanced up and briefly met William’s eyes in the rear view mirror. William was born in Switzerland but raised in Arendelle island since he was five, he had been driving for the royal family for more than twenty years. In his early forties with a strong build William was full of wits and not to mention a healthy dose of blarney.

I lifted my eyebrows. “Not in front of your mother, I’m sure.”

William laughed, a crackling laugh that came from too many years of cigarette and rotgut whiskey. “Only if he is looking for a pan to blast the back of his head.”

I tried imagining my own mother smashing my father’s head with a pan, but the image of Queen Maria wielding a pan while chasing king Edward around the pantry simply won’t come.

Though my parents marriage was an arranged one, they were happy enough. I never once hear my mother raise her voice to my father or to anyone else for that matter.

But now my father is ill. The King have finally woken up from the coma he had slipped into six months ago, but there would be many months if not year of rehabilitation and therapy. Since my uncle, Logan had taken control over the palace, there has been an overwhelming chaos. And now even though Logan has been dismissed of his duties on the throne, there were much to do for order to restore in the palace.

I cursed myself more than a hundred times for not been there in the past months, that I have made myself self so inaccessible that even my own family hadn’t been able to reach me.

I’m back now, I thought, and this time I’ll stay.

This morning he had passed on his sister, Rosetta’s invite to attend a breakfast in honor of the head school master for Arendelle education system, and had spent the morning skeet shooting with Baron and lady Diana on their neighboring estate instead. Their daughter, Clair, home from a break, had done her best to entertain him and even went on to entice him to stay for lunch, she batted her baby blue doe eyes and pouted her lips when he told her he had urgent meeting in the palace. A complete lies, of course he knew that Clair was determined to marry into the royal family and with his brother, Mason already married she set her sight on him.

She was pretty, beautiful even, I thought, plus she has all the qualities and background fit for a royal wife. The thought of waking every day to the shallow bubble head made me wince.

I turn my attention back to the passing countryside, watched the blur of pine trees as we drove up the steep road towards the palace. Past the bluffs, thick, dark clouds rose over the oceans. Winter had crept in quietly since I returned to Arendelle a few weeks ago. Frost in the early morning and a few typical rainstorms, but overall an agreeable temperature.

Today was especially pleasant. The air is crisp but not cold, the skies are clear and blue. But anyone who lived in Arendelle island for more than one winter knows how fickle the weather could be here and even though I had been gone for more than two years, I had lived on this island my entire life.

“The boys and me got a game of six-card draw tonight.” William says. “You in?”

“I could manage a game or two” I said with a shrug. “Maybe even win back the money you cheated me out of the other night.”

“With all due respect, you’re Royal Highness.”William says with a grin, “ my dad’s plays a better game than you did, you have no one to blame for your losses but yourself.”

William was right, I knew. I had played very poorly on the game, my mind had been everywhere but the game, I’ve been concerned with my father’s health issues and my uncle’s abused of power once he was on the throne, as well as my brother’s kidnapping, my sister’s miscarriage and the fact that Mason has a child that no one knows of until a few weeks ago.

And that was just for the starters. Without a doubt the palace and the country had been in a major power upheaval.

“You call me ‘your Royal Highness’ one more time like that.” I lean forward in my seat and stare at the winding road ahead, “and I might not let you win even one game.”

“Let me win?” William burst into laughter as he maneuvered the limo around a sharp turn. “You can’t——“

“Watch out!”