Up for Heir - Stella Starling Page 0,3

his extensive study of Rosavian history, it was that no battle was unwinnable… but victory did, at times, require changing the rules.

“Right,” he said, the pounding in his head starting to ease as he finally achieved some clarity. He picked up the list that king and queen had given him the night before, then dangled it from his fingers. “Treble,” he cooed, catching her attention with a click of his tongue. “Here, kitty, kitty.”

She glanced at the fluttering paper with the utter disinterest that only those of the feline persuasion could fully master, then went back to batting the tassels, clearly uninterested in assisting him.

No matter. Leo was resourceful.

He stood, crumpling the list and tossing it in the corner. The night before, he’d been informed in no uncertain terms that the Rosavian people needed assurances about the continuity of the Crown. That Leo had put off fulfilling his primary duty as heir for long enough. That he would marry, and that the official announcement would, in fact, be made at the Royal Ball. He even suspected that the “rumors” of that last fact had been leaked by the royal publicists, although neither the king nor the queen had been willing to confirm it. What they had confirmed, though, was that if Leo didn’t find a suitable young woman of impeccable breeding to fill the role of fiancée by then—or a suitable young man, of course, since Rosavia wasn’t as unenlightened as other parts of the world and sexuality was a non-issue in such matters, even if Leo had never swung that way himself—they were ready, willing, and able to select his future spouse on his behalf… and that his betrothed would be one of the candidates on the list they’d presented him with.

Wrong.

Leo smiled grimly, determined, as always, to have some say over his own fate no matter how rigidly defined his position was supposed to be. Yes, he was a van Rosavia by blood, breeding, and birth. Yes, he was next in line for the throne no matter how much he liked to daydream about pawning that particular reality off on one of his brothers. And yes, he would ultimately do his duty no matter how much it chafed… but if he was going to marry, she wouldn’t be from a list. Leo couldn’t have cared less about his future wife’s breeding, and “suitable” would most definitely not be a consideration.

No. If he was going to shackle himself to someone for the rest of his life, he would damn well find her himself, and she’d be someone as rebellious as he was. Someone exciting. Someone who made his pulse race and his heart trip and his blood sing.

It was just too bad that royal law didn’t allow him to choose triplets.

Chapter Two

Edvin

“Forget about him already, Eddie,” Oliver, Edvin Blom’s younger brother, said, throwing an arm around Edvin’s shoulder as Edvin scrubbed at his red eyes. “Hans is a jackass. You’re better off without him.”

“I’m n-n-n-n-,” Edvin tried to say, his tongue tangling around the denial because of course it did, the traitorous thing. But really, he wasn’t upset about Hans. At least, not any more than he had been ever since he’d been so unceremoniously dumped a few weeks before. It was just that he’d worn his contacts today instead of his glasses and they always irritated his eyes like this.

He squinted his itchy eyes, trying to determine if Hans, who was currently chatting up someone from the library’s board of trustees, was looking in his direction. He was facing Edvin, but was he actually looking? Edvin thought not… but he couldn’t be sure because the astigmatism in his left eye meant that his contacts weren’t as corrective as his glasses and everything was just slightly, annoyingly out of focus.

So… fine. The contacts had possibly been a bad choice, but someone from the royal family was supposed to make an appearance at the grand opening for the new library building, so he’d wanted to look his best. And granted, “his best” tended to fall somewhere between average and totally forgettable, but as an official representative of the Royal Library, even a junior one, he still wanted to look it. It was a matter of pride in and respect for the Royal Library itself. It had nothing to do with Hans being present at the ceremony or Hans’s preference for men who didn’t wear glasses. Nothing at all.

“R-R-Really, Ollie,” Edvin finally managed to get out. “I d-d-d-don’t care if H-H-Hans—”

“Yes,