Royal On The Run (unedited)

Chapter Forty-Nine

Naomi

My coronation was a day away. Yet, I stood on a hillside off of the royal property in front of two graves. One I'd known my entire life, the other, well that was one I'd only discovered five days ago.

Two days after my parents' public funeral in which no cameras were allowed and more tears than I knew I had left in me were shed; I'd found the place where I wanted Sebastian to be laid to rest.

Devin had kept me company each night until I fell asleep and even then, he slept on a small bed outside of my rooms. I'd told him he could go to his own room and leave a different guard to stand watch, but he'd insisted on staying close and I appreciated it.

But two nights after the funeral, he'd stayed longer in my room. He sat on the couch in front of the fire, looking like he wanted to speak but was unsure on how I'd receive whatever information he wanted to share with me. It took me throwing a piece of candy at him to even look me in the eye. And when we locked eyes, I knew he'd found something that might devastate me.

"What is it?" I'd asked.

Devin cleared his throat before running his hands down his thighs. "You've been trying to find a place to bury Sebastian."

Not quite a question but I still nodded my head in response.

"Well," he started and stood, walking to the foot of my bed. His hand gripped the post at the end of the bed, staring at the sheets. "I might have found something, and I hope you won't be mad at me for digging a little into his past."

I shoved the blankets off, crawling over to him, kneeling once I got close enough to touch him. My hands didn't know where to go so they fell to my sides, gripping the worn-out hoodie of Sebastian's that I'd taken to sleeping in since he died.

"Tell me." I breathed; my words were shaky but held enough conviction in them that Devin raised his head to look me in the eye. "Tell me, Devin. Where?"

He cleared his throat again. "I went to the hospital where he was born. I had to ask around and got sent to a few different people as they were rebuilding their communications and system logs after Anthony destroyed them." He paused to walk around the bed, sitting in a chair just to the side, I shuffled on the bed to keep him in my line of sight.

"They found his records and I poured over them there, while also helping them tinker with some of the electronic stuff to get them back up and properly running again."

"What'd you find?"

A small smile graced his lips. "I found out who his mother was."

Was. That hit me harder than I expected it to though I knew it was a possibility.

"Her name was Sophie Maxwell Mitchell. She gave birth to Sebastian when she was fifteen years old, held him in her arms for ten minutes before a seizure overtook her body. It wasn't long after that she passed from the seizure along with sudden onset internal bleeding." He took a breath to make sure I was still paying attention and processing what he was telling me. I was so invested in this story, I needed to know what else had happened before Anthony passed him off to his parents.

"After Sophie passed, Anthony was beside himself and didn't want to raise a child without her, so he asked his parents if they'd be willing to help him out. With him being their firstborn and spoiled rotten, they obliged him. Fake photos were taken at the hospital to set the scene and from that day forward, little Sebastian was the son of Frankie and Jude Mellark, brother to Anthony Mellark."

I fell back against the bed, staring up at the canopy of my bed.

Sebastian's mother had died after giving birth to him. Anthony hadn't originally wanted to let his parents raise his son but didn't want to without the mother of his child. While that wasn't the greatest excuse in the book, it was something I could somewhat understand.