Pampered by the Villainous Tyrant King

Chapter 40

A/N: I own nothing but plot. Enjoy!

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The dowager queen covered her tracks well, Percy thought. The commoner stable hand who had dared the count's errant son to unleash a snake at the Festival of Bounty was already dead. The shadow guards were already in the process of lifting the stablehand's body from the river.

Percy's fist clenched at his hand. One accident after another. If it were not for the queen beside him, this life would be similar to his last life. He couldn't afford to wait any longer. Otherwise, the dowager queen would keep setting up "accidents" until he or his queen would end up six feet under the ground.

"Your Majesty." A shadow guard came up and held some gold coins with his gloved hand. "We found this in the stable hand's pockets."

Percy carefully examined the gold coins. They appeared to be genuine but ordinary. No one but the nobility could afford gold coins. Someone indeed had bribed the stable hand who had for some reason kept it close to his body. Percy ordered a few people to quietly search the stablehand's quarters for any other evidence.

"May I?" Lord Christopher offered.

Percy offered the coins to the dark mage. The wizard lord carefully inspected the coin.

"They're new," the lord muttered.

"Indeed."

That remark caught Percy's attention. Percy took one coin and studied the shine of the coin. This coin had been newly minted with the serial number still etched. The other coins had serial numbers that indicated they were from the same batch. The body had not been in the water long enough for the coins to be degraded.

If the coins had been in circulation for a very long time, then it would be hard to trace the coin's origins. But there was such a possibility that the Eldoris mint department might be able to track down where the latest batch of coins were delivered through the serial numbers. And if the batch was sent to the dowager queen for her budget....

These small attacks lead to little crumbs of evidence. Percy would have to force the dowager queen's hand sooner or later before serious damage could be done. When he thought about how Annabeth could have died once more...

"Your Majesty!" Lord Christopher said urgently.

The river had suddenly turned turbulent, with the water twisting into high waves. A few shadow knights yelled as the water lunged towards their bodies. Percy immediately stopped his powers and controlled the sudden surge of his emotions. The river calmed down, and the knights were able to get out safely, albeit a little soaked.

Lord Christopher didn't comment on the king's slight movements and held in his expression. He couldn't be completely sure of what the king of Eldoris had been thinking when the king lost control. Perhaps anger that the dowager queen was as slippery as ever, or perhaps...fury that his queen had nearly been compromised. Either way, the queen was turning out to be the king's weakness.

Percy calmed himself down, walking away as his guards finished removing the stablehand's corpse. It wouldn't do to overuse his powers and experience a wave of backlash at such a critical moment in time.

His nails clenched painfully into the palm of his hand. He, too, had been surprised by the sudden unleashing of his emotions. But what was that turbulence he was feeling? Was it anger at the dowager queen for threatening his birthright and throne? Was it simply fury for not being able to predict the future? Or was it...

An image of striking grey eyes set in a soft face flashed into his mind. He grimaced. How should he describe this emotion?

He thought of those smiles that lit up her face and the warmth of her body as she lay against him at night. Then of those days in the past when she was all skin and bones, and the limp and lifeless eyes that had given up on life in his past life.