The Heir Apparent - a historical why choose, rh, poly, MMF, spicy romance ✅

Chapter Thirteen

Anevay

All the pomp and celebration was far over.

That meant it was time to get to work.

On a "course of serious study," as Tolliver insisted on calling it. You can imagine with what tone he insisted on using when saying this. One that made it sound like he figured there was nothing in my head but gowns and other frivolous, feminine things. And that I had never picked up a book in my life.

Admittedly, I did not help this low opinion of me seeing as I sat there staring at him blankly as he prattled on and on and on about rulers so long dead, I did not fathom what I was to learn from the obviously inflated accounts of their rule.

"This is serious, lad—Anevay," Tolliver snapped, throwing an arm out wide as I suppressed the third yawn in as many minutes.

"You can not genuinely believe this nonsense," I said, waving at the pages spread out on the humorously large table.

Why he had chosen the dining hall for our study was completely beyond me. There were many other smaller, more intimate rooms that would have been more appropriate for studying.

But for some reason, he felt it necessary to put a twenty-foot table between us, making it so we practically had to shout at each other when we spoke.

"Our history is nonsense?" he asked, storming closer, feet like thunderclaps on the stone floor. Deep, threatening.

And yet... and yet the feeling they instilled in me was far from dread.

Quite the opposite, actually.

I did not begin to understand the strange way my body responded to Tolliver. Especially given his blatant disapproval and annoyance with me.

There was just something about the way he scolded me that had my pulse quickening, that had my chest feeling tight, and that new, but intense pressure and pulsing sensation to start low in my core.

All I knew was that it happened.

And that, as each day passed, I found myself stoking his aggravation just to get him to snap at me.

"A history that has clearly been exaggerated by kind and nostalgic minstrels and bookkeepers is no more educational than the fairfolk tales my governess used to tell me as a girl," I told him, leaning back in my chair to look up at him as he towered near the corner of the table.

"These are not stories about mythical creatures," Tolliver insisted, waving at the pages.

"They may as well be."

"This is serious, damn it," he snapped, slapping a hand on the table hard enough to make me jolt. Which only made those private little pulsations intensify. "This is our history. You need to learn it, so you do not repeat the same mistakes."

"Perhaps if the stories were not as old as the world itself, the accounts of what happened would be plausible. But these tales may as well include vanquished dragons, they are so fabricated."

"Who are you to judge what is real?" Tolliver growled as he leaned forward, getting entirely too close, given his position and mine.

"The queen," I said, leaning forward until my face was barely a whisper from his, close enough to watch the flames flicker in his dark blue eyes.

"Not even the queen gets to rewrite history," Tolliver said, his voice lower, smoother.

"No, clearly, we leave that to the so-called historians," I said, shooting him a smile.