In The Name Of Love

Chapter 2

I got really, really bored so I'm updating early. 

 __________________________________________________________________________

He jumped up before taking it from me tipping me to the floor. I bashed my head on the edge of the desk on the way and quickly felt blood trickle into my eyes. I cursed pretty inventively, but mostly because I didn't want to get blood all over the onesie. Mircea was babbling in Romanian and pressed the blanket he'd taken from around his waist to my head.

"It's fine," I said and flapped him away so that I could give him the still ringing phone which I was somehow still holding.

He put it between his shoulder and ear so that he could keep pressure on my head. He spoke to his mother in apologetic tones for a few moments before putting it down.

"There is a car on the way," he said.

"You're leaving me now?!" I asked incredulously.

"I'd rather hoped you would come with me. To meet my mother."

"To meet your mother?" I asked full of uncertainty.

"Yes. It is a simple concept –"

I rolled my eyes which shut him up.

"Will you come with me?" he asked.

I sighed. "Mircea, there are still things we need to talk about."

"I know," he said and peeled the blanket from my forehead. "You need a bandage."

"Really?" I complained. "You realise this is going to make me look like an idiot in front of a queen, right?"

"She's just my moth – You're coming?" he asked excitedly.

I hadn't meant to say that but I agreed to it anyway. "Yes. But only if we can talk. Now."

He pulled me up from the floor and we walked down to the kitchen. He kept me close to his side all the way down there, even though I wasn't having any balance issues and I wasn't concussed. He sat me on the table and got the pretty extensive first aid kit out.

"What do you want to talk about?" he asked as he pulled rubber gloves on. I wondered why he was bothering since his hands were a bit bloody already.

"I'm not sure I like the idea of a ruling monarch," I confessed with a sigh.

He sighed too and routed around the green box. "I'm going to put some of these on just in case. I'll have the first aider look at you when we get to my house." He was holding steri-strips up.

I nodded.

"I am not sure I think monarchy is a good idea," he confessed with a heavy sigh. "It always ends up in ruin and the near destruction of the country, but it is what people want at this moment in time."

I nearly nodded again, but he was cleaning the wound.

"Keep your brows still," he admonished. "Romania is... You may think it a backward country. Few live in cities with health care and good education while in the rural areas many live in poverty. There are thousands of orphans from the war as well as all the ones we had before. We used to be a prosperous country, but now inflation is somewhere around three hundred percent, the lieu is worth next to nothing. But we were the granary of Europe once. Worth trading with.

"I do not know if I will ever be a good king, or even a good prince. But I want to help my people."

"You will," I said with a soft smile.

He looked down at me. "You think that?"

"Yes," I nodded.

He wanted to smile, I could see it in his eyes, but he didn't let himself. "But I ran away." Anger laced his voice as well as a bit of disappointment. "I was seventeen still when the vote was cast and announced. Mama greeted the people, but I hid in the house, the palace, and stayed there until it was time to leave to come here. I already had a place at Bucharest University, the most prestigious university in the country. But I came here. To hide."