“What would you want to do with your life if the referendum decides to abolish the monarchy?”

“Maybe become a pilot,” he said. “I was also thinking of studying game development.”

“Do you like video games?” she asked excitedly.

“Does an ax cut wood?” he replied, and Nya figured that it was yet another Liechtienbourger turn of phrase.

“What are your favorites? Mine are Taken by Ragnoth the Vampire Lord and Byronic Rogues from Mars.”

Lukas grew more animated. “Yes! I also love Senpai High and Chicken, My Love.”

Nya giggled. “I haven’t played the chicken game yet. Is it actually good?”

“Yes! I’m playing it now, and there’s actually a really interesting plot about a chicken rebellion. I’m romancing the alpha hen, who takes no nonsense and pecks out the eyes of her enemies.” They compared games for the rest of the breakfast, talking about the best routes to follow in particular games and the sites they read to find them. Nya recommended Girls with Glasses, Portia’s sister’s site, but Lukas said he usually got his recommendations from friends in online forums.

“I imagine you haven’t played One True Prince,” she said, and watched as the joy of talking about games left his face.

“No. A bit too close to home,” he said with a grimace.

Yes, playing a game in which your brother was a character was probably not very fun. Especially when you were the actual crown prince and he wasn’t.

Oh. She wondered if that had some part in Lukas’s acting out. Johan had taken the spotlight to protect his brother, but maybe Lukas saw it differently. Living in your brother’s handsome playboy shadow didn’t seem like it would be very much fun.

“Maybe they’ll add you to the expansion pack. Prince Saluk,” she joked, hoping to cheer him, but received a look of horror instead.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, but then Lukas’s gaze shifted from her to up and over her shoulder, his face going ashen.

A hand came to rest on the back of her chair, and when she looked up a strange man was staring down at her. Glaring was a more accurate description for the look on the tall, thin man’s serious face. He was dressed in a suit and had been seated with a group of what looked like businessmen when they’d walked in, but now he was alone.

“Where’s the playboy prince? Too busy with one of his other women to do his royal duty?” the man asked, his gaze passing nastily over Nya’s body. Nya sat frozen with fear, as she had in that first moment when she’d awoken to find the reporter in her hospital room.

“Arschlocher,” she heard Lukas choke out. The man’s glare didn’t move from Nya.

“I don’t know what Jo-Jo has told you, but if you think you’re going to show up here and start living on our citizens’ tax money, you’re wrong. In a few days, the von Brausteins will be erased from history, and you’ll be sent back where you came from.”

Nya wanted to yell at the man, or to run away, but she just blinked back tears of anger and shame. The man shifted his glare to Lukas. “And you—”

His sentence was cut off by the fist smashing into his mouth. Johan’s fist.

The man turned and raised his hands, maybe to fight back, maybe to block another blow, but Johan tackled him to the ground as the restaurant broke into an uproar.

The sound of chairs screeching, customers exclaiming, and photographers rushing in with their cameras flashing filled the previously sedate restaurant as Johan punched Arschlocher again. Nya jumped from her seat, but the security guards were already pulling Johan back and restraining the man.

Johan’s handsome face was contorted by rage—he looked like he would kill the man, who had a split lip and a bruise forming on his cheekbone. He looked like he would kill him and not feel an ounce of remorse. Arschlocher’s eyes were wide with shock, his bravado gone, and he glanced at Nya and Lukas.

“Don’t even look at them,” Johan commanded as he adjusted the lines of his suit, and Arschlocher dropped his gaze to the ground as he was led away.

“I didn’t do anything,” he said to the photographers, a sudden pathetic tone in his voice, as if he hadn’t come up to Nya and said disgusting things that made her stomach turn. “I was going to engage in polite debate. Can the monarchy do as they please? Do they not have to follow laws?”

Johan stalked over to Nya and his brother, his intensely focused gaze flitting back and forth over them as if checking them for signs of harm. He was breathing heavy and his expression was murderous, but that wasn’t what caught Nya’s attention as she looked at him.

Fear.

There was fear in his eyes, a fear that even he, so skilled at hiding his emotions, couldn’t mask.

She stood and put a hand on his chest; his heart was beating so fast that it worried her. “We’re all right,” she said gently. “It’s okay. He didn’t hurt us, Phoko.”

Johan’s breathing began to slow and he placed his hand over hers.

“And you thought pink hair would have people talking?” Lukas asked from where he still sat at the table, looking up from under his blond lashes. He seemed an entirely different boy from the one who had laughed and joked with her over waffles, and from the one who had been so excited by a tube of lip gloss. “You just attacked the head of the opposition party.”