The Rejected True Heiress (Liora and Callum) novel Chapter 554

Liora’s POV

Shirley, after a year of working on her, still sputtered to one final halt at the gates of the academy like she held a personal grudge against the entire place. I grinned as I put the car in park and turned to my husband, who was currently in the middle of prying his fingers off the oh-shit handle one at a time.

“We do have state cars, you know,” he said. “An entire fleet. With drivers.”

“Shirley would never forgive me.” I patted the steering wheel, still smiling like an idiot.

“Uh-huh.” He opened the door. “Whatever you say, Miss Guided.”

I gave him my most innocent look. “I don’t know who that is.”

“Of course you don’t.” His mouth twitched. He’d known for months. As long as the helmet stayed on and the crown stayed home, my King had decided there were certain things a King didn’t officially need to notice. Like his Queen nearly getting herself killed during underground street races every night.

The grounds were already prepared when we arrived—the flat expanse filled with sparring rings, archery dummies, easels and kilns and pottery wheels, even an engine up on a stand with three kids crowded around it.

The applicants had come from all over the kingdom for today’s festival. Every one of them wore a number pinned to their chest, which coincided with the numbers on the lists currently held by the test proctors.

Anyone could enter. That was the entire point. Wolf, wolfless, noble, orphan—if you had a skill and were of age, you had a shot.

It had taken a year to get here, but finally, we were here. The kingdom wasn’t fixed. There was still inequality amongst wolves and wolfless, still discrimination that sometimes even happened right inside the walls of the palace. But we’d made great strides over the past year, and today, the day of the Queen’s Festival, was proof of that.

We found Amy at the center of everything, armed with a clipboard and the headmistress’s keys, her hair long enough now to tuck behind her ears. She spotted us and bowed sharply at the waist.

“Your Majesties.”

“Headmistress.”

We stood there quietly for a moment before we all split into laughter, and I threw my arms around her, embracing her tightly. When we pulled apart, Callum clasped his hand with hers and hsook firmly.

She screamed with delight and grabbed his ear.

Bella waved from a table near the lemonade stand, unbothered, like her daughter reaching escape velocity was an hourly event. Knowing that kid’s parents, it probably was.

“There they are.” Zane reached us and turned the baby around on his hip so she could inspect us properly. “Look alive, sweetheart. That’s your Auntie Queen and your Uncle King. We bow to them in public.”

“She has never once bowed,” Bella said, coming up beside him with two lemonades. She handed him one automatically. He took it without looking.

“She’s a work in progress.” He winked.

The baby lunged for Callum and closed her whole fist around one of his fingers. He smiled, taking her from Zane, who rotated his shoulder and winced like he was relieved to have the weight off for a few minutes.

He’d found the two of them by last autumn, exactly like he said he would. He and Bella weren’t together, and as far as I could tell, but they had still built something that worked. Seeing him now, smiling and happy and looking older and wiser, I couldn’t seem to recall why any of us had ever worried that he wouldn’t make a good dad.