The mirror didn’t immediately shatter on impact. The hammer hit and cracked it, and a series of cracks jutted out from the center.
“And I never want to see myself in these again.”
“Your mother isn’t going to hear us, is she?” Henry asked.
I turned to him. “Considering she’s already on a plane to Denmark… nope.”
I swung the hammer again, and this time part of the mirror shattered off, collapsing to the floor.
“Sebastian, watch your eyes,” Henry said, stepping behind me and grabbing my arm. “The queen is gone?”
I hurled the hammer at the mirror one last time and it broke off from its frame, cascading down to the floor in a pile of broken, crystalline fragments.
“You told her you’re not going to take the throne, and now you get to destroy castle property?” Henry asked.
I took a deep breath, looking to Henry again.
“I didn’t,” I said simply. “She abdicated her throne.”
Realization slowly passed over Henry’s face.
“Does… does that mean…”
I nodded once.
“I’m looking at the King of Frostmonte,” Henry said, shock settling over him. “Oh my God.”
“Oh my God is right,” I said. “Now smash that mirror on the right side. The king orders it.”
I got to work destroying the left side mirror while Henry stood motionless watching me. When I’d dismantled the second mirror I turned to him again. I was catching my breath, sucking down air.
Henry was slowly smiling.
“You’re the king,” he said. “You… you are my king.”
“No, I’m your boyfriend,” I said. “I hope?”
“Oh, you are so much more than my boyfriend, Sebastian,” he said, dropping his crowbar and rushing over to tackle me in a bear hug.
“Well, we aren’t married yet, though my first duty as king will be to make it so that anyone in Frostmonte Kingdom can marry anyone of their choosing,” I said. “Including everyone who ever succeeds me.”
“Sebastian, I can’t believe it,” he said, gripping my shoulders as he pulled back, his eyes dancing across my face.
“Believe it.”
“But… why? Why now?”
“I think we broke her, Henry,” I said.
“We broke her, huh?”
“When we kissed,” I said. “I… saw something. Something missing from her eyes, the moment after we did it. Like all of the fight was gone.”
“So our love finally cracked some kind of spell in the queen’s icy heart?” he said, a goofy, lopsided grin on his face.
“I know you’re just bullshitting,” I said. “But yes. I swear, that’s exactly how it felt.”
“I love it.”
I puffed out a laugh. “Or maybe she was just sick of it all, and wanted to flee to Denmark. Truthfully, I don’t care.”
“I don’t care either,” Henry said. “Everything I care about is in this room.”
“Heavy tools and a bunch of shattered mirrors?”
He smiled, his dimples coming on display. “And jokes like that are why you’re the person I care about most in the damn world.”
Henry stared at me resolutely before he turned on his heel, crouching down to pick up the crowbar once again. He strode over to the third and final mirror, doing a couple of practice swings.
And then he did it. Unlike me, he was able to shatter the mirror in one go. It rang out as it shattered to the floor, gone immediately, crumbling into dust and shards and reflecting the light from the windows.
“I want this room to be something else,” I said. “Something better. Something alive.”
“A garden?” Henry asked.
“I think this room was originally intended as a sunroom, yes,” I said. “I remember my mother telling me she’d had plants removed from here before I was born. She always thought it was silly to garden indoors.”
“Of course she would think that,” Henry said. “And that’s exactly why we’re going to make this room the most beautiful sunroom garden in the kingdom. Something living.”
I swallowed, taking a step over to Henry. I took his hand, slightly afraid to ask what I knew I had to ask.
“Henry, I… know you’ve never liked this castle. But I do think as King, I should live here. I plan to change the castle—good God, there are so, so many renovations we need to make. It wouldn’t be anything like it is now.”
I squeezed his hand. “But I know you may not want to live here, anyway. I would respect that.”
He stared at me, silent for a moment. I felt like I was seeing entire lifetimes play out behind his eyes.
“If I was living here with you? And we could make it really ours?” he asked.
I pulled in a quick breath. “Would you want that? To make it ours? We could do anything, we could build you your perfect log house somewhere else on the grounds, or—or if you don’t want to live in the kingdom at all, I’m sure we can assign one of the private jets to you, so you could visit any time—”
“Are you out of your mind?” Henry said, taking his fingers and running them through my hair. “Of course I want to live with you, dummy.”
I let out a gasp.
“Oh, sorry, sorry,” he said, bringing his hand to his lips. “Not dummy. King.”
“Get over here,” I said, closing the distance between us and kissing him hard.
He held me tight, laughing as he pulled back a moment later. “Private jet? Are you out of your mind?”
I shook my head. “No. I’d just do anything for you.”
I swore his eyes sparkled. He leaned in slowly and kissed me again, slowly and deeply. I ran my hands down the front of his shirt, squeezing him everywhere I could.
“If we weren’t in the middle of a massively hazardous pile of glass, I would throw you down on the floor right now,” he murmured, moving to kiss my neck.
“It’s dangerous for us to be in this room,” I murmured as he slowly pushed my back up against the windows on the far wall. “Because I want nothing more than for you to take me on the floor.”
“What if I just take you like this?” he whispered.
Suddenly his arms were at my sides and he was twisting me, hard, so that I faced the window in front of me. I looked out onto the vast expanse of rolling hills, everything below capped with snow. I pulled in a sharp breath and pressed my palms flat against the cool glass. His hands snaked lower until they rested on my hips.
He ran his lips along the back of my neck, and it covered me in goosebumps.
“You’re crazy,” I whispered.
“And you love it,” he replied.
He wasn’t wrong, because just him saying that made me shiver again, despite my body being plenty warm. My cock was aching now, hard and pressing up against the front of my pants. He reached his palms up underneath my shirt, pulling up the material in the process.
“Take this off,” he said.
I obliged immediately, turning my head to watch as he did the same. He reached around me, pawing at my belt before sliding it off and tossing it away.
“Henry,” I said, unable to keep a smile from my lips as I felt his fingertips roaming beneath the waistband of my pants.