The Prince and the Pencil Pusher: A M/M Superhero Romance (Royal Powers Book 7) Read online

  The Prince and the Pencil Pusher

  Royal Powers Book 7

  Kenzie Blades

  Luxe Press

  Contents

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  I. The Ministry of Powers

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  II. The Queen

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  III. The Truth

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  The Prince and the Pencil Pusher (Royal Powers #7)

  Copyright © 2020 by Kenzie Blades

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Published by Luxe Press 2020

  For permission requests and other inquiries, contact [email protected]

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  The world of Royal Powers is not so different from our own.

  Except for the two mythical countries on the France/Spain border.

  And the two extra royal families.

  Oh, and that superpowers thing.

  But otherwise, you know, pretty much the same.

  Part I

  The Ministry of Powers

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  Xabier

  “How soon can you arrive?” Fesik did not wait for my answer. “I’m afraid I’m desperate for your talents. The fruit is too small and far too cool on the vine.”

  “Which varietal?” I quizzed. Understanding the severity of the issue meant knowing which grape we were dealing with.

  “The Syrah.”

  Syrah was a hearty grape, but it couldn’t hold up to what was happening in the north. That is, the north part of the south. The vineyards we were speaking of were in South Abarra, my home country and the only Abarra worth belonging to. Fesik was in Palamos and I was stuck at work in South Dulibre, the city on the border. Like Abarra itself, Dulibre was split into north and south.

  “At this rate, they won’t come close to ripening by harvestide,” Fesik continued. My friend was excitable on a good day. I could not blame him now. Wine making was a delicate art. Weather was everything and the season had been cool. Every passing day that failed to deliver warm air and sun bleakened the crop’s prospects. But grapes sometimes had plans of their own.

  “Brix?” I demanded, making certain to even out my breath. Both of us in a panic wouldn’t do. Before I would allow myself an outburst, it was incumbent upon me to gather the facts.

  Brix was a special measure that gauged the sweetness of wine grapes. It allowed winemakers to understand their ripeness with precision before the fruit in question was ever harvested. It wasn’t an exaggeration to call myself the country’s foremost expert. Brix was kind of my thing.

  “Nineteen.” Fesik sounded miserable as he spit out the number that shot a stab of panic up the side of my neck. Desirable levels were between twenty-three and twenty-six. Numbers like these so close to the harvest was a terrible sign. It made me want to abandon the confines of my posh office that had only ever felt like a cage, trading them for freezing vineyards and a task that would find me helpful. Contrary to infuriatingly popular belief, I was of no use here.

  “pH levels?” I asked with a dreadful feeling.

  “Out of range,” Fesik reported. “Titratable acidity as well. With all due respect, Your Grace, if we don’t get a handle on this, we’re fucked.”

  Fesik rarely showed me all due respect, which was exactly what I liked about him. We had to be equals in order to make the wine we did. I may have been a prince and he may have been a very fine—if common—viticulturist. But all true partnerships thrived on an honest exchange of ideas.

  What brought us together was wanting the same thing: to make the finest, most envied wine in all of Abarra. We wanted our wine to win the prestigious Abarra Wine Prize—again. We wanted to maintain bragging rights and continue to best our unfriendliest of neighbors in the north. There was an extra piece in it for me: awaited recognition. Who better to bask in his winemaking accolades than I, Prince Xabier Garrastazu, Duke of Brix?

  Knowing so much about brix was severely undervalued in my day job, an organization that cared little about wine. It was a circumstance that I was working to change. If I couldn’t make my day job care about wine making, then I would just have to find a new day job. In the meantime, my life’s true calling would have to remain unofficial. Strictly speaking, the wine making I did with Fesik was moonlighting.

  “I’ll come as soon as I can,” I vowed, my voice more bitter than apologetic. Fesik knew the strength of my tethers. Even on a Friday evening—especially so—duty called. As a business associate, my constraints made me undesirable. Apart from my facility with the libation, I would not have been any partner’s first choice.

  It was my power that served as an incentive for Fesik to tolerate me—my uncanny and mysterious ability to ripen grape clusters to my liking. By simply bestowing my energy onto the fruit, I could infuse it with the correct levels of sugar. I could change the interior makeup of the grapes—turn them into what they wanted to be and make them ready for picking just in time.

  “One more frost and they’ll be beyond repair.” Fesik’s voice was grim.

  If I got there soon, I could prevent such a fate. But in order to do that, I had to make the three-hour journey from South Dulbire to Palamos, the South Abarran region where the best crop was grown.

  “I’ll arrange for transport by evening.” I lowered my voice to speak the promise, even though I was completely alone. “It’ll be nearly midnight by the time I make it, but early enough to ward off frost.”

  Fesik’s voice became chilly. “You know the grapes don’t like to be meddled with when they’re already too cold. Just this once, can’t you make an exception and travel by biplane?”

  “Fesik…” I warned. “You know very well that travel by biplane is reserved for royals who need to travel quickly to handle important matters of state.”

  I could practically hear him lift his chin. “Winning the Abarra Wine Prize qualifies as such.”

  “You know very well that I cannot summon the plane, and you know even better why my activities in the vineyards must remain a secret. I have been forbidden by the Queen.”

  Admitting the truth out loud always made me queasy. Technically speaking, there had been an “if.” I was forbidden from wine making if doing so would compromise my duties at the Ministry of Powers.

  On the one hand, I had precious few duties because I didn’t take my post very seriously. On the other hand, I needed to maintain the appearance of performing said duties, being available, and adding value in some way. I had to do all of these things because I was the highest-ranking official in the agency: the Minister of Powers himself.

  “No good will come from prolonging the
lie, Xabier. You said it yourself last season. This year will be the year that you tell the Queen.”

  My eyes darted around my office, as if I were the one speaking and the walls were the ears of royal spies. They swept over my leftmost monitor, which displayed the security feed. I was relieved to see Eusebio, my assistant, engrossed in a book. The security monitor showed two frames—the other the approach of the grand hallway—empty—via the frame on the right.

  “I did say that, didn’t I?” My reply was absent in my paranoia.

  For the moment, praise for our wine was showered solely upon Fesik. It bothered him to take all the glory. My only mark was Ichor, the name I had given to our prizewinning blend. In greek mythology, it meant an ethereal fluid thought to be the blood of the gods—the pure nectar of the immortals. And it did taste divine. In the irony of all ironies, the labor of love which took my attentions away from my very important-slash-boring day job was adored by my aunt, the Queen, Maialen.

  “Before midnight,” I repeated then hung up the phone, figuring I’d better go from talking to doing. Fesik’s call had come in on my personal phone. In the Ministry of Powers, one had to be discreet about matters that one wanted to keep to oneself. So also did one have to do when one was a royal. For the most part, I had whittled away servants and guards—become self-sufficient in ways that kept supervision at a minimum. There was one who stood a chance at thwarting my plans to travel to Palamos. And he wouldn’t be so easy to shake off.

  “Abide your duties,” he would say, coated in his own brand of sugar that abode the rules of subordination. Zain Otxoa possessed the rare ability to deliver bizarrely respectful scoldings. He was quite tricky in that respect. He was quite tricky in other respects, as well. He was why I was loath to leave my post without covering my tracks.

  I switched to my old-style intercom and watched on the monitor as Eusebio startled at my buzz. The man was grossly underutilized—fit to assist someone with a full schedule and dozens of difficult tasks. The once or twice a day that I ever actually summoned him, he nearly jumped out of his skin, almost too eager to oblige.

  “Eusebio. I need a car for the evening, please.”

  “Immediately, Your Grace?” He straightened in his seat, tossing the thick tome he had been reading onto the desk. I might have liked him better had he read something serious like Dostoyevsky, or something trashy, like gossip rags. But he only ever read the most boring book on earth: the Policies and Procedures Manual of the Ministry of Powers.

  “I’ll take a pickup in fifteen minutes. Around the back, please.”

  “Yes, Your Grace.” I watched Eusebio write down the simple instruction. “Shall I specify a destination?”

  “I’ll give it to the driver when he arrives.” My voice was calm. If I gave a nothing out-of-the-ordinary vibe, there would be nothing for Eusebio to suspect.

  “And your proxy, Your Grace?”

  I was not permitted to go off duty without one, though the Day and Night Deputy Ministers were my second and third in command. Among the three of us, we worked a twenty-four hour shift. As the Minister, I had the “honor” of taking the shifts when the most critical incidents occurred. Though I resented it, it was a great honor—a high office befitting a high royal, assuming responsibility for the most extraordinary aspect of our world: in Abarra, royals had superpowers.

  “Super” may have been too strong a word for some of the abilities the gods had bestowed upon the ruling class. Nonetheless, those who possessed such powers were commonly called “supos”. There was nothing to joke about when it came to superpowers run amok. It was my duty to know about major incidents and to be available for decision making around how to bring said incidents to resolution.

  “Please ask Duke Oleander, to be on call, pending an initial review for major incidents by me.”

  “Certainly, my lord.”

  The role of The Ministry of Powers was straightforward: to know who could and couldn’t do what, and to keep tabs on those who could do but did what they ought not. Royals were required to register their powers. The ministry was intended to provide guidance, education and—frankly—intimidation to discourage their misuse.

  Since only royals could possess these powers, it was thought (quite erroneously) that abuses in power were rare. That the royal family, as the ruling class and custodians of the public trust, acted mostly responsibly with their power. Little did Abarra know how far The Ministry had to go to diffuse dangerous situations. Seeing what came in on most Friday and Saturday nights was like watching an episode of Royals Gone Wild.

  “And Eusebio? I see no need to trouble Mr. Otxoa with information about my whereabouts. Should he drop by, simply let him know that I placed matters in Duke Oleander’s capable hands.”

  Apart from my Deputy Ministers, he was my highest lieutenant—the man hellbent on insisting that I have absolutely no fun.

  “You can let him know yourself, Your Grace. Mr. Otxoa just entered the hall.”

  My eyes flew to the right half of the monitor display. As surely as Eusebio had indicated, Zain Otxoa was beating a path to my door. His timing was so uncanny, it was as if he knew.

  -

  Zain

  Not so fast.

  My heels clicked in rapid succession as I walked down the centerline of the grand executive hall. It was far afield of the offices on lower floors. It took minutes to get all the way up there, which was why I’d needed to make haste. Left unattended on nights when he would rather have been any place but at his post, the Prince had a tendency to disappear.

  The floors were made of marble and their design was quite ornate—a wide white border off to each side, with an elaborate design forming a runway down the middle. It wasn’t a pattern, but a work of art, its geometric pieces reminiscent of stained glass. It gave the sense of walking on a rug made of stone.

  Hues from garnet, to ruby, to tawny, to rose made up elements of a palette that swirled and faded to ambers and golds. They complemented magnificent oil paintings of Abarran countryside that lined the grand corridor’s high walls. Spaced-out sitting benches rendered the space worthy of entertaining. Yet, he kept it to himself, and spent most of his time alone.

  The downstairs offices were another story. They were filled with six-by-six foot cubicles configured en masse for the Ministry’s rank and file. Enclosed offices here and there were reserved for mid-level managers: MLMs, as we liked to call them. I inhabited one of the better of these offices—a space in the corner on a higher floor with a not-bad view—though an MLM I was not.

  Ostensibly, I was the Head of Internal Affairs, which was exactly her intention—a gross understatement considering my deep involvement with the covert side. Not making that last fact public was by design. My list of responsibilities was too long to name—too long for me to remember most days. Yet, the highest of my duties was to babysit him.

  He was Prince Xabier Garrastazu, third in line to the South Abarran throne, son of Prince Frantzisco, nephew to the Queen, and Duke of Brix. He was also the Minister of Powers—the highest-ranking official at this agency and—despite my charge to keep him from making too big a mess out of things, he was—technically—my boss.

  “Is he in?” I asked Eusebio, more for his benefit than mine. I knew the Prince’s comings and goings. I had eyes on him at all times. I tried not to roll my eyes as Eusebio made a production of picking up the phone to announce my arrival. The Prince enjoyed forcing me to wait to be let in.

  Good.

  The more ridiculously childish and infuriatingly vain Prince Xabier, Duke of Brix, chose to be wherever I was concerned, the easier it was to ignore his ridiculous appeal.

  “Your Grace.” As usual, I greeted his back, the part of him that always seemed to face me when I walked into his suite. Even from behind, the man was magnificent. Broad shoulders filled out a perfectly-tailored button-down made of fine fabric and subtle herringbone design. Today’s shirt—white if you weren’t paying attention—was the faintest of lilac. He was t
he epitome of a dashing prince.

  To be clear, I was paying attention, not only to the way its snug fit showed the definition in his shoulders—to the place where the fabric stopped and his rolled-up sleeves gave way to skin. For all the hard work he didn’t do, there needn’t have been any rolling up of sleeves. In my most outlandish of theories, he did it to torment me.

  “Mr. Otxoa,” the Prince greeted blithely, not turning toward me just yet. He stood on a rug in the sitting area with his gaze remained fixed on the fire. His office was a projection of the man himself—pleasantly fragrant, clean to a fault and dripping with style. Tufted wingback chairs with ottomans flanked a matching Chesterfield, all three in a dark teal. Fire glow warmed his features, casting appeal on the planes of his face, flattering the smooth line of his nose and cutting shadows from his diamond jaw.

  I stopped at the edge of the rug that delineated the sitting area next to the drink trolley that carried only wine. Its twin at the other end of the Chesterfield was all crystal decanters and spirits. When he turned, I was meant to bow out of deference. This was always the most difficult moment—the one when he first cast his gaze upon me. I faltered at the devastating beauty of his eyes.

  “And what have you for me tonight? More documents to sign, no doubt. More supos with powers run rampage?”

  He made no secret of the fact that my presence vexed him. Unencumbered by the burden of common birth, the Prince was under no obligation to feign politesse. Logic dictated that his resentment stemmed from me holding him to task. Instinct told me that the sport he made of pushing my buttons was something more.