Horns for the Harem Girl by Lynn Red

terror. From my sisters at least. I knew you’d come out on top.”
    “My father didn’t have a lot of will for the war. He was more interested in, well, it doesn’t matter. I can’t say I blame him at any rate. Love is a funny thing.”
    The prince lowered his head so Helena could slide off. She did, and as soon as she felt her toes crunch onto the cobblestone street, she felt Arad transform behind her. A blink of an eye later, she felt the warmth of his hand slide around her middle and pull her backwards against him.
    “The UN might not notice more goats and sheep in town, but they’re certainly going to notice everyone wandering around naked when they stop being animals,” Helena said with a giggle.
    “No need for that,” Arad said. “If we wear furs all the time, no one will know the difference.”
    Sure enough, when she turned back to face him again, the prince was wearing buckskin type trousers and a vest made of some kind of fur. “And anyway,” he said, “it’s just the people with some sort of royal blood in their veins that do the shifting. Of course, around these parts, we’ve had some pretty limited breeding stock for a while, apparently.”
    The two of them laughed as a billy goat lunged at a nanny, who evaded his lusty grip. “Not first cousins, I hope,” Helena said as Arad kissed her neck.
    “Oh I’m sure they’re distant. We’ve been around so long there’s no telling how many people have vague relations to the royal line. Do you want to see the palace?”
    “I’m a little frightened, to be honest. All those fires. I’m sure the place is in shambles.”
    He shook his head quickly from side to side. “Not at all. We have the best construction team on the planet. And also there wasn’t much damage in the first place. Most of the fighting was done in the streets, what little of it there was.”
    “How?” she asked. “How did you just... take power like this?”
    Arad laughed again, his eyes catching the noon sun and glimmering like liquid metal. “I met with my father, in secret of course. He was tired.”
    “Of fighting?”
    “No, just in general. You know how when an older person says that they’re tired, it means more than when you or I say it? We mean we want to go to sleep. They mean that life has worn them down.” He took a deep breath and squeezed her sides in a massaging grip. “We made a deal. He left in secret, I said he’d been killed in battle. One of my lieutenants made the claim, I backed it, and so did his side. That was that. No more fighting. Hell, there wasn’t really much fighting in the first place.”
    Helena nodded. “That’s good,” she said. “I guess. I understand though, about the tired thing. You hear the same when you talk to farmers. The ragged sort of tone. You’d hear it if you talked to my father. Or to me, when I still lived at home.”
    Arad studied her face for a long moment. “Well hopefully he won’t be so tired anymore. I’ve got positions for him and for all of your sisters, at the palace. If they accept of course.”
    “Thank you,” Helena said, her eyes full of tears and her lip quivering so much that she had to bite it to calm the trembling. “I... I can’t say I understand why you’re doing all this, but... thank you nonetheless.”
    “Like I said about my father, love does funny things.”
    “Where is he?” Helena asked, accepting his answer with another soft kiss. “Your father I mean? Oh!” she got very excited. “What about Maret? I’d love to see her. I need to thank her for everything she’s done.”
    “He’s... around,” Arad said, looking past Helena into the distance. When she followed his gaze, she saw a pair of beautiful ibexes with their necks entwined, staring back. “And she knows. You’ll see her at the wedding though. Father, I’m afraid, has to keep on pretending at being dead, for the good of the kingdom. And for his nerves. He should have stepped down a long time ago. His doctors always