Horns for the Harem Girl by Lynn Red Page A

said he was killing himself by staying in power, but... well, what can you do?”
    Helena watched the two ibexes for a moment, smiling like a fool despite her best efforts.
    “Arad?” she asked. “I think I’m ready to see the palace now.”
    Arad took Helena’s hand, letting his palm warm her to the core.
    “You make me feel safe,” she said in a small, almost child-like voice. “It’s like I don’t have to worry about anything as long as I’ve got you, if that makes any sense. The last time I felt this way, I was a little girl, and my father made me feel secure. But that was before...”
    His eyes, which had been in the distance, watching something over her shoulder, snapped back to Helena’s. “You are,” he said. “And you don’t have to worry about a single thing. “I’m no king.”
    “Wait, but I thought—”
    He put his hand up to quiet her. “Yes, I did take over, and yes, my father did abdicate for me. But... Well, Crane is so much better at this sort of thing. I’ve asked him and a handful of others I trust to put together a parliament.”
    “A parliament? So there won’t be a king anymore?”
    “Ah,” Arad smiled. “There will, but it’ll just be a figurehead thing. They’ll do all the work and I’ll show up on all the talk shows.”
    “You’re a piece of work,” she said with a grin. “Well okay then, let’s go. I want to see everyone.”
    Smiling, he led on, for ten steps and then suddenly froze, right in front of a jasmine bush that was in full bloom. Bees buzzed around, going about their work eagerly, and for a moment, Helena thought they’d stopped just to admire the flowering bush.
    “There’s one other thing,” Arad said. There was some tentative affect in his voice. Something, Helena knew, was either up or wrong. And seeing as how happy he’d been moments before, it probably wasn’t that he was sad about anything.
    “What is it?” she asked when he said nothing else.
    He stayed silent, just watching her face. His eyes entranced her, catching her attention and refusing to let go. She stared back for a time, and then when she thought he’d either gone comatose or forgotten who he was, she squeezed his hand.
    “Oh! Sorry,” he said. “I was just admiring the most incredible woman I’ve ever known. Don’t mind me.”
    A deep, crimson flush crept down Helena’s cheeks, her neck, and her chest. She touched her throat with a couple of fingers, smiling warmly despite the embarrassment she felt. “If you’re trying to flatter your way into my heart, there’s no need,” she said. “You’ve already got the whole of it. I can’t imagine what else you’d take.”
    He dropped to a knee, and her heart just about stopped.
    “There is one thing,” he said. “Will you make me the happiest man on earth?”
    Onto her finger, he slid a diamond that sparkled radiantly in the overhead sun, like a chandelier with just the perfect amount of flame licking the crystals. As she stared into the gem, she found herself trembling. She saw her fingers shaking just a little. “I, uh,” she choked, and then sputtered briefly before swallowing.
    “Yes! Of course I will!”
    “Good,” he said. “Then now we can go into the palace. If you’d said no, I’d be really embarrassed.”
    “Why?”
    “Because everyone’s already here.”
    *
    “P apa! Maret!” Helena called when she saw them. The two were seated next to each other on a high-backed couch near the front of the palace’s ceremony hall. Only the most important guests had these luxurious seats; the rest of the large audience sat on long benches. The entire place had been lavishly decorated with massive tapestries normally kept back in the vaults for safety. Some of them were over a thousand years old and yet the stitching was just as it had been when they were created.
    The palace had a very, very good flock of art restoration specialists.
    “Alara!”
    Her favorite nemesis headed off an entire row dedicated to