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The Royal Summit
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The Royal Summit
American Royalty: Book #5
Written by Laura McGehee
Copyright © 2017 by Abdo Consulting Group, Inc.
Published by EPIC Press™
PO Box 398166
Minneapolis, MN 55439
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
International copyrights reserved in all countries.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without
written permission from the publisher. EPIC Press™ is trademark
and logo of Abdo Consulting Group, Inc.
Cover design by Laura Mitchell
Images for cover art obtained from iStockPhoto.com
Edited by Ryan Hume
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: McGehee, Laura, author.
Title: The royal summit / by Laura McGehee.
Description: Minneapolis, MN : EPIC Press, 2017. | Series: American royalty ; #5
Summary: In an effort to convince the peasant public of the worth of American Royalty, the family embarks on a cross-country tour, led by King Kyle. The family does their best to band together to save the lineage, but Trevor follows his fracturing sense of self into a crazed rampage, Emma deepens her secret and illegal relationship with the Canadian Princess, and Queen Donna schemes to bring the entire family crashing down.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016946200 | ISBN 9781680764819 (lib. bdg.) |
ISBN 9781680765373 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Washington family (Fictitious characters)—Fiction. | Kings, queens, rulers, etc.—Fiction. | Interpersonal relationships—Fiction. | Young adult fiction.
Classification: DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016946200
This digital document has been produced by Nord Compo.
To revolution, for suggesting that nothing
was all that stable to begin with
“I feel like this is so boring,” Prince Trevor groaned while staring moodily out the door of the stretch limo.
“For once, I agree with Trevor,” Princess Emma said as she firmly clutched a glass of champagne, even though it was nine in the morning.
“It’s T-Money,” Trevor said.
“What, like money for t-shirts?” Emma asked with sarcastically feigned interest.
“No, like T, dash, dollar sign, if you’re writing it, but T-Money if you’re saying it.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Emma said.
“You’re the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Trevor said with that trademark glint in his eyes that invited Kyle to be in on the joke, and Kyle chuckled. He couldn’t help but think that his older brother was hilarious, even while he was probably Chattering absurd claims about the brand new beard grooming practice that he invented last night while also riding a unicycle.
Trevor still showed the remnants of far too many hours spent meandering through the desert on his spiritual odyssey, with his deeply reddened skin crackling with crusty flakes and his overwhelming sense of “wisdom.” The trip resulted in Trevor losing an inexplicable amount of weight while gaining even more of a tendency to shout his thoughts about his importance as loudly, and as often, as possible. This had become quite unpleasant, especially as the family was in the thick of their cross-country Royal Tour.
Although King Kyle generally found his older brother to be a depth of wisdom and knowledge on topics ranging from the best beard-grooming practices (“Constant combing with a tiny beard comb and three tubes of product every four hours, absolutely no exceptions.”) to the worst dating practices (“Never, EVER look a woman in the eye. If you do, she will consume your soul immediately.”), he was starting to question Trevor’s wild declarations on and off RoyalChatterStream.
@TMONEY: yo i got the answers to the meaning of life and where the sun goes at night and why we all feel sad sometimes but happy other times, info coming soon on my new album MONEY PROGRESSIONS
Trevor was now firmly entrenched in his thirties and still able to pull off the manicured-outdoorsman look that Kyle longed to replicate. Unfortunately, even though Kyle was now King Kyle, he had never been able to grow facial hair. He reached up to his chin and touched the smooth, albeit slightly pimply, skin. Still nothing. They called him The Naked King, partially because he was naked when he was declared the next successor, but also because his face was as naked as the day he was born.
His half-sister Emma drained her glass of champagne and continued to stare at her GlassPhone™, which she never seemed to put down, these days.
“You better not be talking to Daisy,” Donna said, eying the most recent former King suspiciously. Emma reddened and shook her head, causing her loosely frizzled locks of brown hair to flop and nearly hit Trevor in the face.
“I swore under Royal Oath that I wouldn’t be in contact with her ever again,” Emma said quietly. “What more do you want?”
The Royal Oath was a bond that, if broken, would mean a direct route down to the Royal Stocks for at least sixteen minutes. Kyle’s very first decree as King had been to pardon his dear half-sister for her infidelities with their Canadian frenemies, contingent upon her Royal Oath. Former King Emma was in a suspiciously bright spirit, considering her many recent pitfalls. She was very recently outed in front of the entire nation on RoyalChatterStream, and then forced to resign as King due to her illicit relationship with a Canadian Princess—a public breakup the likes of which the Royalty hadn’t experienced since Anna Washington launched her artistic career with an opera about the infidelities of Prince Amir of Qatar. Emma sat with her legs crossed and a glow of barely concealed joy, as evidenced by her sly smile and the light twinkle igniting her dark brown eyes.
Her normally composed exterior, reminiscent of a school librarian dressing up for a job interview at a competing, yet similar school, had fallen more into the realm of a school librarian going out for a nice walk on the weekend and not even caring if she ran into any students. Her hair hung loosely down to her shoulders, frizzy and somewhat untamed, but free. She had even been seen wearing colorful floral shirts and form-fitting pants. It was almost as if she didn’t know that RoyalChatterStreamers had been trashing her and her alarmingly rebellious relationship for weeks now. Kyle didn’t know what exactly had come over his sister, but he did know that all of the family’s recent changes were starting to give him spiritual whiplash.
Thanks to Emma’s international scandal, the peasant politicians had transferred power to Kyle, effective immediately. He had assumed office without any training or preparation, and he was doing his absolute best to look like he belonged in purple robes that were far too large for his trim frame and a crown that was so heavy it made his head eternally droop. He now had to act, look, and sound like an adult—even when he was alone. It was quite exhausting.
“I’m so excited to see another farm, aren’t you, Trevor?” Emma asked, emphasizing his name with a vitriolic energy that sliced through the air.
“T-Money,” Trevor corrected automatically.
“Man, I’m just so happy that we have another three weeks on this cross country tour until the Royal Summit, aren’t you, Trevor?” Emma asked.
“T-Money,” Trevor responded. “And I am starting to suspect you’re not respecting my wishes.”
“Oh Trevor,” Emma said. “What in the world would give you that idea?”
“I feel sad that you’re so depressed about your own pitiful life that you have to take your anger out on me, especially when I’m the most successful person in this family,” Trevor said.
“I feel annoyed that you keep using this ‘I feel’ sentence structure,” Emma responded.
“
I feel disappointed because I have explained thousands of times that my therapist wants me to speak this way in order to rebuild constructive relationships and reshape my fractured emotional and mental state!” Trevor said.
“I feel like that’s a load of bullshit,” Emma responded. “And doing a lot of drugs in the desert doesn’t mean that you’re enlightened.”
“I feel like we should focus on our next stop on the campaign trail,” said the stepmother formerly known as Queen Donna. She was a frightening creature who comforted Kyle just as much as she terrified him, like a bear that raises a baby cat as its own child, but will probably end up eating the cat as soon as food gets scarce. She looked like a woman who would star in her own home makeover show, and in fact, she did for a few years in the early ’90s. She masqueraded as a kind, plump, respectable lady with well-coiffed hair and the perpetual smell of freshly-baked cookies emanating from her skin. She poured most of her energy into convincing the world that she was innocuously pleasant. But Kyle knew that she could also end the lives of most, if not all of them, at her slightest whim. Despite her cruelty, or perhaps because of it, Kyle felt the deepest need for her approval.
“Tablo!” Donna screeched, and that sweating assistant of hers who always seemed to be mere moments away from a sudden heart attack jumped to attention.
“Yes, your most high Highness?” The intern asked. His name was not Tablo because Tablo was not a name. As Kyle stared at the Sweaty Intern’s strangely familiar face, he felt gears deep within his brain begin to churn. He knew this boy, and not just because this peasant had been following Donna around like a shadow with a perspiration disorder for the past few months. When Sweaty Intern’s eyes ever-so-briefly met Kyle’s, he nearly gasped. It wasn’t Tablo at all, because Tablo was still definitely not a name. It was Enrique, the ghost of a memory far buried in Kyle’s past.
It had been one of those languid summer days in the thick of summer heat, the kind of day in which life unfolded in slow motion. Kyle had been playing soccer by himself in the far corners of the Royal Village, fresh from a physical and mental lashing from Trevor and his cronies. He had accidentally kicked the ball into the depths of the Royal Woods, so deep that upon his retrieval he had been entirely engulfed by forest and unable to tell which direction was Royal, and which was peasant. After what had felt like hours of frantic scrambling through the underbrush, Kyle had discovered something incredible: a small gap in the Royal/peasant Wall, just large enough for a young Prince to slip through.
He had found a small, smiling boy skipping pebbles across a gurgling, trash-filled creek on the other side. Kyle had hovered in the bushes on his side of the Wall for a few minutes and watched, mesmerized, as Enrique sung to himself and skipped rocks as far as he could manage. It was entirely unfamiliar to find such joy in such a simple task, and Kyle’s heart ached to join. So he had done the unthinkable, and pressed his tiny frame through the hole to enter the peasant side of the Royal Village.
Enrique had accepted him with few words and a deeply comforting sense of camaraderie, the likes of which Kyle had never felt in human, animal, or imaginary friend. They had embarked on a day of romping through the woods so glorious, he couldn’t exactly be sure if it had been reality or a dream. They built forts out of sticks and leaves, they climbed trees and pretended to be birds, and they played hide and seek along the peasant creek in a Kingdom that was just for them.
But this tender friendship had lasted only an afternoon, until Bishop and a team of Royal Service Workers had retrieved him by the scruff of his ornamental collar, preaching the importance of not fraternizing with the peasants. The next time Kyle tried to find his friend, the gap in the Wall had been covered. Now, as King Kyle sat across from Enrique while bearing the non-metaphorical weight of a very heavy crown resting upon his head, he wondered if Enrique remembered him.
“When will we be arriving?” Donna asked.
“We’re four minutes away, Your Grace,” Enrique responded. His eyes darted from Donna over to Kyle once more. Maybe it was the glint reflecting from Emma’s newfound joy, or the shine of Trevor’s falsely white smile, but Kyle could have sworn he found a hint of recognition reflecting in the pale blue eyes of someone who could have been a wondrous friend. But then Donna shouted for the car to stop, and the moment ended before it could even truly begin.
“For the last time, you call the King ‘Your Grace,’” Donna screeched.
“Donna, don’t make us pull over again!” Emma yelled. “We’re already late! Also I don’t think that’s a rule!”
“I feel that if she wants to pull over, let her pull over!” Trevor shouted. “Everyone should feel comfortable doing whatever they want to!”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” murmured Enrique over and over again.
“Get out of the car,” Donna ordered.
“Don’t you dare get out of the car,” Emma said. “Donna, you cannot keep doing this. Sooner or later it’s going to get on the Stream.”
“Get out of the car if you feel you want to get out of the car, man!” shouted Trevor. Kyle watched the drama unfold and wondered what had happened to his family. He felt powerless to make himself heard, and unable to stop the emotional car crash happening right in front of him in this stationary vehicle. Had his family always been this way? They were cruel, self-involved, and not even that beautiful when compared to the likes of Tristan Hamilton.
“Maybe we should keep driving?” Kyle asked meekly, but his voice was drowned out by the sounds of his family shouting, which felt more familiar to his ears than silence. He still felt like a kid caught in the crossfire of a fractured family, except that now he was in charge of determining the fate of an entire country. The responsibility filled him with the deepest sense of unease that only dueling Glenn Hamilton had rivaled.
The first annual Royal Summit, cobbled together under strong suggestion from DeMarcus and their team of advisors in order to convince the peasantry of the utility of the American Royalty, was fast approaching. Kyle would have to present an address on the state of the nation and all the corresponding economic woes and diplomatic troubles. The thought of all of those eyes across the country trained securely on his feeble attempt at being King made him want to retreat to a small country in Western Europe, or return to childhood—or both.
“We can’t treat anybody like that, even the peasants,” Kyle said as he tried to raise his voice again. “We have to work together to save our family,” Kyle continued feebly. But as his family continued to scream he could barely hear his thoughts inside his own head.
“Shut up!” Emma finally yelled at the top of her lungs, bringing the bickering in the car to a tentative halt. “King Kyle is trying to say something.”
She looked over to him, and Kyle opened his mouth to explain to his family the precarious state of affairs that DeMarcus had described to him. How the peasants were beginning to mobilize across the country in support of this Kennedy figure, and how the upcoming Presidential election could change the very government as they knew it. How they had to work as one cohesive unit to ensure their future as American Royalty.
But instead of any of that, Kyle croaked out a sound that resembled the dying declaration of a Royal Possum that had been trampled during a Royal HorseGolf tournament. His family stared back at him, and then Trevor emitted a sharp laugh. Soon Donna joined in, and then Emma. Instead of his family screaming around him, they were directly taunting his weakness with their laughter. Great, much better.
“Can we just go to the farm?” Kyle mumbled, his face radiating heat and his soul squashed like the aforementioned possum. If he couldn’t even speak to his family in a private limo, how could he possibly address the entire nation? The entire world? He really was The Naked King—weak, defenseless, and frail. The limo began to roll through the sweeping fields of wheat, or corn, or whatever that plant was that was tall and brown sometimes, but green other times, and Kyle sunk into his seat. He wanted more than anything to be back at that c
reek.
Across from the new King who was struggling to come into his own as a leader, Donna sat with quiet satisfaction. She had given Kyle his first test and he had failed horrifically—which of course was exactly what Donna wanted. She observed Kyle’s mop-like hair, frayed and slightly greasy under the massive crown, and his surprisingly bulging arms. His cherubic face was flushed with what she could only assume was intense self-loathing. Now she would rebuild him in her image, and he would do her bidding, abdicating the throne when the time was right. She was nudging the children toward an avalanche of action that would culminate in a future none of them could even imagine—and the best part was that they would all think they had determined their own destinies.
Donna felt her own cheeks flush with the vigor of rule, or maybe just menopause. It had almost been too easy to convince her weak King for the need of the Royal Tour and Summit. All she had to do was bring in DeMarcus for a stern meeting in which he showed some graphs and numbers detailing Kennedy’s rise to power. Kyle had been shown clips on RoyalChatterStream of Kennedy vowing to dismantle the Royalty with thousands of screaming fans behind him, and frankly informed of the treacherous state of affairs. DeMarcus had proposed a plan that would only set up the family of narcissistic children for failure—a tour through the heartland of America in order to foster goodwill among the peasant populace and convince them of the importance of the Royalty. The children had agreed, as they always did, unaware that this tour was specifically designed to tear them all apart in front of the public eye.
“I feel that it is totally called a bay of hay,” Trevor said from the other side of the limo. Donna tuned back into the children’s discourse, as she had to do every now and then to keep up appearances. “Like there’s so much, you could totally fill a bay with it all.”
“No, that’s so dumb,” Emma responded. “That’s truly idiotic.”
“I feel like you don’t know what else it would be called,” Trevor accused with his chest eternally puffed outward as if expecting combat through posture at any moment. He looked so much like his father sometimes that it made Donna feel like her skin was melting off of her body—but then again, that was almost definitely the menopause.