Free Royal Outlaw: (Royal Outlaw, Book 1) by Kayla Hudson Page B

commotion up here. We’re only about an hour away from Fintel—”
    “An hour?” Mariel cried in alarm, she had not realized they were so close, but as she mentally added up the days she realized that it was the last day of April, the deadline for her arrival at the capital. She was not ready to meet the king and queen and take up the mantle of princess. She wanted more time yet.
    “You can get cleaned up first, if you like,” Darren told her.
    A sudden thought struck Mariel, a thin strand of hope. “No, I’m fine.”
    A small smile tugged at her papa’s lips, which warmed her to the bone. She was about to meet the most powerful person in the entire kingdom and she was going to do it in men’s clothing, covered in dust and blood, with two black eyes, a broken nose, and all manner of cuts and bruises. Perhaps the king would change his mind the moment he saw her and decide he was wrong to think she could ever be an appropriate heir for him. If first impressions did not work then Mariel was going to do everything in her power to make him regret his decision.
    “What did you do to earn a full pardon, anyway?” Art asked. “Had to be somethin’ pretty big. I’ve seen those wanted signs and you’ve got a big resume as an underworld man. Leader of the Resistance and all.”
    Mariel’s heartrate sped up. She did not want people to start bowing to her yet, she wanted to enjoy the last hour or so of freedom she had. She did not want these men who were being friendly to them to start panicking and apologizing and scraping the floor for her.
    Darren just shrugged. “I helped them find someone they wanted pretty badly.”
    Art looked confused. “Who did they want more than you?”
    One of the older trainees understood what his instructor had not. “You know the princess?”
    The knot in Mariel’s stomach twisted sharply and she braced herself for the men’s reaction to her papa’s next words. 
    “Yes,” Darren replied smoothly, but to Mariel’s surprise, a smile tugged at his lips. “And I think she is going to shake things up a bit in the world of the nobility, might do their high and mighty majesties some good.”
    Mariel’s jaw dropped open and she stared openly at her papa in absolute shock. Inside her mind buzzed with his words, stunned and excited that he had said something that backed up her decision rather than disapproved of it completely. What had changed today that had made him accept her choice? Perhaps he did not mean the words and was just sticking up for her because she was his daughter, but Mariel did not really care. What he said meant the world to her.
    Darren changed the subject and suggested that they move the bodies off the trail, so the next passerby did not have a heart attack when he came across dead ogres. To the Versati trainees’ surprise, Mariel hefted and lifted the ogres alongside them. She heard one of the boys whisper to another, “You’re sure that’s a girl ?” Mariel smiled. She was ready to go meet Their Royal Majesties and make them hate her.
    As Mariel and some of the trainees set down an ogre body in the forest, she caught sight of her knife that had missed the ogre that had nearly killed her and went over to tug it free from the tree. She checked it for damage before sliding it into its sheath.
    “You threw that?” one of the boys asked.
    Mariel enjoyed the trainees’ amazement. They still did not believe she was a girl. “Yes, but I was aiming for an ogre. Obviously I missed. My other knife should be around here somewhere.” She began to search through the forest undergrowth, assuming that the ogre had pulled it from her arm and tossed it before coming to attack her again.
    While Mariel searched, she began to contemplate the oddity of the ogres’ attack. Ogres were big, but they were not stupid. They were famed for capturing people and selling them as slaves to the massive kingdom of Salf, which bordered Natric to the southwest. On Mariel’s first mission