-The Meeting

(Caroline's POV)

"Here, it was your mothers. I met with her before everything happened. She said that she wanted you to get married with it." He said giving me my mothers wedding ring.

"Thank you." I say taking it.

"Oh, and here's a necklace." He said giving me an empty gold chain.

"What's this for?" I ask.

"Its so you can wear it around your neck since your not married yet." He explained. "Here look." He said gestured to the chain and ring.

I hand it to him and he slipped the ring over the chain and I turned around and he clipped it around my neck. I looked down so see the diamond ring hanging around my neck and smiled. Soon enough, tears started to fall from my eyes.

"Hey, don't cry." Stephan cooed, pulling me into a hug.

"I miss them." I sobbed into his chest.

"I know you do." He said quietly. "Let's get you to bed, you had a long day." He said, and we walked back to my room in complete silence.

-Four Weeks Later-

"Thank you so much your highness for having a meeting." One of my Royal Advisers said.

"Your welcome. I've decided that I should try to not to have us end up with another tragedy, so trying to reason with the king is something I had to consider. Even though he should go down for what he's done." I said, giving her a side glance as we walked to the Conference Room at the end of the hall.

It was quite early in the morning. It was around seven, but normally I would be waking up at this time. And getting ready takes a lot of time too. So technically, I've been up since four. Stephan has been staying at the castle because he has been trying to make sure I don't fall back into old habits. Yeah, he kinda caught me a few times sneaking away with a bottle of wine from the Wine Cellar.

He did a pretty good job at it as well. I haven't had a sip of alcohol since the day I found out about my parents. I think I have developed an alternative way to deal with the pain. I only just started to realize it too. I've been eating a lot more. Kind of not the best decision because I usually end up throwing it all up the next morning.

Speaking of eating too much, have I gained weight? That can't be good. I really need to see a therapist then. I did tell Stephan about the eating and throwing up and he said not to worry about it too much and that it was better than drinking all the time. But he did say he would look out for me in case it started to get out of handle.

I snapped from my thoughts when I realized we reached the huge wooden doors. They opened and there stood King Gabriel. I only spared him a glance before I walked to the other end of the table where Stephan stood. I smiled at him and he returned it and put an arm around my shoulders.

He lent down and whispered in my ear, "Don't let him get to you. If you ever need help, put your hand on my knee and I'll jump in." He said and I gave a slight nod.

"Tell me when your ready to start talking instead of whispering sweet nothings into her ear all day." Gabriel said harshly.

"Fine, have a seat." I said and we all sat down.

I told my advisers I could handle this and that they could wait outside. So it only left Stephan, Gabriel, me, and a girl I have never seen before. I was eyeing the way she dressed. She was obviously not a Royal Adviser because they dressed in business clothing that was simple. She dressed more like a royal because the clothing looked more royal-like. But the problem with it was it was not at all appropriate for the meeting.

The dress she wore seemed to only clothe the parts that needed to be clothed. It was a strapless, red dress, that came one-quarter of the way down her thighs, and her chest looked like it was ready to spill out of the top of her dress it was so low and tight. She had bright blue eyes, brown hair, wore dark red lipstick, too much makeup, and five inch black glittery heals. If she wasn't in the Conference Room I would have thought she was going to a club in all honesty.

"Where should we start?" Gabriel asked.

"Lets start with names. I don't think I have met you before. What's your name?" I said looking at the girl in the tight red dress.

"Princess, sorry, Queen Daniella." She said proudly.

"I'm Princess Caroline at the moment and this is Prince Stephan. What kingdom do you rule over?" I ask.

"I was the princess of Kingdom Starling, but I was recently asked to be the queen of Gabriel's kingdom." She explained.

"Let's move on for introductions, shall we." Gabriel spoke up wanting to move away from the subject.

"Of course, I'm just trying to get to know the new face in the room." I said and was nudged under the table by Stephan.

I looked at the paper he was slightly pushing to towards me and read what he wrote on it. 'He down graded a lot. You might not know who she is but I do. She's been with so many princes it's unreal.' It read. I wrote on the paper in response 'I'll ask more questions later.'

"So I'm wondering why you have declared war on us." I started. "What have we done?" I ask.

"You promised to rule over my kingdom and you left us at a time when kingdoms were being attacked." He retorted.

"You mean when my kingdom was attacked. You have no compassion! What about me? My parents died in a bombing from people we still have yet to find who! With no one left to run it, I needed to step down to help my people! I can't let my kingdom run into the ground!" I yell.

"Maybe that's where it needs to be! And that's exactly what this war will do! We can either destroy you or take control! I think it's best for you if we do that." He said firing back.

"Tell me, King, why you think that's the best idea for my kingdom?" I ask.

"Your not even a queen let alone married! How can you possibly have control?!" He said and it stopped me right in my tracks.

I think Stephan noticed quickly because with in seconds of him saying that he stepped in.

"Gabriel, how would you like it if your kingdom found out they had a whore for a queen? That she was only there so you could be king? Or that their king had a boyfriend? That you threatened a pregnant woman with war?" He asked and I looked at him like he had three heads. What kinda lies had he planned?

"A pregnant woman? Were did that come from? No one here is pregnant last time I checked." Gabriel said, kinda confused. You and me both.

"Caroline is." He said being straight forward and I looked at him wide eyed. He can't just lie about something this serious! Is he crazy? I opened my mouth to stop him but he put a hand up to silence me. "Caroline and I are getting married. The ring around her neck is the ring she will be getting married with. She always said she wished she could choose her engagement ring, so I'm letting her. I just asked her to marry me. Since we have not had the time to go get a ring, we decided on making it official by having a child for the time being." He explained and I wanted to pounce on him for making up such a lie.

"Is this true?" Gabriel said kind of baffled. When I went to say something I got the feeling like I wanted to throw up, so I turned away and that's exactly what happened. Stephan held my hair back as I barfed all over the nice wood floors.

This can't be happening...