Crowned For The Drakon Legacy. Tara Pammi

feel pity for me? Or dare I hope that you have grown a sense of duty to your country?”

      Damn Andreas for always knowing the right question to ask. Nik himself didn’t know the answer to that question.

      Had he done it because the sense of history, the heritage of Drakon that he had always yearned to be a part of when he had been a little boy, had sunk its claws into him again?

      Or had he done it because leaving Drakon would mean facing that all the little things that had previously given him such pleasure still paled when he thought of one ex-soccer player?

      “I promised Maman I would stick around for your coronation.”

      Andreas’s mouth flattened. “The coronation is postponed.”

      Nik frowned. He knew that these past few years, behind the curtains, Andreas had run the show. So why was his brother, who’d been born and bred into the role of King, now postponing the coronation? “With Theos frothing at the mouth, Drakon needs you at the helm.”

      “So you do think about Drakon then.”

      “Why did you ask me to return? And the truth, Andreas.”

      Nik folded his hands, his stance clearly belligerent. But Andreas would never take the bait. He would never do something as emotional as get into a fight with his brother.

      “I need you, Nikandros.”

      It was, apparently, a time for shocks. First Brian, then Mia, then his father and now Andreas.

      Andreas sighed. “The Council has been getting more and more disturbed about my lack of marriage. With father’s final decline fast approaching, it is now a matter of public and political concern owing to legal and international consequences. If I should die tomorrow suddenly, our treaty with our powerful neighbor becomes void and we could be annexed.

      “The economy is on a nosedive and financial analyses do not show it recovering anytime soon.”

      “Then why didn’t you marry that...woman and produce heirs by now?” Nik interrupted, bile rising even at the thought of her and what he’d done.

      “If you had bothered to visit once or inquired after us, you’d have learned that I broke that engagement with Isabella as soon as you left.”

      “I’ve not heard a whisper of it.”

      Andreas shrugged. “Because it worked well for me and Isabella to let the world believe I was engaged to her for a long while. Her brother wanted it said that she’d walked away from the alliance. Rejected the Crown Prince of Drakon.

      “I agreed.”

      “Father must have hated that.”

      “Father and I have learned to understand each other better,” Andreas said cryptically.

      “What I did then was—”

      “I don’t want to dwell in the past, Nikandros. It would not show either of us well, ne? The point is I need your help, in a hundred ways. And I believe you possess a far more giving nature than I do.

      “I need father declared incompetent, to build Drakon’s economy back up again and its morale, to stop the Crown Council from dictating my life.”

      Nikandros had heard from numerous sources of his own the unrest among the populace, the slow exodus of businesses to their competitive neighbor, of deals falling through and investors pulling out because Andreas would not announce the date of his engagement, much less the wedding.

      Because Andreas would not bow to the Crown Council’s demands, and he, Nikandros, had turned his back long ago on Drakon.

      Which was why he’d stayed longer than he’d planned to, the challenge it presented to his business sense engaging his interest despite himself. The economy of Drakon was ripe for the taking. Tourism could be boosted, some of the old ways let go of... Much as he wanted to deny the knowledge, Nikandros understood perfectly what Andreas wanted and Drakon needed—fresh blood. “Then marry, Andreas.”

      “I will not rush into any alliance before weighing the long-term needs of Drakon. I have to appoint you the Hereditary Heir, Nik.”

      Nikandros had walked out on his family years ago, publicly declaring that he was renouncing his status as second in line to the throne.

      But Andreas’s words began to tug at a powerful desire he’d denied for so long. Christos, once he’d loved his homeland with everything he had. Walking away from it had almost destroyed him. It had also been his salvation because only away from his father’s and Andreas’s shadows had Nikandros come into his own.