From the moment those words fell from his lips Darek knew it would be bad. Very bad. Her bright blue-green eyes quickly shifted from soft with love to hard with anger-at him. She smacked him cross the face with enough force that the sound resonated through the Yuletide ball than proceeded to knee him hard enough he dropped to the floor in an instant. The crowded ballroom gasped but parted as Mia stormed off swearing worse than any sailor. It took him only a moment to attempt to follow after her, the whispers from the crowd quickly spreading rumours but when he rose to his feet one man stood in the middle of the parted crowd, stopping him. Captain Killian Jones blocked the young Prince's path. Pure anger and fury seemed to emit from him and that hard practiced stare. No one was going through that hallway without a hook being run through their innards. Blood would be the toll.

A rough hand clapped on his shoulder and jolted Darek from his thoughts from the day before.

"I know you're an idiot from what you said but are you a coward as well?"

Darek frowned and refused to look at the hard stare of his long-time friend. Prince James stepped back but began to pacing around the room while Bronwell, the eldest son of his father's advisor, sat across the chess board and Stephan- Darek's younger brother- sat reading in the window. Both ignored the pair of fighting princes.

"What else is there?" James bit out and picked up his pacing stride. "She asked if beauty was all that mattered and you said 'what else is there?'"

Darek flinched as his own words were thrown back at him. "It was dumb."

Bromwell snorted under his breath but move his chess piece. Darek quickly retaliated.

"Honestly every man can take a lesson from you on how to insult a woman in five syllables or less."

Another move on the board and Bromwell smiled. "You've lost your queen."

Darek groaned and slapped his hand over his face.

"That's twice in one day, isn't it brother?" Stephan remarked but refused to look away from his novel.

James strode over and smacked Darek upside the head. Darek finally met the green gaze of the slightly older Prince, the uncle of the woman he just lost. He was acting like an older brother, as her defender as Mia's own brothers and father were barred from Darek's wing of the castle- no one was stupid enough to let the four of them anywhere near each other until this blew over.

"Stop fooling around! This is serious!"

Darek clenched his fist but refused to move. He knew his friend was fired up and while it took a lot to anger James, when done so it was best to sit still and wait. He had his argument for what he said in his mind already. It was a misunderstanding to be sure, that's all. That scene flashed before his eyes over and over again. He knew what he said and what he meant. Unfortunately Mia and the rest of the crowd did not. They did not understand that beauty in his family meant so much more than appearance. His father, King Philip had always called their mother a beauty, someone who was smart, courageous and absolutely perfect for him. He had told his sons that was what beauty meant to him –perfection inside and out- and when Mia had asked if it was all he had meant, he immediately said yes. Yes it was, he meant that one word that to his family meant everything. But she had misunderstood.

Darek tuned out James' continued rant and glanced over to Stephan for support. His brother had known what his words were, what they meant in his family but he refused to speak up. And they called him coward.

"I understand the seriousness of the situation, James. Believe me, I regret ever saying them but yelling at me isn't going to change anything."

James sighed and rubbed at his face. Darek let out a breath, knowing his friend was backing down. "So what are you going to do to fix it?"

Darek stared down the chess board and a small smile creep on his face. He reached forward and moved his piece; taking the queen and checkmating his friend.

"I'm going to take my Queen back."

Hello! Sorry it's taken so long but my writing muse had fled following a very very rough and depressing beginning to this year. Just recently things have been improving and life has gone back on track and so my muse too has slowly begun to return. Thank you for being so patient for these and thank you to those who have read and reviewed even during my hiatus. So again thanks for sticking through me and I hope to be posting much more often the as of late.