“Royal, come! Your bride has arrived,” King Belos called out in a grand fashion.

My heart jumped from nerves. Where was he? I scanned the people before us, but only a few were dressed like nobles and none of them looked like the portrait I’d seen. Maybe he wasn’t here. Maybe he’d suffered a horrible accident while his father was away and I was free. No, I didn’t want that. Maybe he’d suffered a horrible accident and was unconscious and therefore couldn’t say the words to bind us together. Yes, that would work.

Abruptly, the crowd parted and my hopes crashed. A cloaked man with dark hair stalked toward us between all the other strangers. He looked nothing like the prince’s portrait except for the dark hair and broad shoulders. Maybe he was just an adviser. Whoever he was, he was much taller than the king, at least a head, with a well-defined jaw, sharp cheekbones, and his eyes…I couldn’t look away. I have never seen eyes that color on a human. They were golden with little stripes of brown and green. He couldn’t be the prince – the prince in the portrait had brown eyes.

Excerpt from The Beastly Prince – Royal Book 1