Alice's eyes got big, and a warm feeling from her heart spread across her body with joy. She gave Jason a big kiss and then leaned back. "Yes! I will be your wife!" kissing him again.

When they look up after a few minutes, the room is bare except for Martha and her help that pretended they were not there. The rest of the staff was ushered out by the Butler.

"Grace, go ahead and put a shrine on the right side of the castle and place it on the area next to the keep."

"Yes, my lord," a voice said. "The Shrine will be complete in a few minutes. I will inform you when a god or godling has contacted you."

"Want to explore the Keep, then come and have breakfast?" Jason asks Alice.

She nods, still in shock.

[Lord Cross, please design your flag and crest.]

Grace spoke into Jason's head as a blank flag slowly appeared in his mind. He creates a green field on the three-foot-long flag, with a yellow cross in an X from each of its corners without thinking about it. The cross is three inches in width. In the middle, twelve inches in diameter, is a five-point star in white, leaving a one-inch green border around the star dividing the cross from itself using the star.

The crest is the same, using a pointed end curve shield with a dragon head facing the right. The front claws hold the shield in front, while the two claws of the feet are sticking out from the side, the right one holding a sword and the left claw holding three arrows. The tail comes out below and entwines into the banner. That has three words love, protect and honor. The center of the shield is the flag.

Seeing Jason zone out, Alice just kept herself pressing to him wait for whatever he was doing. She feels very happy and realizes that she will have to grab control of her jealousy in the future and not let it control her after the last time it happened. She is going to have to tell Jason about who Amy is to her.

Amy Holder was and still is an enemy in her heart. The high school, which was not large, had two worlds: the rich town vs. the farmers. I belong to the farmers. For some reason, Amy Holder targets her. At first calling her ugly, freckle face that no one would want. From taunts to being pushed down, this went on for years until high school, where it got worse when she stole two different boyfriends from her and used them to taunt her. After the second time, she would not date anyone after that. After school, she went to college to get a degree in agriculture. She relented going on a blind double date with her roommate, and Tom Robertson was the shy guy who got pushed into taking her out on the double date. Amy showed up at the party and started her taunting and then started flirting with Tom. Alice remembers the hatred toward Amy and the thought of not losing another man to her. So she got Tom drunk and lost her virginity to him.

The following day they parted without speaking to each other. Several weeks later, she found out she was pregnant with Chet. After notifying Tom about the pregnancy, he proposes and marries her. The last time Tom touched her was on her wedding night, and after that, they never made love again. Shortly after Chet's birth, Tom told her that he was gay and had always been gay. It's just he never came out of the closet. He didn't realize how drunk he would get at the party and blamed himself for getting her pregnant. Alice never told Tom that she gave him more potent alcohol that night to get him in bed. She didn't even think about protection or being on the pill, only to stop Amy from taking another boyfriend. Which she stopped using because she never thought she would meet someone.

She even offers to divorce, but he refuses, saying he wants to be there for his son. Both slept in separate rooms and only be civil to each other for Chet's sake. After he died in a car accident where a drunk hit him head-on, killing both drivers, she had never been with a man since then and had never been attracted to someone until now. Then her damn green monster shows up again.

She pulled up her status to distract herself and saw that her Physique was two points higher and had a countdown. Guessing it had to do with being a mistress.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Jason stirred and looked at her lovingly. "We need to look over the place before heading to town to get your sister." Alice nods and walks into the large ballroom that rises two stories with an arched ceiling with murals of the different wildlife scenes from ranching to rodeo. The second floor has a balcony wrapping around the north to the east that is above her and wraps around to the south. The second-floor west wall has a large stained glass window showing a woman on a horse chasing down a calf with a rope. The stained glass is beautiful. The room itself has three large tables with a table on the west side facing her where the lord and guest stay. There must be enough chairs to seat seventy people. The wall has more artwork of the wild west and rodeo. While above, the three massive chandeliers are lit by magic light that allows you to see in the room. The stone wall entirely encloses the first floor. The only natural light is from the west stain glass window. On the west wall that is dividing the stained glass windows is a large walk-in fireplace with Jason's Crest with the name of the Kingdom above the crest Fort Cheton.

Seeing the name, she turns and looks at Jason with tears streaming down her face. She put her head on his chest and continued to sob for a while. After feeling wrung out, she leans back with puffy red eyes and sniffs a few times.

"You, you name the kingdom after Chet?" she sobs.

"I felt it only right to honor him. Without knowing him, I would not be here or meet you." he nods.

She started crying again. After a bit, she went with Jason and checked out the rest of the Keep.

To their right of the door to the kitchen is two doors leading to the bathroom that looks modern.

Looking puzzled, Alice wiped her nose using tissue in the bathroom. "Grace, the bathroom looks modern, and I saw running water in the kitchen too," Alice said while looking around the bathroom.

"Yes, Lady Alice, there is a large storage tank of water on the roof that has a water stone that keeps it filled with fresh water. There is a separate tank on the roof with a heating stone inside the tank to give you hot water. Your old pipes from your house were cleaned and barely covered piping in the castle. If you upgrade in the future, we will need more piping or more houses so I can use them as resources."

"The second floor has eight bedroallowsFour bedrooms to the north and four to the south. There is a bathroom for men and women with a large bathing pool that can be heated or not with four shower stalls. On the third floor is your bedroom with two guest rooms to the east with a bathroom in each. There is a large six-person tub in your bathroom and a large shower. The master bedroom has a hallway that wraps around it to allow archers to fire out arrow holes. There is access to the roof that allows archers to fire down upon your enemy. We have no siege weapons at the moment." Grace commented about the Keep.

"So the murals and artwork?" Jason ask.

"They are artworks that I did," Grace said proudly.

Both said. "Beautiful." and grin at each other.

"So you build all this from what Alice and I talked about last night?"

"Yes. I try to build it to what you want. I even added lighting, but we ran out of KP to add heating by magic stone to the room. Lord Cross will have to destroy other kingdoms to use or kill your opponent to add KP to the Kingdom. Now that you have a Kingdom, you will get experience and kingdom points for killing your opponent within ten miles. You get extra points for defending your Kingdom."

"How much KP do we have?" Jason looks worried.

"You have a thousand kingdom points that you said you want to keep for emergencies," Grace commented.

One of the maids came up the stairs looking nervous and curtsy. "Lord and Lady Breakfast is served."

"Thank you." Watching the maid keep her head down and not moving. Realizing she won't leave until told to leave or to follow them back to the ballroom.

"You may go now. Thank you for telling us," he said.

"We only serve the lord and lady." She curtsy again and back away before turning and head back down."

"This is still weird to me," shaking his head.

Jason walks over and opens the double carve door that has a ranching scene carved into the doors showing a cover wagon and some cowboys branding calves. Alice follows him into the room. He stops and stares at the massive four-post canopy bed. It is big enough to be two king-size beds side to side. The mattress has a quilt with his kingdom crest piece into the handmade quilt covering the bed. The room is out of a magazine of a castle master bedroom. Jason turns his head, looking at Alice as she covers her mouth, looking at the size of the room. The walls have beautifully crafted wardrobe armories against them. Dressing area with dressing partition painted with a scene of the forest with wildlife.

Stiffing a laugh, Alice said, "At least the room is not in green and yellow." covering her mouth. Looking at the huge bed, she turns to Jason. "At least it can fit elven people." She then started laughing at Jason, frowning.

"Let go eat." He swept her up and carried her out of the room as she gasped in surprise.