by Eve Langlais
“How did you get inside my room?” Because she’d certainly not gotten past the guards. Speaking of whom, they’d not reported in yet.
“I came in through the window.” She waved a hand in its direction. “Which is how the golem got in, too. Are you trying to get killed? You were much too easy to access.”
“Easy? The wall outside is sheer, and there are no windows directly above or below me.” Making it difficult for anyone to rappel.
“That wall is just fine for climbing. What you need is bars.” She eyed the window. “Thick ones.”
“I am not putting bars on my windows.”
“Then you’ll keep waking up to river monsters trying to eat your face in your sleep.”
“Worried about my good looks?” he mocked.
“Are you trying to get me to say you’re a pretty body, if a tad skinny?” Her turn to peruse him, her gaze moving from his face and down his bare torso to the waistband of his loose sleeping bottoms.
Bottoms that better not show anything they shouldn’t.
Vanity was a fragile thing. His was pricked despite knowing she did it on purpose. “Are you offering to cook for me?”
“Depends. Are you any good at bringing home the meat?”
“I hunt all the time. It keeps me in shape.”
Her lips quirked. “I’ll bet it does.”
He crossed his arms. “You said there were two reasons you came to my room. The first being to meet me. What’s the second?”
“The second involves protecting your daughter.”
“Which would work better if you were by her side.”
Rather than reply, she rolled something out of the muck.
“What is that?” he asked.
“An annoying dampener.” She stomped it. The pressure smothering him evaporated, and his senses suddenly expanded. She glanced at him. “That’s better. Now let me ask you, where is your daughter?”
The query froze his blood. Because when he cast out, reaching overhead, he couldn’t find her, and yet… “Why does it feel like she’s nearby?” he muttered.
“Because she’s been here hiding the entire time.” Casey moved around him and headed for the wardrobe leaning against the wall. She opened the panel and stepped aside. The gentle glow of the lamps nearby meant he saw the curled-up shape of his daughter.
“How did she get there?” He frowned and glanced at the ceiling. Cast out his senses and located the panicking guards who’d just realized the princess was missing. Two remained behind to toss the room; the other pair came running to tell him. Tell him what? That they never even knew she was gone?
“The little princess is smart. When the other golem came through the window, she went right for the ventilation shaft.”
“What other golem?” he almost bellowed.
The door to his room slammed open, and the guards, faces flushed, blurted, “Your Highness.”
He never let them finish. “I have the princess. Get out and fetch Titan. Now!”
They did an about-face and ran.
“Don’t yell at them. Not their fault you and the kid sleep in rooms with no bars. Might as well hang out a sign. Come and get your tasty bait.” Casey shook her head.
The scowl on his face was because she was right. He’d been foolish. He’d have bars installed on all the windows before the day was done. He moved to gaze at his daughter, looking for signs of injury. She slept too hard to be natural. “She was drugged.”
“She was. You got the monster with the mental dampener and she got the one with the sleepy time spell. At least she got away and made it to safety before falling asleep.”
“And the golem?” he asked.
She snorted. “Are you really going to ask?”
“How did she get there?”
Casey pointed to a spot on the wall near the floor where a grill sat half open. “Through that.”
“A ventilation shaft?” The very idea she’d wedged herself in the walls almost stopped his heart.
“Smart little princess. She hightailed it in there, and it was too small for the golem to follow. Me, too.” She grimaced down at her body.
It drew his eye to her trim figure in her slim-fitting ensemble. He once more glanced at his daughter nestled in the wardrobe. “How did you know she’d come to my room? She could have gone anywhere in the castle.”
“I asked myself, where would the princess go to feel safe? Which means you got lucky.”
“Why lucky?”
“Because if her daddy isn’t the first person she seeks when in trouble, then maybe that man shouldn’t be king.”
A threat. From a woman who barely reached his chin.
A woman he’d let believe, for the moment, that she dealt with someone benign. She’d soon learn. Except when he poked at her mind, he got nothing. His daughter he could feel. The guards in the hall, too, if he stretched, but not the woman right in front of him.
How was she blunting his power? He focused, ready to blast her with it—
“Meow.”
Sachi rose from the clothes by Charlotte and stretched. He’d never even noticed her tiny body in there. She leapt from the cabinet and wound herself around Casey’s legs. She even purred, which calmed him.
Casey looked down. “There’s a cat in your room.”
When she raised the knife with intent, he yelled, “Don’t you dare kill her.”
That brought a smirk. “Wasn’t planning to.”
He frowned. “Was this another test?”
“Maybe.”
“And how many more are you going to make me pass?”
She shrugged. “As many as it takes.”
“I don’t need your approval.”
“Actually, you kind of do.”
“Or what? What will you do if you don’t like me?”
“Finish what the golem started.” She sounded brash. Tough. But he had to wonder. Was it all bluff?
Since he couldn’t peek inside her mind to find out, he asked, “If you’re such an expert assassin and judge of character, then how is it the Emerald queen lived so long? By all accounts, she was a true despot. Yet, you, a citizen of Emerald, never killed her.”
Casey’s lips truly stretched as she smiled. “Because, unlike you, she didn’t leave herself so open. She lived in a domed city guarded by Centurions. She rarely left, and when she did, it was under guise.”
“I don’t intend to live like a prisoner in my own home.”
“Then you shouldn’t have become king. Kings will always have enemies.”
“Are you my enemy?”
“I haven’t decided yet.” The arrogance was stunning.
Sexy, too. Unlike many around him, she didn’t fawn or even seem impressed.
The door slammed open, and Titan rushed in, frazzled, wild eyed, and flushed.
“Roark, I heard about Char—” Titan paused as he took them in, standing close enough to show they conversed. “Casey? How did you get in here? What’s going on?”
“Just meeting my new boss,” Casey advised. “And doing what I was asked to do. Guarding the princess.” She jerked a thumb at the wardrobe.
Titan’s eyes widened if possible. “How did the princess get in there?”
“Escaping a mud golem.” Casey didn’t mince words. “There were two actually. I saved your king.”
“Golems.” Titan sighed and scrubbed his face. “Fuck me, why did I ever accept the job as captain?”
“I assumed it was because of the food. You never told me there’d be monsters,” Casey noted.
“Because I wasn’t aware we’d be dealing with any.” Titan glared at Roark. “How is this even possible?”
“Could be the work of a swamp mage.”
“You really think someone sent them here?” Casey mused aloud, only to answer her own question. “Has to be a targeted mission, because why else only attack those two rooms, not even the easiest to access?”
“Will you finally let me shutter the windows?” Titan pled.
<
br /> “Bars, actually. And while that shaft makes an excellent escape for Charlotte, it occurs to me that a small miscreant could easily use them, too. I’m going to need alarms inside them.”
“While you’re making lists of improvements, how about doing something about that river?” She jerked a thumb at the window. “Surely you can drop a barrier at the mouth going through the city and then have someone watching to see if anything tries to swim over it.”
“We’ve tried to block it, even if only at night,” Roark replied. “There is river beast that takes offense when it comes across it and mangles it each time.”
“So kill it.”
“I am not killing a leviathan that hasn’t harmed anyone.”
Casey blinked at him. “That was an unexpected answer.”
He smiled. “But still the right one for your test.” He winked.
Titan exclaimed, “What test?”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s between me and Casey. Why don’t you get started on those modifications?”
“I’ll modify you,” Titan muttered.
“Did you say something?” Roark asked softly.
“I said right away, your bossy highness.” Titan stomped off, and for a moment, there was silence between him and Casey. Real silence without any of the mental interference he was used to. He took a moment to enjoy the quiet.
Sachi ruined it with a demanding meow. He scooped low enough to pick her up.
“She’s your pet?” Casey asked.
“I would say Sachi is mine, but she’s too independent for that.”
“Haven has a cat, too. Fluffy.” Casey wrinkled her nose. “Scruffy thing but Kylie loves her.”
“Kylie is one of the children, yes?” Titan had mentioned there were seven children in Haven under the age of ten. Including a baby.
“Yes. And before you ask, we make them the old-fashioned way. None of our kids come from a tank.”
His lips ghosted into a smile. “You’ll find the same in the Marshlands. Actually, I believe it is only Emerald and a few domes in Ruby that still fully resort to the Incubaii method of procreation. Every other place I know of has returned to doing so via a woman’s womb.”
“How would you know what other places do?” she asked.
“Because a king should always be aware of what his neighbors are doing.”
“Paranoid?”
“Realist. As you noted before, I have enemies.”
“Such as?”
“You expect me to name them?” He almost laughed. It would take a few pages to list them all.
“How about the most likely ones?”
“Most likely now that the Emerald queen is dead?” He arched a brow. “The Sapphire king and his royal court.”
“They’re the ones who attacked the outpost town Haven settled in.”
“Yes. Or so the perpetrators we caught would have us think.”
“You think they’re lying?”
“They might have. They died before we could question them deeply. I can’t help but think there is a very convenient trail being laid. The Sapphire king isn’t that stupid.”
“Have you ever met him?”
“Not in person. None of the Enclave will meet with me openly. The few who do are usually looking to jump courts.”
“Do you let them?”
“Depends on what I see inside their heads.”
“When you say it like that, you make it sound as if you peek literally.”
He turned his gaze on her and smiled as he said, “Because I do.”
Chapter 4
The king didn’t explain what he meant, and Casey didn’t ask, but she connected his words to rumors she’d heard since moving into the outpost. People passing through often stopped to eat and rest. It didn’t take more than a few bites of Benny’s cooking for them to start spilling what they knew of Eden.
The city of freedom with no Enclave overloads because of one man. Hammering out an existence and providing a safe place for people didn’t mean he didn’t possess tyrant tendencies, however. The stories told by the travelers also spoke of his power.
Magic. Because the king, like many others, could do incredible things. Things that could not be taught unless they possessed that particular gift.
She already knew he could call light and fire, the two one and the same really. She’d felt his pushing presence on her mental shields, probing for a way in.
What would he do if he got inside her head? Probably back away slowly when he realized what she was capable of.
Casey watched as Roark scooped up the child in the cupboard. The little girl snuggled in his arms, and rather than leave the room and take her upstairs, he placed her in his bed. He tucked the blanket around her shoulders and under her chin, keeping her warm. His big hand, more calloused than she’d expect, brushed the girl’s hair softly from her face.
It was sweet and loving. Something she’d never had as a child.
Roark kissed his daughter’s cheek before rising and joining Casey. “Watch her closely, Casey of Haven, because if Charlotte gets hurt in your care…”
“Would you like to add an evil cackle to that threat?” She arched a brow. “I’m going to protect the little princess, which means anyone who hurts her, and I mean anyone”—her turn to fix him with a glare—“won’t live to brag about it.”
He smiled. “Is that a threat?”
“A promise, you idiot.” Didn’t he realize how easily she could gut him and split him wide open?
“If I ever hurt her, I would deserve the knife. Although, could you at least go for the throat? I’d rather not watch my intestines spill.”
Her eyes widened. He did not—He couldn’t have— “Stay out of my head.”
“Don’t give me a reason to go rummaging, then.” He moved away from her, giving her his vulnerable back.
A man who obviously saw her as no threat; however, she’d gotten past the point in her existence where she felt a need to prove herself. Let him underestimate her. It might come in handy later.
She found herself moving in the same direction and noticed he’d entered a closet. It seemed the height of luxury with its row of shirts and other clothing. She had one other outfit, also black and easy to carry.
Roark emerged wearing a billowing dark blue shirt. A shame. His upper body had a toned set of muscles that pleased the eye.
“Aren’t you going back to bed?” she asked.
“I’m not going to be able to sleep, and I’ve work to do. Keep my daughter safe.” With that last admonishment, he left.
Given she knew how to rest and guard at the same time, Casey chose a plush chair in sight of the bed and dozed. She woke numerous times, hearing the change of guards outside the door, the early yells of fishermen going out with the dawn light, and the stirring of a vibrant city as it woke. And such a city. She’d never imagined anything like it. The vastness, the adventure. She wanted to explore, but she had a job, and if the day dawned, then it was time Casey woke with it. Stretching her arms, she opened her eyes. Someone stared back!
While not usually easily startled, Casey did yell and, in a smooth leap, found herself perched on the back of the chair. She gaped at the little girl in her nightgown standing wraith-still in front of it.
Rather than ask how the child managed to sneak up on someone who usually was the one causing bladder-control issues, Casey cocked her head and said, “Hi.”
The child continued to stare
It was kind of eerie, especially since she was used to Kylie who chattered nonstop.
“My name is Casey. I’m your new—” She didn’t say bodyguard because it belatedly occurred it might frighten the child. “Um, companion.” Was that even a thing? Inside Haven, their more senior members were known as the guardians when parents couldn’t be around. But she wasn’t the coddling kind.
Uncanny eyes perused her. Dark, and not like her father’s.
Was she mute? Casey knew nothing really about the girl, just that the king’
s daughter needed protecting and her name was Charlotte.
“Do you remember what happened last night?”
“You were there.” The girl finally spoke, the words soft.
“I was,” Casey said, a little bit surprised. She’d not thought the child had seen her before fleeing via the vent. She decided the girl deserved the truth. “I’ve been tasked with protecting you.”
Incredibly long lashes blinked, the darkness of them and her brows contrasting with the paleness of her hair. “You killed the monster last night.”
It felt like an interrogation, and strange coming from a child, but then again, she’d been a strange girl from a young age. Circumstance could do that. “I did.”
“I ran.” The admission came with a drop of the gaze, as if ashamed.
“That was smart.”
“I was scared. Not smart,” Charlotte hotly retorted.
“If you were really scared, you would have stayed in that bed and let the demon get you. But you were brave enough to move. Thinking well enough to go where it couldn’t follow.”
Charlotte’s gaze gained a bit of shine. “I didn’t want to get hurt.”
“Which is its own form of bravery. You protected yourself. Nothing wrong with that.”
“You weren’t scared at all.”
“Oh, I was a little scared, but I’ve fought monsters before. The trick is to not let them win.”
“But they’re monsters.”
“And?” Casey smirked. “Always go into a fight assuming you’re going to win.”
Pearly white teeth glimmered—along with a few gaps from missing ones—as the girl giggled. “You sound like my papa.”
The comparison brought a wry twist to her lips. “Doubtful. I am far from royalty. Which is why I’ve been asked to be your shadow for the next little while.”
“Because I’m in danger.” The girl knew the reason why.
“Yes.” Casey had hated it when people lied to her as a child. She wouldn’t do it to the princess. “Your father is concerned for your safety.”
Charlotte cocked her head. “But if you’re with me, who will protect him?”
“Your father can hire someone if he needs to.”
“Papa doesn’t need help. He can fight. I’ve seen him dance with a sword and make it burn with fire.” The girl obviously suffered from hero worship. Casey doubted a king had much time to practice his blade and footwork.