by Katee Robert
“You made it.” He neatly stepped between her and Theo and scooped her into his arms.
“Hey! I can walk.”
“You’re about to fall over, and Theo is weaving on his feet. Don’t make my job harder than it has to be.” He slowed and lowered his voice. “I’m glad you’re okay, baby. We’re going to make sure you stay okay.”
A wave of dizziness left her lightheaded as he picked up his pace. “Galen—”
“Hush.” He stalked to the building they’d parked in front of, a cheery little house with white walls, flowers growing from every available surface, and a charming brick walkway leading up to the bright red front door. Galen shifted her closer and spoke in her ear. “Keep your mouth shut in here, no matter what she says. She’s the best doctor around, but her help comes with thorns. Got it?”
She started to tell him exactly where he could stick his advice, but Meg forced herself to stop and think instead of jumping straight into conclusions. Galen could be a dick, but he wouldn’t give her instructions like that unless they were walking into a dangerous situation. They’d just been run off the road—or whatever happened that resulted in their car in that ravine. She wasn’t playing in the shallow end anymore. She wasn’t even in the deep end. She was in the fucking ocean.
Meg finally nodded. “Okay.”
“We’ll get you through this. Trust me.” He half turned to look at Theo. “Ready?”
“Not in the least. Let’s go.” Theo took the lead, shouldering open the door and holding it so Galen could walk through with her after him.
Meg wasn’t sure what she expected, but the adorable factor from the outside spilled over into the interior. They stood in a small living room with cozily worn furniture that spoke of a lot of time spent there. On the other side of the room, a tiny kitchen with perfect white cabinets and not a dish out of place overlooked an equally small backyard that appeared to have some sort of garden. It was perfect, the kind of house Meg would have built for herself if she was interested in living in a small town again, but she wasn’t.
Theo crossed his arms over his chest, every breath conveying barely concealed aggression. “We’re here, Alexis. Let’s get this over with.”
Footsteps above them and then the narrow stairs to their right creaked. Galen tensed as if expecting an attack. None of this made any sense. If this person was so dangerous, why had they brought her here? They were acting like they’d stepped into hostile territory, instead of somewhere they were safe enough to recover from the crash.
What’s going on?
The woman who walked down the stairs a few seconds later was as out of place in the cute little house as a shark in a kiddie pool. Meg automatically sized her up. Understated designer clothes—jeans and a blouse. Blond hair that likely cost several hundred dollars an appointment to maintain, if not more. Bright red lipstick and low-key day makeup. This woman had money up to her ears, and she’d probably been born into it because she didn’t feel the need to show it off. She moved with a confidence that blatantly ignored how both Galen and Theo tensed at the sight of her. Meg placed her age somewhere around forty-five, though she could very well be over fifty with the kind of money she sank into her appearance.
None of that explained the men’s reactions.
The woman, Alexis, walked up to Theo and pressed an air kiss against each of his cheeks, once again ignoring the fact that he didn’t return the gesture. “It’s been too long, Theodore.” She had a faint German accent that gave her words a pretty lilt.
“With respect, we’re not here to catch up. You said you’d help.”
“Of course.” She turned bright blue eyes on Meg and smiled, though there were glaciers warmer than her expression. “Darling girl you’ve got here.”
Galen tightened his grip on Meg as if he wanted to yank her away, but he held still as Alexis prodded the bandage on Meg’s arm. She frowned. “This isn’t a half bad patch job. I’d say I was proud if the sentiment wouldn’t curdle your stomach.”
“Alexis,” Theo warned.
“This way.” She headed through the living room and down a short hallway to what was probably a spare bedroom or office at one point. It contained a bed, but that’s where the familiarity ended. The bed was more hospital cot than a place for sleeping, and there was what appeared to be a full medical set up. Meg avoided hospitals like the plague unless she had the plague. Doctors were expensive and being a bartender didn’t come with benefits. She used the clinic at NYU if pressed, but she had to be knocking on death’s door to even consider it.
Galen set her down on the bed and gave her hand a squeeze. Then he moved to stand just inside the door. Theo took the chair on the other side of the cot, apparently so he could glare daggers at the woman helping them. There was a history there, but hell if Meg could make sense of it.
Alexis took her blood pressure, pulse, and temperature, and then checked her eyes. “She shouldn’t need a transfusion.” She put on gloves and unwound the bandage, her touch cold and careful despite the light mocking in her eyes. “Theo is something of a drama queen, but I’m sure you know that.” She tossed the bandages into a nearby trash can and probed the wound. “I’m going to wash this out to make sure we’re not closing it up with glass still in there. It’ll be a bitch, but you’ll thank me for it later.”
Meg nodded and braced herself. A large hand closed around her uninjured one and she glanced over to see Theo holding her. He gave a half smile. “It’ll be okay.”
“Of course it’ll be okay. I’m the best doctor in the southern half of this country.” She snapped her fingers at Galen without looking over. “I need saline. Top drawer.”
He looked like he wanted to snarl some choice words, but he retrieved the bottle of saline and handed it to her. Alexis pulled out a pair of large tweezers and raised a dark eyebrow. “Will you hold still or do you need assistance?”
Do I need someone to hold me down?
Meg cleared her throat. “I’m fine.”
“Have it your way.” She doused Meg’s arm with saline, clearing away the dried blood, and then did it again. “Try not to scream in my ear.” And then she probed deeper into the wound.
Meg had to look away. Pain made the room around her hazy and too bright, and her stomach tried to rebel. She clamped her teeth together to contain the wounded animal sounds her tongue wanted to make. Instead, she held tightly to Theo’s hand, as if gripping him until his bones ground together would actually lessen her pain.
On and on it went as Alexis pulled three separate slivers of glass from the wound. Several more minutes and she pronounced herself satisfied. “It’s not wide enough to require stitches if you aren’t an idiot.” She dumped the bloody gloves into the trash, grabbed a new pair, and clean bandages. Through the whole process, her expression hadn’t changed. She could have been sitting down to tea or a book club or a conversation she was only mildly interested in.
She stared hard at Meg. “Though you’re obviously dating these two fools, so that makes you an idiot if I’ve ever seen one. Maybe stitches would be a better choice. .”
The pieces clicked into place. She looked at Alexis’s blue eyes and then over to Theo’s. “She’s your aunt.”
Theo’s expression went dark. “She’s a fucking traitor.”
“If I was a traitor, boy, I would have called that uncle of yours instead of playing doctor with your girlfriend.” She put a trio of butterfly bandages over the cut and then a pad of gauze over that. “How is Phillip these days?”
“As treacherous as always.”
“I assumed as much.” A roll of bright pink bandages went over the gauze, row after row of it until it was completely covered. Alexis sat back. “This needs to stay on at least a week. The bandage is waterproof, so you can shower as soon as you can stand without toppling over. No baths for a week or so. If the pain gets worse instead of better or you start showing signs of infection, either come back or get to a hospital. After a week, change the bandages but don’t mess w
ith the butterfly bandages until it’s healed shut.”
“Okay.”
She looked over Meg at Theo. “He’s not going to stop.”
“I’m aware.”
“I told my sister not to run off with that dickhead from America, and look where that ended up. Then she pairs up with another dickhead from Thalania.” Alexis laughed bitterly and pointed at Meg. “Be smarter than Mary was, girl. Nothing good comes from the Thalanian royal line. It’s all heartbreak and backstabbing and bullshit. Get out while you still can.”
Meg swallowed hard. “I’ll take it under consideration.”
“You won’t, just like she didn’t.” Alexis pushed to her feet. “You two might as well get cleaned up and go take care of whatever you need to before you leave the country.”
Theo didn’t move. “What makes you think we have things to take care of before we leave the country?”
Alexis gave a mirthless smile. “Because my dear son told me what you’ve had him looking into.” She shook her head. “You should have just asked me. I have copies of all the family records.”
“If I’d asked, you would have said no.”
She shrugged a single shoulder. “Perhaps. I suppose we’ll never know.” Alexis turned and walked out of the room.
Galen pushed away from his spot on the wall. “I’ll be back in an hour. If you can convince her to give you a copy, great. If not, you will damn well wait for me to get back before you go after those records. They know what you want. They’ll be waiting for you.”
A muscle in Theo’s jaw jumped, but he nodded. “Be safe.”
“I’ll do my best.” And then he was gone, leaving them alone.
Theo leaned forward and studied her face. “You need rest.”
The only thing Meg wanted in that moment was to curl up and sleep, but it wasn’t a luxury they had. She started to rub her eyes and realized she was covered in blood. “We both need a shower. We look like victims in—”
“An attack designed to look like a car accident?”
She sighed. “I was going to say that we look like victims in a teen slasher movie, but thank you for taking the wind out of my sails.”
“I’m sorry, princess.” His serious tone said he was apologizing for a whole lot more than cutting her off.
“You couldn’t have known.” She should be pissed. She might be later on, when she wasn’t so bone-crushingly exhausted. Maybe. Meg didn’t know anymore. She really had stepped through a mirror into another world and while the rules and players didn’t make sense, there was one thing she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Theo and Galen would never intentionally put her in harm’s way.
A week ago, their unintentionally doing exactly that would have had her screaming the roof down. But that was before seeing Theo’s despair and his body hanging limp and unconscious in his seatbelt. Before Galen stepped between them and danger again and again without thought to his own safety. Both men carried their own demons.
She wouldn’t add to them. Not when the circumstances were beyond their control.
She squeezed Theo’s hand. “Why don’t you get one of those showers and then you can help me with mine?”
He gave another of those tired half smiles that still managed to warm his eyes a little. “I think my aunt might kill us if I take you in the shower in her house.”
“Get your mind out of the gutter.” She said it with a smile of her own, though. “Go, Theo. We should be ready for Galen when he gets back.”
That got him moving. He nodded and disappeared through the doorway. A couple minutes later, the sound of water running upstairs reached her. Meg tried to relax and counted slowly in her head. Before she made it to sixty, Alexis walked into the room.
Now that she knew the woman was Theo’s aunt, she could see the resemblance. It was there in the proud line of her nose, the way she carried herself, and of course her blue eyes. She sat in the chair he’d vacated and folded her hands in her lap. “What my nephew is doing is foolhardy at best, and suicidal at worst.”
So we’re going to play it like that.
Meg made a noncommittal noise. As suspected, that didn’t slow Alexis down any. “My sister was the same way—impulsive and too inclined to see the glamorous big picture instead of the nitty-gritty details required to create her vision. She died because of that.”
“I was under the impression that the late Queen of Thalania died because of an illness.”
Alexis shook her head slowly, her eyes hard. “Oh, honey, you’re playing in the big leagues now and you have no idea what’s at stake. She died because someone took exception that their queen was a foreign commoner, rich or no, and poisoned her. Just like someone very likely poisoned Teddy last year.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice, every line of her barely concealed fury. “That place might look like a paradise, but it’s a viper’s nest. No sex is good enough to put yourself at those people’s mercy.”
Meg searched her face. She’d known Alexis would come back to make her pitch, but for the life of her she couldn’t figure out if the older woman was sincere or if she was playing at a deeper game. “I appreciate the help you gave me today.”
Alexis sighed and sat back. “But you’re going to make your own way regardless of the advice of people who know better. I see.”
“Do you really blame an entire country for your sister’s death?”
“I place blame where blame is deserved. My sister was a good girl with terrible taste in men. Her first husband nearly beat her to death, and she ran straight into the arms of Theodore Fitzcharles II. For all that she thought he was a literal prince charming, he was the one who ended up killing her. It doesn’t matter whether his hand wielded the poison, because he was responsible.” Alexis rose. “Some things are unforgivable. Theo should have taken his exile as the gift it was and started over. He’ll regret his choice before the end of this. You all will.” She walked out of the room.
It was only then that Meg realized the shower overhead had turned off. She tried to situate herself more firmly against the headboard, thinking hard. She didn’t have siblings, and though part of her had always wanted them, her rational brain was all too happy to provide a bullet list of reasons why she was lucky her mother had chosen not to have more children.
But if she did…
Meg shook her head. Her family wasn’t like Theo’s or like his mother’s. They weren’t close. There was no magical bond holding them all together no matter what life threw their way. Her aunt and uncle and their respective children lived the next town over, and she’d only seen them roughly once a year at a very uncomfortable Christmas dinner. They were simply people who happened to share blood by virtue of birth.
That said, she knew all about carrying around a chip in her shoulder a mile wide. Hers was a different flavor than Alexis’s, but ultimately that made no difference. She understood the other woman, at least in part.
Theo strode back into the room. He wore a pair of sweatpants and a white T-shirt and his hair was wet and slicked back. The man always looked good enough to eat. It was downright criminal. “My aunt was dripping her poison in your ear, I see.”
“I get why she is the way she is.” She obviously cared very deeply about her sister and grief and guilt had turned into hate. In her position, Meg couldn’t say that she’d have reacted any differently. “What I don’t get is the relationship or lack thereof.” She motioned between Theo and the rest of the house.
“Come on.” He helped her stand and kept his arm around her as he guided her up to the bathroom upstairs. Only once he’d closed the door behind them and flipped on the water did he speak. “Let me help you.” He touched her dress and grimaced. The blood had long since plastered it to her skin and dried. “I’ll buy you a new one.” He ripped it down the center and helped her slide the sticky fabric off her body.
Meg very pointedly didn’t look in the oval mirror over the sink. She stepped into the glass shower and bit back a cry as the hot water hi
t her skin. Safe. We’re temporarily safe… Probably. She wrapped her arms around herself and ducked under the spray, letting it work the blood from her hair and body. It swirled around the drain in red and then pink, and finally clear. Only then did Meg shampoo her hair and wash her body as best she could with one arm.
Through it all, Theo stood just outside the door, ready to jump in if she needed him.
“If you don’t want to tell me, it’s okay,” she said softly.
He sighed. “As much as my aunt blames my father for my mother’s death, she blames me, too.”
“Why?” Mary Fitzcharles had died something like twenty years ago. Theo couldn’t have been more than ten when it happened—far too young to be held responsible.
“Alexis holds to the belief that my mother used my father to get out of her abusive relationship, but she never had any intention of staying, until they realized she was pregnant with me. Which is when my father married her, apparently despite the fact she was still married to her first husband.”
To blame an innocent kid for something like that… “That’s bullshit.”
“Maybe.” His phone beeped and he paused. “Galen’s got our stuff and is on the way back. It’s time to go.”
13
Pressure built in Theo, a great crushing monster he couldn’t deny. Seeing Galen walk through the door, whole and hale, helped. A lot. But every time he looked at Meg, too pale and determined to power through the weakness caused by her injury, he wanted to break something.
This was his fault.
Galen hustled Meg out to the car—a different one than what he’d left with—and Theo went to find Alexis. His aunt stood in the backyard, smoking a cigarette, her eyes on the clouds overhead. “You’re determined to see this through.”
“I don’t have another option. I never did, despite what you want to believe.” Once Phillip got a taste of power, he’d never stop. He might be content to play the puppeteer behind the throne now, but eventually that wouldn’t be enough. Theo’s brother and sister were vulnerable now that their father was gone. He was raised as the heir, with no veil over his eyes when it came to how things worked. They were sheltered and kept coddled. When Edward hit eighteen, that would have changed, but their father died before he could ease them into the realities of being part of Thalania’s ruling family.