Modern Fairy Tale: Twelve Books of Breathtaking Romance

by Kristen Proby

  I can’t help but get a little swept away by the grandeur of it all. The ornate ballroom. The live orchestra. The waltzing. The gowns. The jewels. When I was waiting in the Prince’s residence the other day, I saw a tabloid that mentioned my parents were killed when I was young. The headline said that the orphan was dating the Prince, like we are part of some fairytale.

  I don’t care much about what the papers say—I consider it mindless babble—but that headline struck me.

  I never thought of myself as an orphan. My parents died, and I went to live at Blackwood.

  The other night when Daniel slept in my bed, I confessed that the label bothered me.

  He hugged me. Held me. Kissed the top of my head. And even though I knew I should have kicked his muscular body out of my bed, I couldn’t.

  I know he’s mad at me now. I shouldn’t have allowed myself to lose control like that for even a second. I am on a mission.

  I am on a mission.

  And I have to succeed.

  * * *

  The ball is over, the guests have left, and I’m extremely relieved we managed to get through it without another assassination attempt. The Prince has invited a few of us to stay, the guys planning to smoke cigars on this clear, starry night. The breeze is chilly, so a steward lights a fire in a built-in pit, then takes our drink order.

  We all huddle around the fire for warmth, the boys passing around a lighter to start their cigars.

  Allie asks me to run to the restroom with her. She’s quite tipsy and would probably get lost, so I agree to take her.

  The Prince gives me a sweet kiss, and mutters something about missing me while I’m gone. Daniel watches the Prince’s show of affection with a scowl. Ari and Peter are too busy trying to light their cigars to notice we’re leaving.

  I help Allie into the castle and down the hall. It’s taking a while because she’s drunker than I thought and keeps running into the wall. She giggles and says something about it jumping out in front of her.

  I finally grab her elbow and lead her.

  We’re a few steps from the entrance to the bathroom when she pukes all over her ball gown and the polished marble floor. Then she lays down in it and starts crying.

  I haven’t drunk more than a glass of champagne all night, but the smell makes me sick. I summon a guard, who summons a steward, who summons a janitor.

  I hear cheers from the guys outside, their cigars probably finally lit. I wish I was out there enjoying myself.

  I move Allie into the bathroom, leaning her against the wall near the toilet, where she gets sick again.

  I pat her arm. “I’m going to get Peter so he can take you home. You stay right here.”

  “Peter doesn’t love me like he should. I want you to bring Ari,” she says with a sob.

  Honestly, I doubt she wants either boy to see her like this, but I just nod in agreement.

  I go back down the hall, noticing the sound of my heels clicking on the marble.

  The guys must have quieted down.

  Which is odd.

  I step outside and have to blink to believe what I’m seeing. The boys aren’t smoking cigars.

  They aren’t standing around the fire anymore. No one is.

  My skin prickles.

  I hadn’t heard a thing.

  No guns, no fighting, no shouting.

  Where could they have gone?

  But then I see two bodies twisted on the ground. At the far side of the courtyard, several men are bundling what looks like two more bodies into a van.

  Lorenzo is my first thought. I take off at a sprint as the van pulls away. There’s no way I can catch it.

  I head for the bodies.

  Daniel is one of them.

  He’s lying prone, one arm under his body, the other stretched out beside him. He’s not moving. Not at all. My heart breaks into pieces, thinking he’s dead. Thinking that I’ve failed him. That I’ve failed them all.

  I roll him over, bracing to find blood. There is none. His clothes are intact. His head flops to one side, his eyes closed.

  Tears form in my eyes as my fingers dance frantically across his neck, trying to find a pulse. I give a sigh of relief when I feel the regular thump-thump of his heart beating.

  Then I see something on the side of Daniel’s neck.

  It’s a tranquilizer dart. That’s how they got all four of them so silently and so fast.

  Peter is the other body on the ground. He has a pulse, too. Whatever they’ve been shot with is just a sedative. They weren’t meant to die. But who knows what’s happened to Ari and the Prince.

  I roll Peter and Daniel onto their sides, neither one moving.

  I give my fingers a kiss, press it against Daniel’s forehead, and whisper, I love you.

  I take a deep breath, trying to let go of my emotions and focus on what drives me.

  But I find it to be the same answer. Love. I’ve come to care for both the Prince and Daniel, not to mention Ari.

  This is my mission. My love. My pain. My past. All muddled together, like a song inside my soul.

  I stand quickly and spring to action. I use my phone to call the emergency number, recite my access code, and calmly tell the voice on the other end to alert the Montrovian guard that the Prince has been kidnapped. I hear a wild babbling chatter, but I hang up, knowing they’ll figure it out.

  I look down at my heels. My wrist. Instead of my father’s watch, I’m wearing a diamond and ruby bracelet. Instead of my teched-out heels, I’m wearing the ones the Prince gave me.

  I have no car.

  No gun.

  Only the phone in my hand.

  And me.

  I take off running, hoping it will be enough.

  * * *

  I ditch the heels and chase after the van, but it had a head start. I cut through the rose garden and see tail lights disappearing around the bend. I race past the guards, yelling that the Prince has been kidnapped. I leave them, radioing frantic messages as I push on, heading north, in the direction of the van.

  I leave the grounds by scaling the castle wall, jumping over it, then running as fast as I can down the hill we sat on to watch qualifying. Where all the guards are, I have no idea.

  I race into the town center, passing lines of luxurious storefronts. My lungs are burning, but I don’t slow my pace.

  I have to keep going.

  But the tail lights have gone. The van has gone.

  The Prince has…I take a deep breath. I’m not ready to admit that yet. I can’t fail.

  I have to find them.

  A Jaguar approaches, heading in the opposite direction. The engine rumbles. It slows, the headlights blinding me. The engine growls, tires squeal, and the Jag rotates in the street, swirling around. The headlights are no longer blinding. The car slides to the curb next to me. The driver leans over and flips open the passenger door. I stumble to a halt.

  “Get in,” a British voice says.

  It’s Gallagher! I could kiss him, only I don’t. I sink into the passenger seat just as my lungs are about to give out.

  “Someone just kidnapped the Prince,” I sputter, “and my brother.” I point down the street. “Go!”

  He floors it, causing the engine to crackle and roar. I’m shoved back into the seat as we race down the street.

  “A black van,” I say. “They got onto the castle grounds somehow. I think they shot them all with tranquilizer darts. They left Daniel Spear and Peter Prescott, took Lorenzo and Ari.”

  “A black van?” he says. “That should make things easy. In the dark. At night.”

  I sigh. “Just keep going.”

  He does, weaving the Jag between traffic and junctions, hurtling through lights at the last moments of yellow. He’s hunched forward. Staring. But he’s right. Finding a black van in the dark, isn’t going to be easy.

  “Wait,” I say.

  He slows a fraction, and looks over at me.

  “Ari puts trackers on people.” I wave my phone. “
I have an app.”

  “Why would he need to track people?”

  “Oh, he doesn’t,” I lie. “He’s, um, really smart and trying to create the next great technology.”

  “I see,” Gallagher says, totally unconvinced.

  “And since you asked for my help, I guess, technically, I’m a British spy like you. And I think it’s up to us to save them.”

  “I’ve created a monster,” Gallagher says, rolling his eyes at her, but at the same time pressing down on the accelerator. “Just tell me where to go.”

  “I don’t know for sure, but keep going north, that’s the direction they were headed.”

  I open the app Terrance installed on both my and Ari’s phones, praying Ari actually did put a tracker on Clarice, and hopefully himself or the Prince. There are colored dots sprinkled on a map. The dots don’t have names. Two of the dots are literally on top of each other in the location of the Prince’s cousins’ mansion. Must be Viktor and Ophelia going at it. They did sneak out of the ball early.

  There’s a single dot in a separate part of the house, but that doesn’t make sense. Why would someone kidnap them and take them there?

  I widen the map’s scope and find more dots. One appears to be circling the other.

  “Here,” I shout over the engine’s roar. “This has to be them.”

  I point to a right turn. Gallagher squeals the tires, barely making the corner, then we scream off toward the docks, and hopefully to Ari and the Prince.

  * * *

  The fog lifts from Ari’s mind. Small flashes of consciousness. Lights and sounds. He can’t move. The tightness of ropes is cutting across his arms, chest, and ankles.

  The light is dim. His head sways uncontrollably. He sees benches and machines. He’s in a warehouse, and by the look of it, an unused one.

  The Prince is tied to a chair beside him, his head is slumped forward. Behind him, there is movement. He feels a blow across the back of his head. His balance swims, and he screws his eyes shut.

  “The tranquilizers are wearing off,” a voice says. A female voice.

  Ari forces his eyes back open. There are men in military fatigues patrolling the room, watching from windows.

  A woman has her back to Ari. She checks her watch. “Is the boat ready?”

  It’s the same woman’s voice. A nagging memory swirls in his foggy mind.

  “Ready for departure,” says one of the men.

  The woman stands in front of Ari for a minute. He keeps his head low, avoiding eye contact, trying to get his brain to work. To figure out what happened. But then he remembers the sting in his neck. The realization that he was shot with something. He shakes the grogginess from his head while he tries to assess his situation.

  The woman turns around and swings her arm at Ari, slapping him across the face. He jerks his head up, his eyes wide.

  “You were snooping around my house,” she yells. “What did you see?”

  Ari shakes his head. “I don’t know what you are talking about. Why do you have us tied up?”

  She leans closer to him. “You’re lying. I’m going to ask one more time before I kill you. And if you don’t give me the right answer, I’m going to kill your airhead sister just for fun. What. Did. You. See?”

  The Prince lifts his head. Ari can see him fighting against the drug in his system. The Prince rocks from side to side, trying to figure out why he can’t move, then the realization.

  He sees his cousin yelling at Ari and says, “What’s going on? Why are we tied up? Why are you threatening him?”

  His cousin moves to stand in front of him and gives his face a slap. “You, my cousin, are about to be put on a boat and taken out to sea, never to be seen again. Then I will rule Montrovia.”

  She grabs two handkerchiefs and shoves them in their mouths, so no one will hear them scream when they are fed to the sharks.

  * * *

  Spy Girl is directing Gallagher through the industrial area surrounding the docks.

  “Does anyone ever call you Bill?” she asks.

  “No,” he replies.

  “How about Will?”

  “No.”

  “No nicknames? Nothing anyone calls you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Weird,” she says, but she’s disappointed. She wishes he would have told her the truth about who he is. She looks back down at her phone. “Oh, wait! Turn right, right here! Then a quick left. Okay, now stop.”

  He draws the Jaguar up to a quiet halt and puts the car in park.

  “I’ll walk the rest of the way,” she says.

  “You are not going anywhere. It’s much too dangerous. Stay in the car.”

  She doesn’t have time to persuade or argue. This is her mission, and she has no idea which side he’s really on. When the man known as Intrepid looks around, sizing up the area, she gets ready. When he looks back at her, she throws her arm out, violently driving the heel of her palm to his jaw. His head snaps back, bouncing off the headrest, and he slumps forward. Out.

  “Sorry,” she says quietly as she jumps out of the car and tears down the street, checking the location app and slowing as she gets closer. She stays in the shadows to analyze her surroundings.

  Old warehouse by the water.

  Two men guarding the perimeter. No automatic weapons. Each armed with a pistol.

  The roof is tinged with moonlight. She sees no sign of activity.

  No snipers on the roof.

  Dim light filters from a window. It flickers as figures pass by. Once. Twice.

  Two more men inside.

  At least four to one. Not great odds.

  She takes a deep breath. This is what she trained for.

  And she has the element of surprise.

  Her mother’s voice echoes in her head. Karate. Ten years old. Trying to break through a board.

  You can do it, Lee. Just focus on your hand already being through the board.

  Through the board, she thinks. You’re already through the board.

  She searches the ground for a weapon, finding a discarded piece of metal wire, a broken brick, and a work glove. She hangs onto it while she pans the area for its match, finding it a few yards away. Then she deals with her gown, ripping the beautiful skirt up the front and then around at thigh length.

  She puts on one of the gloves and wraps the wire around it, securing one end of a garrote then slips on the other glove.

  One of the guards circles around to the northwest corner of the building. He cups his hand around a cigarette, struggling to light it in the breeze. He leans in close to the shelter of the building.

  She moves quickly, crossing the space between them in seconds. His back is to her. He raises his head, the finally lit cigarette dangling from his mouth, his lighter still flickering in the wind. She throws the wire over his head, bringing it up close and tight under his chin. Forcing it into his neck, she pulls hard.

  The guard twists and struggles for breath, the wire cutting into his skin. His hands thrash at the wire. He heaves back and forth, but she holds on. The guard is desperate for air, so he drops to his knees, hoping to catch her off guard.

  She’s ready for him. She brings her knee up to his shoulder and presses down, holding him into place until he stops moving.

  She takes the wire from his neck, and the guard crumples into a heap. Dead.

  She finds his gun and steals his holster, slinging it over her shoulder and tucking in the weapon.

  The man made more noise than she would have liked, but hopefully not enough to be heard over the lap of water against the docks. She rounds the next corner, flat against the building to see the other guard pacing.

  She waits for him to come closer then lunges, brick first, her arm swinging hard. She connects with the side of his head and hears a crack. The man goes down, stunned but not dead.

  She drops her knee onto his back, wraps her gloved hand around his face, and finishes him off with a quick twist, breaking his neck then relieving him of
his gun.

  With the perimeter guards taken care of, there’s no point in being subtle now. Once inside the building, it will be all or nothing.

  She finds a door and eases it open. The warehouse is large and stinks of decaying fish. At the far end of the building is an office area with the lights on. She sees Ari and the Prince tied to chairs in the center of the room. The chairs are secured to the ground with bolts. No way for Ari to help her.

  Three guards follow a woman into the office, and two more men are surrounding the captives.

  Five more guards, not two.

  She pushes the barrel of the gun around the doorjamb and peeks out, once again, and fires a single shot to the head, taking down one of the guards.

  Then a second.

  Her odds are getting better.

  Her heart should be racing, but it’s not. She’s calm—in her element. She trained until her skills became second nature. And while the actions are the same, the stakes are different. She’s not playing for a top score or bragging rights, she’s playing for Ari’s life and the Prince’s life, as well as her own.

  She hears someone yell, “Go out there and see what the hell is going on.”

  A guard comes out of the office, sees her, and fires errantly—missing her by a foot. She takes aim, but he runs behind the captives for cover and is preparing to fire again. Knowing she doesn’t have much time, she immediately takes off, runs up Ari’s shoulder, and catapults herself into the guard, knocking him down.

  While he clutches his chest trying to breathe, she fires a round into his head.

  The other two guards come out of the office, and a shot rings out as one shoots his pistol toward the ceiling and says, “Stop where you are.”

  Except the shot doesn’t have his desired effect of scaring her, rather it only causes ceiling tiles to rain down on he and his partner.

  This is her chance.

  She ducks down behind the captives, grips one pistol in each hand, then somersaults out, twisting and firing a gun at each of her two next targets.

  Bang. Bang.

  Two more down.

  She crouches low, quickly scanning the area for further threats.

  Ari and the Prince are in shock. They both know it’s Huntley, but what she’s doing—the way she flew through the air, the way she tumbled across the floor with a gun in each hand and shot two targets—is like watching a different person. A killer. A good one.