by Day Leclaire
“Verdonia has a rather unusual system for replacing their monarchs. It calls for the people to vote in an election, choosing from the eligible royals from each principality.”
“And there are three eligible royals?”
“Were three,” he corrected. “With your brother’s abdication we’re down to two. There’s Prince Lander, duke of Verdon—”
“That’s…that’s the southernmost principality, right? The one that governs the finances?”
“Correct. And the other contender for the throne is von Folke. If you were over twenty-five at the time of the election, you’d be eligible to rule, as well.”
“Wait a minute. Are you saying that if my twenty-fifth birthday had fallen a few minutes sooner, I’d be a contender for the throne? Me?” If she were feigning shock, it was a stellar performance. “No. No, thank you. I have no interest in ruling Verdonia.”
He shot her a sharp look. “Interesting that you’re so quick to refuse when marrying von Folke will accomplish precisely that.”
She stared at him, narrow-eyed, for a long, silent moment. “How?”
He stabbed the knife into the paper heart of Celestia, driving the point deep into the butcher-block table. “The popular vote, remember?”
He only had to wait an instant for comprehension to dawn. Her brows drew together. “If I really am a princess and duchess of Celestia and I marry Prince Brandt…” Her breath caught. “He’d win the popular vote of the entire country, wouldn’t he?”
“Yes. To be honest, it’s a brilliant plan. The principality of Avernos—von Folke’s people—would vote in his favor. And with Celestia’s princess married to von Folke—that’s you—honor and loyalty would force the citizens of Celestia to vote for him, as well. Verdon would fall to Lander, but it wouldn’t matter because von Folke would walk away with a two-thirds win.”
“Which you want to prevent from happening.” It wasn’t a question, but closer to an accusation. “Why?”
He studied her grimly. “I’ll do whatever it takes to ensure a fair election. I’m honor bound to protect all of Verdonia, not just any one principality.”
“Isn’t who becomes king up to the people of your country to decide?” she argued.
He leaned in, crowding her. “Von Folke is the one who chose to tip the balance. He upset the natural order of things—with your help. I’m merely righting that wrong.”
Apprehension flashed across her face before she managed to regain control. “By getting rid of me?”
He offered a humorless smile. “In a manner of speaking. The election is in a little more than four months. Once it’s over, you’ll be free to marry whomever you wish.”
It took her several seconds to process his words. The instant she had, her breath escaped in a horrified hiss and she shook her head. “You can’t be serious. Four months? No! I won’t let you keep me here that long.”
“And just how are you planning to stop me?”
“Like this!”
He had to admit, she surprised him, something that hadn’t happened since he’d first begun his training as a callow youth. She fisted her hands around the filet knife embedded in the table and yanked it free, thrusting the razor-sharp tip toward his throat. She paused just shy of cutting him.
“My mother doesn’t have four months. You’re taking me back to Prince Brandt right now.”
Even with a knife at his throat, he couldn’t help marveling. God, she was beautiful. Vibrant. Infuriated. Infuriating. He deliberately leaned closer until the razor-sharp point pricked the base of his throat. “Listen up, Princess. Nothing you say or do will convince me to return you to him. There’s only one place I’m willing to take you.”
She glared at him for a split second before her gaze shifted downward to where the knife had nicked him. She shuddered at the sight of the blood she’d drawn. “And where is that?”
“My bed, of course.” In one easy move he knocked her hand aside, sending the knife clattering against the wall and then to the floor. Before she could do more than utter a soft cry of protest, he swept her into his arms and lifted her high against his chest. “Consider it your home for the next four months.”
Three
Merrick wasn’t the least bit surprised that Alyssa fought him, though this time she struggled even more fiercely than when he’d initially abducted her.
“Stop it, Alyssa. You’ll only hurt yourself waging a battle you can’t win.”
“I don’t care. I’ll fight you until my last breath.” She clipped him with her fist. “I won’t let you do this.”
“I’m afraid you can’t stop me.”
He carried her from the kitchen to the steps leading to the bedroom and took them with swift efficiency, despite his struggling armful. Depositing Alyssa on her feet at the top of the stairs, he reached around her and thrust open the door on one side of the landing. Instantly she tried to skitter away. He gathered her back up and held her wriggling body tight against his. Damn, but he needed to put some distance between them. She’d become far too great a distraction, something he didn’t need when tomorrow promised to be even more challenging than today.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Princess,” he warned. “But you will do as I say when I say it, or you’ll spend the next four months tied to a bedpost.”
“You can’t honestly believe that I won’t fight, that I’ll just let you—” She clamped her mouth shut, unable to utter the hideous words.
“You’ll sleep in my bed for however long we’re together.” He captured her chin and tipped it upward, forcing her to look at him. “Allow me to emphasize the word sleep.”
She stared at him, her eyes wide and dilated. “Not…not—”
“No. Not,” he repeated calmly. “Just sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day. I’d like to close my eyes for a few hours between now and then and I need to make certain you won’t try anything foolish. Like escape.”
“Why did you make me think—” Her voice broke and she waved her hand in an impatient gesture. “You know.”
“Because you had a knife at my throat and I was angry.” Even though the confession came hard, he didn’t shy away from taking full responsibility. He let that sink in before adding, “But I wasn’t lying, Alyssa. You will be sharing my bed for the next four months, though what happens in that bed is up to you.”
She reared back as if he’d struck her. “Nothing will happen there!”
He didn’t bother arguing. Time would prove her right or wrong more readily than anything he could say. Turning her to face the open doorway, he gave her a gentle shove toward it. Under other circumstances her expression of surprise and confusion when she found herself standing outside a bathroom would have been amusing.
“Get cleaned up. Shower if you wish. You can also help yourself to any of the toiletries you find. There’s a robe hanging on the back of the door. Put it on before you leave the bathroom.”
She bristled. “And if I don’t?”
He deliberately chose to misunderstand. “Come to bed naked. I won’t object.”
“I meant, what if I don’t come out at all?” Her fighting spirit had clearly been revitalized. “I’ll…I’ll sleep in the bathtub.”
“You can try, but since the door has no lock you won’t be very successful.” He checked his watch. “You have thirty minutes. Use it wisely. When your time is up, I’m coming in after you.”
“You wouldn’t!” The response was an automatic one. Even she realized as much, because she shook her head. “Of course you would. But then, raiding the bathroom while I’m in the shower would be the least of the offenses you’ve committed against me, wouldn’t it?”
He simply looked at her. Men rarely opposed him; women never did. And those few men who dared balk at his orders only did so once. But then, they knew who he was. Alyssa’s unwavering defiance impressed the hell out of him. Even as she acquiesced to his demand, her expression and posture warned that she did so under protest.
When he
remained mute, frustration vied with her anger. “You’re a total bastard, you know that, Merrick?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.”
Actually, the term was mild. As commander of the Royal Security Force, his life was comprised of making impossible decisions that had dire effects on the people with whom he came into contact. Worse, he had to live with the ramifications of his decisions. He didn’t doubt for a minute that the actions he’d taken today, and would continue to take over the next four months, would produce the most painful results to date.
With a look of utter contempt, Alyssa turned her back on him and slammed the door in his face. He took it without flinching.
Score one for the princess.
She emerged from the bathroom thirty minutes later, timing it to the very last second, and he straightened from where he’d been lounging against the hallway wall. Despite her earlier threat, she wore the bathrobe he’d left for her and had washed her hair, which hung down her back in damp, heavy curls. Her face was scrubbed clean and to his consternation she looked all of twelve. Or she would have if it hadn’t been for the womanly curves that turned floor-length terry cloth into a garment every bit as seductive as the scraps of silk and lace she’d been wearing earlier. How she managed it he couldn’t begin to guess, but it guaranteed him a near sleepless night.
She stalked to the bedroom doorway, only a slight hitch in her stride betraying that she wasn’t as amenable about the night ahead as she pretended. He followed, watching in exasperation as she crossed to a chair on the far side of the room and curled up in it.
He shut the bedroom door and locked it, steeling himself for yet another pitched battle. “Get in the bed, Alyssa.”
“No, thanks. I’m good here.”
“I can’t allow that. I need to sleep and I won’t be able to if I’m constantly watching to make sure you stay put.”
She snuggled deeper into the chair, burrowing in for the duration. “You won’t get much rest, anyway. I’m…I’m a very restless sleeper. I toss and turn all night long.”
He almost smiled at the blatant lie. Or he would have if she hadn’t been right about one unfortunate fact. It didn’t appear he’d be getting much sleep. But it wouldn’t have anything to do with her restlessness. “I’ll manage.” He pointed toward the double bed. “Get in.”
She took several deep breaths before obeying. Leaving the safety of the chair, she approached the four-poster with all the caution of a mouse sneaking up on a baited trap and stood beside the bed for several long moments. Just when he was on the verge of picking her up and tossing her in, she pulled back the covers and slid between the sheets, curling up in as minute a ball as possible on the very edge of the mattress.
Hell. The next few hours were going to be some of the most difficult of his life. He circled the bed and yanked his black ops T-shirt over his head, tossing it onto the chair she’d abandoned. His boots came next, hitting the floor with a distinctive thud before he released his belt buckle and unzipped his trousers. He saw her stiffen at the distinctive rasp of the zipper and he could hear the nervous intake and exhalation of her breath.
Stripped down to his boxers, Merrick joined Alyssa in bed. She made a pathetically small mound on the farthest side of the mattress, no doubt attempting to remain as still and inconspicuous as possible in the hopes he’d leave her alone. Releasing his breath in a sigh, he hooked his arm around her and tucked her close, spooning her back against his chest. She remained stiff as a board, refusing to accommodate the alignment of curve to angle.
As for thinking she was pathetic, he was forced to hastily revise his opinion. Though she didn’t struggle, somehow the dainty, fragile woman he held within his arms had managed to transform herself into hardened steel, gouging bony elbows into the few vulnerable parts of his body. Steel-tipped fingers dug into the arm anchoring her in place, and even her heels and toes had became lethal weapons. The only place she remained soft and cushioned was her backside, though he didn’t doubt she would change that if she could. But at least it offered some small shielding against the rest of her anatomy.
“Do you have to touch me?” she whispered, squirming. “Isn’t it enough that I’m in the same bed with you?”
Dear God, if she didn’t hold still there’d be hell to pay. “It’s necessary,” he explained with impressive patience. “This way if you attempt to escape, I’ll know. And I’ll stop you.”
Her breath trembled from her lungs. “I won’t attempt to escape.”
“Yes, you will. You think your mother needs you. So you’ll continue to try and get away, just as I’ll continue to stop you.”
She shifted again and he stifled a groan, only half succeeding. “There’s nothing I can do about it,” she snapped. “I did warn you. I’m not used to sleeping like this.”
“Tonight would have found you in some man’s bed sleeping just like this, whether it was with von Folke or with me.” Though with von Folke there would have been a lot more involved than talking and sleeping. He’d have wanted to consummate their union in order to make the marriage legally binding as per Verdonian law. For some reason the mere idea of anyone else putting his hands on Alyssa roused Merrick to a white-hot fury. “Or are you forgetting this would have been your wedding night?”
He didn’t know what prompted him to ask the question, but to his surprise she shuddered. “I had forgotten,” she confessed. Then her voice dropped to a whisper so soft, he barely caught it. “Being with him…It would have been far worse.”
He didn’t cut her any slack. “If that’s how you felt, you should have refused to marry him. I doubt he’d have hurt your mother.”
Her elbow clipped him in the gut and this time he suspected it was deliberate. “You didn’t see his expression. I did. Prince Brandt will do whatever it takes to get me to the altar.”
“If it means winning the throne, you’re right. He’ll say whatever he must to force your agreement. But even a man like von Folke has lines he won’t cross. I suspect murder is one of them.”
“People cross lines all the time when they’re desperate.” Her voice held a note of cool conviction. “One of my stepfathers was an auditor and I worked for him the summer between high school and college. That’s how I became interested in finance in the first place. I could always sense when someone had been cooking the books. You can almost smell their desperation. If I were auditing Prince Brandt, I’d be checking his accounts very carefully.”
Interesting. “Are you saying he’s embezzling money?”
“No. I’m saying he’s desperate. I have no idea why. But I can sense it, even though he’s working really hard to keep a lid on things. Whether it’s related to finances or not, I can’t tell.”
She fell silent after that, leaving Merrick free to sift through her observations. Something was up. Too bad he couldn’t be certain what. He didn’t doubt that von Folke would go to almost any extent to wear the crown. Avarice. Power. Prominence. All were substantial motivators. But why would a man be desperate to become king? Desperation implied a driving need rather than a burning desire. Why would a man need to be king?
He’d already checked von Folke out. Maybe it was time to dig a little deeper. A full profile, he decided, including—he smiled—any books that might have been cooked.
Alyssa had finally settled, for which he was eternally grateful. Moonlight crept through the doors leading out onto the balcony and slipped into bed with them, frosting their entwined forms with silver. The crown of her head rested beneath his chin and silken strands of her hair snagged along his whisker-roughened jawline. He inhaled, filling his lungs with the odor of the herbal shampoo she’d used. He could also catch a hint of a lighter, more irresistible aroma, though whether it came from her soap or the natural scent of her body, he couldn’t be sure. Either way, the fragrant perfume soaked into his pores, permeating his senses in a way he knew would forever be a part of him.
“That women who was with you earlier,” she said, catching him
by surprise. “What were you saying to each other? The part in Verdonian, I mean.”
He lifted onto his elbow and drew her head to one side so he could look at her. The moonlight muted her vibrant coloring, turning her hair to silver and darkening her eyes to black. Her features took on a pearly glow, given depth and definition by the charcoal shadows sinking into the gentle planes and angles of her face. Watching her closely, he bit out a swift comment in Verdonian. She responded by staring at him in utter bewilderment.
“You don’t speak the language, do you?” He shook his head in disbelief. “You come here expecting to be our queen and you can’t even speak to your people in their native tongue?”
“Why should I?” she retorted indignantly. “I didn’t know I was part Verdonian until last week.”
“I would think if you were going to rule a country you might want to communicate with your subjects. What would you do if English wasn’t our second language?”
“If I’d known that’s what was going to happen to me, I would have learned Verdonian.” Exasperation edged her words. “What did you say to me? How do you know I wasn’t pretending I didn’t understand? You think I’m pretending about everything else.”
“Because my comment was unforgivably coarse.” Unable to resist, he stroked his thumb along the sweeping arch of her cheekbone. “If you’d understood, you’d have reacted.” Slapped him, most likely.
“Oh.” She rolled away from him, not protesting this time when he spooned her into their earlier position. “You still haven’t answered my question. What did she say to make you laugh?”
“She called me a bear cub. It can also mean a stuffed animal.”
“A teddy bear?”
“A teddy bear. Yes.”
Silence descended for several more minutes, though he wasn’t the least bit surprised when she spoke again. “That woman—the one who called you a teddy bear—she took my place, didn’t she?”
“That was the plan.”
“Who is she?”
“My sister, Miri.”
Alyssa turned her head again, this time of her own volition, and gazed at him in confusion. “Aren’t you worried about what Prince Brandt will do to her when he discovers the deception?”