by Sara Arden
“I think I’m ready.”
“Dan is here to walk you down the aisle.” Sonja opened the outer door.
Damara supposed it was only fitting that the man who’d put them together in the beginning was the one to give her away. She slipped her hand into the crook of his arm.
“You look stunning, Highness.” Renner stood tall and proud, his every step smooth and sure.
But everything faded from her awareness. Everything but the man in front of her.
She didn’t hear the music, didn’t see the roses and holly all over the chapel. It didn’t matter. None of it did except for the man standing at the end of the long red path.
He was supposed to be wearing his dress uniform; instead, he was wearing a suit of dinged-up armor.
It was not at all shiny.
And it was perfect.
She brought her hand to cover her mouth to keep from crying. The symbolism there, what it must have cost him to be there with his heart, his darkness, all of him on display in front of everyone—the world—as he pledged himself to her.
With this armor, he was telling her all the things that she already knew, but he was telling everyone else, too. This was all he was; this was what he had to offer. Dinged-up armor. He wasn’t Prince Charming, he wasn’t a knight in shining armor, but what he did have was hers.
So many cameras flashed it was like a starburst above her head, but she moved forward looking only at her groom. Her feet carried her forward faster than they were supposed to. She practically ran down the aisle.
It was very unprincess-like, but Damara didn’t care and neither did the onlookers. They seemed to be taken with her obvious love for her groom. She flung herself into his arms, and he kissed her.
For a moment, this was everything wonderful and a dream come true. If she could carve it out of time and put it away in a box like a piece of tulle from her dress, she would. She’d keep it forever.
She melted against him, and the roar of the crowd clapping and cheering in the chapel was almost deafening. The minister coughed politely to draw attention to himself. When she would have acknowledged him, Byron refused to let her go.
He finally broke the embrace and they faced the minister.
“That part is supposed to be last,” the minister stage-whispered. A titter sounded among the crowd in response.
But Damara’s whole world had become Byron Hawkins—all her senses were focused on him. He was all she heard, all she saw, all that she breathed in as if he had become her very air. She wasn’t even aware of herself nodding or speaking in the right places, until it came time for his vows.
He dropped to his knees in front of her and took her hand. “I can’t pledge you anything that doesn’t already belong to you. I can’t promise to share my dreams when we already traded them under a starry Mediterranean sky. I can’t promise to give you my heart because it already beats in your chest. What I can offer you is a man in dented armor who will defend you, your life and your honor to the death. I can offer my queen a champion.”
She nodded, pulled him to his feet and kissed him again.
A queen’s champion.
He’d admitted his love for her and declared war on her brother all in a single breath. Yet it didn’t surprise her. That was just how he did things. She shouldn’t have expected anything less.
Before the minister could instruct him to kiss her, she was in his arms again and his poet’s mouth crushed against hers. Their life together could have been so beautiful, if only they’d been allowed to live it.
Byron swept her up into his arms, and, rather than let her walk out of the chapel on her own, he carried her out to the waiting car that would take them to the community center for a small, informal reception.
Damara didn’t speak. All she could think about was how he’d said today would be real for him.
The town had come out in support and to celebrate. Even with the heavy security at the front door, the community center had a small-town, homey feel to it with banquet tables lined with potluck dishes. All sorts of casseroles and things Damara hadn’t heard of. None of which Byron wanted to let her taste without first allowing him to taste it.
She found it easy to lean against him. His body was so large and warm. She could burrow into his side and hide there forever. She wouldn’t have to face what was coming. No matter how she planned and plotted, she couldn’t see any outcome where she didn’t lose her brother and Byron.
She could almost hear her father’s voice telling her that no matter how much she may have wished it, life was not always fair. She could do her best to level the playing field, but sometimes it didn’t work that way.
Hiding with Byron was what she’d been doing. All along, when she started to believe the fantasy with him was something real.
But no, he’d said this was real to him. He meant every word.
Yet, in the grand design, it meant next to nothing because they couldn’t be together.
Even so, when the music played for their first dance, Damara moved into his arms easily. They spun around on the dance floor as if it were a cloud rather than wood and wax.
“Thank you for this,” she whispered in his ear.
“Don’t ever forget what I said, Damara.”
Her heart constricted. “Never. I’ll keep this memory with me always.”
She was only vaguely aware of the camera flashes, but she didn’t find them intrusive. She wanted as many pictures as possible so there was proof that this day had happened. And she wanted them not just so the world would see but for long nights when this was just a memory, faded and yellowed like old vellum.
“Are you okay?” She referred to his wounds.
“It wasn’t as dire as all that. I’ve had worse.” He tightened his grip.
“Then why did you pass out in the car and bleed everywhere?”
“Not one of my finer moments. But if the shooter really wanted me dead, I would be. They didn’t hit anything vital. It hurt—I’m recovering. They patched me up fine. Don’t worry about me.”
“Easy for you to say. What would you have done if I’d gotten shot?”
“I don’t think that’s a question you actually want the answer to.”
He guided them across the floor so gracefully, so smoothly, it was hard to remember that they were dancing and not flying. It occurred to her that her husband danced the same way he drove a stolen Patingale—as though it was art.
“I don’t need you to answer it because I know.”
“Do you now?” he whispered in her ear.
“Stop trying to change the subject.”
“How am I trying to change the subject?” His breath was warm on her neck, and she shivered in his arms with delight.
“You know exactly what you’re doing. Let me remind you, Lt. Hawkins, that turnabout is fair play.”
“That’s what I’m hoping for.”
“You’re a bad man.” She laughed but then stopped, realizing what she’d said. Damara had spent all her time trying to convince him that he was no such thing, and now a few careless words might have undone all that she’d wrought—if anything. “I didn’t mean that.”
“Today, it doesn’t matter. Today, I’m going to make love to my wife, just once. Once before this is all over.”
“Yes,” she whispered and clung to him just a little more tightly.
Their embrace was broken when Renner tapped on Byron’s shoulder. “May I have this dance?”
She wanted to say no; she wanted to sneak away with Byron and hide them both from all the things the rest of the world demanded from them.
But she put on her princess face and smiled. Byron stepped back and allowed them the dance.
She didn’t know why she expected him to be awkward or bumbling. He wasn’t. He moved with
a certain skill and grace. Damara rather imagined that planning a covert operation was much like dancing. “You’re an excellent dancer.”
For the first time, she saw Renner give her a genuine smile. “My wife forced me to take ballroom lessons when we got married.”
“Smart woman.”
“Yes, she was.” A brief cloud of sadness passed over his face, and then his hard facade was back in place. “At seventeen hundred hours, you and Hawkins are going to slip away toward the kitchen. You’re going to giggle, you’re going cuddle and you’re going to look like any other young couple in love. If anyone notices, they’ll believe you’re eager to be alone together. But you’re going to slip out the back door. There’s a car waiting to take you to the airport.”
He spun her around and then brought her back in close. “The Italians have lent us the use of their navy to secure your harbors. Interpol is willing to assist. And I have some men on the ground. A small operation. You’re going back to Castallegna, Princess. Are you ready?”
“Yes,” she answered in a voice with much more surety than she actually felt.
Of course she wanted to go home, but that meant so much more than just going home. It meant her time with Byron was over. It meant that she’d have to face her brother. It meant that she’d have to make hard decisions. People could get hurt. People could die.
Byron could die.
Or he was going to kill Abele.
It occurred to her again that there was no way that this could end happily. The best she could hope for was a democratic Castallegna.
“Are you really ready?” he asked. “I’ve seen the way you two look at each other.”
“I said I’m ready. I know my duty, and Byron knows his.” It was an effort to keep the sting out of her voice.
“Despite what happened in Uganda, Hawkins is a good man.”
“Have you told him that?” She didn’t bother to hold back the sharp edge to her tone.
Renner pulled back from her, looking almost startled. “Why would I do that?”
“Because no one else has.”
“Haven’t you, Princess?”
“He doesn’t listen to me when I say it.”
“I think maybe he does. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have donned not-so-shining armor for you.”
She didn’t like the way Renner looked at her. As if he knew something that she didn’t. “What better for a queen’s champion?”
“Are you a queen?” He raised a brow.
“I suppose I will be for all of five minutes. I wasn’t kidding when I said I didn’t want a title. I will bring my father’s dream to Castallegna.” That was when she realized it wasn’t only her father’s dream. It was her dream, as well. She wanted this for herself, too.
“I know you will.” He guided her back to Byron, his expression that of a doting, benevolent relation. “Enjoy your dance.”
Byron swept her around the floor once more. “Did he tell you the plan?”
“Yes.”
“Are you ready?”
“Not really, but when I think about it, I don’t think I ever would be.” It was an epiphany she wasn’t happy to have had. Nothing could ever be easy.
He gave her a bittersweet smile. “No, you wouldn’t.”
“How do I do that?” She looked up at him and actually expected him to have an answer.
“The same way you hid on the plane to get to Tunisia. The same way you got on that bike with me. The same way you escaped Circe’s Storm. You jump.”
“And just hope for the best?”
“Hope for the best—plan for the worst. If you’re lucky, they meet in the middle.” He drew her close again. “But you have me. So you know I’ll catch you when you jump.”
“How long do I have you?”
He didn’t answer her. “It’s almost time to go, Damara.”
“One more time around the floor?” She wanted to make this moment stretch as long as she could because when it was over, it was over.
“Once more.”
She glided with him to the symphonic strains, loving and dreading each step. Damara let herself feel his muscles move beneath her fingers and committed every sensation to memory. She’d have tattooed it there with a hundred needles if she could’ve. Their bodies were in a perfect synchronicity, playing on each other like a violin and a bow, their friction producing a beautifully haunting song. And when he led her to the kitchen entryway, she shed her woman’s heart and became the princess she had to be.
CHAPTER TWENTY
BYRON TRIED TO shut off his emotions and focus on the mission.
Slipping out to the car had been easy. A couple of older matrons noticed as they slipped through the kitchen, but they’d eyed the couple with the kind of knowing smiles that made Byron wonder just what kind of trouble they’d gotten into in their youth.
It was strange the way they treated him now. He’d left a pariah and returned a hero. It was what he’d wanted, for the people of Glory to finally see something more in him than just the delinquent.
Now that they did, he felt like a fraud. He was just the bad kid gone a little worse who managed to turn it into a living.
Yet, there was still a use for him. Maybe not in Glory, but in Castallegna.
He was going to kill a king. Then she’d be safe. He thought about her smile, her eyes, the way she fit against him. The way some kind of higher knowledge seemed to be balanced with her innocence. Then he thought about Grisha, and what men like him did in the world. What men like him did to women.
He would die, too. This time, he’d make sure. So would his brother.
So would anyone who compromised Damara’s safety.
Petrakis and Kulokav didn’t know it yet, but they’d just opened the gateway to hell and the devil was about to come calling.
The car drove straight out on to the tarmac and to the waiting plane. Damara changed out of her wedding dress once they were on board. He instructed Gregson to register a flight plan to Barcelona, but in reality, they’d be landing on a small Greek island not too far from Castallegna.
Then Byron would bring the fight to their door. His blood coursed hot at the thought; his adrenaline spiked as his body prepared for war.
Damara must’ve seen the darkness in him because she asked, “What’s wrong?”
He looked at her, wearing the same style of fatigues she’d been wearing when they’d met. Their circumstances seemed to have come full circle. “I’m taking the Jewel back where she belongs. She won’t be mine anymore.” He didn’t want to fight about her brother, not now when this was all the time they had left together.
“She’ll always be yours,” Damara confided, face alight with the passion of her convictions. It was like he’d thought when he’d first met her—it was the ones who burned with a cause that were dangerous. How very right he’d been.
How he wished that it were true, that the Jewel would always be his. Some part of her would belong to him. For a moment, he’d allowed that to be true. But now he had to set her free. This was the best thing he could do for her, because he knew that she’d spread her wings and be more glorious than anything that could be for the likes of him. “I want you to get married for real, Damara. I want you to have a family. I want you to be happy.”
“Happy is with you.” She said it so sure of herself. As if her answer was never in question. As if there was no other answer.
He couldn’t imagine it, no matter how he wanted to. “Do you really want to be Belinda Foxworth?” He wouldn’t do that to her, even if it was what she thought she wanted. Watching the road for a traveler who never came home, heart aching and unsure, lost and alone, wondering why he didn’t come back. No, he’d never want that life for her.
“If that’s the way it goes.” Damara shrugged. “I’m not af
raid of what I can’t change, but I am afraid of what I can. That maybe I don’t know the difference.”
Everything about her sliced him deep and stitched him together at the same time. Her words were so honest and heartfelt, and he knew exactly what she meant. He wanted every moment with her. “Technically, this is our honeymoon. All twelve hours of it. Come with me to the lavatory.”
She shook her head. “No way.”
He made a show of bouncing on the couch. “Right here, then?”
“No.” Her eyes widened. “Someone will see.”
“Someone will not see. There’s just you and me and the pilot, and he’s busy flying the plane.”
“Not a chance.” But she looked around the cabin as if she expected to see someone else on board.
It occurred to him then that he’d never touch her that way again, but she deserved a better goodbye than being shagged in an airplane lavatory.
Sometimes, he could swear she could see right through his skin and into his soul. It was as if she knew his train of thought and she couldn’t bear it. Either his sadness or her own. She stood as prim and proper as if she were going to an officer’s ball and headed back toward the lavatory.
“This may not work.”
“You’re right. I don’t know how people do this. Maybe they’re all much smaller men than me. But I couldn’t take a p—use the facility in here if I tried.”
“You don’t have to start watching your profanity now, Lt. Hawkins. Wasn’t it you who said this was called fucking?” she teased, lightening the mood.
“Indeed, I was.” God, the feelings again. When would they stop? He was brimming with them, and he wanted to tell her he loved her. Because he did. When all the dark places in him had emptied out, all that was left was his love for her.
He didn’t know how or why it had happened, but it had. His brain began running down logical reasons for the anomaly. That it was normal for people who experienced high-stress situations together to feel bonded. The adrenaline rush of fear was a lot like love. What that said about the world, he didn’t know.