by Avery Flynn
“Your Royal Highness, Princess Eloise, please accept my most sincere apologies for my most inappropriate behavior.” Gone was the cocky billionaire, replaced with a more formal man of the royal court she remembered from before the coup. He straightened, but he didn’t meet her eyes. “I’m the Resistance’s second in command. We’ve been watching you since after you arrived in Harbor City ten years ago. We were hoping to never disturb you, as was your father’s final wish. However, we have solid intelligence that the Fjende, who led the coup on your country, are coming for you.” His icy, determined gaze met hers. “They mean to marry you off to your cousin Alton before killing you as soon as you produce an heir, but you shouldn’t worry. We’re going to stop them and take back Elskov.”
Chapter Four
Everything after Dom’s announcement was a blur. A numbness, the same that had trapped her for her first year in America, weighed down her limbs and clouded her brain. It was one thing to know—it was another thing to hear the words she’d feared spoken out loud.
They mean to kill you. The words were stuck on repeat in her head as he ushered her into the huge log cabin–style château and past the butler who looked like he could bench-press a Humvee. The incongruity of the MMA-fighter body tucked inside a formal black suit and white gloves, the same style the servants wore in Elskov Castle, jarred something inside her and revved up her survival-at-any-cost motor to burning-rubber speed.
“We need to talk.” She used the imperial at-court voice her father had always affected when someone had displeased him greatly. “Immediately.”
Dom didn’t ask why. He didn’t stop in confusion. He took her by the elbow and made a sharp right turn through the first available door. It was the kitchen. Once inside he dropped his hand and stole away the one bit of warmth from her while cold panic tried to break free. Needing time to get it under control, she clasped her hands together and inspected her surroundings.
The space was rustic meets modern. At one end of the large kitchen, a grouping of overstuffed chairs and a leather love seat in shocking hot pink sat facing a stone fireplace that took up half the wall. There was a spit in the hearth big enough to roast a medium-size pig. At the other end of the room, a gourmet stainless steel oven was nestled inside a stone wall, as were the oven’s matching appliances. Everything was high-end, beautiful, and utterly impersonal. It was like looking at a magazine spread of what a chichi cabin in the woods should look like. If the coup had never happened, she probably would vacation in a château like this, with servants who doubled as security guards and sycophants who pretended to be her friends. She might not have friends now, but at least the few work friend–type relationships she had were on her terms and they were genuine. The last thing she needed was to go back to her old life, even if she could. There was nothing for her in Elskov besides memories of her father bleeding out on the palace steps and the realization that any sense of security was an illusion.
Her gaze landed on Dom, and a frisson of attraction sizzled across her skin. The bastard had kidnapped her, and she couldn’t sever that vibrating line of want connecting them. The kiss outside had been a mistake. Dom wasn’t like the men she took home after a night out. There was something harder, more dangerous about him. She could see it now when she looked beyond the generically Nordic features of cold blue eyes, light blond hair, and imposing size, a holdout from their Viking ancestors. Even in a mountain hideaway that was no doubt guarded like a fortress, and facing a woman he’d called princess and bowed down to outside, he couldn’t hide the aggressive stance that was as much a part of him as it was of all the people in Elskov. Their home was a tiny island situated strategically between Norway and Scotland that had repelled invaders for centuries. The Elskovians never learned to fight. They learned to win, whatever the personal cost.
That’s exactly what she’d do, but her final prize wasn’t the crown of a country she hated—it was her own freedom. But first she had to survive, and to do that she needed Dom, at least for the time being.
“Tell me about the Fjende,” she demanded as she circled the oversize granite island.
Dom arched an eyebrow, not missing the barrier she put between them. Then his gaze shot to the side, as if he’d remembered who he was and even more, who she was.
“They’re a secret society behind the coup.” He reached for a crystal decanter on the sofa table behind the love seat and poured two small glasses of champagne-yellow liquid. “Their reach is legendary. They orchestrated the attack on your father and then managed to convince the world that your father had a heart attack and died peacefully in his sleep, and that you agreed to let your cousin Alton act as your designee while in mourning.”
“It’s been ten years,” she said. “How have they managed that?”
He strode across the room, the two glasses fitting easily in one of his large hands, and held them out to her. She took one and lifted it to her nose. The sweet and spicy, slightly peppery scent of caraway wafted up from the shot glass.Akvavit. She hadn’t had the distinctly Elskovian spirit since the Christmas before her father died. He’d given her a sip of his, and it had burned its way down her throat like liquid fire, and he’d congratulated her on being strong enough to take it, just like he knew she always would be. The memory made her throat tighten with emotion.
“You don’t keep up on the news at all.” Dom shook his head and sipped his akvavit, not even flinching as he swallowed.
“I have my reasons.” Like the fact that she hated her small island homeland, from its sheep farms to its rocky fjords. A man in a black raincoat might have shot her father, but she blamed the whole country for letting it happen, for not fighting back, for not seeing through the lies, and for abandoning her on a foreign shore.
Unlike the way she’d been taught, she shot back the akvavit in one gulp. It scorched her throat and made her eyes water, but she refused to react to the pain by gasping or wincing. She would remain impervious to it, as she was to all things Elskov. Once she was sure her hands wouldn’t shake, she turned the shot glass upside down and placed it on the island.
Dom lifted his still mostly full glass in toast and took another small sip. “They had a princess impersonator. A few well-timed appearances over the years have kept the questions to whispers.”
Good for them, the bastards.
“So why come after me at all? Surely they’ve realized by now that I have no interest in ever being Princess Eloise again.” For all she cared, the island could sink to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
“Because the Kronig coronation celebrating your official acceptance of your royal duties is less than a week away, and two days ago your impersonator died from an overdose.”
Karma’s a real bitch that way. Rounding the island, she swiped her glass and then made her way to the decanter and poured herself another shot.
“So they bury her and the sniveling Alton takes over.” Ugh. That man had always been slimy and duplicitous. The fact that he’d work with the people who’d killed his own wife didn’t shock her in the least.
“That’s not how the line of succession works.” Annoyance crept into his tone; it gave his already deep voice an inflexible cord that wrapped around her. “How do you not know this?”
The steel thread in his voice snapped her control in half.
“Because my father was forty-seven when the bastards murdered him, and it wasn’t something I thought I’d have to think about for a long fucking time.” She tossed back the akvavit like it really was the water of life its name translated to.
She welcomed the alcohol blaze as it slid down her throat and settled in her belly. It dulled the memories fighting to the surface—the wet, gurgling sounds her father made as he fought for breath, the dark burgundy of the blood gushing from his stomach. The way she didn’t even fight the hand wrapped around her wrist, the one that stopped her from running to his side to comfort him in his last moments. She blamed Elskov for her father’s death, but the guilt for letting him die alone w
as all hers. The silence screamed in her ears, and she concentrated to feel the last tinges of heat from the strong alcohol.
“Your Royal Highness, please forgive me,” Dom said, executing another deep bow. “I shouldn’t have said what I did.”
“I’m not Princess Eloise. It seems she died of a drug overdose.” She flipped the shot glass over and set it next to the decanter. “I’m Elle Olsen.”
He drained the last of his akvavit and placed his glass next to hers. “We both know that’s not true.”
“It doesn’t matter, because America is my home now. You want to play your spy-versus-spy games with the Resistance? Be my guest, but I won’t be part of it.”
“Princess, you don’t have a choice.” There was that unforgiving tone again, the one that allowed no disagreement.
Looked like someone was about to be a very disappointed Mr. Hard Body. She raised her chin and narrowed her eyes at him. “I told you before, I always have a choice.”
Dom closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. When he opened them again, he pinned her to the floor with a look of icy determination.
“Five days from now, the Kronig will take place,” he said. “It can only take place with you in attendance. If you are not there to accept your royal duties, the crown must go to the next person in line for succession. That cannot be Alton, because he is married into the royal family. There is no one else, because the Fjende were thorough in their bloodletting. If you are not at the Kronig, the country will be thrown into chaos and the Fjende would not be guaranteed to have someone they control on the throne. They need you to take your place during the Kronig and marry you off to Alton so you can produce an heir that they can control.”
That sounded perfectly unpleasant. “And after that, what is it? A shiv between the ribs?”
“For the past few years, they’ve let it be known that Princess Eloise is in precarious health—nothing specific, just enough to cover up the impersonator’s increasingly limited appearances. Our theory is that they’ll kill you and blame your long-standing but never named illness.”
The bastards were thorough. She considered a third shot but knew that would knock her on her ass, and she needed to stay focused if she was going to figure out a way out of this shit storm she found herself in. And how exactly had she become embroiled in this? She’d been more than careful. She’d dyed her white-blond hair to the same strawberry blond as her favorite fictional teenage detective. Gone were her dark blue eyes, thanks to brown-colored contacts. She never stood out. She never spoke up. She’d been discovered anyway.
“Why won’t the Fjende get another impersonator?” That would make things so much easier for everyone. They could have their little fiefdom, and she could go on living her quiet life of imposed solitude.
“The timeline is rather tight for that.”
Frustration ballooned inside her, eliminating any space for fear or regrets or so-called royal duty. “So leave Elskov to find its own new leader.”
“That would mean bloody civil war.” He didn’t yell. He didn’t have to; the censure in his voice was enough. “There is no parliament, no legislative branch to take over if the monarchy dies suddenly. Thousands would die. Do you really want their blood on your hands because you didn’t feel like doing your duty and wearing a crown?”
“That crown killed my father,” she yelled in a harsh whisper to not draw undue attention. “That country let it happen. They deserve what they get.”
“You can’t mean that.”
“Why, because it’s my duty to sacrifice everything at the altar of Elskov?”
Blood beat against her eardrums, and heat pulsed in her cheeks as she glowered at Dom. How dare he try to drag her back into all this, back to the country that destroyed everyone she loved.
“No, because it’s what your father expects. He bled for Elskov. Are you really willing to let his sacrifice be in vain?” This time Dom reached for the crystal decanter, poured a second shot, and downed it. “We need you to make a surprise appearance at the Kronig, because the Fjende can’t make a move against you in public. A perfectly timed simultaneous surgical strike by the Resistance will destroy their leadership and cut off the head of the snake. Then you will take your rightful place on the throne.”
“And then I become the Resistance’s puppet?”
“No.” He looked at her straight in the eye. “Then you become queen.”
Queen. The role she’d been raised to assume. After her mother died, her father channeled his grief by telling his five-year-old daughter all about the great queens of Elskov. They’d been warriors, strategists, leaders—everything she was not. She was a stylist with a one-bedroom apartment in a sketchy neighborhood in Harbor City without close friends and who only had one-night stands because relationships were impossible when you were hiding who you really were. The realization of just how far she’d missed the mark her father had set blew through her like a hot wind down the main street of a ghost town, scattering emotional debris and leaving her empty and exhausted.
Dom reached out for her but stopped when his large hands were still inches away from touching her. He fisted his hands and brought them back to his sides. “All I’m asking for right now is that you don’t say no.”
Too weary to continue, she conceded this battle, knowing the war was far from over. “I have a feeling you wouldn’t accept it anyway.”
“Elskovians never surrender.” He poured a third shot for each of them. The Russians and their vodka had nothing on the Elskovians and their akvavit. He handed her the glass, and their fingers brushed, and just like that the air around them again crackled with sexual tension. “They fight until they win.”
“No matter the cost.” On autopilot, she repeated the rest of the words emblazoned on the Elskovian state seal and tried to ignore her awareness of him.
He clicked his glass against hers in toast. “No matter the cost.”
The alcohol barely singed this time as she sipped, watching him over the rim of her glass. She didn’t know what this man was willing to sacrifice to get his way, but judging by the stony resolve reflected in his blue eyes, she imagined he’d give everything. It was both comforting and frightening.
Chapter Five
Night had turned the sky inky black hours ago, not that Dom had noticed. His eyes were glued to the woman shown on the small monitor in the mountain compound’s security office.
He shouldn’t be watching her. It was invasive. It was wrong. It was creepy. Yes to all of the above, but he kept his eyes glued to the monitor anyway, because he was an asshole. As long as he remembered that little fact, maybe he’d stop thinking about how five hours earlier he’d dry humped the future queen like a drunk college freshman behind the dorms. He would have done more—in fact, his balls still ached to do more—but the feedback from his comm device brought him back to reality lightning fast.
Ignoring the way blood rushed to his cock just from the memory of her pink lips and the way she’d felt pushed up against him, he focused on the bay of monitors in the security room.
There were surveillance cameras throughout the house’s public areas. The monitor that had captured his attention showed the library tucked between Princess Eloise’s bedroom and his. The door to the hallway remained shut, and to a newcomer that entry point seemed like the only way in. But there were secret doors to each of their bedrooms hidden behind bookshelves that were activated by hidden levers. On the bedroom side of things, the doors were hidden from the unobservant just as well, but she’d found hers. He couldn’t help but admire her for that. The woman was more than a pretty face; her mind worked fast to connect the dots that left others wondering. If she hadn’t already, she’d soon discover the small armory secreted behind a false wall in the back of her walk-in closet. He wouldn’t expect any less from her. She hadn’t made it through the past ten years on her own without any outside resources or support because she was an airheaded wimp.
He pressed a few buttons on the control pad, an
d the monitor showing the library went blank. “Let her have some privacy,” Dom said. “It’s been a rough day.”
“Yes, sir,” said Major Bendtsen as he sat in front of the console, never taking his eyes from the twenty monitors that played a rotating series of shots from strategic locations around the mountain compound.
“Status report.”
“Everyone is on high alert but will remain as hidden as possible from view, as you ordered. Resistance One has been updated to her arrival. Our people in Harbor City and Elskov continue to monitor the Fjende operatives, but it doesn’t seem they’re aware the princess has been removed from her daily life.”
“It won’t stay that way for long, so don’t lose focus.” Not like he did every time he was near the woman. “Did you tell His Roy—” Dom stopped himself before he said the words that couldn’t be spoken aloud, not even in this trusted space. “Did you tell Resistance One that she doesn’t want to assume her duties?”
“No, sir.”
He didn’t blame the major. The messenger who delivered that news was bound to end up bearing the brunt of Resistance One’s fury—or his own. Ten years’ worth of strategizing to restore the monarchy to power and finally have his revenge on the Fjende who’d killed his family lay in the hands of a woman who didn’t want anything to do with the plan. He had five days to persuade her to do her duty; if he didn’t, the country went to shit, the Fjende would win, and his parents would remain unavenged.
That wasn’t going to happen.
“Carry on.” He slipped out of the security room, exiting through the door that from the other side looked like a working indoor waterfall.
The water feature at the end of the greenhouse had been set up so that the liquid was diverted any time the door opened from the inside and with the downward push on a garden gnome’s red hat from the outside. He didn’t know what kind of paranoid person had designed the château with its hidden passages and secret rooms, but it made it the perfect location for the Resistance’s headquarters, and it had been his first purchase when he’d made his hundredth million eight years ago.