by Avery Flynn
Chapter Fourteen
The sun had yet to turn the sky above Elskov from dawn’s pink and orange to bright blue when the jet touched down on an overgrown landing strip outside the capital. Dom had his seat belt undone before the plane finished hitting every one of the potholes on the unused tarmac. A single minute longer than absolutely necessary was too long for Elle to be in the Fjende’s hands. He didn’t have time to wait for the damn seat belt sign to flicker off. He needed to get to her now.
Major Bendtsen hung up his cell phone. “Our onsite operatives confirm the landing zone is clear.”
Good news, but it didn’t matter. He’d plow through a thousand Fjende to get to Elle. “The princess?”
“One of our undercovers in the castle has had visual contact,” the major said. “She says the princess is unharmed but being watched by two guards at all times.”
The jet jerked to a stop, and Dom bounded out of this seat, grabbed his duffel, and rushed to the door. Unwilling to wait for the flight attendant, he threw it open. The stairs unfolded automatically, and he was halfway down before he realized not one but two black sedans were parked along the west edge of the asphalt near where the jet had stopped.
The driver got out of the first sedan and opened the back passenger door. The first thing to emerge was the end of a wooden walking stick, emblazoned with the royal crest on its handle. A frail old man stepped out.
Dom sucked in a surprised gasp. Death clung to the king like dew on a fresh blade of grass. Painfully thin with dark circles under his blue eyes and gray-tinted skin, King Magnuz leaned heavily against his cane. Even his most trusted advisers from the days before the coup wouldn’t have recognized him. The driver/bodyguard didn’t offer his arm but positioned himself so he could reach out if His Highness needed help.
Shoving away his shock at the king’s transformation since he’d seen him a year ago, Dom strode down the stairs and executed a low bow. “Your Highness.”
The king motioned for Dom to straighten up. “You’re confident your plan will work?”
“Depends on your daughter’s willingness to play along.” Dom rubbed the back of his neck, unable to shake the feeling that no matter how many backup plans he had, when it came to Elle, surprises were a given. “We’ll need her to stay in place until the Kronig begins. Our agent inside the castle is getting a message to the princess when he delivers her breakfast this morning.”
“She’s a real spitfire—reminds me of her mother.” The king let out a weary chuckle tinged with regret and seemed to age another decade in a minute. “She’ll never forgive me.”
“Why did you want it this way?” The question was out before Dom could stop it. One did not make eye contact with the sovereign, let alone ask invasive question.
“In the beginning, it was because I really did think she was safest on her own with some guardian angels.” King Magnuz shrugged, obviously not caring about the break in royal protocol. “Then later I was afraid that if I did see her again, I wouldn’t be able to walk away. By then I already knew I was dying. There wasn’t a future for us, and it seemed she’d made peace with her new life. Who was I to take that away from her? I’m already her past. She needs to concentrate on Elskov and her future.”
“You think it was the right call?” Elle sure as hell hadn’t thought so, and Dom agreed with her. If it was the last thing he did, he’d find a way to make up for not telling her about her father.
“That is none of your concern.” The king looked up at him, a cool, imperial mask sliding into place over the pain etched into a father’s face. “What is, however, is ensuring my daughter’s safety. Do you think you can manage it this time?”
There wasn’t a doubt in his mind. “Yes, sir.”
“Good.” The king pivoted slowly toward the open car door, reaching out for his driver/bodyguard’s arm to steady himself. “I’ll expect an update. I’ll be flying out as soon as the Kronig coronation is complete.”
Dom started. How could the king go without seeing his daughter—why even bother to show up in the first place? “Why are you here?”
The king got into the backseat but didn’t turn toward Dom. Instead, he looked straight ahead, a stubborn tilt to his chin, reminding Dom of Elle every time she’d gotten pissed off at him during the past week.
Finally the king spoke. “You’re forgetting your place.”
“No, I’m not.” Fury on Elle’s behalf slapped him across the face, and he fisted his hands to stop from grabbing King Magnuz by the lapels and shaking him. “I’m your daughter’s best hope. I’m going to rescue the princess, and once she’s safe I’m going to tell her you’re here. It’ll be her choice to see you one last time or not.” He inhaled a deep breath, surprised at his own loss of cool control, and forced a deliberate calm into his voice that he didn’t feel. “You’re my king, but isn’t it about time you were her father?”
The king paled before an indignant flush hit his face. “Maybe instead of worrying about what I should do, you should get my daughter out of the predicament she’s in only because you couldn’t protect her in the first place.”
The truth punched him in the nuts, but the pain only served to strengthen his resolve. “There’s not a damn thing in the world that can stop me from saving Elle.”
Ignoring protocol that demanded he wait until the king dismissed him, Dom turned and stalked across the asphalt to the other black sedan, where Major Bendtsen waited for him.
“As queen, she can’t think about anything other than what’s best for Elskov.” The king’s weakened, wheezy voice still had enough power to carry across the tarmac. “She’s not for you.”
Dom’s step faltered. Old and ill, King Magnuz still knew how to slide a dagger. The king was right. Elle wasn’t for him, he knew it, but that didn’t change a damn thing. He yanked open the driver’s side car door but stopped before sitting behind the wheel and looked back at the king, maybe for the last time.
“You’re right. Elle’s not mine, but that doesn’t mean I won’t always be hers.”
And right now she needed him.
…
Elle woke up to a blue sky outside the window of the gilded prison that had been her childhood bedroom. One of the Hulk twins sat on an overstuffed chair, his bulky arms crossed and his eyes hidden behind a pair of sunglasses that he hadn’t taken off since he’d escorted her to her mandated makeover. Now that wasn’t creepy at all. She’d thought the poison GPS tracker cuff would have gotten Walther to let up on the goon squad. It hadn’t.
“Good morning.”
He grunted.
Well, so much for charming him with small talk to get him to conveniently look the other way. She flipped the thick comforter off and padded across the floor toward the connected bathroom, glad that she’d found a pair of pajama pants and a loose top waiting for her on top of the bed when the goon squad had locked her up in her tower bedroom for the night. The last thing she wanted was to give her captors a show. Shuffling across the thick carpet, her head still hazy with sleep, it took her a second to realize that Hulk One was following her.
She turned and nearly slammed into his concrete slab of a body. “I’m going to the bathroom, and you’re not coming with me.”
Nothing from the giant.
“Come on. Do you think I’m going to try to flush myself?”
He might have breathed. It was hard to tell with his head so high up.
“Anyway, there’s this.” She waved her arm with the cuff. “I’m not going anywhere, but I would like to pee in private.”
His mouth formed a hard line, but he gave her a curt nod before turning and walking back to his chair by the door.
Score. Elle didn’t look back as she rushed across the room and didn’t let out the breath she was holding until she closed the thick, oak bathroom door behind her. She hurried to the linen closet next to the shower and yanked open the door. Shoving aside the stack of plush, cream towels, she pressed her palm against the back of the closet and fe
lt the wall give. It wasn’t a Scooby-Doo door, but her ancestors were as paranoid as the chalet’s architect. Like most castles of a certain age, there were concealed servants’ passages hidden between the walls at Elskov Castle. Now all she had to do was get rid of the stupid cuff.
Turning, she caught sight of a blonde out of the corner of her eye and squeaked in surprise before realizing she was looking at herself in the mirror. The makeover team hadn’t been chatty or even the least bit friendly, but they’d done a great job taking her from her Nancy Drew strawberry blond back to the practically platinum she’d been since birth. Her brown contacts were gone, too, leaving her with the bright blue eyes that matched her father’s.
Fury sizzled to the forefront again.
Her father was alive.
How in the fuck had he hidden that from her for all these years? How had he never reached out? How had he left her alone? Not that it mattered. He was as good as dead to her now anyway. She didn’t know where he was, and he’d refused to even speak to her on the phone before the Fjende attacked the chalet. He couldn’t have made his feelings more clear. Whatever she’d been to him at one time, she wasn’t anymore. She stomped over to the shower and turned the knobs with shaking hands, letting the water rush over her arm before grabbing the soap.
“Taking a shower,” she hollered over her shoulder as she worked up a good lather.
Using the soap as a lubricant, she tried to slide her hand through the cuff. Metal scraped against her tender flesh, pressing against the bone in her palm. Pain shot up her arm, and she clamped her jaws shut tight to keep from screaming, but she continued to pull her arm back as she pushed the metal cuff forward. The damn thing wouldn’t go.
She sat back and sucked in a deep breath, her hand throbbing in agony and panic creeping up with stronger and surer steps with each heartbeat. The temptation to whack her arm against the porcelain tub until either the ceramic or the cuff’s locked clasp cracked had her crazy eyed. But she couldn’t. Sure, Walther could have been lying about toxin spraying from the cuff if she broke the clasp, but did she really want to risk it? No. She had to be smart. Inhaling a deep breath, she looked around the bathroom, looking for something, anything, that could help.
That’s when she noticed the small, thin, square box in a basket by the sink. The label read: shower cap. The makeover mavens must have left it to protect the dye job. She grabbed the box and ripped it open, pulled out the cap, and tested the plastic covering and tight elastic band that went around it. Oh, that baby wasn’t a cheap, flimsy shower cap. This was the industrial, beauty salon, means-business kind that would keep everything out. It would work. It had to. She didn’t have another choice.
The idea gave her the heebie-jeebies, but desperate times called for putting a shower cap over your face. Eyeballing the silver clasp, she gauged just how much force she’d need to pop it. It would take work, but it wasn’t impossible. After all, the threat wasn’t in the difficulty but what would happen after.
She dug through the cabinets until found a flashlight and tucked it into the pocket of her pajama pants, then searched until she found something that would work on the cuff—narrow, pointed hair scissors. Weighing them in her palm, she tested the balance. They were quality craftsmanship, which would make things easier.
Steam from the shower filled the room, and a droplet of sweat slid down her neck. The last time she’d been in a steamy bathroom, she’d walked out to find Dom waiting for her. Her knees gave out, and her ass met the closet toilet lid with a hard thunk. If she closed her eyes, she could still feel his hands on her and hear the rough whisper of her name on his lips. Her throat tightened, and tears pricked her eyes. She squeezed her eyes shut and pictured Walther instead of Dom, let the anger boil and drown the grief. Dealing with that would come later. Now she needed to focus on taking back her crown.
She pulled the shower cap on so it covered her face instead of her hair and secured the elastic, triple-checking that the elastic was secure. Each breath brought the thick plastic up against her nostrils. Each exhale made the air inside the covering thick and humid. She held her breath.
God, if there was any other way…but there isn’t.
Without giving herself time for second thoughts, she took the hair scissors, slipped the tip through the small opening in the cuff’s clasp as far as it would go, and twisted until it snapped. A white mist sprayed from the diamond as the cuff fell off her wrist, landing with a clank against the tile floor.
Walther hadn’t been lying.
For a second, Elle couldn’t move. Then the adrenaline kicked in, and she dashed across the bathroom, pushed her way to the back of the linen closet, secured the door, and shoved against the false wall. It gave. She stumbled into the darkness, her lungs burning. Taking the barest amount of time to press the wall back in place, she hurried down the cobweb-lined hall, getting as far as she could before releasing her breath and inhaling the clean, if stale, air.
Step one, done. Now to find Walther before he found her.
It was obvious from the cobweb cities visible in the pale light of her flashlight that no one used the servants’ hallways much anymore, if at all. Still, she kept her eyes peeled for security cameras as she hustled through the dimly lit halls.
Left. Right. Left again. She hadn’t been inside these walls since she was a girl, but playing defend the castle in them had been one of her favorite games growing up. Another few feet and there’d be another turn and then, finally, another door. She’d end up outside her father’s chambers, near his private balcony overlooking the inner courtyard garden. At that point, it was a simple case of sneaking down and mixing in with the crowd no doubt already starting to gather in the garden for the Kronig. The pajamas would make her stand out in the formally dressed crowd, but she’d learned long ago that the key to any situation was to brazen her way through with her chin held high.
She turned the corner. There it was. Daylight peeked out through the small space between the door and the wall. The knob felt cool against her palm as she turned it and slowly inched the door open. A cool, fresh breeze tickled her nose and brought the sound of voices into the hall. But they weren’t talking. They were…singing. She opened the door enough to confirm she’d come out by the garden as expected and peeked out to make sure no one was in the mezzanine leading to the king’s chambers. Confirming the coast was clear, she gave in to the draw of the song.
She stuck to the shadows but came near enough to the balcony overlooking the garden to get a look at the children’s choir singing the folk song that was the unofficial Elskov anthem. It was a love song about star-crossed lovers who were separated by distance and a bitter family feud but who managed to sneak off and make a home on a barren island. Their love turned the island into a paradise, and that paradise become Elskov. Children sang it in school. Adults raised their glasses in pubs as they sang it together. Often at weddings, newlyweds walked out of the church to an instrumental version.
Pursing her lips together, she closed her eyes and for a moment allowed herself to imagine walking out of the national cathedral with Dom as a violinist played the song. It was a pretty dream that ripped apart her insides. It couldn’t have happened, and now it never would. Swallowing past the emotion, she opened her eyes and began to turn to—
An arm locked around her waist, jerking her back into the shadows, and a hand clamped tight over her mouth.
“You shouldn’t be out wandering around, Your Highness,” Walther whispered against her ear, evil clinging to his every word. “I see we’re going to have to get you through the day using the power of chemistry. I have just the right drug to make you the perfect, pliant princess for the Kronig coronation ceremony.” He buried his face in her hair and inhaled. “Of course, with any luck it will have worn off by the time I have you tonight. I like it when women try to fight back.”
Good, because that’s exactly what he was about to get. Recalling Dom’s advice in the training room, she stomped down as hard as she could on
Walther’s instep. His hold on her loosened just enough that she could throw her head back and smash the back of her skull against his nose. The sound of bone cracking bounced across the high ceiling, and something wet sprayed the back of her neck.
“Bitch,” Walther said, his voice quiet and weirdly muffled because of his broken nose but no less dangerous for it. “You’ll pay for that.”
His hand went from her mouth to her throat, his fingers curling around her windpipe and squeezing hard enough to make black spots appear in her vision. She clawed at his iron hold but couldn’t break loose. He kept his feet out of striking distance and kept her tucked close against him so she couldn’t get in another head butt or other defensive hit. She tried to scream for help, but only a strangled whisper came out as her limbs grew heavy and her ears rang.
“Don’t worry, little princess, you won’t die…yet.” He dragged her back toward an open door that led to the king’s former chambers. “But you are about to learn an important lesson.”
The Hulk twins appeared in her peripheral vision.
Oh, shit.
One replaced Walther, picking her up with a beefy arm while ensuring her silence with a hand over her mouth. Elle kicked. She punched. She gave it everything she had, but it wasn’t enough.
Chapter Fifteen
Dom adjusted the comm unit disguised as an iPod earbud in his ear and approached the castle’s servants’ entrance. With his conservative suit and plastic ID badge identifying him as part of the sound crew, he was able to slip into the flow of additional help brought in for the Kronig. Their agent on guard duty waved him inside without checking Dom’s black duffel, which was filled with guns and ammo.
Sticking with the crowd, he made his way through the twists and turns toward the gardens where the Kronig would be starting in an hour.
“Sir,” the major’s voice crackled in his ear. “The princess is on the loose.”
He slipped into the supply closet and shut the door behind him. “What in the hell do you mean?”