Carrying the King's Pride

by Jennifer Hayward

  “If I can help it, no.”

  She studied the clear blue of his eyes. The strain seemed to have eased from his face with today’s announcement. “I am so proud of you, Nik. You have been carrying the weight of a nation on your shoulders. Not an easy task in normal times. I hope you can relax a bit now. Give yourself some space to breathe.”

  He nodded. “It will be good to have that time. It’s been difficult to process it all. To forge a plan for the future.”

  “And the responsibility that’s been handed to you? Are you feeling more at peace with it?”

  “Yes.” He caught her hand in his and drew her close. “I need to thank you,” he said quietly, “for being here for me. For telling me the things I needed to hear. For taking the risks you have. You inspire me, Sofía, your grit and determination to survive—to succeed.”

  A rush of warmth flowed through her. Her heart felt too big for her chest as she lifted a hand to his jaw. “You pushed me when I needed to be pushed. You made me realize I was living in fear. I should be thanking you for that, Nik. I of all people should know life is finite. I can’t spend my days waiting for the penny to drop. For that bolt of lightning that might never come.”

  He inclined his head, his gaze softening. “We make a great team. I told you we would.”

  Team. She flinched at the word. They were more than a team, dammit. He felt things for her. Things he wouldn’t address.

  Nik’s gaze sharpened on her face. “I care about you, Sofía. You know I do.”

  How much? The words vibrated from her across the crisp night air to him. They stayed there, hanging between them as both refused to break the standoff.

  Was she completely deluding herself about how he felt? Would the wounds he carried only ever allow her so close?

  She realized with a sickening feeling, in that moment, that she wasn’t falling in love with him. She was in love with him. Had been ever since their weekend in Evangelina. Her heart lurching, she wondered how she had ever let that happen.

  Sure she had to stop living in fear, but making herself that vulnerable to Nik of all people? A man who didn’t even know what love was because he’d never been shown it? She had been bound and determined that night in New York to end it between them because she’d known this would happen. And now it had.

  A grim look on his face, Nik snaked an arm around her waist and brought her to him. Her eyes fluttered closed as he kissed her. His usual tactic for fixing things between them. She remained unresponsive beneath the pressure of his mouth, too terrified to give him any more than she already had. When he finally let her go, she could feel the frustration emanating from him, an overwhelming force it would be all too easy to give in to. Instead she walked away, his muffled curse following her back to the car.

  It had been bad enough when she hadn’t loved him, these leaps he was asking her to make. This, this was just too much.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE WHITE MALTESE stone Akathinian palace glittered in the sunlight as the helicopter dipped down over the sea and headed toward home. A strong headwind had been at their nose all the way back from Athens, increasing Nik’s impatience, fueled by the news Sofía had given him on the phone last night.

  She’d felt their baby kick for the first time. Hearing the wonder in her voice had turned his head into a hot mess.

  Piero, his pilot, brought the helicopter in to land safely on the pad. Grabbing his briefcase, Nik stepped from beneath still-whirring blades and headed across the lawn toward the front steps to the palace he took two by two. Abram emerged as he reached the top step, his aide wearing that same frozen look he had the night he’d told him Athamos had died.

  “What is it?”

  “Idas has seized a ship in the Strait of Evandor.”

  His blood ran cold. “An Akathinian ship?”

  “Yes. A warship doing exercises.”

  “It can’t be Idas.” His mind sped a mile a minute. “We have a peace treaty.”

  “The ship that took our vessel had Carnelian flags, Your Highness.”

  Thee mou. “Have there been any other reports of aggression?”

  “Not that we’ve been able to ascertain.”

  It afforded him little comfort. His heart pounded as his brain funneled through procedure. “Call an emergency meeting of the Council, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”

  Abram nodded.

  “I’ll go by helicopter. Tell Piero to hold off.”

  He found his father and appraised him of the situation. Next he found Sofía in the salon with Stella, the two of them looking through magazines. She smiled when she saw him, but it faded when she saw the look on his face.

  “Idas has taken an Akathinian ship in the Strait of Evandor,” he said without preamble. “I’m on my way to meet with the Executive Council.”

  Sofía’s eyes widened. “But you have a peace agreement in place.”

  Which meant nothing apparently. Idas had made a fool out of him.

  Sofía got to her feet. “Maybe it’s misinformation.”

  “The attacking ship bore a Carnelian flag.” He pinned his gaze on his fiancée, a red mist descending over his vision. “Neither of you are to leave the palace until this situation is resolved.”

  “Have there been other attacks?” Stella asked.

  “Not that we know of.” Nik swung his gaze to his sister. “You still don’t leave.”

  She nodded. He stalked to the door, so angry, furious with himself for being duped, he could barely see.

  Sofía intercepted him at the door, her hand on his arm. “You don’t have all the facts. It would be easy to jump to conclusions in this situation.”

  “Like Idas is a snake? That he broke his word?”

  She blinked as he shouted the words at her. “Nik—”

  He picked her up and moved her aside. She followed him into the hallway. “Do not let Idas drag you into a war you know is wrong. Listen to your instincts, now of all times.”

  He kept walking. Listen to his instincts? His instincts had been right all along.

  * * *

  The siege over the Akathinian warship taken in the Strait of Evandor lasted for forty-eight hours. Forty-eight nail-biting hours in which Sofía, Stella and Queen Amara paced the floors of the palace salon while Nik and a team of negotiators attended meetings in Geneva to free the ship and its crew, currently being forcibly held in Carnelian waters.

  King Gregorios was ordered to bed when his blood pressure skyrocketed, something Sofía was inordinately grateful for. The elder king’s vitriolic diatribe against Idas was only making a difficult scenario much, much worse.

  Abram briefed them as he could. Nik was in the midst of a storm, with his Council divided on whether to provide a military response to retrieve the ship. Some felt enough was enough, Idas needed to be confronted. Nik was on the side of diplomacy, aware Akathinia’s military was still heavily outmatched by its aggressors. He had refused to send negotiators to Geneva, insisting, instead, on being there himself and was doing his best to manage both sides of the equation.

  The situation was not made easier by the reaction of the Akathinian people. Such an act of provocation on the heels of the crown prince’s death could not be tolerated was the majority opinion. Get our men back.

  Deep into the third day of the crisis, Abram appeared in the salon to say it was done. Sofía’s heart pounded as he announced the negotiations had been successful and the ship had been returned to Akathinian hands, but that five men had been killed in the taking of the ship.

  When Nik walked into the palace hours later, dark circles ringing his eyes, Sofía, who had not slept for three days except for a couple of hours here and there, got to her feet, along with Stella and Queen Amara.

  “Why did the Carnelians take the shi
p?” Queen Amara asked. “Why did Idas break his promise?”

  Nik rubbed a hand across his brow. “They accused the ship of provocation toward one of its own. Clearly a fabrication, as our vessel was in neutral waters at the time, doing routine exercises.”

  His mother’s gaze softened. “You must eat, Nikandros. Get some rest.”

  “I need to brief Father first.” He flicked a glance at Sofía. “Go and eat. Don’t wait for me.”

  She did, but the anxiety seizing her insides hardly inspired an appetite. Nik didn’t join her in their rooms until well after eleven as she sat trying to read a book, but failing miserably.

  “Did you eat?” she asked.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Nik, you have to eat. Let me—”

  “Don’t.” He held up a hand. “I’m fine.”

  He started undoing the buttons of his shirt, cursed as his fingers fumbled over them, then pulled the material apart with a hard yank, buttons scattering and rolling across the floor. Her stomach knotted. She put the book down, got to her feet and crossed to him. Ignoring her, he yanked his belt buckle open, freed the button on his trousers and shoved them down his hips.

  “Nik.” She moved closer as he stepped out of them. “Stop for a second. Breathe.”

  He looked down at her, eyes blazing. “If I do, I will explode.”

  “It’s not your fault. You can’t blame yourself for this. You had every reason to believe Idas would keep his word.”

  “Did I?” He hurled the words at her. “Because in hindsight I feel like a fool. In hindsight he played me masterfully. He never intended on keeping that peace treaty.”

  She swallowed hard. “How did he think he would get away with that explanation? Surely it was clear the ship was in neutral waters.”

  “It’s his claim a commander on the scene who considered the ship a threat made the call.”

  “Maybe that’s the truth.”

  The curse he uttered snapped her head back. “We have a peace treaty, Sofía. He played me. Five men are dead because of my decisions. My naïveté.”

  Her insides twisted. “You were trying to avoid a war, Nik. You are doing everything you can to protect this country, but it can only happen so fast. No one can fault you for that.”

  “I could have been more vigilant. If I had listened to my instincts, I could have anticipated he’d do something like this. Instead I listened to everyone around me.”

  “You had to do that. You have a council and advisers for a reason.”

  He gave her a scathing look as if to say look where that’d gotten him. Then turned on his heel and headed for the bathroom.

  She sat on a chair in the bedroom and waited for him. He was hurting. He felt he had to take responsibility for those men’s deaths. He was the head of the armed forces. The king of this country. It must be humiliating to be betrayed by Idas like that. But it didn’t mean anything he’d done had been wrong. It had all been right.

  Nik walked into the bedroom after his shower and pulled on a pair of boxers, barely sparing her a glance. “Go to bed, Sofía. You need sleep.”

  She stared at him, waiting, wondering what to do. He moved past her into the salon. The sound of the whiskey decanter being opened, the clink of ice hitting crystal and whiskey being poured filled the silence. The terrace doors clicked open, then shut. He needed time to process. To decompress. She should leave him alone. And for once she did. She was too exhausted not to.

  She woke sometime later, something instinctively telling her Nik was not in bed. A look at the clock told her it was 2:00 a.m. Rubbing her eyes, she let them adjust to the darkness, then she slipped out of bed and went to find Nik. He was reclined in a chair on the terrace, the near-empty bottle of whiskey now sitting on the table beside him.

  His eyes were glazed as she knelt down beside him.

  “You need to sleep, Nik.”

  “I can’t.”

  Her chest tightened at the haunted look on his face. She took his hands in hers. “I know you consider this your responsibility. I know you are angry at yourself for letting Idas make a fool of you. But you negotiated the release of those men. You sent them home to their families, Nik. Now you need to get some rest so you can deal with this tomorrow.”

  “Five men died today,” he rasped. “More will follow if I don’t handle this correctly.”

  “Many more will follow if you don’t get some rest and get your head on straight.” She shook her head. “I know it’s painful to lose those men. But this is what you do. You make the tough decisions so the rest of us don’t have to. But you can’t do that if you’re beating yourself up over a mistake, if you’re too tired to think.”

  He turned his gaze back to the floodlit gardens. She knew what he wanted, but she wasn’t leaving him alone.

  She slid onto his lap. His face tightened. “Sofía—” She pressed her fingers to his mouth, took his hand and guided it to her stomach. To what had woken her. She thought maybe the baby had gone back to sleep when there was no movement beneath their fingers for a good five seconds. Then the kick came, fast and powerful.

  Nik’s eyes widened. The baby kicked again.

  “This,” she said to him, “is what you are doing this for. For your child. So that he or she will know the freedom your great-grandfather fought for. Stay the course, Nik.”

  His gaze lost its glassy look, dark emotion filtering through it as another kick came. “Sofía—”

  She cupped his face in her hands and kissed him. Deep and slow and soulfully to banish the demons. He lifted a palm to cup the back of her head, returning the kiss with a hot fervor that told her she’d broken through.

  She kissed him until they were all each other could see. Then he picked her up, wrapped her legs around him and carried her inside.

  He laid her on their bed, stripped off his boxers and followed her down. Her heart pounded as he positioned himself between her legs, his heavy thighs parting hers. She closed her eyes, bracing herself for the explosive power of him because she was ready for him, always ready for him. Instead he worked his way down her body, lingering over the tiny swell of her stomach, waiting for another kick to come. Absorbing it with a reverent press of his lips, he moved farther down, between the heat of her thighs. His mouth found her most sensitive skin, laved her, licked her until she was crying out his name, begging for him.

  Covering her with his heavy body, he sheathed himself inside of her in one powerful movement that stole her breath. The need to forget, the need to cleanse himself of what had happened chased their coupling. She wrapped her thighs around him and brought his mouth down to hers with fingers that cupped his head. He murmured her name hoarsely into her mouth as he plunged inside her again and again until there was only them, as deeply connected as two human beings could be.

  Nik clasped her hips in his hands, angled himself deeper and took her hard and fast until his big body tensed and he came in a violent explosion of pleasure that rocked them both, Sofía’s release coming quick on its heels.

  Cradling her to his chest, Nik rolled onto his side, his palm on her belly. She curled into the heat of his body. Then there was only the sound of his deep, even breathing.

  I need you to remember that when things get crazy. When it feels like we are surrounded by a force far greater than us. We can do this.

  The promise Nik had made to her in Evangelina filled her head. They were in the center of the storm now, just as he’d predicted. Now they had to find their way out.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  NIK ROSE EARLY the next morning, his meetings with the Executive Council on the Carnelian situation slated to start at eight and go late into the day. In the dim light slanting its way through the windows, he pulled on a pair of trousers and a shirt.

  His head throbbed from the whiskey h
e’d consumed; his body ached from far too little sleep. He’d hoped by shutting his eyes for a few hours, the images of the five dead crewmen being carried off the rescued ship would stop torturing him, but they had been burned into his brain. He might be only the figurehead leader of the military, but he had done the training, knew the classic tenet that had been drilled into their heads as soldiers: sacrifice for the greater good. But the thought of returning those men home to their families in a box wasn’t an emotion he’d been trained to process.

  A fist formed in his chest. He buttoned his shirt up over it and swung a tie around his neck. His gaze drifted to Sofía asleep in their bed as his fingers fumbled over the knot. To feel their baby kicking last night had knocked some sense into him. Sofía had knocked some sense into him.

  He needed to protect her and his child. He needed to protect Akathinia. Everything hinged on what he did next.

  While he had been playing in the sun with Sofía, convincing himself he was smarter than Idas, convincing himself he could have it all, his enemy had been plotting his next move. Outsmarting him. Five men were dead because of it.

  Perhaps his father had been right. Maybe there was no middle ground for a leader. Either you had complete focus on the job as his father had, to hell with the people in your life, or your distractions ruined you.

  He yanked a jacket from the closet and slid it on. His emotions were too close to the surface right now. Too all over the place. He needed some distance between him and Sofía while he navigated this crisis. From emotions that were too strong to process.

  It wasn’t difficult. His meeting went late into the night as expected. When he returned home Sofía was asleep. The pattern went on for two weeks as he debated the question of Carnelia at Council. Those who wanted to deal Carnelia a warning blow to show Idas Akathinia wasn’t available to take were numerous. Those who, like him, knew diplomacy was the only answer, a minority. There was no middle ground, he argued to the proponents of a warning blow. It would drag Akathinia into a war it didn’t want and they would lose without its enhanced military force in place.