by Leslie Kelly
Rafe glared. “Nobody’s getting a purple Sharpie anywhere near my ass, pal.”
Ruprecht waved away the concern. “It doesn’t matter, she wouldn’t ask to see it. She’ll be so thrilled when you—I—return!”
“Stop it, Ruprecht,” Olivia snapped. “You’re being ridiculous.”
“It’s not ridiculous!” He turned back to Rafe. “You simply go to Grand Falls with Olivia, stand there and let them put a crown on your head, then say you’re leaving on your first trip as king. Return here, go back to your life, and I’ll go home a few weeks later, after Jess and I finish our competition.”
“This is madness,” Olivia said. “Utter madness.”
“It’s not. It would work. Nobody would ever know.”
“I would know,” she insisted. “Besides which, Rafe would never do it, not for all the gold in Elatyria.”
Ruprecht stared back and forth between them, the cogs in his mind obviously ticking away. Then, a sneaky look she recognized from childhood crossed his face. “But would he do it for you?”
“What are you talking about?” Rafe asked, his eyes narrowed.
Olivia was too angry to speak. She grasped what Ruprecht was getting at and took back every nice thought she’d just had about the arrogant fool. “Don’t even think about it.”
The spoiled prince merely smiled. “I have thought about it. And I’m not going. The end. Goodbye.”
“Your amphibian ancestry is revealing itself, you slimy toad,” she snarled.
Rafe appeared stunned. “You’re willing to lose everything?”
Ruprecht waved a hand. “My mother won’t let that happen. She will have squirreled away plenty of valuables. I’ll be fine.” His eyes gleaming, he added, “Of course, poor Olivia and her family might not be. Isn’t that too bad.”
“Shut up, Ruprecht,” she said, wondering how the queen would feel about her addressing the royal prince in this manner. Somehow, considering he still had lipstick on his mouth, dark shadow over one eye, and wore a glittering gown, she couldn’t muster up much royal reverence.
“You heard her yourself. If my family loses the throne, her family loses, as well.” Ruprecht drew a hand to his chest, his every move exaggerated. “Why, Olivia, you would lose your position, too, wouldn’t you? Surely the new king would want to appoint his own Captain of the Guard. You would be put out to pasture like an old mare.”
Her fingers curling into fists, she launched at him, but Rafe leapt in front of her. “Don’t. I’ll do it.”
“You’ll beat him?”
“No. I said I’d do it. I’ll go.”
Trying to dart around him, she grabbed for the prince, seeing only the bossy boy who’d once gotten her spanked because she’d told him she could defeat him in a wrestling match—and had then proved it.
“Olivia, I said I’ll go!”
Ruprecht’s joyful expression and clapping hands sunk in before Rafe’s words did. But finally, the steam left her head and she allowed herself to acknowledge what he’d said. “Now you’re the one being ridiculous.”
“It’s not that big a deal,” he told her. “I have a passport, I’m self-employed and don’t have much on my schedule. The band doesn’t have a gig for next weekend.” He shrugged, smiling, obviously having no clue what he would be letting himself in for if he traveled to Elatyria—a place she suspected he didn’t even know existed. “I’ll go, play the prince, then come home. Everybody wins.”
“Including you, Olivia,” Ruprecht murmured, sounding so pleased with himself she wanted to lose her evening meal all over the floor. “Not to mention your family.”
Her family. Her kind parents, her sisters—so anxious to be married off to eligible bachelors. Her brother, so quiet and studious, needing the sponsorship of the royal family so he could continue his quest for an education.
She thought of them. She thought of the prince, the way he’d looked so excited about the idea of being on television, and the way his face had lit up when he mentioned being in love at last.
She also thought of the fact that taking this trip with Rafe would mean she would have more time in his company. More chances to figure out why he made her feel things no man had ever made her feel. And more time to decide what to do about them.
That, more than anything, made up her mind. It was madness, went against her training, her judgment and could get her executed.
But she was going to do it anyway.
CHAPTER 6
BY THE TIME RAFE REALIZED he had ended up in another dimension, or a weird alternate reality—some crazy crap like that—it was too late to turn around. Far too late.
“What have you gotten yourself into?” he whispered, looking back at the mysterious blue-green mountains, swathed in mist, jutting into the sky. They seemed far away, and yet he’d climbed down a path on those mountains an hour or two ago.
Time was off.
So was everything else.
Because at some point during that climb, all he knew to be true had been turned upside down and inside out.
Not literally—he wasn’t standing on his head, but he might as well have been. The whole world felt different. The air tasted strange in his mouth, the colors were all wrong—trees laden with navy-blue leaves, the ground ripe with dark orange grass. The sun itself seemed to move in the wrong direction in the sky!
He’d thought for a second he was asleep, dreaming as they took a long, red-eye flight across the Atlantic. But there had been no flight. No dream. Just a drive north, then a hike up a hillside near a petrified forest, where she’d mumbled about finding a gateway. Then that strange, narrow pass that had seemed to twist and turn right into the mountain itself.
And then, out the other side. Right into this place.
It wasn’t until he had refused to mount one of the horses she’d had waiting at the base of the mountain that Olivia stopped and told him exactly where she’d brought him. That explanation had silenced him for a good ten minutes. He’d been expecting a trip to Europe. Not one over the freaking rainbow.
“I still can’t believe this,” he muttered, unable to tear his eyes off those mountains, the “borderland” she’d called them, between her world and his.
“I know,” Olivia replied as she reined in next to him. “Again, I’m sorry for not better preparing you. But I thought it would be easier to explain if I let you see for yourself.”
“Yeah, uh, speaking of that, your definition of ‘explain’ and mine are very different.” She hadn’t explained much, other than to say this Elatyria somehow existed right alongside Earth.
It was the same planet, occupying the same space, at the same time. But different.
Which was impossible.
And yet…here he was.
“You’ll have to ask others wiser than me to make it clear,” Olivia told him with a sigh. “I’ve told you as much as I know.”
“Yeah, I heard ya, a world within a world,” he said. “Like we’ve fallen into a Dr. Seuss book and I’m right now sitting on a clover flower perched on an elephant’s nose?”
She didn’t catch the reference. “I’m sure wise men in your world—in the place they call the government—know the truth, too. They just don’t tell anyone.”
“I doubt that.”
“You don’t think they know?”
“I don’t think there are any wise men in the government.”
Her face serious as she tried to make him understand, she said, “All I know is what our wise men have said. Our worlds occupy the same space, but different dimensions.”
“And they share these borderlands.”
She nodded. “Yes. Some of the borders are incredibly small, passable only at certain times of the month, when the moon is at its fullest.” She nodded toward the mountains. “Others, like that one, are larger, more accessible. It was through a large one that my Amazon ancestors crossed over, most of them deciding to remain in Elatyria many centuries ago.”
“Gotcha. And all that stuff yo
u were talking about with Ruprecht—the goose with the golden egg, King Midas…”
She rolled her eyes. “I know, I know. Pure fiction in your world. History in mine.”
History. All the fairy tales and fables, legends and myths of his life were the very fabric and foundation of hers.
“For what it’s worth, that government you were talking about? It’s set in Washington.”
A thoughtful frown appeared on her face, then she barked a laugh. “So he’s not a fictional character?”
“Uh-uh.”
“What about the strong man who wears the red cape and can fly?”
“That one’s fiction.”
“Too bad.”
Without a word, she started moving again, and he followed. He asked no more questions for a while, focused only on staying on the damn horse—he hadn’t ridden one since he was seven and got thrown off a pony at a small carnival. But at least this one didn’t have wings. Or a horn. Because judging by what he’d learned so far, otherworldly creatures actually did exist over here. Unicorns, dragons, giants.
Somebody slipped the wrong kind of mushroom on a pizza. You’re hallucinating all of this!
But he wasn’t. And he knew it. So he just kept riding.
He saw many fascinating sights during the long day of travel, eventually dropping his own veil of skepticism enough to question Olivia about this world of hers. Everything she told him hammered the point home: if this was all real, then everything she’d told him about herself, and her life, was real, too.
She was an Amazon. She had been celibate for eight years. And she’d never made love with a man.
That, more than anything, filled his head as he watched her slim, leather-clad form riding ahead of him, looking as one with the beautiful animal on which she rode. He could hardly think of anything else.
She’d given up one of the most delicious experiences that existed in either world without ever really tasting it.
She’d also given up everything that went with it. Love, a relationship, children, family, a home.
Something was terribly wrong with this Amazon group she took such pride in. She was too beautiful, too passionate, too smart and brave to live like that. And though she would deny to her last breath that there was anything wrong with her life, he found himself wanting to simply show her how screwed up it really was, not try to explain it, just take her there.
As she’d done with him.
“We’ll stop for the night,” Olivia called as she came to a stop a few yards ahead of him.
Though it hadn’t seemed like they’d been riding a terribly long time, shadows had begun to cross the land. She’d warned him time was different here, shorter, and he realized evening was approaching.
“The castle is only another two hours’ ride. We should rest. Get a fresh start in the morning.”
She climbed off her horse, and he did the same, glad his legs weren’t shaking, even if his ass was pretty numb.
“Follow me,” she said, leading her horse off the trail into a thick stand of woods. These trees, at least, looked normal, though they certainly weren’t anything like those in California. This was more like a dense jungle, lush and rich, with leaves so green they hurt his eyes. The colors were so much more vivid, just as the air itself, which he’d now become accustomed to, tasted so much more vibrant.
Walking behind her, he wondered if she was actually following any kind of trail, because he saw no sign of one. But Olivia seemed to know where she was going.
As they walked, a low hum began to fill his ears, growing louder the deeper they went. A few minutes later, when the hum had grown to a roar, he understood what it was. Olivia led him out of the thick forest into an enormous clearing. A huge, crystalline lake occupied the center of it, fed by a waterfall that almost seemed to stretch up into the clouds.
It was deafening. Sparkling. Magnificent.
“Grand Falls,” she told him, pride evident in her raised voice. “The kingdom’s namesake.”
“Beautiful,” he said, unable to look away for a moment, feeling as though he was looking at heaven’s spigot showering fresh water to the ground.
She gave him a minute or two to gape, then said, “We must take care of the animals.”
Following her instructions, Rafe unsaddled his horse, who, thankfully, had managed to avoid killing him during the ride.
That was one thing he already disliked about her world—no public transportation.
Only after their mounts were taken care of did they set up a small camp. Along with the horses, she’d left blankets and food—some dried fruit and meat—back at that stable by the borderland.
She’d also left her sword, bow and a quiver full of arrows, which she had immediately strapped on. His California liberal side tried not to find that incredibly hot, but failed miserably.
He had been anticipating an uncomfortable night. But as he sat on the banks of the water, he had to admit the mossy ground was soft, plush. Like a mattress provided by nature itself. “I’m glad we stopped,” he told her after they’d finished eating. “I needed a breather before tomorrow.”
“You are still sure you want to do this?” she asked, frowning. “You don’t have to, it’s not too late. We can turn around and go back the way we came.”
“What about your job? Your family?”
She waved an unconcerned hand. “That isn’t your problem. I’ll be fine, as will they. Honestly, Rafe, we can find another way.” She put on one of those dark scowls that made her look a little ferocious and a lot sexy. “The closer we get to Queen Verona the more my shoulder blades come together—in anticipation of a knife between them.”
“She’s a queen, she can’t be that bad.”
“Tell that to Snow White’s descendents.”
He laughed. “Yeah, uh-huh.”
“It’s not funny. Legend said the poor girl became so claustrophic after the coffin incident, she ended up a paranoid old woman, and ordered all the interior walls of her castle torn down. It nearly crashed upon her head.”
Seeing she was dead serious, he mumbled, “Sorry. This is gonna take me a while.”
Thinking about this queen, he couldn’t help wondering what would happen to Olivia if she returned to the castle without the prince. If the woman was that dangerous, what would she do to someone who failed to complete an important mission? How might she make Olivia pay for it?
He was suddenly worried about a lot more than her family, or her job. Her pretty neck, for starters.
“I’m going,” he insisted. “And that’s that.”
Looking suspicious, she asked, “Why?”
He tried to play it cool, knowing she would refuse to take him if she thought he was doing it to protect her. “I came all this way. Might as well meet this infamous queen and get treated like royalty for a couple of days. It’ll be fun.”
Even if, right now, he could think of nothing more fun than lying Olivia down on this soft ground and teaching her what real pleasure was all about. Especially if there was any chance whatsoever that something bad could happen to her because of this whole misadventure.
Though the sun hung low in the sky, the air felt warm, and his thoughts made his body hotter. He couldn’t help thinking how good that cool water would feel against his skin.
And there was something else that would feel good against his skin: hers.
He’d been following her lead all day, the stranger in her land now. Never a chauvinist, he’d had no problem letting Olivia set the course and the pace and even the tone of their ride.
But they weren’t traveling anymore. They had stopped for the night. One last night before they’d begin the charade and he would be playing her prince and she his bodyguard, unable to publicly interact much less share an impromptu shower.
He knew how he wanted to spend this night.
He also knew Olivia was tense and aware, thinking the same thoughts. She’d eyed him several times today when she thought he didn’t notice. Ever since ye
sterday, when he’d shown her what her body was capable of doing for her, she’d been on edge, so wanting to experience it again he could almost taste her need in the air.
She’d dragged him into her version of reality this morning. Maybe it was his turn to introduce her to his tonight.
With that in mind, Rafe began to strip off his clothes, tossing his shirt to the ground, letting the warmth of the setting sun bake into his tight muscles.
“Wh-what are you doing?” she asked, staring up at him from where she sat on the ground. Her eyes were wide, shocked, as if she hadn’t walked around his apartment in nothing but her glorious hair yesterday morning.
“I thought I’d take a swim.” Smiling, he began to unfasten his jeans. “That’s not against the rules or anything, is it?”
“Uh, no,” she replied, licking her lips, looking nervous for the first time since he’d met her.
At last he’d found the one area where she wasn’t absolutely self-assured. When it came to sex, Olivia was no warrior. In fact, right now she looked a little like a tentative virgin.
A virgin wearing a black leather miniskirt and a sword strapped across her back. But a virgin nonetheless.
“Why don’t you join me?” he asked, kicking out of the rest of his clothes, watching the way her mouth parted on a deep sigh as she ogled him, standing there, naked, in the last rays of sunlight.
He turned around, not wanting to give his intentions away yet. Because that look, the want in her eyes and the way her choppy breaths flowed audibly in and out of her mouth had him hardening in response. She thought she’d seen him through the screen the other night? Hell. If he had stayed put, she would have had an up-close, eye-level view of what she did to him, without as much as a touch.
Not waiting to see if she would follow, he strode to the edge of the water. It lapped against his feet, cool but not cold, and without another word, he dove in.
The liquid relief might have eased the heat on his skin. But when he finally looked back toward the shore and saw her walking into the water, wearing the same nothing she’d worn to bed at his place, his internal temperature shot way up.
She had been stunning then, inside, standing at the window. Now, beneath the brilliant blue sky of her homeland, she was the definition of beautiful. She literally took his breath away.