by Romancing the Crown Series (13-in-1 bundle) (v1. 0) (lit)
Lorenzo leaned back in his chair. "In my experience—and I do have vast experience in this area, having screwed things up royally with Eliza before she took pity on me—the hardest thing for a man to do in a relationship is surrender control."
"Surrender?" Drew's mouth quirked up. "I can't believe you said that."
Lorenzo shrugged one shoulder. "We want to be the ones on top. And I mean that in more ways than literally," he added, a glint of humor in his dark eyes. "Letting ourselves go, being out of control, doesn't come easily."
It didn't come at all for Drew. He put down his glass. "Thanks for the drink and the advice to the lovelorn. I should be getting to the airport."
"I'll drive you."
"That's not necessary."
"Sure it is. You can even things up by giving me advice."
Drew stood. " Buy low, sell high and be sure to look both ways before crossing the street."
Lorenzo laughed and clapped him on the back. "Come on. Let's go."
Rose had lit the candle, gone into the tiny flame and put it out three times in fifteen minutes. Sweat beaded on her forehead.
"You're getting better at this," Gemma said encouragingly.
"Faster, anyway." The first time she'd tried, it had taken her the entire thirty minutes to extinguish the flame. Of course, she'd spent much of that time in a pure funk, terrified, unable to bring herself to open to fire.
The fear was still intense, but she was learning. "One more time," she said. "But I'll feed it a little first."
"Are you sure?" Gemma's forehead wrinkled. "You're still new at this."
"It's a very simple fire. And it can't get too large—even if I lose control, it has only the candle to draw from." And herself. But she wouldn't let it have her. Rose took a deep breath, centered herself and called fire. The wick flamed. She fed it—just a little—and it flared higher. She opened herself...
Flame, mild and hot, dancing in the air. In her mind. Calling her as she had called it.. .and she let herself answer. And join. Ah, the dance! The heat, the fiery chaos swam over her, through her, became her...
Flames. Orange-hot, sucking the air from her chest, shouting smoke at the sky. Flames, drawing her skin hot and tight over the rapture within, the coiled secret at the bottom of her soul. Flames, calling her.. .fire crackling merrily over the bones of its prey, a familiar mass of dark shapes and angles. There were people, too—she saw them as movement, their outlines blurred by possibilities.
And there were bodies, dark and still and horribly visible.
Rose jerked back, her head stiff, her eyes wide with horror. "The airport. Oh, God, Zia, they're going to bomb the airport—again!"
She scrambled to her feet and took off for the kitchen at a run.
"Are you sure?" Gemma called from behind her. "Rose, love, maybe you slipped in time, went back—"
"No." Rose's hand shook as she shoved open the phone directory. "No, this was a future vision, not past. Near future, very near... Oh, God, where's the number for the police?" Her fingers were so clumsy she had trouble turning the thin pages, but finally she fumbled to the right one and punched in the number.
The corporal who spoke to her was an idiot. No, he didn't know where Captain Mylonas was, or when he would return. So sorry, but don't worry, signorina, he would tell the captain about her call. No, no, it wasn't at all necessary for her to speak with his superior—be sure he would pass on her warning to the appropriate people.
He wouldn't. He didn't believe her. The only person he might tell would be some buddy so they could both laugh at the weird calls they got sometimes.
It was up to her.
She disconnected and thrust the phone at her aunt. "Here. Try to reach Duke Lorenzo at the palace. He'll believe you if you tell him the warning is coming from me."
"But.. .but where are you going?"
"To the airport," Rose called, already out the door. "They'll listen. They've seen me there with the duke."
Drew was puzzled when Lorenzo parked the car—illegally, but rank hath its privileges—and came into the airport with him. He supposed his cousin was worried about him. Hell, everyone was. It was annoying, especially when all he wanted was to be alone.
No, what he really wanted was Rose. But he neededto be alone. He'd learned to notice when his shield began feeling stressed. After the talk with Lucas, after Lorenzo's well-meant probing—after the endless, gray days without Rose—he felt frayed.
So he wasn't as pleased as he should have been when he realized his entire family—most of the ones here on Montebello, anyway—had shown up at the airport to see him off. Surrounded by palace guards, of course.
The show of support and caring made his throat tight. It also made him feel precarious. Vulnerable. But he couldn't tell them that or let it show. So when the guards admitted him, he smiled and hugged his aunt, shook hands with his uncle, kissed Lorenzo's pretty new wife and asked who was running the country while they made the airport guards nervous.
Lorenzo was smiling, pleased with himself. "Was this your idea?" Drew asked, low-voiced.
"No, the king suggested it. Everything was arranged very quickly—no chance for word to leak, except—
* * *
A flash went off. Then another one.
"Except to the press," Drew said dryly. "We're making a show of family solidarity, I take it?"
"The king believes it's important for his people to see him in public, carrying on a normal life. Lucas didn't come, because I insisted they shouldn't both be in the same place at the same time, but the risk is very slight. No one could have anticipated this."
Drew nodded, accepting the political necessity and trying to ignore the pushing journalists.
"Drew," Lorenzo said, "it isn't all for show. He wants you to know your family cares."
And that was undoubtedly true. King Marcus had always had to balance his duty to his country with his love for his family. Drew understood that.
But there were too many people crowded around him. Family, loving and close. Guards. Reporters. Strangers—a whole airport full of them, passengers, their friends and family and associates.
His head began to pound.
* * *
Rose threw money at the driver and bolted out of the cab, not taking time to shut the door. She hit the airport sidewalk at a run, but was forced to a near stop at the central door—it was one of those revolving doors that moved at its own pace. Desperately slow.
She entered the concourse and paused, looking around frantically for the nearest guard. There was a knot of people at the west end of the concourse, and guards—Oh, God! Those were the uniforms of the palace guards! And with them.. .yes, that was Lorenzo!
She started running. Another guard, one in the blue uniform of airport security, grabbed her by the arm before she got far. "Here now. What's the rush?" His eyes were dark with suspicion.
This one she'd never seen in her visits to the airport. He wouldn't know who she was. "I know it looks funny, me running toward—toward whoever the palace guard is protecting." She tried to see around him, to see which of the royals was at the airport with Lorenzo, but the guard blocked her, his fingers tightening on her arm. "Please," she said, "you have to believe me. There's a bomb. You have to get everyone out."
He grabbed the walkie-talkie off the belt at his waist and spoke into it, using some kind of numerical code-talk. But he didn't let go of her.
Another guard hurried up to them. A chubby man, he was sweating slightly in spite of the air-conditioning. "What's the problem?"
"Bomb threat. I've called it in."
"It's not a threat. It's a warning. Please," Rose begged, "get everyone out of here. It could go off at any time."
The second guard rubbed at the watch on his wrist, shifting from foot to foot. "I know who you are. That woman who thinks she's a witch or something." He laughed nervously. "Must be a false alarm, eh, Frederico? Unless you believe in witchcraft."
"Tell the duke," Rose pleaded. "D
uke Lorenzo. Call him—he's at the other end of the concourse. Tell him Rose Giaberti said there's a bomb."
The chubby guard kept fiddling with his watch. "Wait," he said suddenly, "I see the sergeant outside. I'll go get him."
"You're not supposed to leave now," the first guard protested. "That's not procedure. We have to wait for instructions."
"I'll get the sergeant," the chubby one repeated, and pushed past Rose.
When he did, his èssere brushed against her. And she knew him. "You," she whispered, her eyes big with horror. "It was you.
She threw her body frantically to one side, breaking the first guard's grip.
* * *
Drew's headache was rapidly getting worse. He was going to have to make a break for the men's room and try splashing water on his face and hope that would be enough. He excused himself to his aunt, who had been telling him about a doctor in Paris she wanted him to see.
Though no one had said anything about his supposed epilepsy, he was sure his aunt and uncle, at least, had
been informed.
It was Lorenzo's posture that alerted him. His cousin stood at the outside of the cluster of guards and royals, watchful as ever. And he was watching something farther down the concourse with the attention of a bird dog on point.
Drew stopped beside his cousin. There were too many people in the way to see clearly, but he caught a glimpse of a couple of the airport's security people. They seemed to have someone in custody—a woman.
"What is it?" Drew asked. A reporter spotted him and thrust a microphone in his face. He pushed it away.
"I don't know," Lorenzo said, and began to walk quickly.
Drew went with him. He felt each step in his skull, a harder, hotter throb of pain. But something about that woman—
She suddenly pulled away, and he saw her. Rose.
He started to run.
"Lorenzo!" she screamed. "There's a—"
The guard grabbed her again, yanking her arm behind her.
"A bomb!" Rose yelled. "There's a bomb!"
A couple of people screamed. Others scattered, while some stood staring and some tried to wrestle their luggage with them in the suddenly panicked crowd. Behind him Lorenzo cursed and began calling quick instructions to the palace guard. "Form up! Get them out of here!" Drew ran, shoving past whoever got in his way and sending a jolt of pain from his soles, up his spine to his head.
Rose!
The loudspeaker came on, advising everyone to be calm. "No bomb has been found. Proceed in an orderly manner to the doors and let the police investigate. Repeat—no bomb has been found...."
He was about fifteen feet from Rose when there was a loud popping noise and a blinding flash. Fire leaped out at Drew from a ticket counter—
And vanished.
Rose's head snapped back, her spine arching. The guard holding her made a startled sound and stepped back, holding his hands out as if he'd been shocked.
She began, faintly, to glow.
A sound tore from Drew's throat. He hurled himself at her, dizzy with pain and terror, and wrapped his arms around her. But there was no getting between her and this fire, because it was inside her.
She was hot. Dear God, she was burning hot—and she didn't see him, didn't respond at all. Through the sluice of agony he tried to think—he couldn't go away now, he had to fight it, but to get inside, where the fire was, he had to drop his shields.
He didn't know how. Squeezing his eyes shut, he began to pray, fast and incoherent...and images fled before his closed eyes. A face, cruel, pockmarked—he's going to hurt me again, please don't, please—but pleading didn't help. They'd hated him, his kidnappers, his keepers, hated what he stood for—wealth and privilege, rank—everything they lusted after and didn't have. Especially the man with the cruel eyes, whose hatred swamped him as he...
Drew shuddered. And stopped remembering—because he hadn't been there when the rest of it had happened. He'd gone away. He'd counted and he'd gone away, far away inside himself. Just like he'd gone inside himself at Heathrow. Fear sweat stood on Drew's skin, but he didn't feel it, didn't hear the fire alarm or the crowds or the screams. He knew what he had to do. Surrender.
Letting ourselves go, being out of control, doesn 't come easily, Lorenzo had said. His cousin didn't know the half of it. This time when the dizzy dislocation hit, Drew didn't fight it. Instead he let go—of sanity, reason, his senses. Of everything except Rose.
And as reality twisted into screaming colors and he fell into darkness, a single thought—a memory— plummeted into the void with him. At the age of eleven, he'd come back. He'd gone far away inside himself, but when it was over, when the man with the cruel eyes and hands had gone and left him alone once more, he'd brought himself back.
By counting backwards.
Fire. It roared inside her, around her, huge and devouring and unbearably beautiful. Rose stood outside normal space and time, in a place where only èsseri could exist. She'd slipped a few scant seconds away from the instant the bomb had exploded and called—and the fire had answered, following her to this glowing non-place where she stood immobile.
Five.
She stood utterly still because she was in the heart of fire now, a raging inferno that sang to her and around her, calling her to dance—and if she moved at all she would dance, would join in the rapturous destruction.
Four.
She fought to hold on to the order that was self—fought with fire and with her own longing, as chaos raged through her, around her.
Three.
Fire everywhere. The world was fire. It was too much—too perfect, too beautiful—Dance with me, dance! She was breaking up, losing her hold on herself—
Two.
The shimmering orange glow parted. A shape appeared where there could be no shape, only change. Yet it was there—darkness formed into a man-shape. Moving toward her.
One.
A hand. A man's hand reaching out through the flame, closing around her arm. Cool and solid and real. A 1 hand—an essence—that she knew. And had never thought to feel again.
She cried his name in the silence of the fire and felt his arms wrapping around her, holding her tight to his cool, solid body. Here, where there was only flame and dissolution and her, Drew was here. Pouring his strength into her, wrapping his body around hers, sheltering her. Standing with her against the flames.
Drawing on his solidity, the core of him that was impervious to fire, she rediscovered order and command, and she cooled. As she did, so did the fire. The glow dimmed. The wild dance calmed.. .and settled.. .and died.
She opened her eyes. And smiled, and touched his damp cheek.
He was holding her in this world, too.
* * *
Three hours later Drew still had his arm around her. They were sitting on a gold sofa in the king and queen's private suite. He'd pulled her snugly up against him as soon as the king's personal physician finished with her, and after a brief protest, she'd subsided contentedly. This was exactly where she wanted to be.
As he knew. She glanced at him. His shield was up again, but it felt softer now. Less of a barrier, more simple protection. Faintly she sensed his èssere and was happy.
He would know that, too. With his shield so soft, he couldn't help picking up her feelings when they touched this way.
Drew might have been content to hold hands, but hers were burned. Not badly—there were a couple of small blisters, but the other spots were simply red and shiny. The doctor, who hadn't asked a single question about how she came to be burned, didn't think she would scar.
She glanced at her aunt, sitting in a chair beside the queen. Gemma was quite sure Rose wouldn't scar. She'd seen to that.
The prince stood near the fireplace, listening, as they all were. Lorenzo was reporting to the king.
"The guard's name is Artesio Dipopulous," he said. "He's talking his head off. We have two of his confederates in custody and hope to have the third before morning." He nam
ed the other conspirators and gave a brief precis of their parts in the plot.
"Remarkably accommodating of him," Lucas said. "We usually don't have much luck getting the bastards to talk."
Lorenzo grinned. "Whatever Rose did, it put the fear of God into Dipopulous. He seems to think divine retribution is at hand and is eager to confess."
Several interested glances came her way. Drew chuckled. "Somehow I don't see him mistaking you for a priest."
Lorenzo smiled, satisfied as a cat with a mouse beneath its paw. "Another bit of good news—for some reason every inch of film in the news hounds' cameras was overexposed. They may print a bunch of nonsense about what happened, but they won't have any photographs to back it up."
Rose breathed a sigh of relief. She had not looked forward to being a nine-day wonder. However Lorenzo had managed that trick, she was grateful to him.
"How did Dipopulous get past the background check?" King Marcus wanted to know. "Guards at the airport are investigated rigorously."
Lorenzo grimaced. "He passed because there was nothing to find. It seems his motives were personal, not political or religious. He had a grudge against the royal family. His father killed himself several years ago, and for complex and irrational reasons, he blamed the Sebastiani family. The connection existed mostly in his mind, so his background check turned up nothing suspicious."
"He planted the first bomb," Rose said. "That's how I recognized him."
"Yes." Lorenzo met her gaze. There was, she thought, an apology in his dark eyes. If he'd made sure she met all of the guards when he was pretending to believe her, none of this would have happened. "Dipopulous's goal this time was to plant an incendiary device in the royal jet. He'd brought it to the airport a few days ago—it looked like a box of candy—but security has been too tight for him to get it into any of the restricted areas."
"When all of you showed up at the airport," Lucas said, "it must have seemed like too good an opportunity to miss."