His Princess (A Royal Romance)

by Abigail Graham

  It’s maybe fifteen degrees cooler in the mountains. I’ve started to shiver and goose bumps have raised up on my legs. Melissa is fine in her long dress. Brad doesn’t seem the worse for wear at all. She leans in under his arm and strokes his chest, forgetting herself as he toys with her hair.

  She looks really happy. I hope we don’t all get blown up over this.

  The truck rounds a bend, threading between big rocks. More fighters mill around above, walking obscured paths with slung rifles and cigarettes glowing in the dark. There’s a second gate and then the camp.

  It’s smaller than the village and aid-worker camp we left, more tightly packed, an assortment of tents of different colors and camouflage patterns under a huge ceiling of netting held up by poles and wires. The only thing poking out is the antenna on a radio shack nestled up against the rocks.

  As far as I can tell there’s some barracks tents, some metal prefabs that look to be Cold War vintage, and one big tent, probably the mess hall and whatnot. The truck pulls to a stop and five or six of the fighters walk up with their Kalashnikovs on their backs and and start unloading the boxes. Brad jumps down and offers Melissa a hand.

  I step down on my own, ignoring his offered help.

  “When they get it unloaded we’re going back to camp, right?”

  Brad eyes me. “Sure. This way first. Let’s warm up in the tent. I need to talk to some people. Stay close by me. You’ll be fine as long as they know you’re with me.”

  I frown. That sounds like a warning. Why wouldn’t we be fine if we weren’t with him?

  When I look around at the fighters, I get an inkling why. These guys are eyeing us both like pieces of meat, and I wish I’d worn something other than shorts. Their gaze on my legs makes my skin crawl, and Melissa whimpers when one of them passes close to her. She tucks up to Brad’s back as he walks toward a tent at the far end of the camp. I stay a couple steps behind, my head on a swivel.

  The pressure in my skull grows with every step. This isn’t right. We’re not supposed to be here. My instincts are screaming shrilly at me: run, run, you dumb bitch, run now, but there’s nowhere to go. Brad got us in and I have to trust him to get us out.

  That’s just great, Penny.

  A metallic taste twists my mouth when I remember how I got here: at gunpoint. I lost track of the guy who waved the rifle at me back at camp. Nervously rubbing my arms, I duck inside the tent, close behind Brad.

  It looks like the set of a cheesy eighties action movie. Faded map on the wall, cheap folding wooden tables and chairs, and some kind of officer in a more uniformy uniform seated behind the desk, poring over a different map with little pins stuck in it. He rises and offers Brad a hand but gruffly shouts at him in Kosztylan.

  It’s close to Solkovian, but it takes me a second or two to puzzle it out.

  He said something like, “Your ass is (late?), CIA.”

  The CIA part was in English, or at least he just recited the letters. They start talking too fast for me to follow and I hear something like Amerikaneesh, the Kosztylan word for “American.”

  CIA. Fucking CIA. Alarm bells start going off in my head. My knees buckle a little and I feel the blood drain from my face as my stomach drops. Melissa stands there with a blank look on her face. She’s checked out, just great. I do my best to pretend I didn’t understand, blinking and gazing blankly at the wall. I look away from the map as my heart pounds, hoping they don’t think I’m some kind of spy.

  Brad and Bearded General go back and forth for a few minutes, talking about supplies. I can’t understand every word but with context and some guesswork I can rough out what they’re saying.

  “You did not tell me there would be extra merchandise.”

  “It was a last-minute addition. These help workers are too questioning. Keep stumbling on the operation.”

  Bearded General laughs. “Too bad for them. Not bad for us. Last merchandise we sold very much money, wealth for cause. Bought new shipment for trade. You bring more weapons, we bring more (something I can’t make out).”

  I stare at the floor, hackles rising on the back of my neck. They keep talking about merchandise and trading stuff. I remember my kooky Twentieth-Century History professor from school and the day he spent ranting about the CIA, Operation Paperclip, Iran-Contra, the cartels, drug running. He had this whole map laid out with all these connections between the CIA and drug runners and stuff. I thought he was nuts, but it sounds like that’s what they’re talking about here.

  I wonder what the merchandise would be, though. The crates were marked food, but some were clearly military crates painted over. I’ve seen pictures. Besides, an identical crate sits in the tent just now, with the top pried loose.

  Sitting inside, in a bed of blankets and straw, is a long black tube with a sight, a grip, and a trigger. Some kind of rocket launcher or grenade launcher or something. The bomb parts sit in a neat row next to the launcher, big tubes that taper to a fatter width and narrow again at the tip. They look like those RPG things the bad guys use in video games. Looking around the tent reminds me of Red Dawn, except Brad is no Patrick Swayze.

  The alarm bells are getting louder. Is Brad selling them weapons? What did he mean by merchandise? It sounded like they were selling the merchandise for drugs, whatever it is.

  I keep my head down. They think we don’t understand. I don’t think Melissa does. She just smiles blankly like she’s trying to make a good impression. I tug on her arm, trying to get her attention.

  Brad says something like, “The extra one stumbled on us while we were loading the truck. I try to bring once upon a time. Second one too smart. Wasn’t planning to bring her. Damaged goods. Blonde untouched. Lot of money.”

  Untouched, what?

  Bearded General eyes Melissa. She smiles, again trying to make a good impression. She’s probably thinking about how awesome it is to support these brave, democratic freedom fighters. When Bearded General looks at me I feel like some insect is crawling over my skin, down my top, and up my shorts.

  “Older one no good. I keep. Blonde lot of money. Keep away from these dogs, yes. They ruin goods. Can have other one as long as I get first. Take them both to my tent. Broker arrives when sun gets up.”

  Oh fuck. Fuck me. The wheels stop spinning and slam into place. If they’re not talking about selling me and Melissa to someone, they’re playing the world’s most unfunny practical joke. I weigh my options in two or three seconds, grab Melissa’s arm, and bolt.

  She just stands there and almost falls down.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Run, you idiot. They’re going to kidnap us. They’re traffickers!”

  Neither Brad nor Bearded General seem especially concerned by my outburst, nor do they raise any alarm when I run out of the tent with Melissa.

  It becomes clear why. One of the fighters drives the wooden buttstock of his gun into my stomach. Hard. It knocks me on my ass and rams all the air out of my lungs. They grab Melissa by the arms and she starts screaming and flailing, which only prompts them to grab her harder.

  Her screams of fear and pleas for help turn into a shrill cry of pain as they twist her arm until I think it has to be broken, and she arches in agony, trying to relieve the pressure. The fighter holding her takes the opportunity to shove her at his friend, who grabs her dress and pulls hard. Melissa screams and starts to cry, begging them to stop.

  Brad casually steps out of the tent, aims a sleek black pistol in the air, and pops off a shot. The crack jerks all the fighters’ heads around to face him, and he bellows in Kosztylan, too fast for me to make out anything more than a stream of profanity.

  The fighters shove Melissa to her knees and she begs for mercy in a mishmash of English and Solkovian.

  One of the fighters bellows, “Solkovian cunt!” and moves toward her, until Brad aims the pistol at his head.

  Bearded General steps out. They start arguing. He barks orders at his men, and they pull Melissa to her feet, then me
. They grab her arms, leering at her. A hand grabs my ass, another pinches my nipple through my shirt. Brad shouts again and waves his gun when I feel a pair of fingers pushing up inside my shorts.

  Melissa has lost it. She’s just wailing and crying. As they drag us into a tent they shove a wadded-up sock into her mouth to shut her up, tie her wrists behind her back, and shove her onto a straw pallet. I’m next, bound at the wrists and ankles. The straw is so thin it’s like being dumped on the ground.

  I hear a moan and realize there’s another girl in here with us. She’s got a black eye and swollen lips, and a ragged, scabbed cut on her jaw. Bound at the wrists and ankles like we are, her legs are covered in bruises and she has a dull, glazed look in her eyes like she’s staring through us.

  Brad steps into the tent and sticks his gun behind his back, in his waistband. I follow it as it disappears from sight.

  “You dumb bitches. I wouldn’t have let them hurt you if you didn’t provoke them. You’re lucky they didn’t tear your limbs off right there. Half these guys have been fucking goats for the last five years.”

  Melissa wails through her gag and presses her eyes shut, like if she concentrates hard enough she can wake up from the bad dream. Brad stares at me and sighs.

  “You’re going to have a bad time if you try something like that again.”

  He takes a good look at Melissa.

  “Go to hell, Brad. If that is your real name.”

  “It’s not.”

  “So the church is a CIA front or what?”

  “Penny, I’m not a comic-book supervillain. I’m not going to explain my nefarious plans to you while you concoct an escape. Yeah, it’s a front. We bring them supplies, they move drugs through the mountains, we buy the drugs with weapons and women and funnel it into black programs. It’s complicated and frankly you’re too thickheaded to understand how it all works.”

  “You’re selling us.”

  “Hell yes. An American virgin is worth seven figures to the right people. You, unfortunately, are not. If the general is tired of this one,” he glances at the other girl, “he’ll throw her to the boys and fuck you for a few weeks until I bring him a new one. If you’re lucky, you won’t get pregnant. Then he’ll take you home and you’ll wish you were dead. These mountain tribesmen don’t fuck around.”

  I just stare at him.

  “You’re fucking evil.”

  “I’m patriotic. Sacrifices must be made in the name of democracy.”

  The general walks in and hands Brad a sheaf of euros. He flips through them, smiles, and tucks it, folded over, in his pocket.

  “Shitty benefits, what can I tell you? I need a nest egg for my retirement. My wife spends money like water.”

  Melissa stops, stares at him, and just starts crying harder.

  “Relax, honey. You’ll be well taken care of. The guys that can afford to buy girls like you usually keep them for at least a few years. Missionary girl like you knows how to behave, you’ll be fine. Penny, I’m sorry, but I can’t have you getting word of this operation back to anyone, so you’ll have to stay. In case you do something dumb and the general cuts your throat by the time I come back with the next shipment, good-bye and good luck.”

  Then he just…walks out.

  The general follows him outside. I hear them talking.

  The other girl just lies there, eyes glazed over.

  “Hey.”

  She ignores me.

  “Hey.”

  Shaking as though startled, she looks over, just with her eyes, her head locked in place.

  “What?”

  “What’s your name.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Nobody is coming for us.”

  “It matters to me. Tell me.”

  “Danielle. Danielle McCray.”

  I blink a few times. “Wait, from the news network?”

  She nods. “Yeah. I was in Solkovia for a puff piece about the missionary work you guys do and I stumbled on Brad. I started asking questions, he promised me a huge scoop, put me on a truck, and brought me here.”

  “Did they…”

  “Only the general gets me. Until you showed up, anyway. He’ll probably kill me tonight. I don’t care. I’m already dead.”

  I swallow, hard. I don’t know what to say.

  “Don’t fight him. Promise me you won’t fight him. You don’t know what he does to girls that fight him.”

  “Did you fight?”

  “No. He made me watch him do it to the girl before me. He used a knife.”

  Brad must be done talking, because the general comes back in.

  I take my first really good look at him. He’s about five foot eight, tanned like leather, with an oily reddish beard and thinning gray hair. He smells like he hasn’t showered in a week, and his uniform, such as it is, is stained with sweat. He walks over and jabs his foot hard into Danielle’s side, and she grunts, biting down on a cry of pain.

  He pulls a long folding knife from his pocket and flicks it open. It ratchets as it opens up. The blade is long and wider toward the tip, swept back like a tiny saber. He jabs it down and I freeze as he slices through the ropes binding my ankles. Melissa starts to whimper as he drags me to my feet and shoves me forward, out of the tent.

  I’m greeted by a chorus of catcalls and jeers. Brad watches like he’s watching a football game between two teams he doesn’t care for, puffing out his indifference on a short, foul-smelling cigarette.

  The general pushes me through the camp. I trip a few times over loose rocks and stumble forward, and his fingers dig into my arm. A quick shove sends me onto a carpeted plank floor in his tent, and he nudges me with his boot.

  “Get up,” he says, in English.

  I awkwardly get on my knees and scramble to my feet.

  Think, Penny. There has to be a way out of this. This can’t happen. Not to me.

  It’s going to happen to me. He’s got a pair of cots with thin mattresses pushed together in a crude double bed.

  He steps over to me, knife in hand, and grabs my shirt. He saws through the fabric and tears it away in ragged strips, until I’m down to my bra. He repeats the process with my shorts and I feel the blade skim over my ass, cold against my skin.

  He admires me for a moment. His eyes are like disgusting lizards crawling on my skin, leaving sticky trails. I want this to stop now. I want to wake up.

  “I speak English,” he says, in the slow tones of someone who doesn’t do it very well. “CIA man says you are not virgin. This true?”

  He touches the tip of the blade to my chin. “You not lie. You lie I cut.”

  Trembling, I squeak out, “I’m not a virgin.”

  I’m not sure that’s what he wants to hear. If I say I am, he’ll probably think I’m just trying to get away from him and hurt me for it.

  What choice do I have? God only knows what he’ll do to me if he thinks I’m lying.

  “Good. Virgin cost too much for man like me. Used girl feel the same when wrapped around cock.”

  Holding the blade edge down, he sticks it between my legs and I tense. The dull back of the knife touches me and I go stone still, my blood freezing. Oh God.

  “How many man you fuck? Not lie.”

  I swallow. “One.”

  The flat of the blade presses against my inner thigh. One quick cut and I’ll be dead before I hit the floor.

  “Not lie.”

  “One, I swear to God I’ve only ever had sex with one man.”

  “You love him?”

  I swallow again. “Yes. Very much.”

  “Where is he now? You leave him in America?”

  My voice is hollow.

  “He’s dead.”

  “You sad for dead man you fuck?”

  A horrible urge floods through me. Just tell him to fuck off and let him kill you, Penny. It has to be better than this.

  “Yes. I am sad for him.”

  “I make you feel better.” I can’t see his face but I can hear the leer in his voice.


  No. No no no no no no please…

  When I don’t move he grabs my arm and shoves me over the bed, facedown. Instinct takes over and I start to struggle, until I feel the edge of the blade pressing into the back of my neck. I hear a zipper.

  “After I fuck you, you clean my cock, American whore.”

  I squeeze my hands together and clench my teeth and do something I haven’t done in a long, long time: I pray.

  God, if you’re up there, help me. Please, somebody help me. This can’t happen. Please.

  The general freezes, listening. I hear it, too. A whine, low at first, then louder and more shrill by the second.

  The night lights up like day, long shadows rolling over the ground outside as the light source moves. Through the tent flaps I see it, a flare falling out of the sky trailing a column of smoke. The general, his greasy erection still bobbing loose in his fly, turns around and forgets the American whore for a second.

  Then the explosion comes.

  I can feel it in my chest. It rocks the ground like a giant picked up the entire mountain and shook it from side to side, and I’m on the floor before I realize what happened. The general starts to move and I scream in fury, shove my legs out, and trip him with my calves. He goes down and turns, rolling, the knife rising to plunge into my belly.

  I kick him in the face and he grabs my foot.

  Another explosion rocks the world, so loud it leaves a ringing in my ears. The general gets up, his fury forgotten in panic. Fly still open, he charges out of the tent, big belly jiggling and bursting out of his undershirt over his belt.

  I somehow get up. I’m on my feet before I even realize what happened. My heart pounds in my chest, beating so hard I think it’s going to throw me off balance from the force of it. In my underwear, covered in scratches and bruises I don’t remember getting, my arms bound behind my back, I run outside.