Melissa stands up, shaking like a leaf.
Surrounded by his men, we walk. He keeps pace with us, moving with ponderous, careful slowness, as if the armor suddenly weighs him down.
He looks at Melissa.
“You will be taken to a hospital. There you will be examined and treated for any injuries.”
Melissa starts to cry.
He looks at me.
“You’re scaring her. Take off your helmet.”
Those black eye slits study me hard, and then he gives the slightest of nods, a movement so tiny I wouldn’t have noticed it if I didn’t hear the tiny whirr his suit makes when it moves. He reaches up and sinks his clawed fingertips into notches at the base of the helmet, and it pops open with a soft hiss.
He lifts it off and hands it to one of his guards, who struggles to bear the weight. I hardly notice. I’m too busy staring at him.
He’s gorgeous. He has a long and severe face with dark-blue eyes that study me hungrily, like they’re going to swallow me up. His dark, straight hair is pulled back and bound into a knot behind his head. His jaw looks carved from stone, and his high, angular cheekbones give him an austere, lean look.
“You said your name is Penny.”
I swallow hard and try not to let my voice crack. “Yes, that’s right.”
“A penny is a coin.”
“Yes.”
“The coin of lowest value.”
I blink. “Yes, but—”
“I don’t like this name, Penny. This is a diminutive, yes? A…” he searches for the word, “nickname.”
“Yes. My real name is Persephone.”
He’s quiet for a moment that stretches until I swallow, hard.
“It would be.”
He turns and speaks to his men. His command is given slowly, clearly, so that I can understand it.
“Take this one directly to the castle. See that she has a change of clothes and a chance to bathe. She will dine with me.”
“You can’t keep us here. We’re American citizens.”
He turns back to look at me again.
“I am the crown prince. I do as I like.”
3
I’m not sure if I was expecting him to literally pick me up and carry me off, but he doesn’t. He strides past me, big metal boots thudding on the ground as he walks, and sharply throws the tent flaps open as he passes. I feel a hand on my arm and blink.
Taller than I am by a foot, heavier, and blonder, the woman who just took my arm is dressed the same as the men and fits in perfectly with them from the neck down. From the neck up, she could have a modeling career. Her short military bob actually looks good on her.
“The prince orders that you be taken to the castle. This way.”
It’s not an invitation. He ordered it, so I’m going. In spite of myself, I lean on her. Melissa grabs my hand and I give her a tight squeeze before they pull us apart and lead her out. I swallow hard and hope we haven’t just fallen out of the frying pan and into the fire.
A big, wide-bellied helicopter with two rotors sits outside. I hobble on my bad leg to the big open door, where two of the prince’s men (I can’t bring myself to call them Phoenix Guard) lift me inside by the arms, drop me into a seat, and clip a harness over my chest.
The rotors spin up, and I grab a set of earmuffs from a hook above my shoulder and slip them on to soften the thumping roar. The chopper shifts from side to side and turns a little as the wind catches it, and I grip the edges of the seat with white knuckles. The only time I’ve ever flown was on my two flights out of the States to Madrid and then out here, and never by helicopter. It feels rickety and unstable as it lifts up, the ground sinking away below. The door is still open and the only thing holding me down is the safety harness on the seat.
I feel like I’m falling off the world. As it lifts up I look around at the grim-faced, soldierly men and women surrounding me, and avert my eyes when our gazes meet. I sink into the seat and try to shrink up into a tiny little ball and disappear, but no matter how hard I suck up into myself, I’m still here.
Once in the air, the difference between Solkovia and Kosztyla is night and day. At the door itself a member of the Guard sits at a complicated-looking machine gun with a bunch of barrels, sweeping it back and forth as if he expects an attack at any moment.
I can mark out the border easily. The mountains are all dark, of course, but on the western side, in Kosztyla, the world is alive with light—lights in buildings, street lamps, cars flowing in orderly procession down the roads. The Solkovian side of the mountain range is dark, except for a few points of light in the distance, in the capital.
The chopper goes higher and swings around, and the gunner on the door visibly relaxes, even lighting a cigarette that somehow doesn’t go out or snap away from his lips as he puffs on it, casting a harsh red glow on his face and thick gloves.
I hug myself and rub my arms against the cold as the helicopter cuts swiftly over the lights. I can’t remember the name, but there is a city near the border, then open land. Even there, plenty of light illuminates the roads and small hamlets that pop up here and there among fertile fields.
Everything here is so small. Even as an East Coaster, growing up in America has left me with a skewed perspective on distance. A half-hour flight into Kosztyla and we’re in the center of the country.
There is a single mountain that spurs up in the middle of the tiny nation. The gold mines within are said to still be productive, and the capital surrounds it and climbs up its slopes but stops a third of the way up.
Near the top is an actual, honest-to-God castle. In the dark, lit by bright spotlights, it looks like something out of a fairy tale. Red lights blink slowly on the tops of the towers, glowing angry in the mists that surround them and flow down the mountainside in sheets. Some of the stone is dark gray, some is so black it swallows the light, like pools of ink. It’s bigger than it first appears, big enough that in one of the courtyards is a chopper pad that can easily accommodate the big transport helicopter carrying me in.
My grip on the seat tightens again during the descent, the vinyl squeaking under my fingernails. I close my eyes but that only makes it worse, and a gust of wind rips across my body and shoves the chopper to the side. It sways violently. When my eyes crack open on their own, I can look almost straight down at the helipad.
I snap them shut again and try not to scream. The chopper evens out but it doesn’t feel any calmer. There’s a thud and a sudden lurch and I’m sure we’re going to crash, but when my eyes open again I find myself looking out at worn stone walls and the same tall blonde woman undoing my safety harness.
She helps me to my feet, roughly but steadily, and two of the men lift me down to the concrete pad.
The castle is even more impressive from the outside. The courtyard is ringed by a curtain wall forty feet high and ten feet thick, topped with sharply pointed battlements that claw defiantly at the sky. The walls meet at sharp angles, giving the entire castle a star shape around an older fortress with lower walls, the heavy blocks of stone worn smooth and melded together by time. In the middle, three towers rise up, the tallest and widest as big as a good-sized skyscraper.
Flags, hundreds of flags, whip in the wind everywhere they can hang, the phoenix on a yellow field. Their constant snapping and flapping forms a chorus, like being trapped in a flock of angry birds. I gladly take the offered crutch and make my way toward an open door, flanked by two of the crown prince’s soldiers.
I feel like I’m floating. This isn’t happening. This can’t be real. I’m in some kind of crazy dream. I read The Lord of the Rings before I went to sleep and I’m having a nightmare about being trapped in Mordor.
I’ll wake up any second now.
Keep telling yourself that, Penny.
It’s warmer inside, at least. I expected a castle to be damp and drafty but it’s actually nice in here. It is a castle, though. The stone floors are covered in layers of thick rugs woven in intricate patt
erns, and the walls are plastered and covered over with tapestries.
Real tapestries, not some crap you’d buy at a mall. This random hallway is adorned with one fifty feet long, covered in scenes of battle. As a rough guess, I’d put the age at anywhere between three and four hundred years old, maybe even actually medieval. Hangings like this tell a story, and I try to puzzle it out as I hobble by.
It’s about a guy in black armor. I have that much down.
The corridor slopes up until it opens onto another one through an arched doorway. It quickly becomes difficult to keep track of all the turns. Without asking, my escorts support me by the arms as I hobble up a sweeping staircase that winds around a curved wall to a higher floor.
The one on my right opens a heavy oak door, banded with iron.
“You will sleep here,” he says in clipped, accented English.
“Uh, thanks,” I mutter, and lean on the crutch to work my way inside.
I look around for something to light my way and my escort helpfully reaches into the room and throws a plain old light switch.
“Holy shit,” I whisper.
This room is bigger than my house at home. The ceiling soars twenty feet overhead, with electric chandeliers hanging on big chains that run from one end to the other. Situated between two thick columns holding up the ceiling, an enormous four-poster bed, much bigger than a king size, sits piled up with pillows and blankets as high as my neck, with a little staircase to climb up.
Another heavy door stands open, leading into a bathroom. I’m not sure what I was expecting, maybe a bucket and a chamber pot, but primitive this is not. The shower cabinet could hold ten people behind its smoky glass doors, and there would be a showerhead for each of them, plus a detachable one on a jointed metal hose. I half expect the toilet seat to be made of solid gold.
No. I’m pretty sure it’s oak, though.
Hobbling back out of the bathroom, I try the doorknob on the main door. It turns freely, but the door won’t budge. It’s barred from the outside.
Great.
I stand there for a good ten minutes trying to figure out what to do. I search for a phone but don’t fine one, though there is a huge antique writing desk that’s probably older than the United States. Stone stairs lead up to a balcony. I make my way up and out into the open air, and jump back with a yelp.
The stone railing is high enough, but on the other side is a sheer drop. I’m bad at guessing distances but it’s somewhere between five hundred and a thousand feet of nearly vertical rock to the lights below, and just a glimpse gives me vertigo that grips my stomach like a fist.
There’s a knock at the door and it swings open.
It’s the blonde guardswoman.
“His grace the prince regrets that he must rescind his dinner invitation to attend to matters of state. He instead commands that you join him for breakfast at dawn.”
“Commands?”
“The prince commands.” She nods and starts to close the door.
She stops abruptly. “There are clothes for you in the wardrobe. See that you are properly dressed.”
The door slams and I hear a heavy bar slide into place, from the outside. I’m locked in here.
Near the wardrobe I find a refrigerator that’s disguised as an antique side table, and some bottled water. I drink it fast, spilling water on my borrowed shirt. Then I open the wardrobe.
No shorts, no pants, no t-shirts, no hoodies.
Dresses.
For a moment I feel like I’m staring at a cosplayer’s costume collection. The dresses have dagged sleeves, the kind with the huge cuffs that hang way down, like a stereotypical Disney princess. They’re arranged by color from lightest to darkest, cream at one end and black at the other.
They’re not costumes, though. The material is silk and shimmering samite, and the darker ones are a little sheer despite their princess-y looks. I can’t wear this stupid crap.
There are nightgowns, too, and…bloomers. They’re goddamn bloomers.
It beats being naked, I guess.
I grab something that looks appropriate for sleep and carry it with me on the hanger to the bathroom, where I carefully undress. My ankle is a little swollen, but it’s not broken or anything. I should be fine in a day or two.
Sighing, I turn on the water. It’s blessedly hot, quickly filling the cabinet with steam. I walk inside and lean on the wall under the water.
I quickly sink to the floor. An explosive sob rolls through my body. The reality of what I just went through hits me like a hammer square in the middle of my chest. When I look at the grit on my arms turning to a thin coating of mud as the water washes it loose, I can see the general’s sausagey fingers on my arms. I was so close to…
Don’t go there, Penny. It didn’t happen. It could have but it didn’t.
I don’t even realize I’m crying, it just happens. Oh God, how did I let this happen to myself? Where did they take that other woman? Where did they take Melissa? Why did they send her to a hospital and not me?
I stare at the far wall, ignoring the hot spray stinging my eyes. I watched men die tonight. I kept my eyes closed in the pass, but the sounds. It was like someone ripping a side of beef apart, and when the general died… At least I didn’t have to see it.
I giggle stupidly as a dumb thought bubbles into my head. His severed head looked so weird. It looked so little detached from his body. I close my eyes and try to banish the image of the stump from my mind.
The guy who did that took me home. I’m locked up in his castle.
“This is fucking crazy,” I whine.
I shake harder, curled up in a ball on the shower floor.
No, no, no. Penny, do not let yourself do this. You have to figure a way out of here.
Oh, but I have a great record so far. All I managed to do back at that camp was let Melissa get groped and almost torn apart. If I was so smart and brave, I should have done something before I trusted that asshole to get us back to the camp in one piece.
Don’t be too hard on yourself, Penny. How was I supposed to know he was a corrupt spy planning to sell us?
I should have gotten a job teaching preschool and stayed home where I belong. I’m not supposed to be here. I’m not supposed to be here. I repeat it like a mantra.
My eyes snap open. Oh God, my parents. When I don’t make my weekly phone call they’re going to lose it. I don’t know if Mom’s heart can take it. I have to let them know I’m alive, somehow.
How the hell can I do that?
By the time I finally calm down enough to get up, my fingers start to prune. Maybe the heat helped, but my ankle doesn’t feel so bad. Carefully I walk out of the shower and dry myself then slip into the sheer nightgown and thick, velvety robe.
No, wait. It’s not velvety, it is velvet. Wow, this is nice.
As I walk to the bed, I can’t help myself. I keep thinking this is some sort of fantasy. I’ve retreated into a fantasy world where a dark prince saves me to keep my mind from breaking. Meanwhile my body is back in the real world, with the general.
This just can’t be real.
I grunt on my turned ankle as I lift myself up onto the bed and roll into it. The blankets seem too thick for a summer night, but a cold draft flows through the room and I quickly find myself tucked up to my chin, sinking into the covers.
Oh God this bed, it’s bliss. It’s like it wants to swallow me.
A sudden and intense awareness comes upon me.
I am tired. I feel like I could sleep for a week.
First I can’t lift my head, then I can’t keep my eyes open. I yawn, and that’s the last thing I remember as I drift into a dreamless sleep.
Next I know, bright light pours in through the glass doors leading out to the balcony, and it’s morning. It’s freezing in here now, so much so that I don’t want to even push back the covers and sit up.
I end up lying there until the door opens. No knock, somebody just lifts the bar and swings it out. It’s the same b
londe-haired guard from last night, but she stops at the threshold and steps aside for a hunched old woman to walk in before slamming it shut again.
“You get up now. You understand, yes?”
I nod. “I understand you.”
“Good understand. Get up, I help dress. Fix hair.”
“What’s wrong with my hair?”
“Not meet prince with bad hair. Sit in chair. Mirror.”
I keep my hair cut to the shoulders, so there’s not much to work with when I sit down in front of the vanity. It feels strange just looking at myself in the mirror, like I’m looking at a stranger. I start to shake as I think about yesterday. It feels like it was a week ago already. I end up sitting there oddly soothed as the old woman drags a horsehair brush through my unruly locks.
“Lovely hair. Prince will like hair.”
“Thanks,” I mutter.
Inwardly I shrug. My hair is red so I have that going for me, but not much else. Guys like natural redheads. I think.
My hair is so short that the braid she uses ends up making a little bun at the back of my head. The old woman stands next to the wardrobe expectantly, until it dawns on me that she’s waiting for me to undress.
“Nothing not I have seen already,” she says, proud of her English.
I shrug and slip out of the nightgown, and start to hang it on the hook before she snatches it away and does it herself, as if the idea of my using a closet offends hers somehow.
She looks me up and down, appraising.
“Light skin. Light skin look good with dark. This one. Bring out eyes.”
She chooses a deep hunter-green dress with almost-black, highlights on the bodice and floor-length skirt, and what I am pretty sure is actual cloth of gold on the sleeves. I’d have no idea how to put it on without the old woman. Dresses were never my thing. I haven’t worn one since the prom.
She pokes my chest. “Too small. Prince like bigger. Men like big.”
“That’s not his problem,” I snap.
She looks at me and sighs, exasperated, then steps behind me, grabs two strings, and pulls. Hard. The dress tightens, squeezing the breath out of my lungs as it compresses my chest.
His Princess (A Royal Romance) Page 5