Null & Void_a Royal States Novel

by RJ Blain

  One of the RPS agents brought a sleek black horse to William, and he swung up into the saddle, far more graceful than I thought possible. “I’m going to commit an act of horse theft, Pat. You have made a mistake. This beauty’s coming home with me.”

  “She’s lovely, isn’t she?” Pat replied with a broad grin, riding forward on his brown horse. “You might convince me to sell her. She’s one of the horses we’re considering for Mackenzie.”

  “Mackenzie, you want this horse.”

  “But you just saw her,” I protested.

  “Just trust me, you want this horse.”

  I would never understand either man. While I thought William looked great on the tall horse’s back, I could see what was so special about the black animal. “Will you whine if you don’t get to take that horse home with you?”

  “It’s entirely possible.”

  “You’re something else.”

  “I just really like horses, and this little lady needs to come home with me.”

  “Little?”

  “Well, maybe not little.”

  “It’s hard finding good horses for your long legs,” Pat complained, reining his horse in. “The RPS agents will take point and rear. It makes them feel better if we’re in the middle, since it makes us easier to protect. When we do our official rides on Saturday and Sunday, they’ll be take point and rear plus there’ll be extra agents riding among us. It lets them keep a close eye on everyone.”

  William smiled at me, leaned over, and captured my hand in his, bringing it to his lips. “Just stick with me.”

  “You need to stop doing that.”

  “You like it.”

  “That’s why you need to stop.”

  Laughing, he kissed my hand again and released me. “I’ll have mercy on you, but only this once. Pat couldn’t handle the sight of me appreciating your lips. Intimately.”

  He drawled the word, and my toes curled.

  “So filthy,” I whispered.

  He smiled. “You like it.”

  Pat reached over and swatted William’s hand. “Don’t you be charming your lady on this ride, William. No necking. You’ll make her fall off her horse.”

  “I’d never!”

  “No necking. At least wait until you take her to your suite.”

  “I think I can manage that.”

  “You’re hopeless. Mackenzie, if he bothers you, just you tell us.”

  William scowled, but instead of arguing like I expected, he sighed. “This is payback, isn’t it?”

  “Indeed. Just enjoy the ride without trying to flirt her out of the saddle until we’re at the lodge.”

  “I can manage that.”

  “What if I want to flirt him out of the saddle?” I asked, grinning at Pat.

  “You can do whatever you want, but don’t you come crying to me later if you get what you ask for and discover you bit off more than you can chew.”

  I laughed and stuck my tongue out at William. “He likes me more than he likes you, Your Majesty.”

  “Saucy wench,” William muttered. “All right, Pat. Lead the way to your precious trail so we’re not out here after dark. Mackenzie’s got to be hungry by now.”

  I was hungry, but I’d live for a while. “I’m all right.”

  Pat chuckled. “We’ll only be on the trail for about an hour, just long enough to check the condition of the access to the lower trail. If it looks clear, we’ll come back tomorrow and check the riverbed. The weather looked sound, but we haven’t had anyone look at the water levels, so if the water level’s down and the trail’s clear, we might do a canyon run over the weekend.”

  Clucking his tongue, the Texan king urged his horse into a trot, and the RPS agents mounted up and swarmed him, leaving Jessica, William, and me to follow behind him. Jessica brought her horse alongside Runs Amok. “Don’t mind him. He’s just excited. We haven’t had time to ride the trails lately, and his talent with horses is strongest out here, so it’s a good chance for him to settle down and unwind. Flirt with her all you want, William, just save any finales you have in mind for the lodge.”

  “I think I can manage that. Just make sure Pat doesn’t forget to feed us. It wouldn’t do if she fainted before said finale.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You two are perverts.”

  They grinned, and as Pat had taught me, I clucked my tongue and squeezed Runs Amok’s sides, and the horse obediently picked up his pace so I could catch up with Pat, who seemed like the safest of my options.

  The path from the airstrip to the trails was strewn with rocks and lined with scraggly trees. William rode alongside me, identifying the plants as our horses meandered after Jessica and Pat. I wondered how many times William had ridden with the Texan royals to know the land so well. He paid no attention to where we went, trusting his horse to take him where he needed to go.

  “What happens if we get lost?” I asked, twisting in the saddle to admire the mountains rising around us as we worked our way into the foothills.

  William pointed behind us, where Geoff rode on a gray horse with two other RPS agents. “Every RPS agent who comes on these rides spend several months on the trails to make certain they know survival skills and the lay of the land. In Montana, they go through over a year of training, and they have refresher courses every year. Montana’s large, and there’s some pretty treacherous land in the kingdom. Add in the wildfires we get every year, and the RPS often doubles as search and rescue coordinators. When I’m in residence during political season, half of my agents are augmenting other services. I find it’s an effective way to make use of talented men and women.”

  “I know nothing about Montana,” I admitted.

  “Come home with me, and you’ll learn. I’m hoping you’ll be a little more inclined to learn the names of the royal family, though.” William’s glower reduced me to giggles. “I still can’t believe you didn’t know Jessica’s name. Since that wasn’t bad enough, assuming she was a cannibal?”

  “I’m useless before I’ve had coffee. I can’t help it.”

  “I’m all right with making it my life’s mission to make sure you get coffee in the morning so you’re functional.” With a grin that did unfair things to me, he added, “I have a few other ideas of what I can do to wake you up in the morning, too.”

  I bet he did, and I’d be tempted to laze around in the morning to see what he’d do to get me out of bed—or make us both late to start the day.

  With ten years of pent-up lust roiling beneath the surface, the Montana RPS might need to rescue him from me before the end of the weekend. I meant to make up for lost time. At the rate I kept putting my anger on the back burner, by the time I got around to being angry again, I wouldn’t want to be bothered with it at all.

  We had both made difficult choices, and I could accept his reasons.

  When everything had started falling apart, he’d come for our daughter and put her first, risking everything he’d built through me to do it. We’d still have a long talk about our choices, but I’d wait until I no longer smarted from having lived through so much pointless fear.

  It wasn’t his fault I hadn’t trusted him more.

  “Mackenzie?”

  “What happens if a king is late to work because he has difficulties getting out of bed?”

  “You’re a wicked woman.”

  “You’re the one who wanted to use something other than coffee to get me out of bed. I’m just asking important scheduling questions. I speak a different language before I’ve had coffee. Ask Mireya.”

  “I have. She calls it Yawnese. I admit I underestimated your reliance on our daughter. I’m genuinely impressed Geoff hasn’t been reduced to serving as your coffee maker.”

  The RPS agent in question snickered and brought his gray horse closer. “It’s much easier to get her out the door on time if the coffee is already made. It’s going to be on the list of requirements; morning duty agents must be able to make coffee.”

  William laughed. “Just
how bad are you without your coffee?”

  “Bad. Really bad. It’s embarrassing,” I confessed. “The allergy medications make it worse, too.”

  “You’re adapting,” Geoff soothed. “You’ll be back to normal within a week.”

  “I’m also a menace on certain medications.”

  With a pained sigh, William nodded. “So I’ve been told.”

  “I’m going to mess up your schedule,” I muttered.

  “I’ll rework my schedule around you. If I need an extra hour in the morning to make certain you can get out of bed, so be it. I’m sure the politicians won’t whine too much if they get some extra sleep.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s not how it’s supposed to work.”

  “That’s how it works when I’m in charge, and I am. They’ll deal with it. The worst-case scenario, they can beat me to work and wait for me to be late every day. They won’t complain when they figure out you’re a one-woman army capable of waging and winning wars without any help. I only ask you don’t wage literal wars. I have enough trouble acting as a peacemaker between stubborn, egotistical monarchs who believe they’re right without fail.”

  “You’re a stubborn, egotistical monarch who believes you’re right without fail,” I muttered.

  “I’ve signed up for a lifetime of these reminders, haven’t I?”

  “Looks like it to me. You still have time to run away if you can’t handle it.”

  Geoff reined his horse in and gave us distance, rejoining the other RPS agents wisely staying out of our fledgling sparring match.

  The trail crested one of the hills, and a canyon stretched out below, with steeper hills rising to our right. My eyes widened, and I leaned for a better look at the white waters of the river below. “It’s white!”

  “Those are the rapids.” William pointed deeper into the valley. “The river’s a lot wider up ahead, so the waters are slower and calm, but then it all flows into this channel and turn into the rapids. There’s some excellent kayaking here. The water’s up a lot more than I expected, so I doubt Pat’ll want to ride all the way down. In a dry spring, you can ride in parts of the riverbed.”

  It amazed me how everything could be so dry on one side of the hill and green and vibrant on the other. “It’s beautiful.”

  “The trail narrows ahead, so you go first. Sampson—”

  “Runs Amok!”

  William sighed. “Runs Amok is experienced on the trails, so he’ll stay away from the edge. He’s smart, and I’ve been working with him along with some of my best trainers, all of whom have stronger talents than I do. I want to continue his training, but so far, he’s been conditioned and trained to react to trail collapses, flash floods, and other trail dangers.”

  With his words, I realized I knew almost nothing about horses beyond they were large, pretty, slobbered on their riders, and could bite when provoked. “How is a horse supposed to react to a trail collapse?”

  “Runs Amok will either retreat if possible, cram himself as far away from the edge as he can, or run the slide if he has no other choice.” William pointed at the slope, which was steeper than I liked. “Horses don’t always make the best decisions, but he’ll avoid going down something that steep unless he has no other choice.”

  “I can’t even imagine how you’d train a horse to do that.”

  “I have a few earthweavers on staff, and they simulate trails in an indoor arena. It lets us train our horses without risking them on real trails, so when we do run into problems on the trails, they’re already old hands at most situations. It’s safer for horse and rider.”

  “I’d like to watch that,” I confessed.

  “You can watch it to your heart’s content as soon as I get you home. Ride ahead. I’ll be right behind you. Trust Runs Amok. He’ll want to stay with the other horses, and he knows the edge is dangerous, so you’ll be fine.”

  “This is crazy,” I told him before nudging Runs Amok with my heels like Pat had taught me. My horse shuffled into a faster walk, and I clutched at the reins, his mane, and the horn. Runs Amok didn’t seem to notice—or care—I had no talent at riding him, happy to follow after Pat and Jessica, who rode their horses like they’d been born in the saddle.

  As Runs Amok seemed at ease with the situation, going where he was supposed to without any interference from me, I peeked over the edge of the trail, marveling at the grass clinging to the ground, the green bushes sprouting between rocks, and the rushing water far below.

  While steep near the trail, the hill smoothed out and formed a gentle slope before meeting the river, where a trees rose up from the valley floor, their branches burdened with the buds of new leaves.

  Behind me, William laughed. “I’m so going to enjoy taking you home and showing you the trails, especially later in the year.”

  I blushed. “Sorry! I’ve just—”

  “Never feel sorry for enjoying something, Mackenzie. I like it that you’re happy and having fun.”

  If he wasn’t careful, he really would smother me with his love and make me do anything he wanted to keep him happy, too. It wouldn’t take him long until he had me wanting to follow him home.

  I hated the promises I had to keep, the ones that kept me in Texas until I finished what I’d started. Later, after I made him squirm a little worrying, I’d tell him he’d already won the war so he wouldn’t have wage any more battles with me.

  I’d go to Montana with him, it was only a matter of when.

  I smiled, and satisfied with my decision, I resumed staring out over the valley and its river, breathing in deep.

  A crack-bang startled me, but the thump against my arm unbalanced me. Runs Amok went one way, I went the other, and I hit the trail so hard my breath left my lungs in a yelp.

  Fire swept through my arm, the pain stunning me as much as the fall. Before I could do more than comprehend I’d fallen from my horse, the rock groaned beneath me and fell away, dumping me over the edge.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Frigid water closed over my head, knocking out the little air left in my lungs. The darkness I expected didn’t come, and the current sucked me under, bashing me against the rocks lurking beneath the surface.

  I knew I needed to move, to do something other than allow the water to toss me around as it willed, but my battered body refused to obey me. The cold stabbed at my muscles and seeped into my bones.

  My lungs burned for air, but I fought it, aware if I inhaled, I’d breathe nothing but water. While the initial plunge into the river hadn’t killed me, drowning would.

  The first thing I’d learned when trying to figure out how to swim was that the water would kill me if I gave it a chance.

  I didn’t want to die, but I’d vastly overestimated my ability to swim. I’d done it a few times. A few times wasn’t enough to help me fight the river’s hold.

  I slammed into a rock, the current pinning me in place. Zapping pain shocked a gasp out of me, and water flooded into my mouth.

  The cold brought the darkness I knew too well, and with the darkness came teeth, which tore at my arm, jerking me away from the stone. My head breached the surface, and my stomach heaved.

  I never wanted to vomit water out of my lungs ever again.

  A big, black blur dragged me towards shore, the water tugging at my clothes. My vision cleared enough to realize my horse had followed me into the river and pulled me up the rocky bank, walking backwards. Once he had me out of the water, Runs Amok released my arm, snorted, and bumped me with his nose, his thick mane plastered to his neck.

  My teeth chattered, and waves of heat and cold pulsed through me. Coughs tore through me, but between them, I managed to choke out my horse’s name.

  Runs Amok thrust his nose against my cheek, and agony tore through me. My scream emerged as a hoarse whimper, and the horse whinnied and nuzzled me again.

  “Mackenzie!” A streak of black slid down the slope towards me, and the black mare Pat had loaned William scrambled to stay on her hoove
s, skidding to a halt on the river’s bank. He jumped from the saddle, landing beside me with a grunt. “Don’t move,” he ordered, pressing his fingers to my throat while running his other hand down my side.

  His touch ignited more pain, and I shuddered. To disguise how much it hurt, I tried to distract myself with something—anything. “Didn’t know horses could swim.” William gripped my arm, and I gasped, tears burning my eyes. “That hurts.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I need to stop the bleeding. Bear with it a little longer.” He applied so much pressure my vision grayed at the edges, tunneling until my uncooperative eyes refused to focus on anything other than my horse’s dark nose. “Stay with me, Mackenzie.”

  In the wake of the surging pain, my body grew cold and numb. If he expected me to go anywhere, I’d disappoint him. I couldn’t feel my toes, and the lack of sensation spread up my legs. It occurred to me I’d heard his words before.

  People liked saying it when someone they loved was dying, as though they could halt the inevitable. I’d always thought of death as slipping away like I did whenever I breathed in a lungful of cold air. It should’ve been a shock followed by nothing.

  The nothingness I expected ate away at me, replacing the agony throbbing through my body with relentless chill.

  I understood. Death was destined to find me sooner than later, and I’d dodged it more than my fair share of times.

  “Come on, Mackenzie. Stay with me.”

  I wished I could give him what he asked of me, but the haze clouding my vision turned black, leaving me to hang in a void. I longed to sink deeper to escape the stabbing throbs that lanced through my body and tortured me every time I breathed.

  I couldn’t even scream. The sound remained trapped in my tight throat. Acknowledging the truth didn’t bring any peace.

  The cold was getting to me, and my world narrowed to ensuring my next breath wasn’t my last.

  Thunder cracked, the sharp bite of ozone stinging my nose. Someone screamed, and for a moment, I believed I’d finally cried out. A second shriller cry, torn from a man’s throat, dispelled my hopes I’d finally expressed my pain.