Natural-Born Protector / Saved by the Monarch

by Carla Cassidy

  “Doing well. At the last report.”

  “My brothers?”

  “Locked up tight at Maltmore Castle and protected by the royal guard. I sent a full platoon of reinforcements to secure the perimeter. Hold your position and stay out of sight. Your backup is on its way.”

  He let the general know in which direction he was heading and plowed ahead into the approaching night.

  THE MEN SWITCHED BETWEEN German and Hungarian. Judi didn’t speak enough of either to understand, although, at Aunt Viola’s urging, she’d taken lessons as part of staying in touch with her parents’ heritage.

  Had she known that her life would one day come to depend on her vocabulary, she would have paid more careful attention in class.

  She was alone, tied up in a small cave, straining to listen for any sound beyond the men who were talking outside the cave’s entrance. She could think of little else but Gunther as they cut him down without mercy. His only sin had been giving her a ride.

  Tears stung her eyes at the memory.

  His cold-blooded murder had drained her strength. She had allowed herself to be captured, but was beginning to wonder now if she wouldn’t have been better off fighting, no matter what they would have done to her.

  A distant rumble drew her from her dark thoughts. She turned her head to hear better. Couldn’t catch it again. Maybe she’d imagined the sound.

  Or maybe not. Here it came again.

  And all of a sudden her nerve endings buzzed with anxiety. As if a switch had been flipped in her brain, she could think of little else than being trapped in her cold prison by another avalanche. She could feel the panic and the cold of their mad dig, knew she would have never made it to the surface without Miklos.

  She felt as if she were suffocating all over again.

  Breathe slow.

  Breathe deep.

  Her captors said Miklos’s name enough times for her to know that she was nothing but bait in a trap. What they didn’t understand was that Miklos wouldn’t come for her. Duty to his country and the monarchy were the very spine of the man. Warning his brothers would be his first priority. He was probably on his way to Maltmore Castle already.

  And she didn’t blame him one bit. She had no siblings, her family long gone, but she was sure she would have done the same in his position. As much as she resented it at the beginning, along the way she had come to like and respect his old-fashioned sense of honor.

  He was a man like no other.

  A cliché, but so true in this case. He was a man of principle, of strong character. If things were different, if they’d met under different circumstances…The memory of his kisses distracted her from her fears for a minute.

  When they had first been captured, faced with overwhelming force and tied up in a cabin in the mountains, she would have given up and would have done little but await her fate if Miklos hadn’t been there. But he’d taught her to fight against impossible odds. He’d gotten them out of the cabin, gotten them out of the cave after the avalanche. He’d never given up. And she wasn’t going to give up, either.

  She yanked at the ropes behind her back, then felt along the rock wall for a sharp protrusion. When she found it, she rubbed the rope against it. She had to save herself. Miklos couldn’t save her this time. He had to save his country. And as much as she wished that he were with her, she knew he was doing the right thing.

  She said a brief prayer that he would make it safely to Maltmore Castle. The fate of the royal family had great bearing on the fate of the country. And when she thought of all those women and children and everyone who lived in and loved this small country, those millions of Valtrian lives, her own didn’t seem all that important in comparison.

  She was starting to understand Miklos’s sense of duty.

  She worked on the rope, but with little success. Maybe the rock wasn’t sharp enough, or maybe she was too tired to provide enough pressure. She took a moment to rest, then tried again, aware that she didn’t have too many more lives left and they were at level ten of the game.

  HE HAD THE CAVE IN sight, but he was outnumbered at least twenty to one. Could be more. The cave might hold others. Miklos lay on his stomach and mapped the area: three military trucks and a tank.

  The men back in the village had military-issue weapons. A picture started to form, even though he hated to consider that a group of soldiers from the Valtrian Army could be turned against the monarchy they’d sworn to protect.

  He couldn’t not think about the fact that the chancellor’s youngest brother was an army colonel. The sense of betrayal that washed over him was a distraction he couldn’t afford. He’d deal with the chancellor’s role in all this later.

  The presence of the tank and the location of the cave should have been passed along to General Rossi, as well as Miklos’s suspicions about traitors in their ranks. But now that he saw the military equipment here, he couldn’t be sure that his enemies wouldn’t pick up his transmission with their own radios. They’d definitely be monitoring the military channels.

  The general knew which way Miklos had been heading, and he was a military man; being ready for anything and everything was his basic stance. They would find him. And when they did, the chopper had enough firepower to take care of the tank.

  The fact that for a second he considered whether the general might not have turned against him, too, just showed how exhausted he was. The general had always treated him like a son. He needed to snap out of paranoia before he made things worse than they were.

  Backup couldn’t be that far away.

  At least the sun was finally up, so he had no trouble with visibility.

  Miklos moved ahead and identified four men standing guard at the perimeter of the enemy camp, at a distance from the others. None were in an easily approachable position. He stole toward the one closest to him. The man was leaning against a large rock, his back protected. Flat, snowy ground lay between him and Miklos, not much to hide behind if Miklos tried to approach him.

  Miklos dropped to his stomach and crawled forward as far as he dared, waited for the man to look the other way, then rose enough to give his arm free range to move as he threw one of Luigi’s knives. He’d armed himself as best he could before taking off after Judi, but a couple of kitchen knives seemed pitiful compared to the enemy’s arsenal.

  The knife hit where he’d aimed it, went through the man’s throat, preventing a shout. Miklos was moving forward even as the man folded to the ground. He ignored the hands that clawed at the bloody throat, as the man choked on his own blood, and finished the job without wasting time. He grabbed the man’s communications unit and his weapon, kicked enough snow over the prone figure so that he wouldn’t be immediately visible if one of his buddies came this way. His mouth thinned as he retrieved his weapon and registered how young the guy was, no more than midtwenties. He covered up the face. He had no sympathy for traitors.

  He moved along the rock that formed the top of the cave. The general had only sent a platoon to Maltmore, thirty soldiers. He didn’t realize that the army had been compromised, that their enemies had tanks. And if they had this one, they could have others. On their way to Maltmore Castle or already there. The clock was ticking.

  Miklos climbed the rock and stole forward until he was above the next guard. He took off his belt quietly, held the ends and in a sudden movement looped it and positioned it so that it caught the man under the chin. Then he pulled up as hard as he could, hard enough to pull the man’s body off the ground and up to the top of the rock, to him. The man kicked wildly, then less and less as he suffocated. Miklos dragged the body behind a pile of snow on top of the rock and left it there.

  He glanced at the sky, hoping for the chopper, but all he could see was more snow clouds gathering. Judi was in the cave, he was pretty sure of that. Inside the cave and at the mercy of whoever held her.

  The third guard was relieving himself when Miklos snuck up behind him. He broke the man’s neck in one smooth move, killing th
e traitor. Miklos moved along, ready for the next.

  His education as a prince might have told him that these were his subjects, men he was supposed to protect, but his military training was stronger just now. They were the enemy. They sought to destroy the country and his family.

  They’d taken Judi. He couldn’t find it in himself to forgive.

  The fourth guard caught sight of him coming. He lifted his rifle, but was too slow, couldn’t get off a shot before Miklos vaulted over the distance between them and brought him down with enough force to smash the guy’s skull on the rocks on the ground. He pulled the man behind a bush, collected his ammunition and hand grenade then stole closer to the cave.

  He could count only sixteen of the enemy now. Some had gone into the cave. He didn’t want those bastards anywhere near her.

  He was still outnumbered, but in addition to the small handgun and knives he’d picked up in the village, he also had a rifle now with plenty of ammunition, and four hand grenades. He positioned himself behind a boulder, pulled the pin from one of the grenades—he’d picked one off each man he’d taken out so far—and let it fly.

  One of the trucks blew sky-high.

  Smoke, fire and chaos reigned, his enemies pouring out of the cave. He shot at will and brought down four, ran to the cover of the next boulder once his location at the first was compromised, then tossed another grenade. This one missed, since the men were shooting blindly in every direction and he didn’t have time to take careful aim. The explosion didn’t take out the truck he’d targeted, but it did bring down three men who’d been running up to the vehicle.

  A dozen or so of the enemy were left.

  He didn’t have time to congratulate himself. The next second, a bullet grazed his knee. He limped out of his hiding place, ducking more bullets, lunging behind a bigger rock that could provide more coverage. Bullets pinged off the rock. Then everything went quiet. And then another sound came that made the short hairs at the back of his neck rise.

  He looked out for just one glimpse.

  Damn. Damn. Damn. The tank was coming his way.

  The next second, the top of the boulder he was hiding behind blew off, deafening him, shards of stone raining from above. The force of the explosion knocked him off his feet.

  Where in hell was General Rossi?

  No longer on the offensive, Miklos ran for his life now, ignoring the pain in his knee and the blood that was running into his left eye from a cut on his forehead.

  He stopped long enough to toss another grenade behind him, and this time he lucked out even as his knee gave. The grenade went right in the top and when it blew it took out everyone and everything inside the tank.

  Miklos dashed to the left, mowed down with his rifle the four men who were charging him head-on. He figured there were now only half a dozen left. Everything went quiet all of a sudden. And after a while, he realized that those who were still alive had retreated into the cave.

  He couldn’t shoot blindly, nor toss a grenade. Not with Judi in there.

  She was the perfect hostage. The bastards probably knew that as long as they had her, he wasn’t going to do anything. Unless something had happened to her already. He hadn’t heard her voice once during the fight—the thought filled him with both dread and murderous rage.

  He went around the entrance, flattened himself to the rock outside. The cave was too dark to see beyond the first dozen feet. Large and cavernous was his first impression, with plenty of rock formations for the bastards to hide behind.

  He moved back, grabbed a fallen man and held the body in front of him as he approached the cave. He didn’t get far before they shot at him anyway. The body caught the bullets, but would not make a dependable shield. He tossed it aside and dove behind the nearest big rock. At least he was now inside the cave.

  “I am Prince Miklos of the House of Kerkay. You are committing an act of treason. Let the hostage go,” he called out, pressing a hand to his bleeding knee.

  Their only response was more bullets.

  When they quieted, he popped up for a second, saw movement and shot blindly that way. The shout that rose told him that he had got his man. He kept down for the next minute or so as bullets pelted the rock he was hiding behind.

  They were at an impasse. He couldn’t move forward, and they couldn’t get by him to get out of the cave.

  Or could they?

  “Miklos!” He heard Judi’s plea the next second. “Don’t shoot.”

  And when he popped up again, he saw her emerge from behind a dark rock formation, a man behind her, twisting her arm back, a gun to her head.

  “Throw your weapons forward,” the man said.

  The cave was too dark to see whether she was hurt. But she was alive. She was well enough to stand. He found hope in that. But it wasn’t time yet to give in to relief, to draw her into his arms and kiss her.

  He badly wanted to, needed to kiss her again.

  First he had to get them out of here. Miklos tossed the rifle and two of his knives. He kept his last knife and his last grenade hidden, tossed his handgun that was now out of bullets.

  “Stand with your hands in the air.”

  Like hell. “Let her go. She has nothing to do with this. Let her go and take me.”

  “We already have you,” the man sneered.

  Miklos pulled the pin from his last grenade then rose, one hand in the air, the other holding the grenade to his chest, under his palm, invisible to the man. “I’m hit.” Come on, move forward, move forward more.

  “Both hands in the air!” the man snapped.

  Sweat beaded on Miklos’s forehead. If he made a sudden move to put the pin back in, he’d be shot. If he tossed the grenade now, he’d put Judi in more jeopardy.

  But the man moved forward at last, switching his aim from Judi to Miklos. Four of his buddies rose up from behind the rock at his back. They stayed where they were, but kept their weapons trained on Miklos. When Judi and the bastard who held her got far enough from them to be out of harm’s way, Miklos lunged forward, tossing the grenade at those men, letting his knife slide into his palm from his sleeve with the same movement, then throwing that at the one who held Judi.

  The grenade hit, shaking the cave and sending rocks flying like deadly missiles through the air. The knife missed, the man ducking out of the way in the last second. He was on the ground, bowled over by the explosion, looking stunned. But he still had his riffle, and he still had Judi.

  Miklos had nothing.

  He couldn’t do anything else but throw himself at the bastard.

  His ears were ringing from the explosion in the closed confines of the cave. Long seconds passed as he desperately fought for the sole weapon within reach. Then a noise reached them from the outside: the rumble of a chopper.

  Dust and more rocks rained on them from above, and he realized that the cave’s roof had been damaged enough that it could collapse. Even perhaps from the vibration the chopper was causing in the air.

  “Get out of the cave!” he yelled toward Judi just as his enemy kicked him full force in his busted knee and made him see stars.

  “I’m not leaving you.” She had a large stone in her hands. She looked like some wild, Amazonian maiden, her auburn hair near black in the dark of the cave.

  “Get out!”

  She tried to bend to hit the bad guy, but they were rolling too fast, fighting too furiously for her to hit her target. Not that she didn’t try. She dropped the stone when she realized it was as much a liability as it was a weapon. She tried to throw herself on the man’s legs next, to help Miklos, but the bastard kicked at her, kicked hard enough so she went bouncing off a boulder behind them.

  The men rolled. Miklos didn’t dare take his attention off his opponent. A minute passed before Judi limped back, and he could breathe again.

  “Go!” He ground out the single word as he fought, aware that the cave could come down on top of them at any second. “Get help.”

  He had both hands on
the rifle, but the man had his finger on the trigger. He squeezed, the shots going wild, into the already perilous ceiling. More shards flew from above.

  In addition to the blood from the cut on his forehead, Miklos also had dust in his eyes, nearly blinding him. His knee throbbed with a sharp pain and didn’t support him when he tried to flip his enemy. At least Judi was safe; he clung to that thought. Judi would be safe, whatever happened to him.

  He had done all he could do. The general had already sent help and warning to the other princes. He groaned as the man slammed him against the rock floor. Then he heard Judi’s voice outside, or at least he thought he did, and that gave him new strength. He brought his head hard against the man’s chin and watched his head flop back.

  The momentary surprise was enough to get the gun away from him. Miklos didn’t hesitate to shoot, point-blank.

  He barely took a second to catch his breath before he struggled to his feet and started limping toward the mouth of the cave. The royal helicopter hadn’t come for them. The general had sent an Apache instead. His men were already on the ground, all around the copter.

  He lowered his weapon.

  Then he spotted Judi through the chopper’s open door, in the back. Tied and gagged, her eyes filled with tears. She struggled against her ropes, but wasn’t getting anywhere.

  Something was terribly wrong.

  They’d been betrayed.

  And he had way too little strength left in him. He had a sick feeling that this might be the end of the road for the both of them. But the look in her eyes wouldn’t let him give in to pain and accept his fate.

  He blinked the blood and dust from his eyes. “What in hell are you—” He charged forward, raising his gun, ready to keep going with the fight until his legs gave way from under him.

  Which turned out to be right that second. He crashed to one knee on the snow-dotted rocks, pain shooting up his leg and momentarily knocking the air from his lungs.

  “Judi!” He had to get to her. He crawled in the snow, managing another few feet, knowing that what he had left wasn’t going to be enough.