The rules of succession were easy enough to follow. Having been named his father’s official heir when King Philip was crowned eight years before, Thad’s line had become the official ruling line. With no offspring of his own, the crown could have passed to his brother.
But not if he’d fathered a child—and in a perfectly legal marriage, no less. He’d been married three weeks before he’d left. Alexander wouldn’t be able to take the crown, not if Octavian used Peter to claim it first.
Peter.
The name pulsed through his veins with sickening familiarity. He’d told Monica years ago he wanted to name his first son Peter. At the time, having a child of his own had felt like a distant dream.
Now it had become a nightmare.
If Octavian got his hands on Peter, all the sacrifices Thad had made would be in vain.
“Maybe we should try to call and warn them?” Monica whispered.
Certain the pilot couldn’t hear her words over the drone of the engine, Thad shook his head. “I don’t know where we’re going to hide him yet. As long as Octavian thinks we’re playing along, he won’t touch Peter. Right?”
“He told me Peter would be safe as long as we do what he says.”
“Good. The closer we can get to Seattle before we contact your parents, the smaller Octavian’s window of opportunity to take him. If Octavian is watching Peter—and we have to assume he is—anything your parents do might rouse Octavian’s suspicions. All we can do now is try to reach Peter as quickly as possible.”
“And pray.”
Thad shrugged and turned his face to the window, where thick fog obscured any sign of the ocean below. “If you want to waste your breath, go ahead, but don’t expect it to change anything.”
* * *
Monica stared at her husband’s profile and wondered where the man she’d once known so well, the man whose faith had inspired and encouraged her own, had gone.
What had happened to him?
Granted, from the moment she’d reached Deadhorse, Alaska, she’d wanted nothing more than to turn around and flee as fast as she could back toward civilization. There was such desolation about the no-man’s land, a hopelessness that reeked in the air thicker than the stink of oil. Flying toward the oil platform had felt like falling out of the range of the eyes of God.
“‘The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.’” She whispered the first line of Psalm 24, as she had a hundred times on her journey north, reminding herself that there wasn’t anywhere on earth that wasn’t under the Lord’s dominion.
Even if it felt as though God was nowhere to be found.
Had the bleak setting worn away Thad’s faith? Or had he left it behind the day he’d abandoned her?
She pulled her wallet from her carry-on bag and looked again at the pictures of Peter, wisps of golden-brown curls framing his face, his eyes sparkling with life.
Was he in danger? Had she put him in more danger by coming to find Thad, even though Octavian had promised the opposite? She wanted to believe that her sacrifices had ensured her son’s safety—but what if the reverse was true? Could Octavian be trusted?
Thad didn’t seem to think so, and he knew far, far more about the man than she did.
Whatever else Thad knew, he didn’t know anything about his son. Based on what he’d said so far, he seemed to view her little boy as a pawn in a power struggle. He needed to see him the way she saw him—as the most precious gift God had ever given her.
“You can keep these.” She handed the photographs to Thad and watched his face. It was hard to read his reaction under his thick beard, with his shaggy mane of hair obscuring her view, but she studied what she could see of his face as he shuffled through the snapshots: Peter as a newborn; Peter at age two, going down the slide at the park; a recent close-up of Peter’s face, mischief sparkling in his eyes.
Thad nodded, but didn’t say anything. He looked back out the window, though there was nothing to be seen outside through the fog. Nor did he hand her back the pictures, but held on to them until the seaplane slammed against the still sea, braking hard as it skidded to a stop against the frictionless waves before taxiing toward the pier. When he pulled his face away from the window and slipped the pictures into his wallet, concern knit his brow.
“I don’t see the bus,” he told the pilot.
“Most likely left ahead of schedule to get back to town ahead of the fog. No sense risking getting lost out here.” The man reclined his seat back and yawned. “We can wait here. Buses come along twice daily, sometimes more. You won’t have more than twelve hours to wait.”
“I thought we were in a hurry,” Thad clarified.
“We were.” The pilot didn’t look at all concerned. “Now we’re here. My job was to get you this far. I don’t much care what happens after that.”
“But we’ve got to get to Deadhorse. It’s seven miles inland—”
“Thad,” Monica whispered urgently, gripping his hands, quieting his protest. “We can go on foot.”
“No—”
“I’ve been training for a marathon. I can run seven miles in about an hour. And you always could outrun me. Let’s get going.” Concern for her son fueled her words. If Peter was in danger, she’d run all the way back to Seattle if it was the only way to protect him. She couldn’t sit still and wait when her parents didn’t even realize that Peter might be in danger. Besides, Octavian had said his plane would be waiting for them in Deadhorse. He was expecting them there. They needed to reach the outpost town, ASAP.
Thad pulled her back as she reached for the door. “Not in the fog. It’s too disorienting. If we lose our way we’ll end up wasting more time than we save.”
But Monica wasn’t about to be discouraged.
“There’s a road.”
“We can’t run on the road. In this fog, if a vehicle is heading north, they’ll be on top of us before we see them coming.”
“We can run beside the road.” She let out an impatient breath.
Thad shook his head. “It’s not safe. Never underestimate the Alaskan wilderness. It’s vast, it’s remote...”
“I have GPS on my watch. I’ve already set Deadhorse as a location. We don’t have to worry about getting lost. Let’s get moving. We’ve got seven miles to cover.”
Thad addressed the pilot. “We’re thinking of striking off for Deadhorse on foot. Is that okay?”
“Suit yourself.” The man pulled out a magazine and started paging through it. He didn’t seem to care what they did.
But the real question, of course, was what Octavian thought of what they did. The jet that had brought her to Deadhorse required a landing strip to land and take off. Apparently the permafrost was far too uneven to risk landing or taking off anywhere but a designated airstrip.
So she and Thad really had little choice but to get to Deadhorse. Octavian would be expecting them there, bus or no bus.
Her mind made up, Monica disembarked.
“Are you sure you’re up to it?” Thad slid reluctantly from the plane behind her.
“Of course.” Monica stared for a moment at the stark treeless landscape. A dead fish lay on the shoreline, and she wondered how it had gotten there. Then, just as she was looking at it, the fish gave a horrid, twitching flop. She thought about kicking it back into the sea.
“Don’t mess with it.” Thad pulled her back as she took a step toward the fish. “It’s too far gone to live.”
She glanc
ed up at him, and something in his eyes told her he sympathized with the fish. Was he warning her about trying to reach the dead parts of his heart? She shuddered as she checked her watch and turned toward Deadhorse, stepping resolutely across the rocks.
Thad hoisted his bag across his back. “The Arctic Circle isn’t to be trifled with. It’s bitter cold. We might run into bears.”
Monica quickly picked up her pace and jogged inland. “My son may be in danger, and you’re worried about bears?” She’d take on a bear to protect her son. She’d do whatever she had to. Spurred on by the thought of little Peter, she picked up her pace to almost a sprint as the rocky shoreline gave way to turf.
For a moment, she wondered if Thad would be able to keep up, but he quickly met her pace beside her, their bags thunking against their backs with every step, prodding them forward. They ran in silence until her watch told her they’d traveled 1.3 miles.
Then Thad cleared his throat. “You were always a determined woman, but I don’t recall you being quite this...zealous.”
She glanced at him before quickly returning her attention to negotiating the uneven terrain. “You haven’t met Peter.”
Thad’s sudden laugh surprised her. “Is he even more determined than you are?”
“That’s not what I meant.” She checked their position on her watch without slowing down, then turned her determined gaze to the unflinching fog before them. “He’s worth fighting for.”
* * *
Thad had to fight to keep pace with Monica as she tore through the fog. Thankfully, he spent a lot of time at the platform gym when he wasn’t working. Still it was a jolt to his system, sprinting through the fog-drenched air, wishing he could go back in time and change all that had happened. All he could do now was run and hope he wasn’t too late.
Step after step, they hurtled together through the dense mist, which clung to them in thick droplets, threatening to soak their water-resistant clothes, weighing them down. Reminding himself to trust the coordinates on Monica’s watch, Thad tried to shake off the disorienting feeling of isolation brought on by the blinding clouds, whose obscuring whiteness blocked out everything beyond the few steps in front of them. The alabaster tendrils stretched like fingers across the landscape, veiling what lay ahead and shrouding their future.
Monica clutched his arm, pulling him back as she slowed to a stop.
“Need a breather?” He couldn’t blame her for being tired. She’d set a relentless pace.
But she shook her head and pointed up. “Did you see it?”
“No.” Without the steady plod of their footsteps and the rustle of their wet garments, Thad picked up the drone of an engine somewhere in the distance. “I can hear it, though.”
“How far away do you think—”
Before she could finish her question, the drone roared down upon them, its wheeled landing gear piercing the fog like claws above their heads.
Thad grabbed Monica by the shoulders as he flung himself down, landing hard on his shoulder, uncertain whether it was more important to shield her from the hard damp ground, or the threat above them.
The plane swept past them, out of sight again, and Thad pulled Monica back to her feet. He didn’t recognize the plane, but it certainly wasn’t one belonging to his oil fleet, or the plane that had brought them to shore. “What was that?”
“It looks like the little jet that brought me to Deadhorse.” Monica stared through the mist in the direction the aircraft had disappeared. “They told me it couldn’t land on the permafrost. It needs tarmac.”
“So what is it doing?”
“Looking for us?” Monica’s guess sounded frantic.
The roar of the engine grew louder as the plane bore down on them from somewhere in the disorienting fog. Since they couldn’t see the jet, Thad realized the pilot wouldn’t be able to see them, either. Flying by instruments, the pilot could avoid scraping the earth, but they stood tall enough off the ground that it could crash right into them in the thick fog.
“Run!” He grabbed her arm and pulled her forward. They sprinted at a faster pace than they’d adopted earlier.
Still, Monica looked at him with terror in her eyes. “Where are we going to hide?”
“Just run.” He could hear the plane bearing down on them again. “This way.” Tugging her off to the right, he hoped they could lose their pursuers in the fog if they veered off the course of the road. Surely the plane was using the coordinates of the road to find them—the pilot wouldn’t be able to see anything through the blanketing clouds.
It was all they could do to keep running for Deadhorse. Too bad the tiny town was still miles away.
Above them the sound of the approaching plane grew louder with its descent, but each time he thought they were about to be buzzed, the sound faded again through the dense fog. Monica’s dead sprint lagged slightly. He knew she had to be winded. They couldn’t keep up their frantic pace forever.
“What do you think?” She panted, gulping air as she tried to speak. “They can’t land that plane here.”
Thad understood what she was asking. Even if the plane had been sent by Octavian, what was his goal? They couldn’t scoop them up and carry them off.
“The pilot must have told them we left his plane. Maybe they’re just trying to keep tabs on us.”
“That fits.” Monica gulped air. “From the moment Octavian’s men kidnapped me, I never had the slightest chance to escape. I’ve always felt like someone was watching me. It’s like he was paranoid that I might slip out of his grasp, even with the threat he made against Peter.”
“He’s been too close to getting what he wants, and lost it before,” Thad confirmed. “He doesn’t want to let us out of his sight.”
Moments later the plane bore down on them again, this time from directly in front of them. The whine of the engine grew louder, impossibly loud as it had before. But this time, instead of fading away without a glimpse of the jet, the nose sliced through the air not ten feet in front of them.
“Down!” Thad scooped Monica into his arms as he lunged for the ground.
Light flashed around them, and the sound of the plane began to fade again.
Unwilling to risk standing when their attackers could take another swipe at any second, Thad rolled onto his side so he could see Monica.
“Are you okay?”
She panted heavily, but lifted her eyes to meet his. “A little banged up, but I’ll live.” Thad leaned toward her, as she sagged forward, still gulping air. He pulled her against the padded arm of his jacket.
Thad told himself the move was simply meant to insulate her from the cold ground while shielding her from the plane above. It wasn’t as if he was hugging her. He knew better than to do that.
But as she took hold of his jacket with trembling fingers and clung to him while she caught her breath, Thad felt the long-dead parts of his heart lumbering back to life. He could kiss her lips and still their trembling. He could hold her until her terror faded away.
Thad pulled away. His love for Monica had created this situation. If Peter had never been born, Thad would never have left the rig. What would happen if Thad allowed his old love to be rekindled?
Octavian would use it against him. Monica would be a target. He couldn’t let that happen, even if it meant denying the longing he felt.
As he rolled to his side, away from her, Thad reminded himself of the discipline it had taken for him to forget her the first time around. When he’d
left her behind six years before, he’d given Monica clear instructions to move on as though he’d never been a part of her life. He’d tried to put all thoughts of her behind him, but in the lonely barrenness of the frozen north, his thoughts had turned to her more often than he’d have liked. In her absence, those thoughts did little more than torture him. But with her here, close enough to touch, even his most deeply buried feelings of attraction became as dangerous as the enemy he ran from.
Octavian had a history of using honorable traits like love and devotion as weapons against those who opposed him. He’d tried to trap King Philip by threatening his family. He’d dangled marriage before Princess Isabelle, like a worm on a hook. Octavian clearly suspected that Thad still had feelings for Monica. That’s why he’d sent her.
The stronger Thad’s feelings were for Monica, the more useful she’d be to Octavian. The madman would threaten her, endanger her, tie her to virtual railroad tracks like the moustache-twirling robber barons of old if he thought he could use her to manipulate Thad.
Thad couldn’t let his enemy have that advantage. The only way he could protect Monica, and ensure the safety of Lydia, was to feel nothing for her.
“Are they gone?” Her words pulled his thoughts back to the present, and Thad realized the sounds of the plane engine had faded while he’d been lost in thought.
“Sounds like it. For now.”
“What was that bright flash?” Monica pulled herself to her feet.
Thad shook his head as he rose slowly, his body weary from their frantic flight, and a little banged up from diving to the ground. “Maybe they took our picture.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Octavian must have asked for proof that we’re still out here.”
The Missing Monarch Page 3