The Stolen Princess: A YA Dystopian Romance (Desolation Book 3)

by Kortney Keisel

  More black to match his dark persona.

  Except he looked amazing in black.

  “It’s time for bed now,” he said, gesturing to the cot she’d already napped on.

  She turned back around to her food. “Well, I’m not tired. I’ve been sleeping all afternoon.”

  “Too bad.” He reached out and tilted her chair back onto two legs, making Myka feel like she was about to fall; then he pushed it back level, sending her flying forward to her feet. He took the rope out of his bag and looped it around her body.

  “What are you doing?” she asked as she tried swatting his hands away. He paused and gave her the look. It was his don’t mess with me look—the one where he dipped his chin down and raised his eyebrows so she could better see his gaze. Myka was getting used to that look. He seemed to give it to her a lot. She moved her hands away so that he could continue. “I don’t understand why I have to have the rope on. Can’t you lock me in?”

  He pulled the rope tight until there was only about a foot and half of the rope between them before he tied the remainder around his own waist. “This way, I won’t have to worry about what you’re doing in the middle of the night.”

  “What if I untie it in the middle of the night?” She lifted her shoulders.

  “I’ll feel it.”

  She looked at the two cots spread five feet across the room from each other, then down at the foot of slack he’d given. “And how is the rope supposed to reach that far?”

  “It’s not,” he said as he moved his cot right up next to hers, pulling her behind him. He straightened and gestured to the beds. “You first.”

  Myka folded her arms across her chest. “I refuse to sleep next to you. We’ll be practically sleeping in the same bed.”

  “Trust me, I wouldn’t touch you, even if my life depended on it.”

  “You know, that is the second time today you have made a statement like that. And I’m starting to get a little offended. You wouldn’t touch me even if your life depended on it.” She mockingly mimicked his tone.

  His brows creased together. “Not everyone is in love with you.”

  She let out a puff of air. “I didn’t say that they were.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  “I thought you were a gentleman.”

  He kicked his head back. “I am.”

  “A gentleman wouldn’t sleep in the same bed as a single woman.”

  Drake pointed to the cots. “It’s not the same bed. It’s two separate cots.”

  “It looks like one bed to me.”

  “Tell you what, I’ll show you how much of a gentleman I am by sleeping the opposite direction as you. My head will be on one end, and your head can be on the other. Is that gentlemanly enough for you?”

  Myka shook her head. “That doesn’t solve anything. The crucial body parts are still lined up.”

  He raked a hand through his hair, laughing to himself. “Crucial body parts?”

  “Yes,” she huffed. “The old there’s only one bed trick. Everyone always acts like sleeping in opposite directions is the answer to problems like this. But it’s not. Body parts are still lined up.”

  A mischievous glint shone in his brown eyes. “If you asked most men, they would tell you that having crucial body parts lined up isn’t a problem. They’d say it’s a blessing.”

  Myka grabbed the pillow off of one of the cots and started hitting him with it.

  Drake laughed as he swatted her hits away, and suddenly Myka froze, dropping the pillow onto the cot. She shouldn’t be having a flirty pillow fight with her kidnapper, and Drake shouldn’t be laughing. She wasn’t sure of the rules but laughing with your captor had to be crossing some ethical line somewhere.

  She scrambled into the bed, scooting toward the wall. There were so many parallels between her and Drake’s easy banter the first two times they had met and the barbed way they'd spoken to each other since he’d kidnapped her. It felt familiar, if a bit more strained, but before he’d kidnapped her, Myka had felt jittery, full of butterflies. Now she felt mad at herself and confused.

  He threw the pillow at her, hitting her in the head. “Here.”

  Suddenly Myka didn’t want to be the recipient of his kindness. She threw the pillow back at him. “I don’t want your pillow.”

  “You don’t want a pillow?” His voice was lined with disbelief.

  She was going to regret that move at two a.m. when her neck was stiff, but right now, she was a girl standing by her principals.

  “Fine. Don’t have it then.” Drake tossed the pillow on top of his own and climbed onto his cot the opposite direction as her. He spread his blanket out over his body and then laid down on his back.

  At first, Myka hugged the wall as close as she could, then her anger flared. This was ridiculous. Why was she the one trying to increase the space between them? Irritation burned inside her chest, and she stretched her legs out, letting her bare feet land on Drake’s face and neck.

  “I know what you’re doing,” he muttered as he threw her feet away from his body.

  “I’m not doing anything.” A smile toyed at her lips.

  She moved again, her legs landing on top of his chest as if she were a toddler sleeping in her parent’s bed.

  “Myka!” he groaned, grabbing her calf and throwing it off of him...again.

  “What? I’m just trying to get comfortable,” she said innocently.

  He turned his back to her. “If you still want to have feet in the morning, I suggest you keep them on your own side.”

  Making Drake Vestry miserable was her new favorite game. It was better than the games she had played during Ms. Happ’s boring lectures. The stakes were much higher in this game, though. She could get herself into a lot of trouble. But if Drake was really going to hurt her, wouldn’t he have done something by now? She’d done plenty of things to warrant his anger. She’d been sassy and difficult, spat on him, tried to escape, and yet, he hadn’t laid a hand on her. Half the time, he looked more frustrated than angry. And he had told Winslow that he needed to protect her from Dawsick. That didn’t sound like a man who was going to hurt her. So she decided to be bold, to dish out a little payback. She wondered how deep of a sleeper Drake was. Could he sleep through her endless chatter? Because if there was one thing Myka knew how to do, it was talk. And she planned to talk about every subject a typical man would hate.

  Drake

  Mykaleen Adler was nothing like what Drake had expected. Princess Seran was the only other princess Drake had met, and she was much more poised and controlled than Myka. It was like night and day.

  The girl would not shut up.

  She had been talking for an hour straight.

  Nonstop.

  About girl stuff.

  Myka had already covered, in great detail, her hobbies, moisturizing creams, pets, and her favorite hairstyles. Now, she was fixated on colored clothing. Drake had spent enough time with women to know what they liked to talk about, but this was different. This was one long, never-ending conversation.

  “Not all colors look good on all people,” Myka prattled on. “For example, when I wear pink, I feel like it makes my skin look pale. But blue, blue is an excellent color for me—especially light blue. There is something about that color that really brings out the glowing pigment in my skin tone. I practically sparkle when I wear light blue.”

  Drake ground his teeth together. He wasn’t going to react. That’s exactly what she wanted him to do, and he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. He was going to lay here and pretend like he was asleep. No, he was going to actually fall asleep—mind over matter.

  MIND OVER MATTER

  He would block her out.

  “One time,” she continued. “I had the royal seamstress make me the prettiest blue dress. I was so excited to wear it. My father was hosting some political dinner, and the staff at Tolsten House had been preparing for weeks. I had just turned fourteen and assumed that I would be attending the political
dinner as well. I got all ready, sat for an hour while my maid did my hair, but when my father saw me, he told me to go change, that I wasn’t invited to the party.” Her voice dropped as her story went from superficial fluff to something real. Drake held still, hoping she thought he was asleep.

  “I was so mad at my dad,” she said. “I remember yelling at him that I’m not Cinderella, and he yelled back that he didn’t know who Cinderella was.” Myka laughed to herself, but the laughter was full of sadness. “I shouted at him to go read a book sometime, and then I slammed his bedroom door in his face.” She sucked in a deep breath like the pain of the memory had caught her off guard. “I just wanted to feel like a princess one time. I can’t even tell you how many pretty dresses I have that I’ve never even worn. You don’t need fancy dresses when you’re not allowed to go anywhere.”

  Drake peered through the dark, waiting for her to say more, but instead, silence took over the space.

  “Why doesn’t your father let you go anywhere?” he asked against his better judgment. She was silent for a long moment, and he instantly regretted asking her. He had lasted an entire hour without saying anything. All of that restraint wasted on a single question.

  “I guess he wanted to keep me safe.” Her words were small. “Safe from people like you.” She let out another sad laugh. “But then I went and got myself kidnapped.”

  Drake had the urge to touch her, to tell her he was sorry that they had dragged her into this mess, but he immediately pushed it away. There was something really wrong with him. She was a part of the mission. Although, part of his goal now was to get the princess to trust him. That’s where the urge to touch her had come from.

  “When did your mother leave?” he asked, thinking this might be a good conversation to build trust.

  “When I was eight.”

  More silence.

  “What was the queen like?” he asked. He didn’t expect her to answer any personal questions this early on. So, he filled the silence with memories of his own mother.

  “My mother was made of fire,” he began. “At least that’s what my father always said. She had this energy about her that made her fun to be around, a spunkiness that kept everyone on their toes, like at any moment she would say something or do something completely ridiculous. I loved that about her, and it’s what I miss the most.”

  Myka turned her head to him, though he couldn’t see her face from where his head was. “What happened to her?”

  “Nothing. She’s still alive.”

  “Oh. When you described her, it sounded like she wasn’t around anymore.”

  “She’s not around anymore. She got sick of my father never being home. He was the Commander of the Albion army, and she was alone most of their marriage. She left him when I was about ten and found a new family. I haven’t seen her since.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  Drake shook the familiar hurt away. “It’s not a big deal.”

  “Is that why you don’t want a serious relationship with a woman?”

  He looked up at the ceiling, wondering how his simple question about her mother had turned into them talking about him and his life. He was supposed to be learning about her. He nodded. “Yeah. I don’t plan on making the same mistakes as my father. It’s not worth it.”

  They lay in silence, and just when Drake thought Myka wouldn’t say anything else she opened her mouth to speak.

  “My mother was flawless,” she said, surprising him. “She was classy and always put together. She could work a ballroom like a pro, making everyone in the room feel like they were special to her. And every night, she would come and tuck me in, no matter what. She would lean over me and tell me stories, letting me play with her long black hair. It’s weird how my mother, who never missed a night of tucking me in, was okay with leaving me. It shows how selfish she was—how she cared more about herself than she did about my dad and me.” Myka sucked in a breath, gathering a new sense of strength from the air. “We’re better off without her.”

  Myka’s voice cracked, making it impossible for Drake to believe her. The air around them thickened like it was infused with a new feeling, something they hadn’t shared in any previous conversations.

  He closed his eyes.

  Pine nuts. He was doing this for pine nuts. That was the only reason.

  15

  Drake

  The golden sun drifted through the windows, and Drake could tell by the shadows that they had slept later than he had intended. He turned his head to the side and found himself inches apart from Myka’s sleeping face. It had been a conscious decision in the middle of the night to flip his body around the same direction as hers. But, at the time, his only thought had been to free himself from her wild limbs so he could get some rest. Now the position seemed dangerous.

  Her even breaths tickled his neck as his eyes carefully scanned her face like studying her was illegal. The relaxed expression she wore softened her features, giving her a look of innocence that probably didn’t exist.

  The princess was beautiful. Anyone would say that. A faint pattern of freckles dotted her cheeks and under her eyes, spreading across the bridge of her nose. The freckles were so light that Drake could only see them when he was close to her. Usually, Drake stood a full head taller than her, even when her hair was in a bun on top of her head, but lying down, they were lined up evenly. Was she as dangerous as her father? In some ways, it felt like she was even more dangerous than Adler. In the short time that Drake had known her, a restless feeling had settled in his stomach. Myka put everything inside of him on edge, and he couldn’t relax.

  This is a job, he reminded himself.

  She was a naive princess blessed with a pretty face and the pawn they needed to get Adler’s weapons.

  Her eyes fluttered open and immediately widened when she saw Drake’s face inches from hers.

  Oh, no!

  She kicked and shoved his body away, but there was no more space on the cot. Drake rolled, crashing to the floor, landing hard on his back. The rope tangled around and under his body, pulling her down with him so that her stomach landed flush on his chest.

  “Get off me!” she yelled as she squirmed, pushing against his chest.

  “You’re on top of me!” he said with his palms up.

  Her efforts to get off of Drake were in vain. It was like the rope was attacking them. Myka began slapping his shoulders as if it was his fault that they were lying on top of each other with their limbs tangled together. He wrapped his arms around her back and used the force of his body to roll them both over so he was on top. Myka grabbed his arms, letting out a squeal as they rolled.

  Drake stared down at her crystal blue eyes, momentarily forgetting everything. He couldn’t account for his sudden heavy breaths. It’s not like he had just finished doing a set of pull-ups, but his heart raced like he had. Her breathing matched his own, and without thinking, his eyes glanced to her lips.

  That was a mistake.

  He had no intention to kiss her.

  Her knee jammed into his groin for the second time in less than twelve hours, and he rolled off her, buckling over in pain.

  “Are you...trying to make it...so I can never go to the bathroom again?” His words were broken up by pain.

  “I told you that rope would be a problem,” she said in between her own heavy breaths.

  Right now, Drake’s only problem was her.

  Myka

  Myka had been locked inside all day. She paced back and forth for what seemed like hours. She didn’t know when Kase would arrive with her father’s response, but she couldn’t do more days like the one she’d had today. The isolation was depressing, and she needed to find a way to escape. She decided to go into fight mode, scouring the shack for something she could use as a weapon. She had no intention of killing Drake. She just wanted to take him down long enough to run away. She crawled around the floor of the house, lifting boards up to search for loose nails. That was a waste of time. Af
ter more than an hour, Myka sat down on the edge of the bed, disappointed and defeated. Her eyes drifted to the curtain and the tiny metal rings that were fastened to the pole. She grabbed a chair and walked over to the drape, standing on top of the chair to get a better look. The rings weren’t exactly rings. They looked like bent metal that had been pushed together over the pole. She held the tip of her finger up to the edge of the hook. The jagged edge was enough to cut, despite how thin and flimsy the metal was. The hook wouldn’t do a lot of damage, but it was definitely the sharpest thing Myka had found in the room.

  She looked over her shoulder at the door, then back at the curtain. She began bending metal hooks off of the pole. She only selected a few—whatever ones seemed the sharpest. Then she pulled the curtain tight so that Drake wouldn’t notice the sections without hooks. Myka placed the metal pieces in the pocket of her jacket, and smiled to herself, happy to have some sort of a weapon, even if it was small.

  Drake

  “Are you going to leave her in the shack or bring her out for dinner?” Grady asked that night as he leaned over the fire, skewering chicken.

  Drake had left Myka alone all day in his house. That wasn’t his original plan, but the woman was impossible. She got under his skin unlike any person ever had. One minute he wanted to tackle her to the ground and wrestle her and then the next minute he wanted to brush her hair back from her face and see what it would feel like to kiss her sweetly. There was a big difference between those two activities, leaving Drake feeling completely confused and grumpy. That’s why he had locked her in the shack all day. He needed distance from Myka.

  “I’ll grab her in a second,” he said between bites. He was stalling, because even though he’d spent the day away from Myka, she was all his mind had thought about.

  “Well, boys.” Portlend tipped his cup to the other men. “We made our first move. We kidnapped the princess, made it safely back to camp, and Kase should be back soon with the king’s reply.”