by Madeline Ash
Guilt squirmed in her. Did he think it was her fault? If she hadn’t been so worried about Adam, Kris wouldn’t have come here.
Hands shaking, she pulled out her phone. Something was wrong. Adam hadn’t answered her calls or texts all day, but she stepped back as she called again, following Philip’s gaze to her apartment windows as if to summon him.
A chill shot down her spine.
Her main lights were on. But—it couldn’t be Adam. He only used lamplight. He called the stark LED of the overhead globe tasteless. Then her chill froze over as a figure passed close by the window.
A uniformed officer.
A memory pitched forward inside her like a drunk preparing to vomit, but she shoved it back, unwilling to project that long-ago night onto this one.
Adam’s phone rang out and she spun back to the officer barring her entrance. “Is someone hurt up there?” Alarm pounded in her chest. Why were police in her apartment? Kris had been attacked on the street, but had the men been inside first? Had they broken inside on a random rampage and hurt Adam? “Why are people in my apartment?”
The man regarded her without expression.
“My boyfriend’s up there!” Her distress rose in a shout. “I think he might have been home sick tonight, and now there are police with him. What the hell is going on? Is he okay?”
A small frown darted his brows, and in a low voice, he said, “No one’s home, ma’am, and no one’s hurt.”
“What?” No one’s home? “Oh.”
She stepped back, disoriented. So, where was Adam?
“But,” she said, “why are they in my apartment?”
The man’s face set. “Please wait outside, ma’am.”
Her sense of wrongness grew as she sat on the lip of the curb and stared at the scene. The paramedics had worked fast. Kris was stirring on a gurney as they slid him into the back of the ambulance. Mark and Tommy both moved forward to climb in, and Zara heard a medic state that only one of them could travel with Kris.
“We are one,” Tommy answered with such royal fury, the woman swiftly let both brothers in the back.
In the queasy contrast of flashing lights and black shadows, Frankie stared after the ambulance as it pulled away. She ran a hand roughly over her face, exhaustion seeming to press down on her like a bad hangover, and then, looking around, she met Zara’s stare.
Frankie staggered a little—and Zara knew.
It was that look. The same Zara had been given by the responding officer on the most traumatic night of her life. The woman’s face had blanched with bloodless pity at the sight of her before flattening into a reluctant mask. Just like Frankie’s.
Zara was about to receive very bad news.
Features haggard, Frankie crossed the cop-strewn street to the curb.
Zara wrapped her arms tightly around her stomach, as if that had ever been able to keep her from breaking, and said, “Just tell me.”
Frankie didn’t answer. Her eyes were as hollow as ghosts.
“Where’s Adam?”
Kris was out of surgery by the time Frankie dragged herself into the hospital. Her adrenaline was long gone, leaving her shaky and sick, but she chugged a shitty hospital vending-machine coffee and carried several bags of corn chips through the ward toward Kris’s private room.
Guards were positioned at every turn.
The police had informed her of the attackers’ story before she’d left the scene. They were the remaining members of the anarchist group who hadn’t been involved in palace renovations. They’d received texts from Adam earlier in the day with instructions to keep an eye on his apartment. They were to leave Zara alone, but if anyone else came snooping, they had to report back to him. Beating up a royal had not been part of the plan, but Kris had strolled unprotected within range of anarchist extremists who’d just had a member smoked out of the nest. As far as they were concerned, the universe had slid them a freebie.
The police had also informed her that although their apartment search hadn’t turned up any evidence, it seemed that Adam had disappeared along with his valuable possessions. He wasn’t missing—he’d gone to ground.
Ava had called while Frankie was en route to the hospital. Kris had a concussion, but the scans showed no signs of internal bleeding, in his head or elsewhere. Thankfully, the knife hadn’t entered his abdominal cavity to reach his organs, though the angle of the cut meant the blade had sliced through a lot of muscle. He had stitches, two fractured ribs, a broken arm, and more bruises than clear skin.
Frankie halted in the hospital room doorway.
Her inhale was sharp and sensitive, and everyone turned to look at her. Mark and Tommy from where they sat on either side of the bed, Ava from where she reclined in a chair against the wall with Darius sleeping on her lap, and Philip from his position by the window. The brothers’ features were shuttered. The air in the room was tense.
Kris was okay.
He just didn’t look okay.
“Is he allowed to be sleeping?” Frankie didn’t move inside.
She’d asked Philip to explain Adam’s connection to the balcony collapse to Kris’s brothers and Ava—omitting any connections to Tommy’s bashing—while she’d been busy reducing Zara to the fetus position right there in the gutter.
Her lungs still felt wet with grief.
“Doctor’s orders,” Mark said, because he was too decent to ignore her despite the huge truth that she’d kept from them. “He was able to hold a conversation after surgery, and his pupils looked good. Sleep will help him heal.”
“Okay.” To stop herself passing out, Frankie opened a packet of chips and started eating.
“He asked where you were,” Ava said quietly. Then after a pause, she asked, “How is Zara?”
“Destroyed.”
The princess shifted, running a hand over her son’s hair. “Is she alone?”
Frankie shook her head and jammed more chips into her mouth. “I had Gul take her to the palace and set her up in a guest suite for as long as she needs. He’ll stay with her overnight.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to do the same thing,” Frankie said. “Just for now.”
Mark and Ava exchanged a grim glance. Drawing the curl of Darius’s sleeping body closer to her, Ava said, “We understand.”
The following silence was broken by Frankie’s crunching.
She was well into her second packet when Tommy spoke. “Why didn’t you tell us?” He refused to look at her. His broad shoulders were stiff, torso firmly facing Kris. One hand clutched the covers on the bed beside his brother’s leg.
“Until this morning, we had no idea how the threads came together,” she said. “Once we identified Adam, the plan was to tell you all tomorrow. This evening was meant to be a celebration and we didn’t want to taint it.”
Mark’s bleak glance basically said backfire.
“And obviously, we didn’t want to cause you unnecessary stress.”
Tommy’s eyes squeezed shut, his lip curling. Then he was standing, gesturing to the chair, and muttering, “You sit down. I need a minute.”
He strode from the room without another word, and Frankie leaned back in the doorway, watching his night guards peel off the corridor wall and follow at a distance.
“We need to discuss our communications strategy.” Philip looked worn to the bone. “Rumors will fly when Kristof suddenly stops appearing in public.”
“Not tonight, Philip.” Mark spoke with gentle resolve. “I’ll resume all of the king’s duties for the next couple of days. We can talk about the rest once he’s back at the palace.”
“Of course,” Philip said, inclining his head.
“Philip,” Frankie said. “Go home. Sleep. Be wild—don’t set your alarm.”
As the royal advisor passed her in the doorway, she reached out and gave his hand a long squeeze.
“He’s disappeared,” he whispered in dismay.
She squeezed tighter
. “The authorities have issued a nationwide manhunt. We’ll get him.”
After a moment, he squeezed back. “Thank you.”
She finished the second packet of chips before daring herself to take Tommy’s chair. She’d been able to disconnect a little from the doorway, but as she sat beside Kris, she couldn’t ignore the injuries that made a mockery of his muscled body.
Strong or not, six against one were cruel odds.
As she took his scuffed, scabbed hand in hers—evidence he’d fought back—she resolved to a new security measure. This royal family would no longer rely exclusively on guards. She’d train them all in self-defense.
“I’m not leaving you,” she murmured, and leaned forward to press her lips to the back of his hand. The bed was soft around her face, and the next thing she knew, his fingers were wiggling a little, waking her up.
“Hey.” Kris spoke on a groan.
She straightened, confused.
Tommy was sitting opposite her. Mark, Ava, and Darius were gone.
“Hey,” Frankie and Tommy said together.
Kris looked between them without moving his head, his gaze groggy from the painkillers. “Good night so far?”
“Piss off,” Tommy murmured with a tiny smile.
Frankie held his hand a little too hard. “Don’t try to be cute.”
“You look awful,” he said to her.
She arched a brow. “Guess who needs a mirror?”
He started to smile, then winced with a pained hiss. His attention slid to his brother. “You okay?”
Tommy was pale. “Better than you.”
Kris closed his eyes, lines gathering on his brow. “I hate that you’ve been through something like this. I’m sorry if this has made you relive it.”
Swallowing, Tommy didn’t answer.
“We can bond,” Kris said. “Now I know how it feels.”
Tommy ran a hand over his mouth. “I never wanted you to know how it felt.”
Frankie looked down at where she held Kris’s hand, a lump tightening her throat.
“Frankie.” Kris’s voice was little more than a rough scrape. “Are you angry with me?”
“No.” She fought back a wave of emotion. “I mean, I’ll beat the hell out of you later for scaring me like that. But I’m not angry.”
“Sounds fair.” He was quiet for a while. “My face feels twice its usual size. I don’t think I can be seen for a while.”
Frankie and Tommy both nodded.
“And did you hear my ribs are fractured?”
More nods.
Kris’s blue gaze found hers. “You won’t be able to hug me.”
He’d meant it as a joke, but for some reason, it seemed like the most devastating news she’d ever received. Her eyes filled and she gasped to hold back a sob.
“Oh, hey,” he murmured, blinking slowly. “Just for a few weeks.”
She sniffled. “That’s ages.”
“Naaaah,” he said, the vowel drawn out on a sigh. His eyelids sagged shut. “You should both go home.”
She clutched his hand tighter. “Only when you can come with me.”
“I’m not leaving,” Tommy muttered.
He groaned in groggy protest. “You’re both just going to watch me sleep?”
“Yes,” they answered, and started doing exactly that when his next breath took him under.
17
Frankie hardly left his side.
Kris would wake and feel her hand in his, or hear her talking on the phone by the window, or open his eyes to find her sleeping in the armchair she’d dragged to his bedside. She ate hospital café food, showered in his patient bathroom, and climbed up the walls in agitation. Every time he told her to go, that he’d be fine, she gave him the same answer.
“I’m not leaving you. I’m never leaving you.”
Despite knowing why she kept saying it, it was pretty damn nice to hear.
He hurt a lot; slept a lot. At one point he woke to Hanna exclaiming, “I beat you! Holy cow, I actually beat you!”
“It’s snap, Johansson. Not hand-to-hand combat.”
“Not the way you play,” his guard had argued.
After three days, he was discharged under the condition of bed rest. Frankie’s team secreted him out of the hospital via a staff-only route late that night, and eased him into a waiting car that drove as smoothly as water on glass to the palace entrance. To his shame, he was carried up the flights of stairs to his suite, but he forgot all about it as soon as he was lying in his soft, palatial-sized bed.
Frankie kissed him gently, and curled up close to him.
“I love you,” she murmured.
“I never doubted it,” he said. “Never.”
It was midmorning the following day when he awoke to find his family passing time in his bedroom. Mark and Philip were going through paperwork, Tommy was reading, Ava was drawing with Darius, and Frankie was pacing like a cat in a cage.
Philip didn’t waste any time once he noticed Kris was awake.
“We need to discuss our strategy,” he said, and everyone stilled to listen. “Kristof’s broken arm and fractured ribs will take roughly six weeks to heal, though the doctors believe he’ll be able to tolerate small appearances in as little as four weeks. His face, of course, won’t be suitable for public viewing for at least a fortnight and we have our Kicking It program launch announcement in two days.”
“Has his face ever been suitable for public viewing?” Frankie asked.
Philip looked confused when Kris’s brothers both snickered, as if wanting to say, but you all have the same face.
“Our issue is keeping news of the attack contained,” the advisor continued with a frown. “Obviously, it would look poor on the global stage for a member of our royal family to be attacked in our streets. It could convey far greater tension between the monarchy and our people than this situation warrants. In addition to his royal appearances, my concern is Kristof’s habit of socializing in Kira City. The people will notice his absence.” He paused and gestured out the window. “A possible solution is to say that Kristof is abroad.”
“That could work,” Kris said, feeling muzzy.
Mark nodded at him, then exchanged a somber glance with Ava. “I’ll resume the king’s duties in the meantime.”
“The other thing to consider,” Philip said, “is that a six-week recovery will bring us two weeks from the coronation.”
“These injuries aren’t forever.” Kris closed his eyes as his side throbbed. God above, this stab wound was a bastard. “I’ll still do that.”
Philip sounded affronted. “You’ll still do what?”
“The coronation.”
“One doesn’t do a coronation—”
“About that,” Tommy interrupted quietly.
The room fell silent—and Kris almost drifted back to sleep. He jolted, opening his eyes when Frankie tapped him lightly and held out a glass of water and painkillers. He nodded and started the drawn-out shift into sitting up. Putting the glass and tablets aside, she crawled across the bed to his other side and slid a pillow under his back.
“I love you,” he murmured, and she smiled and kissed his bruised cheek.
“Yes, Tomas?” Philip said.
Kris returned his attention to the conversation as his brother stood.
Tommy was sweating. His jaw was tight. Kris had the fleeting fear he was about to admit that he couldn’t handle royal life anymore, that he was going to return home to Sage Haven and wouldn’t be here for the coronation. That was until Tommy said—
“I’d like to be king.”
The words settled into a stunned silence.
No one spoke.
No one even moved, until—
“You’d what?” Philip asked faintly.
“You’d what?” Kris demanded, sitting up straight and catching a cry of pain behind his teeth as his stitches pulled and his ribs screamed.
Mark stood to face Tommy, concern tight in his stance. “What
do you mean, Tom?”
Tommy held himself perfectly still. No jiggling, no avoiding eye contact as he stared back at Mark. “I want to do it.”
“No way,” Kris said, and started to say, “Over my dead—” until Frankie slid a hand over his mouth and said, “Shh.”
Tommy’s attention slid to him, and Kris felt pain in his chest that had nothing to do with his injuries. “I’m next in line, Kris.”
With Frankie’s hand firmly in place, Kris shook his head.
“I know you think it’ll be too much for me.” Tommy’s gaze was steady, but Kris could see apprehension in his reserved gaze. “You might be right. But you have to recover. And Mark shouldn’t have to step back into a role he’s not ultimately going to fill. Kris, you only offered to ascend because you’d do anything for Mark and me—not because you actually want to do it.”
Kris shook his head again, eyes pleading. You don’t have to do this.
But Tommy said, “I want to be king.”
Denial surged inside Kris, and he said a muffled, “Why?” against Frankie’s hand.
Kris had been in a fight—that was all. A few injuries shouldn’t cause his brother to cut himself open in an attempt to balance the scales. Tommy didn’t owe him this.
“You told me you’re terrified of being king,” Tommy said carefully, and Mark jerked around to look at Kris. “And you were going to do it anyway.”
Heartsore, Kris just shook his head again.
“The thing is,” his brother continued, “I’m not terrified of being king. I’m terrified of crowds, and meeting new people, and social interactions. But not ruling.”
Frankie and Philip were exchanging a long look.
“Tommy,” Frankie said, removing her hand from Kris’s mouth and shifting onto her knees. Kris prayed she was going to talk his brother out of it. “I have to remind you about Adam. If you do this, you’ll make yourself even more of a target.” She stared at him—and even though he shifted his stance, he stared back. “You’re smart and unreadable and no one really knows you. Mark says he’s never mentioned your anxiety to Adam. You’re an unknown quantity. He’ll want to weigh you up, but I believe he’ll try to take you down.” She paused, angling her head. “Until we’ve caught him, it’s a high-risk position, even with the guards.”