My Ruthless Prince

by Gaelen Foley

  At once, he had restored her with water from his canteen. Before long, he had tied the rope around them both and held on to her as her father and a crowd of the other servants who had joined the search assisted in pulling them up. She had blinked her eyes against the light as she rejoined the land of the living . . .

  And she did so now, the shroud of sleep dissolving.

  When she slowly opened her eyes to the new day, she found Drake staring at her, just like he had all those years ago.

  With the memory of his rescue so fresh in her mind, as if it had happened yesterday, she moved abruptly to embrace him. She threw her arms around his neck.

  The motion took him off guard. He did not have time to push her away. He accepted her hug, gingerly returning it though he seemed bemused.

  Emily squeezed her eyes shut as she clung to him, her heart still pounding from the unsettling dream.

  “Well, good morning to you, too,” Drake mumbled.

  When Emily recollected the particulars of last night, namely that he had become a Promethean, she released him from her embrace, warily pulling back.

  “You all right?”

  She nodded, easing back onto her elbows. “What were you doing, watching me sleep?”

  He held her gaze with a faint, reluctant half smile. “I was just waiting for you to wake up.”

  “Why?”

  “So I could thank you.”

  “For what?” she asked in surprise.

  He shrugged. “For what you tried to do for me, by coming here. Don’t think I don’t appreciate it. Pound for pound, you’re the bravest soul I know, my girl. Always were.”

  “Well, coming from you, I’ll take that as a compliment,” she responded, pleased. “But if you really want to thank me, you can start by giving me a proper answer. Did you get your memory back or not, yes or no?”

  “More or less. Not everything, but enough.”

  “I knew it! Was it during that monstrous three-day headache you had in England?”

  He searched her eyes with a guarded stare, then nodded. “It all started coming back to me then.”

  “So you are you again.”

  “Whatever that means.” He looked away with a sardonic lift of his eyebrows. “I have to go. I’m on duty in a quarter hour.”

  Emily sat up in his bed, stretching a bit, while Drake rose from the stool where he’d been sitting beside her and went to buckle on his weapons belt.

  A glance toward the balcony revealed the predawn gray hanging over the thick forest, a slowly paling sky above the mountains’ pearly peaks.

  “I’ll send up breakfast for you when I go down,” he told her. “I’ll be busy for most of the day.”

  “I hope you weren’t too cold sleeping outside last night? It really wasn’t necessary—”

  “It was fine,” he cut her off.

  She got up, still clad in his shirt, and pushed up the long sleeves as she followed him, barefooted, toward the door. “So, I won’t see much of you today, then?”

  “No.” His glance skimmed over her, then he sternly looked away.

  Emily let out a sigh, dragging her hand through her hair. “Lord, how am I to occupy myself?” she muttered. “You can’t keep me locked up in here all day. I’ll go mad.”

  “Well, you’re supposed to be my servant. You could always see to the tasks that need doing around here.”

  “Like what?”

  “Those dishes from last night have to go back down to the kitchen. The hearth needs sweeping. My shirts could use a washing in the stream.”

  She slanted him a skeptical look.

  He shrugged again and smiled. “Or you can sit around here and stare at the walls if you prefer.”

  She snorted. “I don’t prefer.”

  “Good. Then have it all done when I get back.”

  “I beg your pardon!”

  “I’m only teasing.”

  She snorted and folded her arms across her chest.

  “Watch yourself,” he warned in a softer tone. “You’re free to go about your tasks inside the castle, but don’t trust anyone. Don’t talk to anyone unless you’re spoken to directly. Keep your eyes down. Do your work and keep to yourself. And Emily?”

  “Yes, Drake?” She rested her shoulder against the wall, leaning closer to him. His magnetism drew her irresistibly.

  “Don’t go prying anywhere,” he warned.

  “Who, me?”

  “I’m serious. Stay out of mischief for both our sakes. One more thing,” he added, pausing with one hand on the door.

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t forget, they think we are lovers.”

  “Would it were so,” she whispered daringly. The words slipped out before she could check them.

  His dark eyes narrowed in speculation. “Don’t start something you’re not prepared to finish.”

  “You started it. Yesterday. You’re the one who kissed me.”

  Gazing roguishly into her eyes, he leaned closer until his lips hovered half an inch from hers. “But, my dear, that was only for a ruse.”

  “Do you kiss differently in earnest?”

  “You tell me,” he whispered, and he pressed his lips to hers, driving her body back against the wall, his hand resting on her waist.

  Emily met his kiss in trembling enthusiasm, curling her hands over his shoulders, her heart pounding.

  But Drake stopped himself a moment later, his chest heaving. “Careful what you wish for,” he warned in a sensuous murmur. His gaze dipped to her moistened lips before he turned and left the room.

  She closed her eyes, breathlessly leaning her head back against the wall after he had gone.

  Lord, didn’t that man know she’d have walked through fire for him?

  Lunatic, Promethean, or not.

  London

  The dogs of Dante House were howling.

  Virgil’s body had been discovered some hours before, but as accustomed as they were to death, every agent there was in a state of shock, silent with fury.

  The man who had been like a father to them, their mentor and trainer, had been cut down, and none of them had been on hand to help him.

  The rage, the grief, the hunger for revenge drove them onto the schooner that had been waiting for their departure to the Continent. With few words, Rotherstone’s team parted ways with Beauchamp, who stayed behind to handle the aftermath of what was sure to come.

  Officials would ask questions, to say nothing of the Elders of the Order up in Scotland. The shock of Virgil’s death would be felt as far away as Moscow, and in every European capital in between, where an active cell of the Order had been established.

  Beau had hurried them off, knowing Niall already had a lead of at least six hours. He assured them he would see to the burial of their beloved Highlander and that they would have a proper memorial service for him once his killer had been dealt with.

  At present, they could not afford to let the trail go cold. Just as Virgil had taught them, they thrust their own feelings aside and got on with the job. It was what the old man would have wanted.

  And so that morning, as planned, Max, Jordan, and Rohan set sail down the Thames, on the hunt for Niall Banks. Finding Drake was just as important as it had been last night, but the wound of Virgil’s murder was too fresh for them to think of anything other than making their handler’s treacherous offspring pay.

  They had found Emily’s letter missing and knew that Niall must have taken it.

  Once he read it, he would certainly realize what her news about James’s secret meeting signified. That meant Niall, too, would head for Waldfort Castle in order to stomp out Falkirk’s conspiracy against Malcolm.

  The agents did not intend to let him get that far, however. They stood at the bow of the schooner as the sun inched over the horizon at their backs, separate and silent, each alone with his own thoughts, each seething stare scanning the river and shoreline, on the watch, each one’s hand in easy reach of his weapon. In short, they wante
d blood.

  If Niall had the cunning to trick a seasoned knight of the Order like Virgil Banks into making such a fatal mistake as turning his back on him and letting his guard down, then the bastard was smart enough, thought Max, to know he would not live long.

  Indeed, miles ahead, where the river met the coast, Niall glanced nervously over his shoulder as he paid for a ticket aboard a packet ship to Calais from the English coast.

  Petty crime was not his style, but he had resorted to robbing a shopkeeper at the point of a blade shortly after abandoning the rowboat by the river’s edge.

  He did not have time for more caution. He was well aware that any number of Order agents would soon be on his heels. He had only a few hours’ lead on them, and he knew he would be hunted like a fox. The packet ship could not get under way fast enough for him.

  When at last it pulled up anchor and lumbered away from the English coast, rocking its way out into the wind-tossed Channel, only then did he exhale.

  He kept a distance from the other passengers but slumped on one of the benches belowdecks and told himself the nausea he was experiencing was merely due to seasickness.

  The one thing he tried not to contemplate was the sickening truth that he feared he knew deep down in his bones.

  The proof was in the mirror.

  He was fairly sure he had just murdered his own father, and that was something.

  Even for him.

  Chapter 7

  Bavaria

  Later that day, Emily knelt on a rock by the stream outside the castle walls, her hands stung by the icy water of the brook as she wrung out another of Drake’s shirts.

  She was fairly sure that, aside from keeping up their charade of master and servant, the scoundrel had given her these menial tasks to ding her pride and try to goad her into wanting to leave.

  But his little scheme wasn’t going to work. She refused to be driven off, especially after that kiss.

  Her heart still sang, knowing that one, at least, had not been for show. She had been waiting for her too-noble Order knight to do that for years.

  It had been worth the wait.

  More importantly, his first true kiss renewed her determination to take him home, despite the Initiate’s Brand on his chest.

  He did not know her at all if he thought she would be giving up so easily. True, the mark on his chest showed how fierce the battle to save him might become, but at least they were together, and, by God, she had only just begun to fight.

  How could she do otherwise when that unpleasant dream about the Lamont debacle had recalled in sharp detail what Drake had done for her?

  He had literally saved her life.

  Lack of water had nearly put an end to her existence though it was ironic that her prison was at the bottom of a well. One that had run dry.

  Drake had come storming home within hours of receiving word of her disappearance. He had torn Westwood Park apart to find her, and once he had her safely in his arms, lifting her limp body from the hole, he had not left her side. He had waited until she was well enough to tell him what had happened.

  After questioning her and drying her few tears, Drake, unlike his mother, did not question her veracity, but had stalked off to the neighboring estate, issued his challenge to a duel, and promptly at dawn the next morning, had put her attacker in his grave.

  No more girls would be assaulted by Mr. Lamont.

  With a history like that between them, the errant Earl of Westwood was not a madman but a fool if he thought he could drive her away with the supposed insult of a few menial tasks.

  She relished the thought of vexing him by refusing to take offense. After all, she had never been afraid of a little hard work.

  Indeed, she was glad to have something to do. It was better than sitting inside, locked in his room.

  Washing clothes meant she could be outside, as she always preferred, drinking in the fresh, pine-scented air and the majestic beauty of the surrounding Alps.

  She finishing squeezing the water out of his large black shirt, untwisting it from the ropelike coil she had made to squeeze out the excess water. She shook it out, then carried it over to the temporary clothesline she had strung between two trees and draped it over the rope.

  Planting her hands in the small of her back, she stretched a bit, tipping her head back to let the sun warm her face. When she opened her eyes again, her gaze fell once more on the mouth of the trail that opened nearby, leading off into the woods.

  An easy escape by that route beckoned, but she ignored the lure of freedom so close at hand.

  Wryly, she gathered it was no accident that Drake had sent her to the stream to do her task. He probably meant for her to slip away at once. But she wasn’t leaving alone, any more than he would have left her down in that hole once he had found her.

  Then she glanced up at the mighty castle, still unsure of what dangerous game he was playing.

  By the time she finished the laundry, hung their things on the clothesline to dry, and went back inside, she had worked up an appetite from the very physical labor.

  With a twinge in her back and her stomach rumbling, she wondered if she would be given a midday meal. Service of the day’s early dinner appeared to be under way in the castle. She went in, doing her best to escape notice, blending into the background like any other servant.

  She remembered Drake’s advice about being careful and not talking to anyone, but she couldn’t resist stealing a peek into the Guards’ Hall, hoping to catch a glimpse of him.

  Glancing around the corner amid the servants who were continually scurrying in and out of the hall, waiting on the warriors, she did not see Drake at the long banquet table. Some three dozen well-armed bodyguards of the Promethean leaders were devouring huge quantities of food. They probably ate in shifts, she thought, but Drake was not among them. I wonder where he is.

  She walked away, noticing another line of footmen, these wearing livery. They were carrying a parade of gleaming silver trays into the stately dining room that James Falkirk had stepped out of the day before.

  Emily gathered that this was where the elite Promethean lords took their meals. As she watched the footmen march in, she wondered with a bit of graveyard humor what sort of food these demons liked to eat. Roasted snake? Frog eyeballs? Stuffed raven instead of Cornish hens?

  Indeed, all washed down with a nice goblet of warm human blood. Smirking at her own musings, she turned away and proceeded down to the kitchens, where she was put to work for a while, but eventually received her portion for the day.

  What the satanic Promethean masters might be eating, who could say, but the servants were given dried-out, stringy pork chops left over from what the well-fed guards had not devoured the previous night, along with one cold, mushy carrot, half a turnip, and a meager hunk of slightly moldy bread for each of them.

  Emily accepted her plate with as much gratitude as she could muster and headed back to Drake’s room. As she neared the staircase, the sound of raucous barking arrested her attention. It was coming from one of the opulent State Rooms on the main floor.

  Curious about the clamor, Emily went to peek into the gilded drawing room near the grand staircase.

  To her surprise, three of the castle’s enormous black guard dogs had surrounded the dainty rococo couch, barking, tails wagging, though an occasional snarl confirmed that although they were enjoying their sport, they were serious about their game.

  Watching the large, powerful dogs circling the sofa, poking their heads under it, though they were too big to crawl beneath it, Emily realized they had cornered something under there. Whatever had taken shelter under the couch was doomed without a little help.

  She frowned; her first unappetizing thought was of a rat. She lost all interest in her plate of food when she realized what would happen when the dogs got hold of their quarry.

  It was only a matter of time before they captured it, then they would ruin the luxurious carpet tearing their prey apart.

 
; Emily set her plate aside and went over behind the dogs, bending down to the floor to see if she could spot the trapped creature.

  The dogs ignored her, absorbed in their sport, but she was suddenly startled to find a hissing, terrorized, little tabby cat doing its best to hold off the mighty dogs from every direction.

  “Oh, you poor thing,” she murmured. Its tiny fangs glinting, the cat was puffed up into a fur ball, but had hunkered down for the siege.

  Emily tried to shoo the dogs away, but when one of them snapped at her, warning her off their sport, she jumped back, startled.

  These were dangerous animals, trained to attack. She did not intend to try to stand against them. Instead, with barely a twinge of regret, she plucked the pork chop off her plate, caught the dogs’ attention with a whistle, dangling it before them.

  When they noticed the piece of meat she was offering, they forgot all about the cat and started toward her.

  She threw the pork chop clear to the other end of the drawing room. The dogs lunged after it and proceeded to battle over it among themselves.

  The cat was gone in a flash, streaking out from under the couch, a blur of gray bulleting toward the doorway and disappearing from the room.

  She smiled and wiped her hands off on the dun-colored woolen skirts of her work dress, the only other set of clothes she had brought with her.

  Leaving the drawing room with a certain fellow feeling for the outnumbered feline, Emily followed to see if the cat had been injured in its ordeal. If so, perhaps it would let her help. But it was naught but a flash of fur ahead, diving down the backstairs at the far end of the hallway.

  She followed, calling softly to it, but the panicked tabby raced on.

  I wonder where that leads, she thought, pausing as she reached the top of the dark stone stairs, down which the cat had vanished. Maybe it had kittens down there somewhere, for it was that time of year.

  She bit her lip, glancing over her shoulder, with Drake’s warning not to go exploring the castle ringing in her ears.