Courted: Gowns & Crowns, Book 1

by Jennifer Chance

  “Those call letters are from the main network in Garronia.” Kristos scowled at Dimitri. “Who leaked?”

  “Maybe no one. The story was dying, but it’s such a good one, it might deserve an extra shot at coming back to life. Imagine the coup if a reporter found the missing prince and mermaid princess after all.” He slid Kristos a wry glance. “We do have a habit of misplacing those two.”

  A second helicopter lifted over the horizon, and they all reflexively ducked. But the pair suddenly banked and angled away to the northwest. “A sweep, then, nothing more,” Dimitri said, satisfied. “They’re probably hitting every chateau ever associated with the royal family. But though they have left, we can’t be certain it’s for good. They’ve doubtless left a drone or two behind.”

  “Drones?” Emmaline gaped at him. “In the air? To spy on us?”

  “It’s not so surprising. A sweep with a reporter makes sense because you can report on the spot if you find something. But leave a drone behind to record images, and you can keep eyes on a location for a lot longer.”

  “But how is that legal?” she asked, aghast. “This is private property.”

  Kristos tightened his jaw. “The laws haven’t kept up with technology,” he said. “Theo owns the ground, not the sky above it. He’s a private citizen, not government.” He passed a hand over his face. “But if you are right, Dimitri, then what? We make a run for it?”

  Dimitri pulled the blankets aside, revealing two additional containers snugged into the ATV. “We have enough gas to get us wherever we need to go. But the best location is Melios, two clicks down the mountain. I’ll call ahead. Think you can get us there in the dark?”

  Kristos popped the center console of the vehicle, hauling out Dimitri’s night-vision goggles. “You weren’t the only one who came prepared.”

  Chapter 13

  Em dug her fingers into her seat harness, trying not to grab for the roll bar every time Kristos swerved from one patch of utter darkness to the next. Dimitri, behind them, was working an app on his satellite phone that seemed to be some sort of a special-edition compass, warning not only of directional changes but of major topographical features, which Kristos recited back to him as he saw them come up. They were crashing down the far side of the mountain without the benefit of roads, but her dread had less to do with fearing they’d end up dead in a ditch, and more with returning to the real world.

  It wasn’t fair. She wasn’t ready yet.

  She turned her head resolutely away from Kristos and stared into the utter blackness, unsure of how much detail he could pick up with his otherworldly night goggles. She knew she should be happy to be reunited with her friends, but today had been so extraordinary because it had actually seemed normal. Just three people enjoying a day at the lake. The fact that the lake had been the private property of a multimillionaire, and her picnic mates had been a prince and his bodyguard, was beside the point. Kristos and Dimitri had talked about their shared battles, the work they were doing with the new recruits, their plans for upgrading the military’s training and technology. He’d come alive with his friend, and she’d never seen someone so unselfconsciously passionate about his work. She’d reveled in his excitement, and thought she would never tire of his stories—his sudden, bright laughter, his thoughtful silences. By the time they’d left the falls, she’d felt more relaxed than she had in years. Since her parents’ accident, surely. Probably quite a while before.

  She rubbed her thumbs over her fingers, which, as Kristos had noted, were still callused despite her now only occasional play. She’d spent most of her early life bent over her bow, letting the music take her to places she’d one day expected to follow with her feet. The endless practices had seemed worthwhile, however, because she could see her own improvement. There was always more that she could learn, more music yet to discover. Then high school had merged into college, and, almost before she realized it, that had ended too. When she’d been faced with the idea of competing for a professional orchestra, her music had quieted within her. So she had opted for university instead, and only a few short months later, the call about her parents had turned everything upside down.

  She’d never looked back, but she’d stopped really looking forward too. She’d stopped performing, she’d stopped practicing. In many ways, she’d stopped dreaming.

  And now she was being rushed back into the reality of her life before she could fully process what had happened between her and Kristos these last two days.

  Nothing has happened between you, she reminded herself. You were two people who took advantage of an impromptu vacation from your lives. Enjoy it for what it is, then suck it up. Like you always do.

  And yet, what if she didn’t have to suck it up this time? What if she could find some way to make this fairy tale real?

  Impossible. She knew it was impossible, and the heaviness of her heart was just something else she was going to have to get used to.

  Even the best pieces of music came to an end, after all.

  “Am I scaring you?” Kristos’s voice shouted over the grind of the ATV, and she turned back to him, peering into his weirdly distorted face with its gleaming red eyes.

  “Only by how you look.”

  Dimitri snorted as he leaned forward. “He gets that a lot. Watch out, Kristos—water.”

  Kristos whooped as the ATV lumbered across a small stream, but the forest was already beginning to thin, and within another few short minutes, they were rolling into the village. Their ATV was covered with mud, they all were covered with mud, yet the few people out on the streets didn’t give them a second glance.

  “Two streets up, gas station,” Dimitri reported. “The car is waiting there.”

  “You can’t expect me to get into any self-respecting car like this,” Em protested, wiping a muddy hand down her spattered sundress. “I’ll destroy it.”

  Kristos sighed. “Well, if you must go naked…”

  Dimitri barked a laugh as she punched Kristos’s shoulder, and they drove the last hundred yards to the gas station. The car waiting for them was a beat-up SUV, but clean enough, and Dimitri handed blankets all around. “I’ll drive. You get in the back.” He spoke briefly in the fluid language of Garronois, and the man who apparently owned the car nodded, pocketing money and turning away. Obligingly, Kristos held out a hand and helped Em up into the vehicle. “Hunker down. The trip into the city is only about ninety minutes from here, and Dimitri’s already checked in. The castle is expecting us.”

  “The castle,” Em said dully. “Great.”

  “Shhh.” Kristos shifted beside her and opened his arms. “You’re shivering again.”

  “I am?”

  His teeth flashed in the streetlights that began slipping across their windows. “I’m almost certain. Let me hold you.”

  She thought a moment about preserving her dignity, but… The hell with that. As Dimitri gunned the engine, she more than ever had the impression that they were closing the door on their fairy tale, and if she could spend another hour in Kristos’s arms, creating memories to carry her through her long gray days, why wouldn’t she?

  She turned and settled against him, and he draped his own blanket around her. “You seem very sad, koukla mou,” he murmured into her hair. His voice was light, prodding, and she sighed, forcing her darker thoughts away. “Are you not happy to see your friends again?”

  “It’s only been a day—a little over a day.” C’mon, Em. What was she, fourteen? She needed to grow up. “I’m mainly not impressed with the idea of seeing anyone while I’m dressed like a drowned rat.”

  “Hmm. That concern is understandable. Dimitri—”

  The two of them spoke in rapid Garronois, clearly in an argument. “Dimitri thinks you worry too much,” he said in an aside as Dimitri railed on, and dropped a kiss on her forehead before arguing some more.

  “Dimitri doesn’t have to face an inquisition by three curious women.”

  Kristos’s arms tightened on her, an
d after another few sharp interchanges, he spoke again. “You’ll stay in the royal apartments tonight. No one but my parents will know we’ve returned.”

  Em was glad he couldn’t see her face. Oh, like that’s better? Instead of being presented to her friends at her worst, she’d get to meet his parents?

  Kristos chuckled as if reading her mind. “And they will not be informed until we’ve arrived through the military barracks. It is unorthodox, and the barracks are probably being watched, but that’s why we have Dimitri. Once in the barracks, there are showers, and we’ll have fresh clothing for you. I trust that will make you more comfortable?”

  Tension seemed to sluice out of her. “Much.” What was it about a hot shower that somehow made everything better?

  “Excellent.” Kristos seemed almost excessively pleased with the situation. Did he find her reluctance to meet his parents funny? And why was Dimitri so annoyed? Surely both men could understand her not wanting to show up covered in mud as her first impression on a monarch.

  But Kristos’s arms were tight around her, his lips at her ear, and he spoke to her in his language from time to time as they watched the lights go by. He could have been reciting the ingredients to his favorite sandwich, but Em didn’t care. It seemed as if, wrapped in blankets, hurtling along the darkened highway, they were in their last, brief time out of time.

  At one point, she reached for his hands, and they interlaced fingers. She truly felt like she was fourteen again, riding with a hundred other kids to one of dozens of orchestra competitions, staring out the window and wondering what the world would hold for her whenever the lumbering yellow bus reached its final destination. Even way back then, she’d been a daydreamer, clasping her own hands together tightly, imagining what could be.

  Only now she was clasping Kristos’s hands. His fingers were warm and rough and vital, and she fought to sear the impression of them into her memory. There would be so much she needed to remember from these short days. Perhaps the room they put her in tonight would have paper and pen—something. She didn’t want to forget any of it.

  At length, they slowed, and Em looked up, squinting through the tinted windows as the streetlights seemed to multiply exponentially. Dimitri’s voice was clipped once more, professional. “We’re coming up on it now—no one move, not even when we’re through the gates. This isn’t exactly a standard military vehicle. Anyone with half a brain will know something is going on.”

  Kristos snorted. “And it would have been so much better to approach the castle proper in this truck.”

  “It would have made sense to enter the delivery section, yes. That’s where the staff report—not through the barracks, which are currently of extreme interest to the media.”

  “No showers there.”

  “Oh God, I’m sorry.” Em tried to struggle upright, but Kristos held her in place. “I didn’t think about that. I don’t have to shower.”

  “Every choice is calculated risk,” Kristos said. “You’ll get used to it.”

  Still, Em held her breath as they rolled to a near stop at the gate, the metal barricade already sliding open as if to let someone else pass. Sure enough, an enormous military truck rumbled out of the opening as they approached, its muffler sounding in desperate need of repair.

  “That is your plan?” Kristos asked, his head turning slightly from their huddled position. Em could see the media vans on either side of the street, but strangely there was no one in sight to watch their approach. “To deafen them into submission?”

  “We punctured the mufflers and started sending trucks out an hour ago,” Dimitri said, his eyes focused on the narrow approach. He barely avoided clipping one, then slipped into the gate before a second one lumbered past. “After the first four, the paparazzi started sheltering in their vehicles. By the seventh, they stayed there. We are now on the tenth.” His teeth flashed in the rearview mirror. “And we are running out of mufflers.”

  “You’ll keep it up?” Kristos’s voice betrayed his amusement.

  “For another half hour. But so far, so good. We’re in safe, and perhaps not noticed. Only time will tell.”

  They moved quickly across the courtyard and into a large garage, then Dimitri cut the engine. Men filed out as they entered—not in a rush, but clearly under orders to depart the area. Em didn’t have a chance to marvel at their evacuation, though, as Dimitri hopped out of the vehicle and opened her door, reaching for her. Kristos shed his blanket though she still clutched hers around her, and marched with them into the deserted corridor. No guard stood watch here, and after a dozen steps, they halted in front of a room marked with a small placard in Garronois.

  “I’ll watch over her,” Kristos said, and Dimitri rolled his eyes.

  “I’m sure you will.”

  “Really, I’m good now,” Em said, pushing through the door. She hadn’t moved three feet into the room, however, before she understood the new problem.

  It was a shower room, all right, but she’d clearly entered on the boys’ side of the barracks. Stark metal showerheads hung down from the ceiling at even intervals—and nothing else.

  “Umm—”

  “More efficient this way.” Kristos’s voice floated out to her as he flipped on a switch. Water drizzled, then pounded down from one of the nearest showerheads. “I needed to shower too.”

  Kristos gave thanks for every hard turn of the ATV and the unusually prolific rainy season as Emmaline gave up the last shred of her dignity and shucked out of her muddy sundress and marginally cleaner underwear, dashing forward to stand under the rush of steaming water. He would never be able to shower again in this room again without the image of her, naked and laughing, reaching up to untangle the snarl of her hair. He grabbed a thick bar of soap from the dispenser and strode over to her, his own clothes left behind in a puddle at the entryway.

  Dimitri would deposit fresh clothes inside the door, but the bodyguard’s warning had not been made lightly. It would not take long for word of their arrival to reach Kristos’s parents. If he didn’t want to explain why he was holding a naked woman in his arms in the GNSF royal barracks showers, they needed to move quickly.

  Fortunately, speed would not be an issue for him.

  Pushing Emmaline’s hands away from her head, he stepped into the pounding spray himself and held up the soap to the water, squeezing it as it softened to pour over her hair. When she was coated with suds, he dropped the bar into her hands, working his fingers through her hair as she moaned beneath him, the sound bringing him to full and almost painful readiness in the space of a heartbeat.

  “All that and you do hair too?”

  “The work of a prince is never done.” He fanned her hair out around her, working the knots for only a moment more before he could no longer resist the woman beneath that rich mane. He drew his hands along Emmaline’s shoulders. “You got too much sun today.”

  “I hadn’t noticed—oh.” She stiffened against him as his hands circled around her and cupped her breasts, their tips peaked. She was facing the wall, and she reached out blindly for support, her hand firming against the cold tile as she pressed back into him, her ass rounding up against his groin.

  He couldn’t stop the growl from rumbling in his throat. “Emmaline—”

  “Calculated risk, right?” She turned to glance at him over her shoulder. “How much time do we have?”

  “Enough to do this.” Kristos shifted her forward, sliding into her in a movement that was already becoming as essential to him as breath. Beneath him, Emmaline groaned again, one of her hands leaving the wall to cover his as it kneaded her breast.

  “Yes,” she hissed beneath the sound of the pounding spray. “Oh God, yes.”

  She didn’t need to explain anything more. Kristos pressed into her, hearing her sigh of surprise, of pleasure, her hands now both returning to the tiles, giving her leverage to thrust back toward him, as if she wanted to forcibly take as much pleasure as she could from this moment, his body, his touch.


  And he wanted to give it to her.

  Kristos’s hands locked on either side of Emmaline’s hips, steadying her as he gave himself over to the pound of the water, the thrum of desire, her own half-articulate gasps of pleasure. She was speaking English, he was sure of it, but he could no longer understand her words as he drove into her with greater intensity. There was only the water and Emmaline and his racing need, the swell of it building inside him, heavier and thicker, until all he wanted to do was spill inside Emmaline and fill her to the brink, to own every inch of her, to claim her as his own.

  At the last second, however, he pulled out and exploded into the downpour of water, both of them gasping in the deluge, lungs heaving. Before he could think rationally, Kristos reached out and grabbed Emmaline tightly to him, crushing her lips to his as if she could give him her very life’s breath. For her part, she clung to him every bit as fiercely, because she knew—of course she knows—that everything would be different now, that the two people they were when they’d walked into this room would be replaced by the two people who walked out, their priorities straight, their understanding clear.

  But for this moment, none of that mattered.

  “Emmaline,” he whispered over and over again, kissing her face, her brows, her lips, her cheeks. He held her tightly enough to bruise her, he feared, but she gripped him just as hard, her fingers digging into his back, her intensity equally desperate.

  It was she who pulled away first, however. “They—they’re waiting for us,” she said, and he nodded, pulling her quickly away from the sheeting water as he turned off the flow at the wall faucet. The room seemed instantly too cold without the shower surrounding them, and Em giggled as they dashed over the tile, reaching the pile of towels first, stacked neatly inside the door.

  She held up the rich, thick white cotton. “These don’t look like military grade.”

  “Dimitri is ever resourceful.” The clothes were equally well chosen. Familiar pants and shirt for him, and a knee-length tunic dress for Emmaline—one that could fit any woman roughly her size, with slip-on sandals to match.