I could make a few guesses of what she refused to say. Nobody wanted to think about being the subject of regicide. I’d lived my entire life wondering if Florida’s rulers would take offense to our existence.
I still questioned why my family had returned to Florida in the first place rather than staying somewhere safer.
It bothered me that we shared similar fears despite our different circumstances. “If he targets your bond, would it count as attempted regicide? If so, he’d lose his claim to the throne. If, of course, it can be proven he made the attempt on the person he believes is your bond.” I grimaced, considering my words. “That makes it pretty obvious how I’ve been raised, doesn’t it?”
“Always looking behind your back and expecting someone to kill you because you’re inconvenient? Yeah. That’s how my uncle makes us feel. I get it. Yes, your idea is sound. Yes, that’s why I don’t want you to be bonded to me. Yes, I do expect him to try to kill me—and my brothers feel the same way.” Melody grimaced. “But in Carl’s case, it doesn’t matter.”
“What do you mean? Why doesn’t it matter?”
“His bond has cancer.”
That caught me by surprise, and I sucked in a breath. “And you can’t help it?”
“No. Cancer’s weird like that. Sometimes we can help, sometimes we can’t. We can’t cut his cancer out because of where it’s at, it doesn’t respond to magic, and it didn’t respond to chemo. He wanted to keep fighting fires, so that’s what he does. He keeps fighting fires.” Melody sighed. “My uncle knows this, so he’s probably not going to do anything to Carl unless my father gets sick or dies. But Peter? I believe he’ll target Peter the instant he thinks he can get away with it. If it’s believed you’re my bond, he’ll go after me, too.”
Great. Melody’s uncle sounded like a real piece of work. “Question, if I may?”
“Ask.”
“If I talk to that Kevin fellow outside, and we pretend I might be your bond, should your uncle attempt to kill me, would that be sufficient to prove he’s a traitor?”
“Yes.” Melody grimaced. “My father has proposed such a scheme before, but I found the risks to be unacceptable.”
“It’s a risk I’m willing to take.” I considered her, arching a brow. “We’re birds of a feather, it seems.”
“We are?”
I nodded, and I sat on the edge of the bed, keeping an eye on Sparrow to make certain I didn’t disturb her. “We like rescuing people. We’re not too fond of being rescued.”
“This is true. Beyond that, tell me why you’re interested in such a scheme.”
“You saved me. Seems to me it’s the fair and right thing to do to repay the favor. It’s a risk I’ve lived with since I was little. What would happen if we were discovered by the Florida royals? We follow the news about major waveweaving talents to make sure we don’t draw attention to ourselves. My talent was growing too strong too quickly, which is why I went to Europe. Search and rescue was the ideal career for me. I could use my talent without anyone really thinking anything of it. But realistically? Strong waveweaving talents are rare. The Texan royal family is strong. Florida’s current rulers don’t hold a candle to Texas. My little demonstration won’t be ignored. Someone is going to start poking around my heritage. It’s inevitable.”
“And if they’re poking about your heritage, they’ll evaluate your bloodline. Do you want the Maine RPS to retrieve your family?”
I grimaced. “Realistically, they could be evaluated, and they’d be middling at best. They refuse to use their talents because of their fear of discovery. I’m the family’s black sheep. As for bringing them to Maine? You’d have to ask them that. I won’t make that decision for them.”
Melody strode to the door of my room and said, “Kevin, please contact Jack’s family in Florida and invite them to come to Maine. Explain the situation to them, and make it clear that they’ll be offered citizenship and a relocation package, including arrangements for work and lodging. Also, please make them aware the Maine RPS will be providing them a detail should they accept our offer. Get confirmation from my father if needed, but keep this intel away from my uncle. Also, flag Jack as a person of interest to the royal family. Imply he may be bonded to me.”
“Imply?” Kevin asked from the other room.
“Jack likes the idea of testing my uncle and his determination to take Maine’s throne.”
“And you’re going along with this?”
“It seems so. Hey, Jack?”
I rose to my feet and joined her at the doorway. “Yes?”
“Are you game to play a prince?”
I blinked. “Pardon?”
Melody smirked and strolled into the sitting room before dropping onto the nearest armchair. “If we’re going to go the possible bonded route, I may as well follow in my father’s footsteps. It’s worked out well for him. My uncle would also fall for it hook, line, and sinker because I’ve been rather resistant about offers of marriage. Your bloodline, once proven, will be of interest to kingdoms around the world. In Maine, you’ll be able to continue to pursue your field of interest, although we’d take steps to protect you. These are the sort of things my uncle would think about. I could groom you into becoming a prince, at first using the possibility of a bond to justify it. You’re handsome enough to trick most into accepting why I might be interested in you. People like to be blind.”
I needed a lot of time to absorb her commentary. She thought I was handsome enough to be what? I stared at her, trying to decide which one of us had gone crazy first.
How had I gone from suffering from an allergy to all things royal to considering joining a conspiracy against a potential tyrant for the sake of a woman I’d just met? I needed to do further examination of my bloodline to determine if my case of insanity was situational or hereditary. “I’m not against the idea, especially if you think it’ll make your uncle act. I’d want to brush up on my self-defense skills before we implement this, however. And I’d probably want to brush up on my firearm skills.”
Kevin looked me over, and he gave a satisfied nod. “We can use martial arts as part of your physical therapy regime, and I think I can swing running you through basic RPS training as part of your general evaluations. We run all royals through some training and scenarios to prepare them for emergencies. In your case, I’d have you trained more as an RPS agent and less as a principal. That’ll be simple to justify, too. You have a dangerous job.”
That I did. “That also factored into my willingness to do this. The work I already do is dangerous. This doesn’t seem much more dangerous to me.”
“Except it’s fully possible someone would be attempting to murder you,” the RPS agent replied.
“That’s substantially better than the ocean or the weather trying to kill me. Or a mountain. Avalanches are far more terrifying to me than a mere man with a grudge and ambition. I just have to make sure the bastard doesn’t touch me and should I be near medical equipment, he doesn’t fiddle with it or spike it with something like fentanyl, right?”
Melody grimaced. “Yes. He isn’t sophisticated enough with his magic to influence the body without direct contact. And even then, he lacks in the finesse department. He’s good at rehabilitative care.”
“Is he bonded?”
“No.”
My brows shot up at that. “Really?”
“While he has a strong talent, I don’t believe he’s compassionate enough to bond. Him? Risk his life for someone else? I think not.” The scorn in Melody’s voice surprised me almost as much as her dark expression. “He’s a pit viper, and he’s only in line for the throne because he’s old enough and my father’s brother. And yes, he’s the type to spike a patient’s IV drip with something like fentanyl or overdose on painkillers to make an inconvenience go away. Unfortunately, he’s smart enough to be on his guard and would find a way to do it in such a way he wouldn’t be caught. He might use someone else. He might switch medication bottles. He might just use a gun
and do his best to hide the evidence. For all I know, he might even attempt a hit and run to create an accident. That’s the type of man he is.” Melody sighed, slumping in her seat. “He’s clever, he’s ruthless, and he’s convinced he should rule. He thinks my father is too soft—that all of us are too soft. That Maine could become a rival of even New York and Montana.”
“He sounds like a charming fellow.”
“He would have the most opportunities to strike at you in your first week in Maine; any patients believed to potentially bond to a royal stay at the clinic in the palace for evaluations, and all members of the royal family have access to the clinic. You wouldn’t have a guard yet,” she muttered. “So if we wanted to catch him in the act, we would establish you as a probable bond, hook you in to a special drip, and wait.”
“If he comes into the room and messes with the IV, then we know he’s up to something.”
“Exactly. What he wouldn’t know is that you wouldn’t be hooked to a live IV. If he messes with the medications or the drip, it’ll go into a bag beneath the bed. To all appearances, it’ll look like you’re hooked to the IV. That’s how I’d rig it, at least. You don’t need an IV, but it’s not a hard sell to have you on one. I’ll ham up your medical records and you’ll have to do some acting.”
“I can do that. Can I be armed for this experiment?”
Melody turned her attention to Kevin.
The RPS agent narrowed his eyes. “What type of weaponry?”
“A good knife, a compact firearm, and an ice pick.”
“Ice pick?”
I smiled. “It’s easier to conceal than a knife, and in the right hands, it can be a lethal weapon. I’m assuming I’ll have to keep my talent under wraps for the duration.”
Melody nodded. “You’ll be wearing suppressors, yes. That’s a legitimate requirement for your condition. You need to wear them for at least a week to give your talent a chance to recover. After that, we’ll start easing you off them. However, in an emergency, you can remove the suppressors. I’ll exchange the set you’re currently wearing with one you can take off. The set you’re wearing is a prison set.”
I looked at the thin bands. “A what set?”
“A prison set. Essentially, they detect who is wearing the suppressor and will not open for the person wearing them. We use them in the clinics to prevent accidental usage of magic during exertion rehabilitation. There are better sets meant for maximum security prisoners, and those are more complicated to remove.”
“And if he’s innocent?” I asked.
“We’ll have wasted our time and can be more confident about the future of Maine. I don’t believe he’s innocent, however.”
“Do you have more to go on for that than a gut feeling?”
Melody sighed. “You’ll understand when you meet him. And believe me. You will. He makes a point of introducing himself to everyone who might be bonded with someone in the succession. And he’ll do his best to charm you. That’s what he does.”
And if he charmed a potential target, it would make it much easier for him to get rid of someone inconvenient. I’d met people like that before.
I wasn’t an empath, but without fail, something about them tripped my trigger and put me on guard.
While I didn’t view it as magic, I appreciated the ability during rescue missions. Four rescues in the past three years had turned sour thanks to modern-day pirates wishing to take advantage of stormy seas to make their fortunes.
Nothing ruined a rescue quite as much as pirates, and I’d been the only rescuer on the attacked ship who hadn’t needed to be rescued myself.
I eyed Kevin, wondering if the RPS agent already knew about my history with having used violence during rescues when required. “How much of my file does the RPS have? On past rescues and things like that.”
“You’ll find our background information on you is rather extensive. Our requests for more information from various kingdoms was fruitful.”
“Italy?”
“That incident supports your claims about being sufficient with a firearm,” the agent confirmed. “It also impressed upon us you’re cool under fire.”
Great. “China?”
“The RPS would appreciate if you limited your interactions with rogue militias in the future.”
Melody’s eyebrows rose. “Rogue militias?”
“Rescuers don’t particularly care who we’re rescuing, and the Chinese monarchs thought it would worsen their reputation if they allowed a known rogue entity in their country to die due to extreme weather conditions.” I shrugged, and in a wry tone, added, “The incident was along their border, and bringing in foreign rescuers insured their neutrality. Nobody notified the militants we were there to help them.”
“I was under the impression that while you had a dangerous job, it was a little less eventful than dealing with warring factions,” she admitted.
“It was my first and last trip into China, and I hope to keep it that way. I drew a little too much attention for my liking.”
Like on the tanker, I’d toed a few too many lines with my talent, and China loved waveweavers who could help control flooding on their rivers, help them build new dams, and otherwise rectify their environmental mistakes.
Unfortunately, China liked to issue invitations through a long list of charges, hoping to imprison interesting talents. I’d escaped only because we’d taken the militants across the border into Myanmar. As Myanmar had no interest in helping China collect yet another talent, I’d returned to Europe without incident, although I’d been warned I shouldn’t go to the kingdom again if I wanted to remain free.
I’d stopped counting my list of crimes after five.
Kevin chuckled. “You have nothing to worry about in regards to China. Maine will see to that, especially if we flag you as a probable bond of Her Highness. With your leave, Your Highness, I’ll have the RPS begin clearing his record with China so he doesn’t become a target in the future.”
“Do it. If there are other incidents like this, I don’t want to hear about it. Just take care of them quietly. I think this is an ideal time to get some sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a long day.”
It would be longer for some of us than others, and I wondered just how Maine intended to get me through security with a passport lacking any viable space to stamp. Even if they did get me through security, the first twinges of nervousness took hold.
While avoiding my return to the Royal States was the only true cure for my anxiety, I settled with going to bed and petting my new kitten, who slept on without a care in the world.
Chapter Seven
The French monarchs had a private airstrip outside of Paris, and the instant we arrived at the tarmac, something pinged against my talent, which the suppressors had weakened to an alarming degree. That anything got through the silvery bands startled me so much I came to a halt. Sparrow mewed a protest in her soft carrier, which hung over my shoulder.
To cover my dismay at the unexpected sensation, I cooed at my kitten and pressed my fingers to the mesh door of her carrier. I wanted to take my kitten out of the fleece-lined bag and comfort her, but I didn’t dare until we were on board the plane and I could strap her into her tiny harness and leash her.
Princess Antoinette had ambushed me before escaping the castle and foisted several large bags of kitten supplies on me, including a harness and leash so Sparrow could explore the plane.
Melody halted at my side, her brow rising. “Jack?”
Damn. I’d thought paying attention to my kitten would cover my reaction to my magic. I’d have to be careful around the woman or she’d see more than I anticipated—including my unhealthy interest in her. Language barriers had done a good job of preventing me from pursuing any local women, which helped my case.
I wouldn’t know how to flirt even if someone beat me with a manual.
“Jack?”
Scowling at my inability to focus, I attempted to sift through the sensations seeping through the sup
pressors, which were supposed to contain all of my magic. “Is it bad if I’m sensing anything through the suppressor?”
She smiled and relaxed at my question. “Not particularly. It’s a good sign you haven’t lost your talent and won’t. It’s only a problem in the sense that it’s a confirmation you have a high elite to royal talent. What are you sensing?”
I already regretted my inability to smother my reaction to the unknown substance. A headache brewed behind my eyes, a promise of trouble. Unfortunately, unknown substances around an airport worried me more than the risks of trying to use my talent despite wearing a suppressor.
Ignoring my misgivings, I concentrated. The slimy, cold sense of crude was partnered with something else, and that something else was what bothered me. While I’d never felt anything quite like it before, it reminded me of some volatile fluids I’d encountered, with one exception: its density.
The way it beat against my senses, I bet I could pick it up, roll it into a ball, and fling it at someone with explosive results.
“If you took oil, made it more solid, and added some density to it, you’d be on the right track,” I finally said after thinking it through.
Kevin stiffened and lifted his hand to his ear before saying something too soft for me to understand. Then he turned to Melody and said, “What are the risks of removing the suppressors?”
“There are risks,” she replied, and her tone implied any risk was too much risk. “If he’s sensing through those suppressors, he’s flaring. Removing them could have disastrous results. With that strong of a talent flaring? He could flood the entire airport.”
“There’s not enough water nearby to be disastrous,” I promised. “I don’t tend to create water.”
If I lost control of my talent, I might cover the entire airport in a layer of frost and freeze the water in the air, but manifesting water had never been one of my strengths.
That caught the princess’s attention. “You don’t?”
“I can, but I have to concentrate to make it happen. I’ve been training since I was little to not manifest that way; there’s little as dangerous as an uncontrolled waveweaver. I could drown people unintentionally. Everyone in my family is taught that way despite most never having a strong talent.”
Bonds Page 8
