“I’m amused you recognized the truth of the situation so quickly in your relationship with your new kitten. What do you want for dinner tonight, as it seems you’ve won the bet?”
“Steak and lobster. That’s what you’re supposed to eat when you come to New England,” I announced. “A good steak and better lobster. I’ll take some clam chowder, too.”
“You haven’t had good steak and lobster in years, have you?”
“I really haven’t.”
Melody laughed. “Steak and lobster it is. I’ll also make sure you get some clam chowder. I’ll add some other seafood for your culinary explorations tonight, too.”
“Do I get out of intensive medical care tonight as part of the wager?”
“No.” Melody shot a glare at me, snapped her fingers, and pointed at the front of plane. “March. I specifically requested we walk the entire way to the cars so you could get in some extra exercise today.”
“You’re easily the most ruthless doctor I have ever worked with,” I announced, zipping Sparrow’s carrier closed and rising to my feet. I slung my kitten over my shoulder and ignored her protesting mews over being contained.
“That’s quite the compliment. I’ve met some of your doctors—and the medics you work with.” Melody chuckled. “You’re just not used to someone treating you for more than a few days before you’re ready to get banged up again. If you had been more seriously injured while in their care, you’d understand they’re equally ruthless compared to me. I have only one advantage compared to them. I can abuse my royal authority to make certain you do what I want when I want. Kevin’s very good at convincing patients to cooperate with me.”
The RPS agent’s expression remained neutral. “I’m good at my job.”
I bet he was. “What are the ground rules for this?”
“Be yourself,” Her Highness of Maine ordered. “If in doubt, follow my lead. You’ll be fine. We don’t force patients to be formal while in our care.”
“You’ll scandalize the elites and royalty if you call her Melody,” Kevin warned before he smiled. “This is a good thing.”
“And Sparrow?”
“Keep her harnessed and leashed. Otherwise, she can go wherever you’d like. We’ll show her where all the litter boxes are, and as long as you give her a chance to use one, she will. France’s royal kittens are well trained and rarely have problems using the litter box. I forgot to ask Antoinette if she’s been taught to signal when she needs to use the litter box. If she’s been trained, she’ll paw at your leg before pulling on her leash.”
“I’ll keep an eye out for that.”
“If she hasn’t been trained yet, we’ll handle training her. We have a few trainers on staff who are good at making sure the kittens know their cues.”
“Is she a magical kitten?” I glanced at Sparrow, who attempted to claw ineffectively at the mesh door of her carrier.
“All kittens are magical, Jack.”
Right. I dealt with a cat-obsessed princess. I should’ve known better than to ask. Chuckling and shaking my head, I hauled my magical kitten to the front of the plane. The steps positioned beside the small jet supported Melody’s claim she’d intended for us to walk all the way across the runway.
Wind and rain blasted me in the face the instant I stepped out of the plane, and it startled me so much I halted, my eyes widening. The skies rumbled, and I narrowed my eyes at the dark clouds overhead before shooting the princess a glare. “You’re crazy, aren’t you?”
“A little water won’t hurt you. You’re a search and rescue diver. This is right up your alley. It’s not that bad of a storm. It’s just a bit rumbly out. We’ll be fine. There are lightning rods all over, anyway.”
I twisted around and narrowed my eyes. “What do you count as a bad storm?”
“A blizzard, hurricane, or twister.”
Right. I bet anything less severe barely blipped on her radar. Complaining wouldn’t win me anything, so I turned Sparrow’s carrier to shield her from the weather as much as I could. “Where to?”
Melody pointed across the tarmac to where several black vehicles waited. “Only to there. It’s good exercise for you. If the weather was nicer, I’d make you hike all the way to the hangar. Expect long walks for the next few days. It’s a good way to start rebuilding your muscle mass without stressing you too much. I’ll save stressing you for next week.”
“That’s the closest we let anyone park to the runway,” Kevin explained as he flanked Melody, scanning the area for any threats. “If we hadn’t clipped the wing on landing, we would’ve taxied to the vehicles, but the pilots will kill the engine, check the plane over for damage, and tow it to the hangar once it’s declared safe to move.”
“He barely scraped the tip,” I said, giving the plane a glance. “It shouldn’t be that big of a deal to repair, right?”
“We’re all about the safety precautions. It’s probably cosmetic, but why take any risks?” Kevin glanced at the growling clouds. “Shall we get to the cars before the weather worsens?”
“We’ll survive some rain,” Melody replied, taking her time strolling across the tarmac. “It’s good for me to evaluate my patient’s immune system.”
“You just like stormy weather, don’t you?” I asked.
“As a matter of fact, yes.”
Sparrow didn’t like the weather, and she howled her displeasure over our cruel abuse of her delicate sensibilities. Melody guided me to an SUV, opened the back door, and gestured for me to climb inside. I did, and two RPS agents occupied the front seats while an older man dressed in a tattered t-shirt and jeans sat in the back. He looked me over, raising a brow at the carrier hanging off my shoulder.
“Cat or dog?” he asked.
“Kitten,” I replied, sitting and setting Sparrow between my feet before grabbing the seatbelt and buckling in. “I was forcibly adopted by Sparrow here.”
Melody giggled. Kevin joined the man in the back before she took the seat beside me, grabbed the door, and closed it. “What are you doing here, Dad?”
“Can’t a man pick his daughter up from the airport?”
My eyes widened, and I twisted around in my seat to regard the king with renewed interest. I’d never known what to expect from royalty, but a casually dressed man in a ratty t-shirt wasn’t it.
“No,” Melody replied. “He can’t. Aren’t you supposed to be meeting with the congress today to go over new legislation?”
“They let out an hour ago, so I came here instead of heading straight to the castle. Rough landing?”
“I bet they’d crunch the nose and end up in the gravel,” she complained. “Jack won the bet, so we have to suffer through steak and lobster for dinner tonight.”
Maine’s king chuckled. “Don’t let her fool you, Mr. Alders. Steak and lobster is her favorite, but as I’m a cruel dictator, I won’t let the kitchen make it more than once a month unless it’s for a special occasion. Fortunately, in my infinite wisdom, I decided I wouldn’t let the kitchen start dinner planning until you were on the ground, so it looks like steak and lobster is on the menu tonight.”
Melody sighed. “I’m so sorry for him, Jack.”
I had no idea what she was sorry for. The king seemed normal enough—especially compared to the French monarchs. “It’s okay.”
“Well, you haven’t tried to run away yet, which puts you head and shoulders over your mother. If I hadn’t seen her file, I would’ve believed her an airweaver with how she tried to take flight.”
Obviously, my parents had found their way to Maine, likely to disown me in person before crucifying me for landing in a royal mess. “My parents accepted the invitation to come to Maine?”
“Melody,” the king complained. “You didn’t tell him?”
“He passed out on the plane until right before we landed. He missed lunch, so he’ll be starved by the time we get to the castle.” According to her tone, Melody was ready and eager to wage war against her father.
“Don’t fret, little girl. Your patient will be just fine, and he doesn’t look like he’s going to expire to me. I don’t envy your physical therapy sessions coming up, Mr. Alders, but you look healthy enough. You’re recovering better than I expected for someone with exertion as severe as yours.”
“He’s flaring, and I took off a bracelet earlier for a few minutes, so he’s charged,” Melody reported. “Then he went right to sleep on the plane, so he’s ahead of schedule. I’d like to keep him that way, thank you.”
“I’ll ask the clinic to dig out a better set of suppressors. Interval set?”
“Please. Better go for a five-tier set.”
“That strong of a talent?” The king regarded me with a grin. “It’s good to see your family’s potential is alive and well. There’s a shortage of truly talented waveweavers, and I’d be thrilled if we could get a talent like yours into our bloodline.”
Royals. Given a single chance, they’d create a breeding program meant to advance humanity. “Shouldn’t Melody pick who she wants?”
“If I let her pick, she’ll die an old maid and quite possibly a virgin.”
“Dad!” Melody shrieked.
“What? It’s true. At the rate you’re diddle dawdling, you’ll be an old maid before a man catches your eye. Just look at me and your mother. We got thrown together, and we made it work. You know full well I love your mother.”
“You both liked the simplicity of the arrangement, and you liked knowing you could protect her and your bond at the same time,” Melody replied.
I met Kevin’s gaze and the RPS agent gave the slightest of shrugs.
“While that is true, it’s evidence that two people can make the most of a bad situation.”
I recognized an old argument when I heard one, and I turned around in my seat and released Sparrow from her prison, making sure the kitten remained leashed and harnessed. She purred and settled on my lap, which I took as a sign of her general approval.
“Dad, my marriage prospects are not up for debate today.”
“They aren’t?” the king replied, his tone amused. “If I scare off your patient, he’s obviously not worthy of you, and I don’t care what his pedigree is. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a man who isn’t scared silly of a woman who can rearrange his internal organs at her whim?”
I raised a brow at that. “You can rearrange internal organs at your whim?”
“Yes,” the pair replied.
I supposed that made sense, and once certain Sparrow couldn’t escape, I twisted around in my seat to face the king. “How dramatically can you rearrange internal organs?”
“I ripped someone’s brain out of their nose once,” he admitted. “I was invited to a relocation, and I violently declined the invitation. We try to avoid using lethal force, but we can. Melody prefers to disable her targets through excruciating pain. You should ask her for a demonstration sometime.”
I glanced at the princess. “How would you compare your excruciating pain to a talent exertion headache?”
“You would much prefer the headache.”
Right. “If he can tear someone’s brain out through their nose and you can disable people through excruciating pain, what do your RPS agents actually do?”
Melody smirked. “They keep us from having to do that. I’ve developed my father’s dislike of kidnapping attempts. My reaction is also dependent on if I want my target to survive. When Dad pulled that stunt, he’d just watched one of his RPS get shot. He took extreme offense to that.”
One of the agents in the front cleared his throat. “Before you concern Mr. Alders too much, I’m the agent who was shot, and it wasn’t that serious of an injury. Please do not traumatize our guest, Your Majesty.”
I grinned at the agent’s rebuke. “Hi, I’m Jack. Nice to meet you. Thank you for that clarification.”
“I’m Agent Weston Hendors. Please feel free to call me Weston. The royal family enjoys testing the tolerances of guests, and they feel the best way to do this is discuss their self-defense methods.”
“Unless they can top someone being cut in half with a rogue steel cable on a cargo ship, I think I can handle whatever they have to offer.” I faced forward again and stroked Sparrow. “Also, those cables are over two inches thick, and it can whip across a deck at maximum force. Should someone get in the way, it’s ugly. The victim was stuck in some debris when the cable snapped at full tension and hit him. That was one of the more gruesome rescues I’ve been on. A cargo ship had listed in the Strait of Gibraltar.”
“How many large ships have you rescued?” Melody asked. “What happened to that ship in particular? Why had it listed?”
“A few. I don’t keep count of them. That cargo ship was the largest prior to the oil tanker. They lost a lot of their rescue gear when the ship listed and the cargo shifted. Another’s ship’s captain had failed to monitor the channels and wait his turn to go through the strait, resulting in a collision in stormy conditions.”
“Which kingdom were you working for at the time?”
“Spain. While England has a rescue crew stationed in Gibraltar, they requested aid from Spain. Morocco also helped with the rescue. Both ships got lucky. There were only a few deaths. If I hadn’t been in the water, they would’ve lost a lot more crew.”
“People fell overboard?”
“Yes. I managed to pull five men out of the water. That’s where my talent can be very useful.”
“You scanned the water for bodies?”
“Yes. I also recovered the deceased crew.”
“Lit them up and encased them in ice like you did with our crew?” the king asked.
Somehow, I kept from wincing at the reminder that several men had been murdered on board Maine’s oil tanker. “I illuminated their bodies, but I didn’t use ice that time. I moved them to shore for retrieval. Fortunately, large cargo ships don’t have too many crew members. I believe the crew of the larger vessel consisted of twenty-six men. The other ship had a smaller crew of twenty-two men. They lost one man in the collision; he fell overboard and drowned before I arrived.”
“How long were the men in the water before you arrived?” the king asked.
I thought about it. “We were in the air within a minute of the call, and it was a ten minute flight from our post to Gibraltar. I was in the water shortly after arrival. I dived without gear that run; our shifts were changing when we got the call, so we left without a full kit.”
“You did that without a dive suit?” Melody asked, her tone sharpening.
“In a wreck like that, seconds matter. I can survive in the ocean without a diving suit and tank. Most can’t. I emerged from the rescue with a mild case of hypothermia.” I chuckled at her dismayed expression. “It was a case of perfectly wrong timing. I had a choice of doing a gear check, which takes me about twenty minutes, or getting into the air and making do. I decided to make do. It saved lives, too, so I won’t apologize for taking that risk.” I grimaced at the thought of my supervisor after the rescue. “The entire team got crucified by our boss for that stunt, and we had to go through remedial training; the team going off shift got crucified, too. They were supposed to make sure we had emergency gear on hand if we were called during shift change.”
I’d taken the brunt of my ex-boss’s fury for going into the water without any safety equipment. I’d dodged being fired because I’d saved five lives and emerged with only hypothermia.
Melody’s eyes narrowed. “I think I’ve underestimated your inability to stay out of trouble. Kevin, we may need to leash him.”
“You can’t leash him, Your Highness.”
“Why not?”
“It’s technically illegal to leash your patients.”
Melody muttered something about pesky laws, which made me grin. “Your job probably would be easier if you were allowed to leash your patients.”
“Much simpler. It’d also be easier if I could gag them when they complain we aren’t doing our jobs to their standards.”<
br />
I’d run into my fair share of assholes during a rescue who’d made similar complaints. “I understand that one. You’d be surprised how some people get upset they weren’t rescued to their standards. I’ve thought about punting ungrateful assholes out of the helicopter. Fortunately for them, that would violate my oath to help regardless of gender, nationality, and so on.”
“Seriously?”
“Some people forget their rank doesn’t mean anything during a rescue.” I shrugged and pet Sparrow. The kitten purred, rolled onto her back, and presented her belly.
“That’s a trap,” Melody warned me. “A temptingly soft trap. If you touch that, your hand is forfeit.”
I took my chances. The first stroke went well, but Sparrow attacked with all four paws and her tiny teeth following the second. She paddled me with her back paws, mouthing at my hand.
“I told you.”
“Didn’t you hear, Melody? I’m an oversized toy capable of feeding her. That’s my current role in life. I feed her, and I offer my hands as toys for her amusement.” I attempted to free my hand, and Sparrow clung to me. When I lifted my arm, she dangled with zero evidence she’d let go. I lowered her back to my lap. “I seem to have acquired an attachment.”
“The belly is always a trap,” Melody muttered. “Always. And I always fall for it.”
“I’m glad we’re equally incapable of resisting kitten bellies.”
It took longer than I thought for the RPS to get the vehicles on the move, but once we left the airfield, it took less than five minutes to reach the castle, which belonged in a fairytale rather than near the ocean in Maine. The SUVs pulled through the tall wrought-iron gate. Until seeing the castle, I could’ve believed Melody and her father to be relatively normal people for royals.
Their castle reminded me I’d stepped into an entirely different world. The SUV halted in front of a stone walkway leading up to an imposing pair of doors carved with cones and needles, as though I stared up into the boughs of a mighty pine. While I stared out the window at the doors, Melody got out of the vehicle, and Kevin followed after her. Before I pulled myself together enough to realize I was expected to get out, the RPS agent opened my door and rescued me from my kitten.
Bonds Page 11
