“Call me William, please. Do you know what Melody’s uncle looks like?”
I shook my head.
William strode to my bed, pulled a phone from his pocket, and showed me a photograph of an aging man with streaks in his brown hair. “If you see this man anywhere near you, you have my permission to use lethal force. I can’t promise he won’t be able to get in here, no matter how much I wish I could make that promise to Melody. He’s partnering with someone with a nasty illumination talent, and that changes the entire nature of the game. But I know his type. He’ll want revenge on you directly, and he’s the kind who’d want to do as much harm as possible doing it. How better to harm Melody than to hurt you here?”
The king’s logic worried me. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Do. I’d ask you try not to trash the hospital, but if you can keep the damage to just this room, I won’t even care that much about the cost of replacing the machines.”
“There are patients nearby, Alfred included. I’ll be careful.”
“I figured you would. It pains me to say this, but sleep light and keep on your guard.”
“Think I’ll get in trouble if I forget I’m supposed to sleep tonight?”
“I think it would be a forgivable offense should you opt to stay up through the night if you’re feeling up for it. I won’t tell if you don’t. I brought some books for you just in case.” The king bent over, picked up a bag, and brought it to the tray beside my bed. “Also, I feel it’s important to let you know that Melody is in process of being confirmed as Her Royal Highness as a result of the information we found, and the real reasons her brothers left the kingdom have been exposed. Once the culprits are apprehended, I will be making arrangements for therapists for the entire royal family.”
“You will be? Why?”
“They were victims of assault as children, and they didn’t want anyone to find out about it. I spoke to them both on the phone to confirm if I could get the required authorizations to handle the matter personally. Should Mr. Kismoff make an appearance, use excessive force and add a few extra hits on my behalf, please.”
I raised a brow at that. “How excessive are we talking about here?”
“Can you cut him to pieces with your ice? That wouldn’t be excessive in my opinion. Do what your conscience allows, but know that his death would not be amiss for what he’s done. I love my brothers and sisters, but if he were part of my family, he would face the harshest punishments allowed by law.”
“What is the harshest punishment allowed by law?”
Montana’s king straightened his shoulders and looked me in the eyes. “Like in most kingdoms, the penalty for attempted regicide is death, and while the punishments for the crimes he did to those children is lesser, I’d just work the regicide angle to make certain he never hurt anyone like that ever again.”
I wondered if anything would ever help Melody’s brothers recover from what had happened to them. I also worried if there were other buried secrets looming within Maine’s royal family. I expected there were. “Understood, Your Majesty.”
“Have a good night. I’ll make sure your bride is well guarded through the night, and I’ll bring her back to you in the morning.”
“Maybe you should tell her that I’m not really good prince or king material.”
William snorted. “It would take a miracle to convince her of that at this point, so I’m not going to bother. In her eyes, you’re the best thing that has ever happened to her, so I’m afraid you’ll just have to get used to it. For some reason, by the end of the week, I expect most will be addressing you as Your Royal Highness. Dumping an impromptu wedding on my wife’s lap might make the crying stop for more than five minutes.”
While a quiet eloping had been part of our tentative plans for the future, an impromptu wedding went right overboard into the realm of insanity. After having met Montana’s queen, I feared my future involved insanity and reality blended together into a chaotic mess. The result, however, I appreciated and wouldn’t fight. “I wish you the best of luck with making the crying stop.”
He grinned. “I can live with it now that I know why. I was getting worried because while Mackenzie will, on occasion, cry when she gets overly flustered or upset, she’s typically the type to take names or hostages—and rule the world if given an inch. I knew she liked Alfred, but she’s been sobbing all over him since he was brought to the hospital. It’s endless. I don’t think she’s going to stop until he’s able to be transferred to the castle. I’ve gone behind her back and made arrangements for Alfred’s family to live at the castle for a while so he can be cared for there without having to make arrangements to see his family.”
“Will Alfred be okay overnight, too?”
“There’s usually someone from the RPS with him, so you should both be fine, but should Mr. Kismoff slip through the cracks, handle him however you see fit.”
“I’ll do that. Have a good night. And keep an eye on Melody for me?”
He chuckled. “Gladly. Your princess will be in good hands, so don’t you worry about that. There won’t be any incidents at my castle, I assure you. Just don’t tell Mackenzie I’ve assigned myself as Melody’s guard. She’ll get pissy because she knows I’ll take the same sort of risks the RPS agents do to protect those I’m watching.”
“Your secret is safe with me. Thanks, William.”
“Anytime, Jack. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
It was easier to stay awake than I thought possible. In part, I blamed adrenaline for my inability to even consider resting. Montana’s king had done a good job of ruining my general peace of mind. I couldn’t decide if I loved or hated Turkey’s king for putting me in a situation where I could win at the game of life. In the grand scheme of things, I figured he’d had the right idea.
I would deal with being poisoned again to secure Melody’s peace of mind and help her family heal from years of fear. When I thought of Melody’s uncle as a terrorist, I discovered I had zero scruples about putting an end to his miserable life.
Unfortunately, I doubted I’d ever stop wondering what the man had done to earn so much of William’s ire. I could think of too many types of assault for my comfort, and I disliked how Montana’s king had skirted defining exactly what had happened to Melody’s brothers.
My thoughts wandered to places I didn’t like, but I decided it didn’t matter.
Montana’s king had verified the truth of what had happened to Melody’s brothers, and it was none of my business what had happened unless they made it my business. I would do only what was necessary moving forward.
As I couldn’t sleep, I read one of the books Montana’s king had brought, a political thriller involving royals with an uncanny ability to get themselves into trouble. After my crash course into life as a royal, I found the fiction to be disturbingly close to reality.
When my thoughts interrupted my ability to read, I feigned sleep, kept an eye on the door, and wondered if the fear would end when Melody’s uncle passed away. If the man was wise, he’d disappear without showing up ever again.
Men like him wouldn’t just disappear without a trace.
William’s concerns of an illuminator and an uncle out for revenge manifested in the early hours of the morning, shortly after the nurse left after doing her rounds. He wore a nurse’s scrubs, and his face shimmered from a middle-aged man to a match of the photograph Montana’s king had shown me.
He observed me long enough to assume I slept before heading for my IV armed with a syringe and a vial of cloudy fluid. A quick glance at the handwritten label confirmed the man meant for me to have a bad end.
Fentanyl would make a mess of my life before bringing it to an abrupt end. While few search and rescue operations resulted from drug use, I’d done my due diligence and researched what was needed to treat patients in an emergency. A mere two milligrams of the opioid would likely kill me.
I estimated the syringe held approximately tw
enty milligrams of the milky fluid. The coloration led me to believe he hadn’t gotten the drug from a legitimate source, instead opting to dissolve the white powder in something—likely another drug.
What a dick.
Later, I’d have to thank Turkey’s king for swapping the suppressors, as I wouldn’t have liked the task of removing it with a man hellbent on my death. To be doubly sure he wouldn’t be injecting anything to me, I shifted my hand over the IV line inserted into my arm.
First, I’d put the asshole on ice. Second, I’d remove the line just to be sure and panic every nurse on the floor as the machine registered something wasn’t right. Then again, when I was done putting the asshole on ice, every machine in the room would be blaring.
I wasn’t all that good at manifesting ice with the kind of finesse required to avoid the medical equipment.
After being sidelined for so long, my magic came at my call with the enthusiasm of a hyperactive puppy let off its leash. Crackling, clear ice formed in the air, but rather than manifest as a coating or chunks, my subconscious took a more lethal approach. Spears extended from the growing shell and lanced deep into the man’s body.
Blood sprayed, but my entombing ice contained it. With another crackling snap of ice, my talent finished its gruesome work, taking out the IV stand, the machine monitoring my vitals, and just about everything else in the room. As though expecting I’d become intolerably bored if left with nothing to do, my magic spared two of the books. I’d feel some guilt over the ruined books and the machines. My attempt to rein in my rogue magic failed to bear fruit, and more ice manifested, creating a barrier over the doorway while a chorus of alarms notified the entire floor there was something seriously wrong in my room.
I regarded the ice wall, easily two feet thick, with a raised brow. As though satisfied with its efforts to protect me, my magic relaxed, although the ice refused to obey my will.
Oh, well. I could live with trouble being locked out of my room. I disconnected the IV line to be safe rather than sorry.
Then I waited until my temperamental magic opted to cooperate with me.
I expected it would be a long morning.
It took a flameweaver and a waveweaver working together to bust through my icy prison. My talent resisted, too, which amused me despite my utter inability to make it do what I wanted. I couldn’t blame my magic—or my subconsciousness—for disliking the situation.
I’d had my fill of people trying to kill me.
Later, I’d wonder how a New York prince had gotten to Montana in the relatively short period of time it took for him, working with Texas’s young prince, to melt the ice and safely remove it. I debated if I wanted to keep reading my book or give the royal visitors my full attention.
Prince Adam of Texas heaved a sigh. “Your talent is even more ridiculous than mine.”
Well, that was something. The young man was one of the world’s strongest waveweavers, second only to his mother, and he thought I had a ridiculous talent. “Thanks, I think, Your Royal Highness.”
“Adam, please. We’re going to be equal rank anyway, and if we all used titles all the damned time, we’d never get anything done. We have enough trouble getting everything done with damned titles in the way.”
I chuckled at the evidence that Montana’s queen had gotten to Prince Adam, rubbing off her thoughts on royal titles on him. “Sure, Adam. It’s really okay to call you Adam?”
“Yes, please. It’s really okay.”
I turned my attention to the New York prince. “And you?”
“Ian sounds better than Your Royal Idiot. Which is what the very nice lady behind me keeps calling me.”
“You’re even more of a brat than my son,” Texas’s queen announced. “I’ll take Jessica over any titles, too. It’s too damned early in the morning for titles. I hope you like barbecue chicken, Jack. My husband is fretting at the castle, and when he frets, he cooks. He was not invited to come play at the hospital today.”
Texas’s queen poked her head in through the opening in the ice and whistled at the general destruction in the room. “My boy’s got the right idea. Your talent is even more ridiculous than mine. I just shock people when I get pissy.”
If I counted snorts, there were at least four more people I couldn’t see in the hallway, all of whom believed Texas’s queen underestimated her talent when she was pissy.
Great. I gave my talent the credit it deserved; it’d been doing its best to spare me from an infestation of royalty. “In my defense, my talent seems to have developed a mind of its own, and it got offended. Also, be careful. There’s a vial of fentanyl in here, and a syringe with at least twenty milligrams of the drug, too. I removed the IV to be safe rather than dead, but I don’t think he managed to put any in the line before I iced him.”
William followed Jessica into the room, and he eyed the ice sculpture of Melody’s uncle with disdain. “Your bride is at the castle. I used my talent to make sure she stayed there, and she’s rather miffed with me. It was the only way I could keep Mackenzie from coming, too, as she felt obligated to stay and keep an eye on things. In good news, this incident means I get to take you back to the castle to continue care, and I’ll probably drag Alfred along, too, if the hospital is willing to discharge him.”
“Odds of that?”
“Well, he has displayed his complete lack of regard for his health and is making a pest of himself right now. They’ll probably be happy to get rid of him.”
I recognized Alfred’s grunt from the hallway. “Hey, Alfred. How are you feeling?”
“Not bad for a dead man walking,” the RPS agent replied, and he followed his king into the room, his stride unsteady although he stayed on his feet. As often happened with stroke victims, the left side of Alfred’s face was no longer as mobile as it had once been, giving him a slightly drooped appearance. I hoped it would ease with time—and it wouldn’t send Montana’s monarchs into a panic trying to identify if the man was about to have another stroke. “How about you? You have to be coming off the flare by now.”
“Not bad. I’m pretending I didn’t lose control of my talent, so if you could play along, it would be appreciated.”
“Sounds like a plan. How are you doing?”
“I’ve had better mornings, but overall, not too bad. Rather pleased with myself, really.”
The gathered royals looked over the entombed man who’d caused Maine so many problems.
“Is His Royal Majesty of Maine here?”
“I made him stay at the castle, too. I figured seeing his brother’s body wouldn’t be ideal.” William grimaced. “I’m now thinking anyone seeing this isn’t ideal. I have to hand it to you, Jack. You do not screw around.”
“I was just going to encase him and the syringe. I suspect my subconscious didn’t approve of my decision and took a more violent approach.”
“Well, your bride has worked herself into quite the panic, so I’m going to have one of my royal physicians look you over so I’m not accused of being reckless with her beloved patient. Assuming you’re cleared, I’m going to take you home with me, set you loose in the princess’s suite, and let her work out her nerves any way she sees fit.”
Texas’s queen tossed her head back and laughed. “You’re gonna be treated like a stud bought fresh from the market. I’ve been a repressed princess, too. Just ask Pat. Actually, don’t. He might tell you the whole story, and my pride couldn’t handle it right now.”
Jessica’s son rolled his eyes. “Don’t listen to my mother, please. She just doesn’t want me following directly in her footprints—and a lot of other footprints—and having a kid on the way before I’ve actually married Mireya. We are taking our time, thank you very much.”
I recognized a long-term argument when I heard one. “Apparently, I’m getting married within a week. You can hide behind us for a while.”
Adam flashed a grin my way. “I’ve already planned it. I’m giving myself to Mireya as her eighteenth birthday present. I figu
re I’ll plan everything and just make sure she shows up.”
“About time,” Montana’s king muttered. “Raid my wallet at your leisure, Adam. I’ll kill you myself if you sell any of the dowry horses to pay for the wedding. Those are for you and her, not for selling for disgusting amounts of money to pay for the wedding. If you want any help with the planning, talk to me. Despite appearances, I can hide things from Mackenzie and Mireya.”
“You have enough trouble with the next little one on the way. Dad’s helping because Mom gets hysterical.”
“I do not get hysterical.”
Adam looked his mother in the eyes and said, “You cried over how your little baby boy was finally all grown up. You slobbered on my good suit.”
Texas’s queen sighed. “I cry once, and I’m labeled as hysterical.”
“It keeps you on your toes. At least you have a date now. But if you spoil it to Mireya, I’m going to pull out all the stops.”
I had no idea what all the stops were, but it made the queen recoil and cross her fingers in a ward against evil. “I’ll keep my mouth shut, I swear.”
“Good. Now, can we get out of here? It’s creepy standing around talking while there’s a corpse just standing around. Also, that ice is way too clear. Next time you decide to slaughter someone like that, make less pure ice. It’s like looking through a glass but worse. You even caught individual drops of blood.” Adam leaned towards the body suspended in ice. “Actually, the more I look at this, the more impressed I am. Mom? Can you do this?”
“I can’t manifest ice, baby.”
“Damn. I thought we were badass waveweavers, but I feel outclassed.”
“I can’t stop hurricanes, so I think we’re even,” I replied.
“Dad’s making barbecue. Want to bust out of this joint and go have lunch? You’ve got to be hungry after all that work,” Adam said, shaking his head and stepping away from the body. “While my parents were freaking out, I asked Princess Melody for clothing in your size, but I ultimately had to get one of the castle staff to help because all saying your name did was make the hysterics worse.”
Bonds Page 28
