Prince of Honor (House of Terriot Book 1)

by Nancy Gideon

  Sylvia’s brows soared. “Do others think that way, too?”

  “More than you’d know.” She squeezed Sylvia’s hand, hard. “Please don’t mention any of this to Turow. He’d take it straight to Cale. I don’t want Wes to get into any trouble over mere speculations.”

  Sylvia studied her thoughtfully. “And you’d be the power behind the throne.”

  Rosie blanched. “Oh, good heavens, no! I’ve seen the strain that position’s put on Kendra. I could never bear up under it. But you could. If you’d been with Cale instead of her, you could have controlled him, but she loves him and doesn’t see his faults. And that blindness might ruin us all.”

  “So you see my brother wearing the crown. And what would he do differently?”

  “He could reach out to Jamie and form a truce that would save endless bloodshed. I mean, Kendra almost lost her life! James will never deal with Cale. He knows Cale wants him dead. But he’d listen to Wes. And to you. And he could come home again and use his connections to our benefit.”

  “That’s quite an impossible dream you have.”

  Rosie sighed and smiled sadly. “I know. I know nothing’s going to change. Wes will continue at Cale’s heels, just like Turow, and I fear our clan will fall. Unless . . .”

  “Unless?”

  Rosie’s voice quieted to a whisper. “Unless someone does something about him. Permanently.”

  Sylvia blinked. “Me? You want me to kill Cale?”

  “It’s not like you don’t know how.” Then the suggestion was replaced by shivery regret. “Forgive me. I don’t know what I’m saying. Too much to drink. I just wanted so much more for Wesley than a backseat to a crazy driver. I shouldn’t be saying these things to you, not today of all days. I just get so frustrated sometimes, not being able to help my friends and the ones I love. You know.” Big eyes cast up at her hopefully.

  “Yes, I do.”

  Rosie pressed her hand and stood rather shakily. “Tell Wes I’ve gone to freshen up. And splash some very cold water on my face,” she concluded with an embarrassed smile.

  Leaving Sylvia to silently study that gathering of brothers at the bar before turning away with a frown.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Sylvia gave a start as warm hands capped her shoulders. She placed her own over Turow’s and gave them a squeeze. His smile settled the turmoil in her belly. Her days of scheming and intrigue were over because of this good man, and she owed it to him to put them away forever.

  But she couldn’t help asking, “What’s Cale dragging you into now?”

  He resumed his seat, saying easily, “Just some clan business.”

  “Nothing for me to worry my pretty little head over, is that it?”

  His brow furrowed slightly. “Yes. That’s it.”

  “Is he asking you to sleep at his bedside tonight, instead of mine?”

  “He could ask, but the answer would be no.”

  The simmer in his gaze dispelled her annoyance. She was about to lean over to show her contrition with a kiss when twin lines of Terriot princes passed on either side of their table on their way to the dance floor, Cale leading the way. With a wink, Turow rose to follow them. The space cleared as their king and seven princes lined up behind Turow. Lighting dropped low and lasers swung down, cutting across the floor in tandem to a glitter ball. The shredding chords of a karaoke “Armageddon It” blasted as Turow began to wail with a surprisingly forceful sexiness about a teasing heartbreaker, his eight brothers an energetic backup.

  As the subject of their rather pointed serenade, Sylvia chose to enjoy the taunting at her expense as much as the rest of the room, whistling and laughing when Row accused her of driving the pretty boys out of their heads. He made a sweeping gesture along the line of his siblings who responded to his plea for her to come get it from him with lusty demands of, “Gimme all of your lovin’” punctuated by suggestive hip pumps.

  Her enjoyment took a sudden throat-clutching turn when her mate met her stare and grabbed for her heart and her hand with the song’s promise that the best was yet to come.

  As Cale took over the lead vocals, Turow lifted her up so that their bodies pressed flush, so only inches separated their faces, and their eyes filled with the reflection of the other. His burned bright, an iridescent cool blue flame devouring her last reservations as they moved together, lost in each other until the final chords. Then his hard kiss scorched all the way to her curling toes.

  Breathing heavily from the exertion and the intensity, he smiled. When she returned it, he did the unjustifiable.

  “I love you, Syl.”

  Everything around her faded away in that instant. There were only the two of them and those four impossible words hanging from her rapid heartbeats.

  As the audience went wild with shouts and applause, Rico and Wesley grabbed Turow’s arms, pulling him away from her toward the bar. He cast a helpless glance over his shoulder, but she waved him away, gesturing toward the ladies’ room.

  She scarcely remembered crossing the floor. No sounds reached her. No sights distracted her as she bypassed the bathroom and went straight out the door into the parking lot. There, in the cold night’s embrace, she leaned against the waist-high rail at the top of iron steps, sucking in air like she was going through decompression. Her head swam, light and disoriented.

  I love you, Syl.

  How could he say that? How could he mean it?

  What did it mean?

  The very thought of that emotion. . . of a man like Turow feeling she was worth its expression!

  Love was as extinct as dinosaurs in the world she lived in, the idea so foreign and bizarrely frightening, she didn’t know how to react. Most of the emotions she cultivated were linked to deadly sins. She understood lust, an expert in stirring up that most basic primal instinct. It shivered through her when watching Turow undress or stretch or smile or do pretty damned much anything beyond breathing. And that, she found sexy, too. Greed and envy went hand in hand, for attention or possessions, that familiar curl of darkness motivating her verbal belittling and calculated use of her body to get what she wanted. Pride bolstered her arrogance, but also had warmed so deliciously when applied to her mate’s decision to defend her. And, sins aside, there was fondness, friendship, those strange things she felt for Colin and even Kendra.

  But love? Love had washed away on a little girl’s tears. Those tears burning in the back of her throat even now.

  Because Turow was in love with her. And she was afraid to believe that made all things possible.

  She turned at the sound of the door opening behind her, fearing Turow was there to follow up on his comment before she could examine it and its consequences more completely.

  The blow came so sudden and fast she had no chance to brace against it. Her ridiculous heels folded, her legs twisting as she went backward down the flight of metal stairs, side and hip connecting painfully with the rail and edges of the steps. The back of her head thudded hard against the pavement where she sprawled below the glare of halogen that haloed the images coming down to her level. And they weren’t angels coming to carry her home.

  “You bitch!”

  There was no mistaking her former Mean Girl BFF’s growl. Fawn Terriot eased down the stairs shadowed by a hazy pack of her followers.

  “You think you can strut back in here, take our men, spit in our faces, on our dreams, and get away with it? Think again.”

  Agony, sharp and hot, lanced through her shoulder from the swift kick of pointy-toed Louboutin’s.

  Sylvia rolled to her side, trying to get her knees under her. Another impact stabbed beneath her ribs. Head throbbing, vision wobbly, she reacted with predatory reflex, gripping the other female’s foot and yanking it out from under her. Behind the barricade of Fawn’s spread-eagled form, she stumbled to her feet, tottering as one high heel snapped. She grabbed off the other shoe and brandished it in front of her like a blade.

  “Back off, you stupid creatures, before
I put your beady eyes out!”

  Disheveled, swaying drunkenly, blood dripping from her scalp to dot her cheek and pale, heaving bosom, Sylvia held them at cautious bay until Fawn regained her feet. They regarded one another as wary enemies, looking for weakness. Fawn’s was vanity, but Sylvia’s was much more crippling.

  “Do you think for one minute,” Fawn began, tone low and vicious, “that you’re going to have your prince and a happily-ever-after?”

  “He chose me. He loves me! There’s nothing you can do to change that.”

  “Really?” A malicious laugh. “Think again. He’ll feel differently when he knows the truth.”

  A deathlike cold doused over her dreams as she demanded, “What truth?”

  “How could he ever love a greedy whore like you who’d spread herself for every male in the royal line from father through every son, after learning all her tricks at her own father’s knee? Or was that on your knees?”

  Sylvia couldn’t breathe. The past choked off her dreams like the relentless strength of her mother’s hands. Fawn's sneering face, the others leaning close, scenting blood, all faded as Martine's fierce whisper wound through her fragmenting memories with the suffocating strength of a python.

  "We will never speak of this again. No one can know."

  “Enough!”

  Heads turned. Gasps sounded at the sight of their queen spotlighted on the landing flanked by the huge shadow of Colin Terriot.

  Ferocious postures deflated. Only Fawn had the nerve to speak up.

  “This doesn’t concern you, my queen. It’s personal business.”

  “It’s vile business. You’re threatening my sister with harm. It doesn’t get much more personal to me.” More gently, she called, “Sylvia, can you walk?”

  “I’ll get her,” Colin volunteered, forcing the women to flatten against the rough side of the building as he shouldered by them to scoop a wilting Sylvia up into his arms. When she struggled, he murmured, “Put your claws in. I’m a friend, remember? I’ll get you outta here.”

  “Wait!” she cried. “They have my jewelry! They’ve stolen my jewelry. I want it back. It’s mine!”

  Colin paused, glaring at the cowering group. “Ladies. Please return that which does not belong to you.” Cradling Sylvia to his chest in the curl of one arm, he thrust out his other hand, fingers beckoning impatiently.

  To flaunt their deed in front of Sylvia was one thing, to defy their queen another. But to disobey an order from a prince, especially an angry prince, was idiocy. The women shed their pilfered goods and placed them in his palm. He nudged one of the items, a square-cut emerald ring, frowning slightly before he poured the pretties into his pocket.

  As he started back up the steps, Fawn hissed, “Shame on you, a prince in the House taking her side. Or are you planning to take her for your reward?”

  Colin paused, baring his teeth in what couldn’t have been mistaken for a smile as he looked his half-brother’s seething mate up and down. “I’ve taken much worse with far less reward, so I’d be careful who you call what, if I were you.”

  Fawn’s mouth snapped shut.

  To Kendra, he said with weighty meaning, “I’ll leave you to tidy up, my queen.”

  If the females thought they only had something to fear from Colin, they misunderstood the true fury of their sovereign.

  “How dare you assault a member of my family! How dare you steal and flaunt your petty meanness. How dare you speak of horrors as if they’re something for the amusement of others! You will go back inside and you will say nothing of what happened here, nothing of the ugly rumors you thought to spread. If you defy me, I’ll see you all cast out with nothing, not even our family name to protect you. Is. That. Clear?”

  “You wouldn’t protect her,” Fawn protested, “if you knew what she and Cale—”

  Kendra bristled. “You speak to me of your king? You think to threaten me with a past we’ve put behind us? You’d be wise to shut your foolish mouth before my mate has reason to speak to yours about things that are none of our business, just as this is none of yours. Get inside and cover your asses before I kick them all the way to Reno!”

  Silently, eyes cast down, they filed past her, even Fawn, until Kendra stood alone waiting for her anger to burn down.

  Colin set his shivering passenger on the cold edge of the bathroom counter, letting her cling to his arm as he wet hand towels in the sink. Very gently, he cleaned the blood from her face, wincing as she sucked a breath when he pressed the towel to the small tear in her scalp

  “Thank you.” The faint little voice alarmed him.

  “No problem. Those nasty bitches did a number on you.” His growly displeasure earned a weak smile. “I’m sure you were about to cut fillets out of them with your high heel.”

  “Colin?” She caught his hand, clutching it desperately, her eyes huge, glittery circles. “Please don’t say anything to Turow.”

  “He needs to know so he can protect you. You shouldn’t have been alone.”

  “Please! Please don’t.”

  There was something disturbing in the childlike way she kneaded his fingers, setting him on edge with an impulse to do something, anything to calm her.

  “Okay.” Before she got too relaxed, he added, “But if they bother you again, I want your word, your word, Sylvie, that you’ll let him know. Let them be their mates’ problem, not yours.”

  She nodded, features screwing up with pain again until he wanted to put his fist through the wall. “The other thing . . . what they said.”

  “I didn’t hear them say anything.”

  Tears started.

  With three younger sisters, waterworks always twisted him up inside. He grabbed for more towels and brusquely mopped them up, holding one so she could blow her nose then discarded it gingerly.

  The door opened. Kendra rushed up to survey the damage, finding a tissue to do a more delicate clean up where mascara had run. She glanced up to see Colin fidgeting uncomfortably next to the feminine hygiene machine.

  “Thank you, Colin. Please don’t—”

  He smiled tightly. “I’m heading for the bar where I plan to drink until I develop amnesia. What do you want me to say if Row stops me?”

  “The truth.” At Sylvia’s stark look, Kendra added smoothly, “That she took a misstep, breaking her heel while she and I were talking outside, and she took a tumble down the steps.”

  “I didn’t see anything.”

  Kendra placed her hand to his cheek. “You’re a nice guy, Colin.”

  Something strained in the way she said that made him defensive. “Yes, I am. Don’t tell anyone. The ladies prefer bad boys. We all have our secrets.”

  “I hope not,” was her mysterious reply.

  Once he’d slipped out, Kendra looked to the other female in earnest.

  “Are you really all right?”

  A smile too quick to be genuine. “Just sore and angry, at them and at myself for letting them ambush me. It was a foolish thing to do, going out alone like that. Turow would worry if he knew.”

  “Then we’ll say we were together.”

  Sylvia drew a shaky breath. “I’ve given you little reason to stand up for me.”

  “You’re a princess in the House of Terriot and my responsibility. I don’t take it lightly. We protect our men and we support our sisters.” Her tone softened. “And we rise above such things.”

  Considering the implications of what Rosie had said earlier, Sylvia murmured, “Yes, we do.”

  They shared smiles. Their first as tentative friends.

  ***

  Turow paced outside the bathroom door, practically pouncing on the two females as they emerged. His anxious gaze took in his mate’s disheveled hair, her blotchy face, the rips in her stockings, the awkwardness of her movements.

  “Are you all right? Colin told me you took a fall.” As his arm went carefully about her waist, he glanced to Kendra for confirmation.

  “Bumps and bruises. Nothing mor
e serious than the cost of a new pair of shoes.” She patted his arm to quiet his worries. “Take her home and put her into a hot bath and a warm bed.” With another smile for Sylvia, Kendra offered, “I’ll give your excuses and thanks to the others.”

  “Thank you, my queen.”

  A sentiment Sylvia echoed.

  When they were alone, Turow grew more solicitous, coaxing her to lean into him. “The car’s waiting out back. Let’s go home.”

  “I ruined our evening,” she whispered against his lapel.

  “You didn’t ruin anything. Our evening isn’t over. I’ve got a surprise for you.”

  “I don’t know if I can take another surprise.”

  He brushed her hair back gently. “You’ll like this one.”

  Curled against him in the back seat of the luxurious car, Sylvia continued to concern him with her unusual quiet. Could she have injured herself more severely than she thought?

  “I was so proud of you tonight,” he whispered into her hair.

  “Of me? You were the one who shocked and rocked the House.” Her fingertips stroked his shirtfront. “My handsome, hunky prince.”

  “Your very drunken prince, I’m afraid.” He lifted her hand, pressing a gentle kiss to its scuffed palm. “I’ve never had so much fun. I’ll probably pay the price for it tomorrow.”

  She said nothing.

  The quiet, gliding movement of the car, the comforting heat of her beside him, lulled Turow’s senses into a relaxed contentment as he wondered over the strange evening, the new feeling of connection with his brothers, the blossoming mood of romance between him and his gorgeous mate. He’d never been happier or had so much to be thankful for.

  She thought he was hunky.

  Turow smiled to himself. Some of the ladies had actually grabbed his butt. Something his brothers expected but him, never! Definitely an eye-opening night. He refused to let anything beyond their destination distract him.

  Until questing fingers stroked up his leg to tease along the placket of his trousers.

  When he turned his head to glance down at her, he found her stare on him, her gaze glimmering like emeralds in the dark.