by Miranda King
“Eden is off limits.” Dante shoots him a look the way God must have done to Adam after he ate that apple. “Do you hear me?” He turns a don’t-mess-with-me shade of fire red. “Eden. Is. Off. Limits.”
“Is that so?” Like hell if Eden is going to be off limits to Logan.
Dante sidles both hands to his sides. “In case you forget: Eden. Is. My. SISTER.”
“I know.” Logan roots himself firmly in front of Dante. “And you know I’d never hurt her.”
“You will.” Dante pronounces it as if he’s parting the Red Sea between them.
A standoff it is then.
Their eyes lock. A torrent of testosterone twists around them.
“I would never hurt her.” Logan’s shoulders wooden, ready to bear the full weight of that promise. “Just as I’d give my life for you, I’d give my life for your sister.”
Logan’s revelation hangs between them, amid the setting sun releasing its final surge of sangre light before it will die and tomorrow rise again.
The sun’s color spills like blood across Dante’s face and his eyelids flutter. He backs up to the other side of the table, the one with Logan’s gun and the picture of Eden. Yet he cannot escape the shrapnel pieces of crimson light ricocheting off tiny divots in the shiny table top, striking him.
The dirt-brown paneled walls of the briefing room box them together. Logan fixates on an arrangement of color near the General’s desk—the red, white, blue, and green of the Summerland flag.
His country’s flag. His family’s flag. His flag.
The one they’d drape over his coffin, probably sooner than later, because, hell, before Eden, what did he have to live for anyway? Sure, he loved his family, but they didn’t need him, not like Dante and his unit did. He’d die content with that flag draped over his casket for taking a bullet for any one of those guys, but especially Dante. He owed Dante that much—and more.
But now he also has to think of Eden.
“I want to marry her, Dante.”
“Have you asked her yet?”
“No, but I plan to—soon.”
Dante exhales a soul-weary sigh. “Forget it, Logan.” He crosses his arms. “A marriage between you and Eden would be nothin’ but a soup sandwich. You’re a prince, and when you marry, it can’t be to someone like her.”
“There’s nothing wrong with Eden. To me, she’s perfect.”
“Not perfect enough to survive the pressures of being a princess.” Dante holds up his hand. “And before you get on me like I’m dissin’ my sis, I’m just stating a fact. She’s a pop star with pink hair streaks and pictures of her wearing basically nothing all over the Internet.” He gestures to the magazine on the table. “The media will tear her up.”
“Give her more credit. She’s used to dealing with the media.”
“Yes, as a pop star.” He shakes his head. “Pop stars can change their hair color every two months and wear revealing clothes and strut their butts on stage. Princesses can’t.”
“My princess could.”
Dante exhales. “Even if you can get past all that royal crap, one way or another, she’ll just end up hurt.”
“I won’t let that happen.” Logan clenches his fists. As long as there’s a breath in him, no one will ever hurt Eden.
“You can’t say that.” Dante shakes his head. “Last night we got lucky hitting our target without getting caught.” He sighs. “We take risks—too many of them. One of these days our luck might run out.” Dante leans against the General’s gunmetal desk. “Eden’s too young to end up a widow.”
“Maybe I won’t always be in the military.”
“Doesn’t matter. The military isn’t the real problem—it’s you.” Dante crosses his ankles and the heel of his boot dings against the metal desk like a heavy gong. “It’s in your blood to take risks. The military just enables you.”
“I take risks not just to protect our country, but to protect you and the rest of our brothers.” Logan thumps his hand twice against his chest.
Dante grunts, and twice thumps his chest. “If I am your brother, then consider Eden your sister and keep your hands off of her. I forbid you to marry her.”
Logan’s heart free falls as if Dante’s words have cast it from his body. “No, you can’t forbid me.”
“You will stay away from Eden”—Dante crimps his fingers on the top edge of the General’s desk—“in honor of Milton’s memory.”
“Why are you bringing Milton into this?”
“Because you once told me after my brother died protecting you”—Dante’s clinch on the desk colors his knuckles white—“that I could name anything I wanted and you’d give it to me. Here’s what I want from you.” He leans forward. “Stay. Away. From. Eden.”
That request is equivalent to condemning Logan to Hell. “You want to take Eden away from me?” The shellshock rocks his soul.
“You forced my hand on this. Our father is gone. Milton is gone. I’m the last man in our family, and I have to look out for her.” Dante’s voice cracks, yet he issues another commandment. “One more thing, you can’t ever tell her I asked you to do this.”
“Why? Don’t you think she’s going to hurt like hell if I end things with her? And what am I supposed to do when she comes to visit you?”
Dante scratches his head. “It was just one weekend together? That’s it?”
Logan nods. Best weekend of his life.
“She’ll get over it and be better off for it in the long run.” He sighs. “Just tell her you guys moved too fast. That weekend was a mistake and you’re better off as friends—and nothing more.” He points his finger at Logan. “Nothing more. Promise me.”
Logan’s mouth can’t form the words to agree.
“You are bound by honor.”
Honor. Logan could no more deny that than he could tell his heart to stop beating. “Death before dishonor.” He nods.
“Swear to it on Milton’s grave.”
“I swear it.” The words burn on Logan’s tongue, like the aftertaste is his receipt—because he’s just paid his debt to Dante by bargaining with the devil to rein in his desire for Eden.
Movement out the window catches Logan’s attention. The curbside lamplight casts a halo around the golden hair of a buxom blonde shimmying out of a Humvee. Her cut-off shorts and thigh-high boots are every guy’s fantasy. She’s here to do a show for the troops, and that outfit is sure to get the guys all revved up. Hell, if he didn’t want to bash every one of their heads for so much as looking at her the wrong way.
She recognizes him through the window and waves with a smile that promises everything now forbidden to him.
Eden.
Logan fights against his impulse to wave back because hers isn’t a smile a friend gives to another friend. That smile is pure temptation packaged with plump lips and twin dimples.
Boom. Boom. Boom. Logan’s heart beats like its pumping blood enough for 144,000 men.
She waves again and blows a kiss.
God help him for waving back.
Boom. Boom. Boom. The heavy footsteps down the hallway signal the General is heading their way like there’s hell to pay.
The devil always does get his due.
“Famous Female Friends of Pop Star Eden Knight
Volunteer to Help Her Entertain the Troops”
– headline from The Summerland Tattler
“Let’s go back for another weekend in Paris.
There’s something important I’d like to ask you...”
– Prince Logan’s email to Pop Star Eden Knight
“The devil is not as black as he is painted.”
– Dante Alighieri, Medieval Poet
The General, with all his military medallions pinned across his chest, juts into the room as shiny as brass knuckles.
His aide-de-camp Ollie follows on his heels with a clipboard, coffee, and bloodshot eyes. It’s no coincidence Ollie sported those bloodshot eyes soon after the General took command of th
e base. This new guy rips out orders faster than an AK-47.
But all those orders the General growls to Ollie and the base staff come directly from High Command.
That’s a problem. Everyone knows High Command chases their tail around all nine circles of Hell.
A man who follows High Command may bark, he may even bite, but he has no backbone to standup for what is right. God, how they need a general with a backbone, or at least one that wouldn’t get in Logan’s way.
The General barges past Logan and stands in front of Dante. “Lieutenant Knight!” he wails. “Why’s your ass up against my desk?”
“Uh-h….” Dante straightens. He jerks his hands from the General’s desk and knocks off an odd knickknack—a candy tray. Actually, two balancing candy trays molded like the Golden Scales of Justice.
The whole contraption whacks the floor and the candy-tray scales spill their contents. Candy clunketity-clunk-clunks, hitting their feet with mini-grenades of hard sour apple candies and silver bombs of chocolate kisses.
“He’s just demonstrating the ass-kissing he thinks I should give you.” Logan picks up the scales. “But why don’t we skip all that.”
The General rounds over to Logan. “You’re telling me what to do?” If a voice could wear a poker face, this one does.
From behind the General’s back, Dante waves his hands to Logan and mouths a silent shutup-shutup-shutup.
Logan ignores him and props the scales back on the desk. “Listen, no offense, but I’ve had a helluva thirty-six hours taking down the terrorist who would’ve killed over a thousand of our civilians. Why did you and High Command abort the mission?”
He pauses, watching the General. Waiting. Formulating a plan to get out of trouble. Sometimes the best part of getting in trouble is the fun of trying to get out of it.
The General crosses his arms. “I don’t have to explain my actions. But you do after going against orders. Did you hit the target?”
Logan’s the best sharpshooter in the country—of course, he did.
“Yes.” Logan’s throat tightens. Confirmation of what he did is hard to swallow. The only way he can live with himself is to think about all those people he’d saved, all the mommies and daddies and their children. “I waited until after the marriage ceremony was over so the bride could get widow’s benefits.”
“Considerate.” The General nods his head as if he would’ve done the same thing. Maybe this General has a conscience after all.
Because what happened out on that mission beat up Logan’s conscience. It’s one thing to see a target in black and white on paper. It’s another to see him in flesh and blood—with his soon-to-be wife by his side.
All Logan could think about at that moment was what if the bride had been his sister Poppy? Or Eden?
He almost didn’t go through with it. Yet Intel confirmed an imminent attack with a thousand lives or more at stake, and if Logan didn’t fulfill his mission, possibly including the bride and the couple hundred guests at the wedding.
Because it wasn’t just Logan and Dante defying orders. A drone strike team on base had waited for their signal to bomb the entire wedding if Logan didn’t take out the target.
Logan has no intention of giving away the identity of those team members also willing to shuck orders to help him, if he needed them. Thankfully, he didn’t have to involve them. It was Logan alone who took out the target. Dante was only his spotter.
“Before you start my interrogation, I want to make it clear that Dante shouldn’t be responsible for anything that happened. I’m his superior. I forced him into it.” Logan would take the fall for everything. He would protect Dante at all costs—and Eden. All Eden has left in this world is Dante.
“Is that true?” the General asked Dante.
“No,” says Dante. “I’m his spotter and he couldn’t have done any of this without me.”
Dante is ever the faithful warrior, but he isn’t considering that Eden is at stake in this, too. She’d be devastated if her brother got court-martialed. No, Dante couldn’t afford to take the fall with Logan.
As a prince, Logan has the protection of his title. Dante doesn’t. And while Logan may not get off scot-free for what they did, it would be a slap on the wrist compared to what could happen to Dante.
“Again, I’m the superior officer. I take the blame. Can we agree on that?” Logan asks the General.
The General nods.
All the muscles in Logan’s body relax. Dante is safe. Eden is safe. That’s all that matters now. Who the hell cares what happens to Logan? Certainly not Logan anymore.
All he had going for him was Eden. He doesn’t even have that now after the promise he made to Dante.
“Did anyone see you?” the General asks Logan.
“Yes. No way around it. But obviously they didn’t catch me. Although I had some close calls when I ran out of gas”—he nearly shoots Dante a look for that one, but keeps the focus on himself—“and then I had to trek miles in that cold ass creek to dodge anyone tracking me. I hotwired another vehicle eventually and got to a safe zone.”
“Anything else you want to add?” The General asks.
“My socks are still wet.” Logan grins, even though they weren’t.
“Anything else?” The General prods again. He probably wants him to apologize so he could launch into a tirade about how wrong Logan had been to undertake that mission in the first place.
But Logan would make no apologies. “Hmm, well, I did miss our World of Warcraft quest on game night with the guys. Heard they bombed without me.”
Logan stands tall to his superior and kicks up a side of his lips. “I know we’ve gotta go through this whole reprimand deal and you’ve got report me to High Command because I technically disobeyed orders.”
He clamps his thumb and forefinger together, stopping right before they touch. “Only a little. And who has time for reports and reprimands anyway?” He flings his hands at the idea. “There’s a whole plane full of ladies touching down right about now to put on a show for us, and I don’t know about you, but I sure as hell don’t want to be the guy who gets there late and has to stand at the back of the room.”
Logan inclines his head to Dante. “Remember the last time we got stuck at the back of the room? We were in that London nightclub, and I did all that crowd surfing. Made the headlines the next day. Right, Dante?”
Dante nods, following along even if he doesn’t know where Logan is headed with all this.
Logan looks right at the General. “Wouldn’t the media love a picture of me doing something like that here at your base?”
Logan doesn’t wait for an answer. “You and I both know the media chases me around at these kinds of events just to see what trouble I’ll get into. My reputation and career can handle bad press, but can yours? You’re in charge of this base and you wouldn’t want our country to think that we’re just out here playing around, now would you?” He gives a slight shrug of his shoulder. “I’m thinking I can stay out of trouble tonight, if we can forget this whole mess. What do ya say?”
“You’re looking for a quid pro quo.” The General’s voice is half question, half statement.
“Yeah, you can put it in fancy terms, but the guys and I just call it back scratching. As in I’ll scratch your back, if you scratch mine. See?”
“Oh, I see.” The General’s voice is surprisingly calm. Too calm. “So far in this conversation, you’ve yet to apologize for defying my orders and now you want me to scratch your back. You just exist in your own world, don’t you, Logan?”
“No, we exist in the same one. One where we don’t apologize for doing something right. One where back scratching is the way of the world. One where generals give their officers two weeks leave for a job well done.” Logan makes sure his dimples show.
Perhaps some R&R time on a beach somewhere would dry up these foreign emotions wreaking havoc inside of him. Logan’s promise to Dante about Eden gutted him. Something in his heart is leakin
g, like it’s broken. But he can’t turn it off, and a persistent ache wells in his chest.
He masks it to everyone with his own brand of humor, but in every breath, there’s that ache, that sharp pain, that stab of loss over losing his future with Eden. Two weeks leave wouldn’t cure him, but it would give him time to figure out how to process these emotions.
“After all this talk of back scratching and threatening me with the media, now you have the balls to ask for two weeks leave?” The General sounds like he’s been hit with a curveball.
“If two doesn’t work for you, we can split the difference. One week will work for Dante and me.” Logan shows those dimples again. “How about you?”
The General covers his mouth with two fingers like he’s holding something back. Is it a scream, a shout, a spurt of slurs for Logan’s insolence?
No, it’s a laugh. The good belly rub kind, if the General had one to rub. “I’ve heard a lot of things in my day, but never a guy with your guts, not only trying to talk his way out of trouble, but also negotiating for time off.”
“Did it work?”
The General chuckles without answering.
“I’m going to take that as a no.” Logan shrugs a shoulder. “But perhaps we can continue this discussion after I do a little crowd surfing. You’re welcome to join me.” Logan is half-serious, half-joking.
The General shakes his head and nearly gurgles his words. “You’ve got one hell of a sarcastic bite to you. I like that.” He then points from Logan to Dante. “I see now how you’re the Han Solo and he’s the Chewbacca.”
Why the hell is he comparing us to Star Wars characters?
“Does that make you the Darth Vader or the Yoda here?” Logan still has yet to figure out if the General is foe or friend, a Darth Vader or a Yoda. “Well, you’re wearing all green, so you have the whole Yoda thing going on for you. But your deep voice gives off a Darth Vader vibe. Not gonna lie.”
“From back scratching to Yoda and Darth Vader,” the General says. “You are certainly entertaining. I’ll give you that.”
