My Royal Sin

by Riley Pine

  I crumple to the ground again and hiss from the gut-twisting agony, but I cannot stay here. Once whoever is chasing us finds the wreckage from the Rolls—and doesn’t find us wrecked inside it—they’ll know we escaped.

  So I crawl to my feet, balancing on my left leg while I attempt to put the slightest bit of weight on my right. It hurts like nothing I’ve ever felt before, but I’m able to limp, slowly. I cross my fingers that it’s just a sprain and hobble in the direction of where the tunnel opens, which I know will eventually lead to a main road. We had no time to discuss where we would all meet after the jump, so I assume this is my next logical move.

  I want to call for Benedict, Camille or X—not just because I’m afraid to be alone out here but because I need to know that they’re okay—but if whoever is after us is already searching the woods, that is the last thing I should do.

  So I limp for the tracks, gritting my teeth each time I put pressure on my right leg. This is the only way I’ll find Benedict again.

  It feels like a lifetime when I finally make it to a road, but there is no one there to greet me. I can’t walk any farther, though, and am about to collapse when I hear the faint rumble of a car’s engine. If X had this whole prison break planned, then he must have foreseen us needing alternate transportation.

  Adrenaline courses through my veins, and I’m filled with a renewed sense of hope when a black limousine with tinted windows rolls to a stop where I stand.

  “Benedict!” Happy tears fall as the rear door flies open. But my elation turns to horror when a woman I don’t recognize steps from the vehicle. She is sturdy and strong with an unforgiving sneer on her face and a billy club in her utility belt. She raises a brow and gives me a studied gaze, that sneer morphing into a terrifying smile. She cracks her knuckles, and I read the words love and hate tattooed across the fingers on each hand.

  Without a word, she backhands me across the face, on the already split-open cheek, and my teeth clatter. I cry out and stumble. But she catches me by the wrist before my knee gives out, her steely grip nearly pulling my shoulder from its socket.

  “Get inside, whore. Madam would like to have a little word.”

  That voice. I’ve heard it. I swear it is the same one I heard speaking to Benedict inside the prison, but there is no time to ask questions.

  She jerks my arm, and I pitch forward into the vehicle, my hands and knees bracing my fall as I hit the floor. Stars dance across my vision, and I think I might be sick, but my attacker follows me in, hauling me onto the seat before my body has a chance to react. She yanks my hair so I’m facing my employer, a woman I know only as the Madam.

  Once the limousine door is closed, the Madam removes her black hat and with it the short, netted veil that covers her face. She is frightening and beautiful at the same time, with her porcelain skin, jet-black waves falling over her shoulders and lips as red as blood. She stares at me with eyes so dark I almost think they are black, but I decide I must be hallucinating from the pain.

  “Ruby, Ruby, Ruby,” she lilts in a soft voice that could lull me to sleep if I didn’t fear for my life. “You were hired to do a job, and so far you have failed.”

  She smiles, her lips curling to reveal perfect white teeth.

  My captor gives my hair a swift tug. “This is the part where you ask what you can do to make it up to the Madam,” she says in a gruff tone.

  I swallow hard. “I...I thought you would be pleased with the new arrangement,” I say. “The prince is sure his brother only meant for me to tempt him for the night. Now I have the rest of the month to find—”

  The Madam cuts me off with a terrifying laugh. “Prince Benedict still thinks his brother, the future king, brought you to him? Then he’s more naive than I thought. Yes, Prince Nikolai is the one who requested Pearl. But that simply gave me my in to use you.”

  “He tripled my fee—” I start, but I almost choke when my head jerks again.

  “You’re done speaking until I say,” the other woman says.

  The Madam is impatient. “This was never about money, sweet jewel,” she says, then leans forward to caress my cheek with an icy finger. “It was about trust. I knew that prince would never be able to resist another reluctant sinner. Now that he’s risked his life for you—and dare I say fallen in love—we have our trust.” She brushes her hand across my bruised and bloodied cheek, and I wince. “Stop. Wasting. My. Time. I know you’ve found it. But that’s no longer enough. Bring me the map, Evangeline, and your family will suffer no more.”

  She knew. This whole time she knew that painting was me—that it belonged to my family.

  I grit my teeth, even as I tremble. “Never,” I say, and the brute of a woman next to me threatens to scalp me with her grip. “I will not betray him.”

  There has to be another way.

  The Madam sighs, pulls a phone from a clutch beside her on the seat and hands it to me.

  “Just press Play,” she says, and with a trembling finger, I do.

  What I see is worse than any nightmare that has plagued me for the past ten years. It is my brother, Jasper, tied to a chair as someone dressed head to toe in black, an executioner of sorts, punches him again and again in the face until all I can see is blood where his eyes should be. I hear the horrifying crack of what must be his nose breaking, and I shriek when the person in black removes a dagger from their boot and holds it to my brother’s neck.

  But Jasper doesn’t say a word. I cannot even tell if he is conscious. But he was at some point. He took that beating without making a sound, and I realize this is not the quiet, reserved man I know. This is a man with a strength I never knew he possessed, strength these people are trying to test, but he does not give in. And just as it looks as if I’m about to watch my brother’s murder, I hear the Madam’s unmistakable voice say, “That will be enough.”

  The screen goes black.

  I tremble, barely able to speak. “Did you... Did you kill him?” I stammer.

  “Not yet,” she says with measured calm. “He claimed not to know where the map was, but thanks to your correspondence with dear Camille, we realized that you do.”

  Camille’s phone. They’ve been listening to our conversations the whole time.

  “But I never said—”

  The Madam waves me off. “You said enough for me to know that you already have what I need and have the audacity to think that you can stall for more time. The Order can’t stop us now. Simply bring it to me, and all of this goes away.” She reaches for the phone still clutched in my hand. “And if you disappoint me again? Well, let’s say that the police guard outside your brother’s hospital room can be easily persuaded to turn a blind eye while we finish the job.” Her lips part into a bloodred smile. “And remember—if we can get to you in your little royal residence, we can get to your prince, too.” She leans close, her breath caressing my cheek, and my body convulses. “Imagine the pious second son found murdered in his chamber by his filthy whore. Think of what that would do to his family—to his memory.”

  I shake violently, but I won’t beg this monster for mercy. I already saw what she did to my brother. I have no doubt in her threat—at how easily she could end Benedict’s life and point the finger at me. And though I’d never raise a violent hand to my prince, his life is in danger because of me. I would, in essence, be his killer.

  The Madam places the veiled hat back on her head and nods to the woman next to me.

  “You get to return to your prince now,” the other woman says with one final tug at my hair. “If you know what’s good for you—and your friends—you won’t breathe a word of our little encounter. And at midnight tonight, you’ll bring the map and anything else you’ve learned to that sweet little fairy-tale cottage of yours. One of our people will meet you there to collect it.”

  She throws open the door and steps out, grabbing my wrist and forcing me to fol
low.

  “I know you won’t disappoint the Madam again,” she says.

  When she lets go of my hand, I crumple to the ground, my strength and my resolve flooding out of me all at once. The tires crackle as the car rolls away, and I squeeze my eyes shut trying to erase the vision of my brother sitting in that chair, broken but unwavering in his purpose of protecting the location of the map.

  And now I have to betray him—and the man I love—to save them all.

  “Evangeline!” I hear in the distance, but I decide it must be a dream, so I keep my eyes shut.

  I don’t want to wake up now, because the nightmare doesn’t just exist when I sleep. “Evangeline!”

  “Benedict?” I whisper, but it’s too late. Pain, exhaustion and fear pull me under as strong, sturdy arms scoop me up, my head cradled into a warm chest.

  “It’s okay, angel,” he says. “You’re safe.”

  But we’re not. We never were. So I’ll do what I have to do to save Jasper’s life—to save all of them—even if it means losing Benedict for good.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Benedict

  “BENEDICT, BENEDICT. IS it really you?” Evangeline burrows deeper into my chest, murmuring my name over and over like a prayer.

  “I am here, angel.” I kiss the top of her head, inhaling her sweet scent. “I’m right here. Everything is going to be all right. We’re back together.”

  “No!” She gasps. “Nothing is ever going to be all right ever again!” Her eyes are unfocused. Her cheekbones have been slashed by brambles, and there’s a sickening bruise on one temple. “The whole world feels on fire. All dreams nothing but fire and ash.” And with that her body goes limp as the darkness again consumes her.

  A crow calls somewhere deep in the forest. I shudder. In our country, the crow is an omen of death and dying.

  I step off the road in favor of the tree cove, my feet padding the detritus fallen from the towering pines. The air is thick with sap warming in the dappled shafts of sunlight slicing through the ancient branches. This place feels primeval, beyond time and almost holy.

  A branch cracks, and a frisson of awareness skims my skin. We are not alone.

  I turn, ready to fight to protect the beautiful woman who lies unconscious in my arms.

  “X!” My shoulders slump at the sight of my guard. “Jesus Christ, am I glad to see you.”

  He raises a brow, the man looking relaxed and ready for a night on the town, no worse for the wear after jumping from a speeding train. “Thought you weren’t supposed to commit blasphemy.”

  I narrow my gaze. “Today I have busted a woman out of prison via zip line, taken part in a high-speed chase in a luxury vehicle and held on as said car broke through guard rails and landed on top of a commuter train. Oh, and then I jumped off that train to avoid being decapitated by a mountain tunnel. I believe the Holy Spirit is willing to cut me some slack given the circumstances.”

  X’s broad shoulders shake with a rumble of soft laughter as he passes a hand over the top of his head, removing a stray pinecone. “Fair enough.”

  “Two questions,” I say. “How do you look as if you’ve merely been out on a stroll, and where is Camille?”

  X ignores the first question and answers the second. “Camille has been picked up by friends from The Order. She will be taken to a safe house while we attempt to locate the daughter in the orphanage.”

  Evangeline gasps.

  My eyes widen. The men and women of shadow. Secret assassins and ancient defenders of the secrets of our realm.

  “You heard a crow earlier. That was the signal she had been located. The crow is their symbol.”

  “The symbol of death?”

  “For their enemies. And also themselves. They must kill off the parts that know fear.”

  I glance through the underbrush. Are these secret soldiers watching us even now?

  “It is just us here,” X says, cuing into my thoughts. “No easy solution like a safe house for a member of the royal blood, I am afraid. But not to worry. Help is on the way—or at least will be once I fetch the chopper.”

  “A helicopter?”

  X cracks his neck. “My apologies, Highness, but there isn’t time to explain. Four hundred meters down the hill you will run into a stream. Follow it for a kilometer, and at the junction look up. You will see a small cave. It is one that hermit monks once used as a shelter to avoid the temptations of the world. You will find it stocked with medical supplies to tend to Evangeline, food and a warm bed. Look to the west when the last light of the sun falls. I will come for you. You and Evangeline will be safe within the palace walls well before midnight.”

  Evangeline

  I bolt upright in bed and cry out, my cheek burning with pain. A hand reaches for me, and I swat it away, expecting to see the word hate tattooed across knuckles about to make contact with my skin.

  “Evangeline!”

  I’m not strong enough to fight him off as his hand wraps around my wrist, and that’s when my vision clears. I’m not being held captive in that limousine anymore.

  “Benedict,” I say, and I stop struggling. “I wasn’t dreaming.”

  He shakes his head, but his emerald eyes are a storm of worry. “You’re okay, angel. But I think the jump was the hardest on you.”

  He reaches gingerly for my face with his other hand, a hand that holds a cotton swab doused in some sort of liquid.

  “I thought I could clean the wound while you were unconscious, that I could spare you the pain. I’m sorry to have startled you.”

  Even though I know it’s coming now, I still wince.

  He pauses. “You took quite a beating out there,” he says with a forced smile.

  I close my eyes and nod, bracing myself for the sting. With it comes the reminder of what really did happen out there—and that I cannot tell him any of it.

  I take a shuddering breath as he swipes the cotton across my skin. Tears stream from the corners of my closed eyes, and almost as quickly as they begin, I feel Benedict’s lips kissing them away.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry.” He drops the cotton onto a tray beside the bed.

  I blink and take in my surroundings, realizing we are not at the palace.

  “What is this place?” I ask, voice trembling. “Where are we? Are they still looking for us? What...what about Camille? And X?”

  “Shh,” he whispers. “We’re safe. X led us here, and he’ll return this evening to take us home. Camille is on her way to be reunited with Lola. Everyone is okay.”

  Benedict tucks my hair behind my ear and swipes at a falling tear. I exhale, daring to let my shoulders relax.

  “Everyone’s okay?” I ask, remembering the one person who isn’t.

  Jasper.

  He nods, but his brows pull together. “I thought—” His mouth clamps shut, the muscle pulsing along his jaw. “I thought I might lose you,” he says, his voice rough.

  You will, I think, and swallow a sob. It is the last thing I want and yet the only way to make sure Jasper lives. That all of us do.

  “I’m right here,” I say, because whatever time we have left together, I want to give him my full attention—to give him whatever he needs. Because despite what must happen when we get to the palace, I love him.

  I slide back to rest against the headboard of the bed, hissing as I put pressure on my leg.

  “What is it?” he asks, his eyes wide with alarm.

  “My knee,” I tell him. “I twisted it when I landed.”

  He pulls away the blanket. “Jesus,” he whispers. “You need help. The swelling is bad.”

  I nod. “I know. And did you just take the Lord’s name in vain?” I ask, trying to smile.

  He lets out a bitter laugh. “Yes. And it’s not the first time today.” He moves to the button on my jeans
, and I gasp.

  “What...what are you doing?”

  He continues his movement as he speaks, pulling down my zipper. “I grew up with two brothers,” he says. “I know enough about sprains and breaks to be able to determine how serious the injury is. I’m not sure how to get X here with the helicopter any quicker, but if we need to get you to a hospital, we’ll find a way.”

  “No!” I cry, knowing that if I don’t complete my task tonight that Jasper may not be alive tomorrow. “No hospitals—not until we know they’re not looking for us anymore.” The lie comes so easily, but I know to tell him any of this would be to risk his life as well as my brother’s.

  I cooperate, though, as he tugs my pants over my hips and to my ankles. He must have already removed my shoes, because a second later my jeans are on the cave floor.

  His brows pull together, and he rests a warm hand on my knee. I squeeze my eyes shut, too scared to look.

  Benedict’s relief is in his voice. “Nothing looks out of alignment.” I open one eye to peek at him...and at the swelling. “Can you bend it?”

  I slide my heel just enough to raise my knee off the bed, biting the inside of my cheek to keep from crying out. But I can move it. That has to be a good sign.

  He leans over and kisses the bruised skin. “It needs ice,” he says against me. “We won’t be able to tell much more until the swelling goes down, and I worry that we won’t be able to tend to it for some time.”

  I touch his face, his stubble scratching my palm, and finally let the tiniest bit of relief flood through me.

  “I thought I’d lost you, too,” I tell him. “You made sure everyone else got out of the car first. We were so close to the tunnel. I didn’t think there was enough time—”

  He crawls up beside me and kisses me, soft at first and then with a fierceness that tells me that whatever’s been happening between us this past week, we’ve crossed over a threshold today, and I’m not sure we can go back.

  “I’m right here,” he says, echoing what I said to him.