Saving the Princess

by Helena Newbury

  He scowled at me. “Son, if I’d heard you’d had this kind of problem and you hadn’t stopped in here, I’da whupped your ass.” He looked at me for a long time. “Sure is good to see you.”

  And suddenly all the tension between us was back. I wanted to explain why I’d been away so long. I wanted him to know I hadn’t abandoned him. I just hadn’t been able to face him, after getting discharged. I’d felt like a damn failure. And then the flashbacks, and being unable to hold down a job. How could I explain all that? He’d managed a whole career in the marines without ever suffering PTSD or anything like it.

  After dinner. I’d talk to him after dinner. For now, I just nodded. “You too, dad.”

  Dinner was steak the way it should be, a slab that fell thick and heavy to your plate, charred lines crispy and tangy on the outside, the meat juicy, pink and full of flavor on the inside. Nestled up against a mountain of creamy mashed potatoes and the whole thing drowned in rich gravy. The Princess’s eyes widened as her plate was set before her, but she proceeded to devour the whole thing. “Don’t they feed you, where you come from?” asked Dad.

  “Not like this! It’s amazing, thank you!” She looked at me. “You may have to roll me home.” It was strange, hearing the smooth glass of her accent in the farmhouse I’d grown up in, where everything is rough-edged and functional. It didn’t fit... and yet, in some ways, it felt right at home.

  My dad chatted with the Princess as easily as if she was some long-lost daughter, telling her about the ranch and what I was like growing up. It was relaxed and...you know, warm, like any family meal. But it made the Princess grin and her eyes go bright with wonder...almost as if she didn’t have that warmth, back in Lakovia.

  Since Dad and I had cooked, the Princess insisted on washing up, despite our protests. She roped Jakov, Emerik and Caroline in to help and they formed a production line. Dad and I leaned against the door frame and peeked in.

  The Princess rolled up her sleeves, filled a bowl with hot water... and then carefully read the instructions on the back of the dish soap. It hit me that she’d never washed dishes before. Not once. She’d only ever seen people do it in commercials. But she was trying. She’d been attacked, shot at, sucked out of a plane, she’d endured hundreds of miles in a pickup truck... anyone else would have curled up into a ball and cried, or flounced off to her room and treated us like servants. But she was still going and still treating us like equals. That’s what makes her a princess.

  I felt that swell again in my chest, that feeling like a flag being caught by the wind. She was someone I’d follow into battle. “We can’t let anything happen to her,” I mumbled, my throat tight with emotion.

  When I glanced at my dad, he was giving me the same look he’d given me back in high school, when I’d told him about Katie Wagner in my math class.

  “It ain’t like that,” I told him, pulling him away from the kitchen so they wouldn’t hear us.

  “The hell it ain’t. I saw the way you were looking at her. Saw the way she was looking at you.”

  I flushed right down the back of my neck. “I’m not the sort of guy she should be with. She’s royalty.”

  “Maybe you should trust her to judge for herself.”

  “She doesn’t know enough about me to judge! If she knew—”

  Dad crossed his arms and waited.

  I wanted to tell him. I wanted to tell him about the desert and Baker and Felton and Martinez and Drummond. I wanted to tell him about the guilt. I wanted to tell him about the flashbacks and ask if he’d ever had anything like that. But I couldn’t. He was my dad. I wanted him to be proud of me.

  So I walked away.

  He’d kept my old room, hoping I’d come back. Even my damn framed football jersey was still hanging on the wall. I’d been a linebacker in high school. That whole small-town life came flooding back to me: harvest time and the state fair and trips to Gold Lake to see the rodeo. Good times. And so utterly different to what her childhood must have been like. Where do princesses go to school? Some place in Switzerland surrounded by the children of presidents and sheikhs?

  We had nothing in common. Dad was wrong.

  A wave of guilt hit me as soon as I thought of him. I had to talk to him. Hell, if I couldn’t tell him what happened in the desert, I at least had to tell him I loved him. But talking’s not my strong point. Tomorrow. First thing.

  We’d agreed over dinner that he and Jakov would take the first watch and Emerik and me the second. I’d barely slept in three days: a few hours on the plane, then a couple of hours at the motel the night before. I changed the dressing on the wound on my leg, then flopped onto my bed and immediately fell into a troubled sleep. I woke up still feeling sand scouring my face and smelling blood on the wind.

  I stumbled out into the darkened hallway. Jakov was standing right in front of the Princess’s door, so motionless that he looked like a huge granite statue. Only his eyes moved, scanning the hallway constantly. He gave me a cheerful grin when he saw me and it made my stomach knot. He still had no idea I suspected him.

  My dad clapped me on the shoulder and then, as Jakov wandered off to bed, he nodded towards him and shook his head. He hadn’t seen him do anything suspicious. Was I wrong? Or was Jakov just biding his time?

  Emerik arrived. His suit was as immaculate as always, his shirt gleaming in the darkness. Does he sleep in that thing? We settled in for our shift. This time, though, I couldn’t resist silently cracking open the door and checking on the Princess. She was sleeping peacefully, chestnut hair trailing down over the edge of the bed, one arm thrown up over her head.

  When I turned back to Emerik, he was scowling at me. He’d been a lot less of a pain in the ass, since we’d had our run-in at the diner. But whenever he saw me looking at her, he went right back to hating me. I sighed and looked away.

  Then, in the darkness, I heard, “I only want to protect her.”

  I turned that over in my mind. Thought about how attached to her he must have gotten, guarding her since she was a child. I softened towards him a little more. “I’d never hurt her,” I muttered.

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  I felt my shoulders rise defensively. I was glad of the darkness because I could feel my damn neck going red. “Yeah, well don’t worry. I know my place.”

  “It’s not that simple,” said Emerik. “I think her highness has feelings for you.”

  I tried to let nothing show. But inside, I could feel my heart slamming in my chest like I was some kid in high school being told the head cheerleader was sweet on him. Even though I knew nothing could ever happen. I grunted. I was going to leave it at that, but I didn’t like the way he was babying her. She was the smartest, bravest woman I’d ever known: why did he think she needed him watching out for her? “Even if that’s true, I figure she can make her own decisions,” I muttered.

  Emerik gave a frustrated sigh. “Don’t you understand? She’s a princess! Unmarried!”

  “I know what she is.”

  He was getting more and more worked up. “Lakovia is a deeply traditional country. A princess, until she’s married, remains….” He’d gone red. “You know….”

  I just looked at him blankly.

  He waved his hand at me, exasperated. “You’re treading on unbroken snow.”

  I opened my mouth to tell him I had no idea what he was talking about.

  And that’s when I heard her scream.

  21

  Kristina

  Blind panic.

  I was alone in thick, suffocating darkness, my fingernails cracking and splintering as I clawed at the rough wood of the door. If I focused hard enough, strained my eyes, maybe they’d adjust. Maybe I’d at least be able to see something. But there was no light at all in this place. Nothing except rough wood and cold stone. I was gasping, hyperventilating—

  And then there was something warm. Big hands, cupping my shoulders. A voice that didn’t belong to them, low and rough and yet sweet like honey. A
voice I recognized. “Your Highness!”

  But the fear had me. I was a scared girl locked in a tiny room—

  “Kristina!”

  My eyes opened. The lights were off, but after the darkness of the nightmare, the moonlight streaming in through the window made it seem like noon. It silhouetted Garrett as he hunkered down over my bed, his chest only a foot from mine, his lips inches away.

  “Nightmare,” he told me. But he didn’t say it was only a nightmare, like my mother would have. He said it with the sympathy of someone who knew their power. He said it with his voice choked with anger and worry at what I was going through.

  And suddenly I was clinging to him, my arms wrapped around him, my body pressed to his. My back was up off the bed and I hung from him, but he took my weight easily, not budging even an inch. He just pressed his stubbled cheek to my neck and held me tight.

  But even he couldn’t change the past and the memories were still owning me, wrapping around me like tendrils and tugging me down into the darkness. It wasn’t okay because it really happened, it could happen again oh God, if we go to war, it could happen again— I could still feel the horrific closeness of the stone walls around me and it made me want to scream. I was panting, sweating, breathing so hard I was barely aware of the tears running down my cheeks.

  My body was tight against him, but it wasn’t sexual: this was far beyond that. I needed him. I just knew, on a gut level, that he was the one person who could protect me. And he was the one person who’d understand what fear like this was like. He’d understand that I was so scared I couldn’t move or speak. He’d understand that he had to get me out of it because I couldn’t on my own.

  And he did.

  Those big hands scooped me up and cradled me like a child and then we were walking through the bedroom door and out into the hallway. I heard someone step aside—Emerik? —but Garrett ignored him, just kept walking, carrying me as if I weighed nothing. Down the stairs. Out of the back door and into….

  I drew in my breath as the cool night air hit us. I was soaked in sweat, the thin nightgown plastered to my body, and it should have felt freezing. But just being in the open air, able to breathe again, felt so good. And he didn’t allow me to become cold: his thick biceps pressed into me and his strong chest was like a warm wall against me. It was better, but I still couldn’t stop panting, couldn’t shake the fear’s grip.

  I could hear the scrunch of him plodding through the grass. I knew the wound on his leg must be hurting him, but his stride never faltered. We passed a big building to one side: a barn? And then we came to a long, low building. No lights were on inside. Where was he taking me?

  He shifted me to one arm while he opened the door, then carried me inside. “I know what you need,” he muttered, and took me further into the gloom.

  He gently let me down and I felt straw under my bare feet, scratchy and soft. In the moonlight I could just make out a big, rounded shape in front of us. What’s... Where’s he brought me?

  He took my hand in his and guided it. My palm touched soft hair and then a solid, warm body. A body that shifted under my touch. And then I heard it snort and toss its head.

  Horses.

  22

  Garrett

  I didn’t know if it would work. I was going off gut instinct and what worked for me.

  After the desert, when I’d come back here for a spell, I’d found the horses were better than a thousand therapists. I only had to lay my hand on one and the pain and anger seemed to drop back a little inside me.

  And I could feel it working for her, too. I still had my body pressed against hers from behind because I wasn’t sure how steady she was on her feet. I could feel the tension in her muscles slowly ease as she calmed. I didn’t say anything. Sometimes, nothing’s all that needs to be said.

  I put my hand between her shoulder blades and felt her breathing slow. But it was still too early to talk about it. She needed to get well clear of the fear, so it didn’t grab her again. So I said, “Always did prefer horses to people. Most folk, anyway. Horses don’t need you to talk to them.”

  She turned a little, laid her cheek on the horse’s back and let out a long sigh. She reached up along his neck and scratched him just right, just where they really like it, and he gave a little snort of pleasure. “Horses are loyal,” she told me. Her voice was still shaky, but it was getting stronger. “They’ll never stab you in the back, or manipulate you, or cut you up in the press.”

  I frowned. It felt like she knew horses, but how could that be? Horses, in my mind, were for country folks. Rich folks don’t like getting their hands dirty. And royalty: didn’t they just go from air-conditioned jet to air-conditioned limo?

  She glanced up and caught my look. “I love horses,” she said softly. “I used to ride, until my mother said it was too undignified.”

  Well, I’ll be. Maybe we did have something in common.

  She looked up at me, her cheek still pressed to the horse’s back. “Thank you,” she said. “I feel better.”

  And then suddenly she wouldn’t meet my eyes. I knew that feeling, the shame that follows a flashback or a nightmare. She was feeling exactly like I did after I froze in the motel. “Hey,” I told her, taking that delicate chin in my hand and turning her to look at me. “You don’t have to be embarrassed.” She looked doubtful, then tried to turn away again. “Look, you already figured out... I got some of that stuff in my head too. From the war.”

  When I said the last word, she looked right at me, eyes huge and liquid.

  Aw, hell. I’d known that was a rough time for her country but I’d imagined she’d been protected, locked away in a palace miles from the front. “Something happened to you, didn’t it? In the war with Garmania?”

  She gave a jerky nod.

  Before I knew it, my hands were on her shoulders, pulling her trembling body against mine. Her breasts were pressed against my chest and that soaked, filmy nightdress might as well have been tissue paper. But it wasn’t about wanting her, right then. It was about something deeper, truer. It was about letting her know she was safe, now.

  I cursed whoever had hurt her. I wanted to run off and find them and tear every one of them apart with guns and knives and my bare hands. I was good at that stuff.

  But it wasn’t that easy. She didn’t need a soldier.

  What she needed was something I wasn’t any good at. But if I wanted to help her, I had to do it anyway. I pressed my chin into the top of her head. “You want to talk about it?”

  I felt her nod. Then, “But I need to be outside. This place is too dark. Too small.” She hesitated. “But it’s going to be too cold out there. And I don’t want to be back in the house, where people will hear.”

  I rubbed my hands over her shoulders. “I know a place.”

  I took her by the hand and led her out across the field to the barn. Held the ladder for her while she climbed up into the hayloft. It was mostly empty, a cavernous space, but sheltered from the wind. Moonlight trickled in through a million little gaps and chinks between the wooden boards and tiles. She looked around in wonder and then nodded. Perfect.

  I sat down with my back against a hay bale. She came and sat between my legs, her back against my chest.

  And she told me what happened in the war.

  23

  Kristina

  My mind couldn’t go there, at first. Even with Garrett’s comforting warmth against my back, even with the pinpricks of starlight shining in through the cracks in the roof, reminding me that I was above ground. I had to work up to it.

  “There was a time when I loved being a princess,” I said. “I mean, every little girl wants to be a princess. Can you imagine actually living in a palace? The dresses? It was wonderful. Magical. As I got older, it got harder. Being a teenager’s rough anyway, but when the press are analyzing every little thing you do: have you gained weight, have you lost weight, is your make-up perfect, have you kissed a boy....my mother protected me from the worst of
it but she couldn’t stop it completely. And I still got hate mail. Do you know what it’s like, at fourteen, to get a tweet saying you’re a disgusting whore and you should just fucking die? And the fan mail, some of that was even worse. Men two, three times my age who started off saying I was pretty, but then they’d get into….” I shuddered. Garrett wrapped his arms around me, his biceps going hard against me in his rage.

  “The war started when I was eighteen. We knew Garmania’s new president was a hard-liner, but we never expected them to invade. It just all happened so fast: troops swarmed across our borders, tanks rolled into our cities. Then the shelling started. At first we assumed other countries would do something. I remember my father making phone calls all through the night, talking to the UN. To Britain. France. But they didn’t want to get caught up in a foreign war. Then he called your president, begging. But he was told no.”

  Garrett didn’t say anything but I could feel the wave of shame that rippled through him. I didn’t blame him, or the US. Even the countries closest to us hadn’t wanted to get involved.

  “By the time we managed to counterattack, Garmania had already taken a huge portion of our country. Our army was more powerful but theirs was dug in, now. They couldn’t move forward, but we couldn’t move them back. It turned into a brutal, messy war. Towns captured and occupied. Hospitals running out of medical supplies, people starving. After nearly a year, it was still going on. We’d gone from being a rich country to one where people were sleeping in the rubble and washing in the water from broken pipes. In the cities further away from the front, people were trying to live their lives as normal: go to work, go to school... but every night there’d be air raids, apartment blocks just... gone, hundreds of people just wiped from the face of the earth. You can’t live like that. No one can.”