A Guiding Light_A Royal States Novel

by Susan Copperfield

  “Marshal?”

  “What?”

  Levity wouldn’t change anything, but if I didn’t find something to laugh about, I’d take a dive into an anxiety attack, fly into a blind rage, or both. Veronica’s safety took the top spot of my worries with Marshal’s safety coming a close second. What their father had done would ultimately lead to my undoing in one way or another. If I didn’t put a lid on it, Veronica would sense it through my talent, and not even two suppressors would prevent her from detecting my unease, pain, and worry. “We’re not going to tell your sister we cut through a lingerie store while leaving a mall that happens to be burning down, all right?”

  “It’d be better if we had time to stop and pick something out for her.”

  I halted, turned around, and regarded the store with narrowed eyes. “I could leave cash on the counter with the tag.”

  “Adam!”

  “What? It’s true. I have cash in my wallet.”

  “The mall is burning down. You’re not supposed to be trying to bribe your way into my sister’s good graces.”

  I regarded Veronica’s little brother with an arched brow. “When she finds out what happened here, I’m going to need every bribe I can get my hands on.”

  “Try an engagement ring. That’ll distract her.”

  “So don’t just move straight to the wedding bands?”

  “That might work. You better get on your knees either way. That might help.”

  I nudged Marshal down the hallway away from the lingerie store. I gave the jewelry stores a wide berth, too. “What does it say about me that I’m seriously considering taking a look at rings while the mall is burning down?”

  “You love my sister.”

  I did. That, too, would be my undoing. “Guilty as charged.”

  “I’ll help you pick up a ring for her. She wears a size six.”

  “And how do you know that?” I blurted. Inhaling a lungful of smoke triggered a coughing fit, and I gave Marshal a push to get him on the move.

  “I borrowed the measuring kit and was playing with her hands. I measured her left ring finger for you, as I knew you’d need it. She just thought I was being silly and had a new toy to play with.”

  “You’re a tricky one.”

  “It’s easy to trick people when you play to their expectations.”

  That was a lesson of politics I wished I could forget. Ian’s jacket bore permanent reminders of what happened when I willfully ignored my expectations. Only luck had saved me or Marshal from a quick, messy death, and I wouldn’t forget that anytime soon.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Hiding behind some dumpsters, which reeked so much I considered returning into the mall to deal with the smoke instead, was not how I wanted to spend my day. I expected my leg would become infected just from proximity exposure to the filth.

  “I can’t believe you hide here,” I muttered, swallowing so I wouldn’t gag.

  “No one thinks to look here.”

  “That’s because they don’t want to die of plague, Marshal.”

  The young prince looked under the rusted metal bins. “I don’t see any rats. Don’t there need to be rats for there to be plague? Well, fleas. No rats means no fleas, which means you’re not going to die from plague. Don’t wuss out on me now, Adam.”

  My phone rang, sparing me from having to convince Veronica’s brother there was a difference between wussing out and losing my leg to some horrific infection thanks to hiding behind the nastiest dumpsters North Dakota had to offer. I checked the display, confirmed it came from a Montana phone number, and answered the call. I lifted a finger to keep Marshal quiet and listened.

  “Mr. Smith, this Fredrick Oliver from the Montana RPS dispatch. We are actively doing a trace of your phone so you can rendezvous with your agents. They are men dressed in casual clothing. One is an older gentleman with gray hair. His partner is almost as tall as you are, and he looks like he is fresh from a cattle drive. He is wearing black cowboy boots decorated with silver beadwork. They should be distinctive. They are driving a blue four-door pickup. Please hold for additional information.”

  I had no idea what was involved with tracking a phone, but I hoped the RPS would hurry so I’d limit the time I had to spent crouched behind a damned dumpster. The next time Marshal suggested hiding places, I’d make a list of requirements. A stench-free spot would come second only to low contagion risks. I expected those two requirements left a lot of unpleasant places to hide, but maybe I’d avoid throwing up or dying from infection.

  “There is a transport dock not far from you, Mr. Smith. Your agents will be there within the next five minutes. They will back their vehicle into first bay. Both back doors will be unlocked. They will be waiting at the vehicle ready to cover you if necessary. Be careful.”

  He hung up, and I pocketed my phone. “The transport docking bay. Know where it is?”

  Marshal pointed behind me. “You climb over that wall, cross part of the parking lot, and there’s a drop off to reach the bays. It used to be gated, but they’re replacing the fence, so it’s easy to access right now.”

  “Lucky for us,” I muttered.

  “Your leg hurts, doesn’t it?”

  I regarded my slacks with a resigned sigh. As I refused to lie to him, I replied, “It’s not pleasant.”

  “I figured. You’re snappy, and I’m pretty sure I heard you cursing in the mall, and I don’t think it was because you couldn’t buy my sister new panties.”

  “You’ve discovered girls don’t have cooties, haven’t you?”

  “If you catch Veronica’s cooties, I get a little niece or nephew to corrupt. I’m looking on the bright side of things right now.”

  I wondered how much of Marshal’s calm handling of the situation was thanks to his talent, which forced him to come to terms with future realities. In his shoes, did losing only his mother make his grief easier to bear? His brothers and sisters would live—if his talent hadn’t led him astray.

  Some questions I couldn’t ask, although I knew a woman who could—and a woman who might be able to spare him from a talent no child should have to endure. Dr. Stanton had eased the burden of my talent without eradicating it. Separation had dulled Veronica’s presence to a mild awareness, an unease I could ignore and hide from her brother. I wasn’t certain if she was the source of my unease or if the separation from her caused it, but the reassurance she wasn’t some figment of my imagination held me together like nothing else could.

  “Once this is over, we’ll go to a jewelry store, and maybe I can see about working on that request for you. Just try to limit your corruptions to something I can contain.”

  “Where’s the fun in that?”

  I sighed.

  Climbing over the wall proved too much for my leg, so I went around until I could slide over, cussing every step of the way. Marshal followed, fidgeting whenever my limp slowed us down. I swallowed back the urge to apologize to him, which I feared would do more harm than good.

  Had I been able to move at something faster than a turtle’s crawl, we might’ve made the rendezvous on time—and not run into trouble halfway across the parking lot. I recognized the RPS agent who’d been with His Royal Majesty of North Dakota at the same time he spotted us.

  Reaching for his holster confirmed the worst of my fears, and breaking every single rule Peter had tried to teach me, I pulled the weapon he’d loaned me, flicked off the safety as I’d been taught, and prayed for beginner’s luck. Aware the RPS wore bulletproof vests, my only hope was to hit him in the head, and I aimed for between his eyes.

  I wasn’t certain what the agent expected, but me armed with a gun wasn’t it, judging from how his eyes widened in surprise, his attention fixed on my weapon rather than his target.

  I didn’t know a whole lot about guns, but I recognized when one wasn’t pointed at me.

  It took a frighteningly light squeeze of the trigger to fire the handgun. In the movies, gunfire was loud but not deafening, and m
y ears rang at the concussive discharge. The handgun bucked in my grip, although my white-knuckled grip prevented me from dropping the weapon.

  A second shot rang out, and Marshal yelped. Asphalt pelted against my legs, stinging despite the protection of my slacks.

  The RPS agent collapsed in a spray of blood.

  Marshal grabbed my arm and yanked. “The bay,” he ordered.

  I staggered, caught my balance, and grunted as he forced me to put my full weight on my injured leg. Pain stunned me almost as much as the realization I’d just killed someone.

  “Adam,” Marshal hissed, yanking on my arm. “We need to go. Where there’s one, there’s another.”

  Without him dragging me, I likely would’ve remained frozen, staring at the twitching body on the ground. Did twenty feet count as point-blank range? My hands shook, but I remembered Peter’s second lesson: if I had to fire the weapon, I needed to turn the safety back on and holster the weapon.

  Only by some miracle did I manage to return the weapon to its proper place without dropping it.

  “Adam.” Marshal jerked on my arm again. “We need to go.”

  I sucked in a breath, nodded, and followed him, pretending every step wasn’t a test to see if I could keep on my feet.

  I’d killed someone, and I hadn’t put any thought into it. I had seen the weapon, identified the man as one of the king’s RPS agents, and I’d done the only thing I could. I’d gone for the one weapon at my disposal.

  How the hell had I hit my target? Peter had warned me unless I was up close and personal with the person I wanted to kill, the gun was more likely to hurt a bystander than the person I needed to kill. Squeezing the trigger had been too easy.

  It took so little to kill someone. From the moment I’d spotted the RPS agent aiming at Marshal, it’d only taken a few breaths to draw my weapon and fire. The distance between life and death had been measured in seconds and approximately twenty feet.

  We survived the rest of the hike across the parking lot, and I glared at the pile of construction materials I’d have to scramble over to reach the docking bay. While there was no fence, true to Marshal’s claim, debris discouraged the sensible, and I sighed at the thought of trying to climb anything.

  Going around would make us an easier target, so I went to work, bracing for the worst.

  It hurt like hell, but traversing the pile went better than I expected. A bright blue pickup waited, and the agent fresh from the range was out of the vehicle. Without his help, I likely would have smacked hard into the pavement.

  “William sent us. We heard shots fired. Any hits?”

  I relaxed at the confirmation the pair was part of the Montana RPS. With no other choice, I faced what I’d done. “One of the king’s agents pulled a gun on Marshal. I shot him.”

  “Nailed the asshole right between the eyes, too,” Marshal said, yanking open one of the back doors and jumping so he could get into the vehicle. “He’s pretty pacifistic by nature, so you might want to take his gun. One of Ian’s agents gave it to him.”

  “So dispatch warned us. Mr. Smith?”

  Since I wasn’t enthused about the idea of wiggling out of the holster, I drew and handed over the weapon before joining Marshal in the back of the truck. “If I never have to use one of those again, I’d be all right with that.”

  The agent took the weapon, nodded, and closed the back door, circled the truck, and took the front passenger seat. “I’m Daniel Porter, and my partner is Jack Lewis. We’re you’re assigned agents for the foreseeable future. Dispatch is in process of finding two agents for you, Prince Marshal. Until then, you’ll be with us. As such, stay close to Mr. Smith unless there are trusted agents who can take over your protection.”

  “But there’s only two of you,” the prince replied, reaching over me to grab the seatbelt out of my hand. “You’ll just make it hurt more, stupid.”

  While I was supposed to be the adult, I wished I could be as unflappable as Marshal. I blamed his talent for his ability to handle so much.

  I doubted I would’ve handled it so well if I dreamed of my family dying night after night.

  “You removed the vest?”

  “We left it in the mall. Sorry,” Prince Marshal replied. “He took a lot of rounds, most of them in the chest, but he got in a shot or two against his back, too. His leg’s not too bad, a deep graze from what I saw of it. It might need stitches, but we wrapped it.”

  “You did fine,” Daniel replied. “Once we’re at a safe location, we’ll handle any first aid treatments you need. We have a kit, and we’ve already been made aware Mr. Smith has a physician. Once she’s cleared by the Montana RPS, it’s probable we’ll extend an invitation to join us.”

  When Dr. Stanton found out I’d been shot by the king, she was as likely to kill me as she was to treat me, but I deserved her wrath, so I kept my mouth shut. If Dr. Stanton let me live, Veronica would be next in line for a piece of me, and only the fact she was busy storming the castle kept me from facing her first.

  All I could do was hope the suppressors had mitigated most of the incident at the mall, buying me time to figure out how best to break the news that her father had tried to murder me and her brother.

  Cabins deep in the wilderness made excellent hiding places, and I understood the need for a truck within five minutes of leaving the highway. A regular car would’ve gotten stuck attempting the trip, which went over some of North Dakota’s more rugged landscape. It never failed to amaze me how barren wastelands skirted thriving forests, separated by a thirty-minute drive.

  The cabin challenged my conceptions of what I thought cabins should be, a two-story affair made of logs but seemed fit for royalty. I frowned, wondering who maintained the place, which had a freshly mowed lawn and beds of flowers without a single dead blossom in sight. “Who owns this cabin?”

  Daniel twisted around in his seat to face me. “His Royal Majesty of Montana. He has properties in most kingdoms, which we use as our bases of operations. Four Montana RPS agents typically reside in the Fargo area at a time. We’re considered diplomatic liaisons, although our jobs are more complex than that.”

  “You two live here?”

  “No. We’re imports. We flew in by helicopter last night, where we met with the local agents, acquired the truck, and scouted the three cabins available. We’re using this one as it’s harder to get to. His Royal Majesty of North Dakota hasn’t been here before, and the lack of official roads helps keep the location obscure.”

  “How many laws are we breaking doing this?” I sighed, unbuckled my seatbelt, and eased out of the truck, careful to avoid putting any weight on my injured leg. “How is Dr. Stanton going to get here?”

  “One of the local agents is going to get her. They’re handling the matter of calling in your physician so we can focus on the immediate problems, including tending to your leg.”

  Before anyone could drag, carry, or otherwise help me, I limped towards the front door. Marshal ran down the walkway, pausing to stare at the agents.

  “It’s unlocked,” Daniel said, following me close enough he could save me from crashing into the ground if I fell. “We were warned you had a tendency to be stubborn at the worst times.”

  I glanced at the runaway rancher, taking a few moments to decide how I wanted to handle him. “From the looks of you, you deal with horses or cattle. Does that mean this is a pot meet kettle affair?”

  Daniel grinned. “I may have been selected to be part of your detail for that reason. Jack was selected because he’s young, spry, enjoys the challenge of unpredictable talents, and has a promising career ahead of him. As I do enjoy my work on the ranch, he’s the one who’ll likely be saddled with being the head of your detail.”

  Agent Lewis sighed, opened the door, and gestured for us to go inside. “Normally, we’d be doing a sweep of the property, but we have full video monitoring.”

  “You trust in video monitoring?” I blurted, pointing at Marshal. “You’re going to lose him wit
hin an hour.”

  The young prince snickered and bounced inside the cabin. “My father and his goons don’t have the talent, and it’s no use. If I want to hide, I will. They only have to take their attention off me for a moment.”

  The RPS agents sighed, and Jack followed Marshal inside. “Please refrain from using your talent unless it’s in self-defense, Your Highness.”

  Like Ian’s rental property, the cabin opened into a spacious sitting room with an eclectic blend of rustic and modern comforts. Daniel gestured to the leather couch, which I expected to ruin within the next few minutes. Recognizing the inevitable, I sank onto the cushion and revealed the bloodied bandage. Both agents grimaced.

  “That’s going to hurt when I remove it,” Daniel warned, and he headed deeper into the cabin, returning several minutes later with a large first-aid kit. He opened the plastic box on the coffee table and began laying out supplies, including gauze, scissors, several knives, ointments, pill bottles, and several syringes.

  I made it halfway to the door before Jack intercepted me wrapped his arm around my bruised chest, and hauled me back to the couch, aided by my leg’s refusal to carry my weight. “It seems the intel we had on his phobia regarding needles is unfortunately accurate.”

  “One is a tetanus shot, one is an antibiotic, and one is a painkiller, and you’re getting all three of them. With your talent, the painkiller is necessary, else Her Royal Highness will be unnecessarily subjected to your pain. Jack, you hold him. I’ll handle the injections.”

  I closed my eyes, flinched, and tensed, and while Jack kept a firm hold on me, pinning me to the couch, I kept still, spitting curses at both men for doing the necessary injections.

  “He doesn’t usually curse,” Marshal observed.

  Snapping my teeth together, I thought my curses, a shameful number of them directed at Veronica’s little brother.