by Madeline Ash
Distress reddened his eyes. “I don’t know what else to do.”
“Love me enough to risk me.”
A tear ran down his cheek and he used the back of her hand to swipe it aside. “I don’t want to. I’m not breaking up with you. I’m keeping you safe.”
Then why did it feel like the opposite? “You can’t.”
Those words seemed to break him. On an agonized groan, he pulled her into his arms. “Don’t say that.”
She let him hold her, but she couldn’t find the strength to lift her arms around him.
He hadn’t taken back his threat to relocate her.
A knock came from the kitchen door and Kris pulled away, running a hand over his face. “What?” he demanded.
Zara poked her head inside. “Guys?” Worry was wide in her eyes, no doubt for Adam. Guilt clamped back down on Frankie’s lungs. “We’re ready for the ceremony. Kris, have you got the rope?”
He cleared his throat and gestured to the bag sitting on the kitchen floor, just inside the door. “It’s in there.”
“Bring it out,” Zara said, and slipped away.
Frankie and Kris didn’t move for several beats. In the small moment of her interruption, his energy had reformed. No longer broken but seething between them, fierce and loyal and snarling.
He wasn’t going to let her stay.
“Would you rather keep me safe,” she said under her breath, “or keep me by your side? Because you can’t have both. If you choose safety and send me away, I’ll never stand by your side again.”
That tore fresh torment across his perfect face.
“No wet socks on this one,” she said.
Then she wiped her cheeks and walked out.
15
The others seemed to sense they’d had a fight, but aside from troubled sideways glances, no one said anything. Which was useful, because the buzzing in Frankie’s ears had morphed into an underwater distortion, and when the ceremony started, she couldn’t make out what anyone was saying.
It didn’t matter. She positioned herself on the far side of the display, ensuring everyone else blocked Kris from view, and kept her face directed at where Mark and Ava sat on silk-cushioned stools exchanging what she assumed were words of devotion.
Under different circumstances, she would have liked to listen. It seemed like a beautiful tradition. An elaborate floor spread was laid out on a pristine white sheet with gold embroidered edges, rich with items to symbolize a happy marriage: flatbread and fresh herbs for prosperity; eggs for fertility; walnuts and almonds and hazelnuts for abundance. Coins and flowers and fruit; honey and spices and books of poetry. Candles were lit, and a large mirror was set before the couple.
You need to leave Kiraly.
It was like he’d poured concrete down her throat.
I can’t have you here.
Set hard in her airways.
I need you to be safe.
Tight and heavy and impassable.
She couldn’t breathe.
What about what she wanted?
Zara was saying something. Mark and Ava poured cardamom tea and drank it from each other’s cups.
Frankie almost turned away when Kris moved up the front with Tommy to fasten Mark and Ava’s hands together with rope from their old ranch. Binding their past, present and futures together.
You’re my future.
Kris swung a pleading glance in her direction. She dodged it—and instead ran into the excruciating likelihood that he would choose her safety. That he would prefer to ensure she had a future than hope she survived to have one with him.
What would she do then?
She’d told Kris she wouldn’t go. But if he ordered it as her prince, as her future king, she’d have no choice but to obey.
Except—
The oath. It became a contradiction. She’d pledged to obey him—to die protecting him. She couldn’t do both if his direct command for her safety went against her vow to uphold his safety. She’d have to decide how to best remain faithful to the crown.
Obey his command and break the most critical part of her oath as a royal guard?
Or uphold it at the risk of insubordination?
Well.
That made it easy.
Her chest still stung. That he’d suggested it at all—threatened to pull strings that only he could pull to reposition her—that wound wouldn’t heal easily.
Then it was her turn. She kept her gaze down as she stood opposite Zara, holding a lace cloth over Mark and Ava as they shared an apple and Gul sprinkled sugar over the cloth to sweeten their union. Standing there, she couldn’t even bring herself to scan for Kris peripherally. She’d struggle to stay upright if she saw his tension, his hurt over their impasse.
Light-headed, she returned to her spot and stared at the rest of the ceremony.
The instant it was over, Peter appeared beside her.
“Ma’am,” he said quietly. “The search warrant’s come through. The authorities are on route.”
Thank God. Something to do.
“I’ll meet them there,” she said, ignoring her unease at leaving the boys in the protection of others. She ran a capable team—the brothers would be safe. As she turned to farewell the heartbreakingly happy couple, Tommy stepped into her path.
His attention was fixed on her face. It didn’t waver as she bumped against him and he clasped a steadying hand around her arm. Then he spoke, and the panic and fear and dread that had been building in her all day finally broke free.
He said, “Where’s Kris?”
Kris unbuttoned the navy-blue guard’s shirt as he strode down the cobbled laneway and shrugged it off. He’d waited a few blocks before glancing over his shoulder, and finding no one on his tail, figured it was safe enough to shed the disguise. The warm night air gusted lightly against his bare arms, and if he’d been in any other mood, he would have smiled.
He honestly hadn’t expected that to work.
After his part in the ceremony, he’d put the rope back in his bag in the kitchen and simply hadn’t returned. He’d changed into the guard’s uniform he’d stashed with the rope, put his phone to the side of his face as if in heavy conversation, and walked right out the rear kitchen door into the alley. Frankie’s extra security tonight had pulled in guards from outside the usual team—and focused on any incoming threat, Kris had gambled they wouldn’t think to keep watch for a prince dressed in uniform slipping out into the night.
The guard wedged between the door and the dumpster hadn’t even shifted position.
Kris quickened his pace, shoving the shirt back in his bag. The royal tailor had sewn it for him when Kris had claimed he wanted to prank his brothers and needed a uniform of the royal guard. Almost a month ago now. He’d actually intended to use it to shake his personal security team once they clued in to his woman-around-the-waist tactic, but then Frankie had shown up and the uniform had gone unused.
Until tonight.
Until Frankie had told him about Adam, and he’d packed it without a second thought.
Until he’d bungled his attempt to get Frankie off Adam’s radar. Dismay had dismantled her trust in him right before his eyes, and he’d realized a loophole in her would you rather question—a shortcut that meant he didn’t have to choose at all—and he’d taken it at a flying leap.
He’d find Adam himself.
He didn’t have much of a plan. When did he ever? He’d knock at Zara and Adam’s apartment. If Adam answered, he’d put the rope to good use and call the authorities. If he didn’t, Kris would try the neighbors and ask if they’d seen anything. Good enough place to start.
Reaching Blueridge Crest, he headed toward Zara’s four-story apartment building half a block up the hill. This was the only solution he had. If he could find Adam, he wouldn’t have to get Frankie the hell away from here. This would all be over.
If he found Adam, he’d pound the guy’s face in.
“Well, lookie here,” a coarse voice said from b
ehind him.
The hairs rose on the back of Kris’s neck and he turned sharply.
“Jackpot, boys.” A barrel-chested man was wandering toward him. He looked normal enough, casual clothes and an average face, if it weren’t for the loathing glittering in his stare. A few more figures took shape behind him.
Jesus Christ. What had he walked into?
“Hey,” Kris said, as a foot scuffed on the road behind him. He shot a glance toward Zara’s apartment building as two shapes emerged from the shadows either side of the entrance.
They were moving in fast.
The man with loathing eyes said, “We have ourselves a Highness.”
Kris adjusted his stance as panic bleated inside him. “What the hell is this?”
“Where’s your pretty bodyguard?” someone asked from his left, and Kris’s stomach turned, before a stringy man from behind said, “Hurry up. We won’t have long.”
Kris glanced around. Five—no, six of them, and for a moment, he saw in double. The brutal grins in front of him—and the cruelty in the eyes of the men who’d come to his ranch for Erik Jaroka’s son. Not the same men, but the intent had endured.
So, this was how Tommy and Jonah had felt. Surrounded. Frightened. Knowing in their bones they were on the brink of violence. This was what Kris had done to them.
Now he’d done it to himself.
His skin was ice as he raised his hands. He might be outnumbered, but he wasn’t going down without a fight. “What do you want?”
“Don’t you worry about that,” the man said, and they set to work.
Frankie ran.
Hardly breathing, muscles tight as a bullet, the alley walls blurring beside her. Her skin smelled bitter with sweat, yet she was chilled to the marrow.
Kris had gone to Zara’s apartment alone.
“Left,” she snapped, and banked up a cut-through. Hanna, Peter, and Gul darted in behind her, nothing but huffs of air and swift footfalls at her back.
Turned out Kris had offered to check on Adam with Zara after the ceremony—so she’d told him her address to pass on to his ever-prepared guards.
He hadn’t passed it on.
“Right.” Frankie threw herself around a narrow splice between buildings and mounted the steps three at a time. Guards from the venue had set out in cars, but they’d take too long. The roads in this architecturally cluttered city were haphazard at best. Half the laneways were too tight for vehicles and many were linked through narrow steps and shortcuts.
Snakes and ladders. All uphill. Faster on foot.
At the top, she hauled ass down a residential street.
This bitch of a day needed to end.
Maybe it was the series of emotional blows it had dealt, or an intense love–fear for Kris that instinctively assumed the worst, or the simple fact that he’d slipped security to aim directly for the home of a man who wanted him dead, but back at the cocktail lounge, Frankie’s composure had finally shattered.
She’d forgotten to pretend she wasn’t terrified.
Her reaction had scared the others. Ava and Zara had rushed in with questions, but she’d barked at her team over their heads. Alarmed, Tommy and Mark had tried to follow her out, but their guards had barred their exit at her order.
Kris. The foolish, desperate, impossible man.
Adrenaline made a whip of her heartbeat, slashing and gouging inside her chest.
More steps. She hurdled over the gate to a community-garden laneway, sprinted out onto Blueridge Crest and struck straight up the hill.
Fixated on reaching Zara’s building, on getting to her unguarded prince, she didn’t immediately notice a black clot in the street’s shadows. Thick with men, thrashing with movement. A fight. Too concentrated; too familiar.
Terror zapped her at high voltage.
Six against one.
Booted feet pulled back and pounded in. Fists dropped. Light grunts wafted downhill.
Her eyes grew hot; her breath ripped in her throat. And that was before she realized Kris’s silhouette on the ground wasn’t moving.
Her pace stumbled.
“I’ll beat you,” Hanna panted from right behind her, a challenge to reset Frankie’s focus.
No, she thought, pulling farther out front. I’m going to beat them.
Silent, she sped so fast up the hill it felt like her burning muscles would shred clean off her legs. Her team were right on her tail.
They punctured the group like a spearhead.
Frankie first, slamming the blade of her hand into the biggest man’s windpipe, and then the others cleaved through in her wake. There were startled shouts, filthy curses. These men weren’t trained fighters. The reaction was sloppy, unskilled. One man started to run—Gul slide-tackled him. Another sped off downhill—and Hanna body-slammed him so he landed face-first and she pressed her foot to the back of his neck to keep him down. Peter delivered a single knockout blow, crackled his knuckles, and started in on the next.
Frankie couldn’t stop her tears. Blind with fear and fury, she grabbed the remaining man’s shirt and delivered several elbow jabs to his face. His nose broke with a crunch and a gush and she finished him with rapid shin strikes to the groin. He dropped right next to Kris.
Kris. His lively face unconscious. Skin messed up, torn open and swelling. Arm at a perverse angle, his white tank bloodied.
Still not moving.
And his shadow, it was a weird shape. No. Not a shadow. Blood. Slipping out from beneath him.
“Kris?” Her knees gave way and she pressed two numb fingers against his neck. Found a pulse. Her other hand shook his shoulder. “Wake up.”
Distantly, she heard Hanna call out over comms for an ambulance.
A movement, and Frankie whipped around to see the big guy with the damaged windpipe staggering up the slope—saw the knife in his hand, and felt her soul break out in a fever.
Too much blood.
She didn’t have her gun; she’d dressed as a guest, not a guard.
“Hanna,” she managed, and pointed.
The man took four more steps before a gunshot echoed off the mountainside. He went down with a scream, clutching at his calf. The knife clattered beside him, the metal blade flashing red and blue light into her eyes. Gut and lungs heaving, Frankie turned back to Kris and vaguely noted the rest of her team pull up, tires screeching, at the same time as the authorities. They’d arrived with a search warrant and found a crime scene.
“Kris.” Her shoulders heaved in panic as she bent over him. “It’s me.”
His head sagged to one side. He was bloodied, bruising, almost definitely broken. I don’t know what else to do, he’d said to her. Not this. She pushed his hair off his forehead and found it clumped, warm with blood. She swallowed a helpless cry. Never this.
It was her fault. She’d given him an impossible choice. Risk her or give her up. Stupid. She knew him too well to think he’d accept either option. This time, she couldn’t blame him for being impulsive or arrogant or overprotective.
He was just a boy in love with a girl, trying to make things right.
“I’m here,” she whispered, and kissed his face. “I’m sorry.”
There were stern shouts. Concerned questions and curses. Attackers being hoisted to their feet and manhandled into vehicles.
The dark stain was spreading. How much had he lost? Urgency surged through her. Without an outlet, a way to help, she gave in to the scream building at the back of her throat.
“Where’s the fucking ambulance?” It came out half-hysterical.
“On route.” Hanna sounded dazed.
“Goddamn it.” This fucking city and its fucking slapdash streets. The paramedics should get out and run. Kris was their prince. They should be here already. A siren wailed faintly, too far away. They should get out and fucking run—
Then, she heard a different sound that tore her heart hollow.
“Kris?” Tommy. Hoarse with horror. Racing up the hill.
“Kris!” Mark’s voice broke in the way bone splinters.
They collapsed to their knees on Kris’s other side. Faces stunned; ashen. They didn’t ask what happened. Didn’t seem to be capable of it. Mark’s chin was trembling, his hands slipping uselessly under his brother’s side, and Tommy’s breath was hitching too fast as he hauled his shirt over his head, balled it up and jammed it into Mark’s hands. He grasped Kris’s torso and pressed against Mark’s efforts to staunch the flow.
Frankie stared through wet eyes. Why hadn’t she done that?
“Come on, man,” Mark murmured, tears on his face. “Come on.”
Tommy’s head was down. His breath grew more rapid as his body caved under the apparent chest pain of a panic attack—but he didn’t let his brother go.
“Kris.” Frankie tried to take his hand, but she couldn’t feel her fingers. Why hadn’t he woken up? “We’re here.”
Tommy’s shirt was growing dark. There was too much blood and the sirens weren’t getting louder. The world was spinning. He wasn’t moving, he wasn’t moving, he wasn’t—
16
Zara didn’t understand.
The police wouldn’t let her into her apartment. They wouldn’t even let her inside the building.
“But I live up there,” she said, “and I need to get water and a blanket.”
It wouldn’t help Kris, but this was a crisis, and action felt more important than reason.
“No one goes in or out,” the police officer said firmly.
“But . . .”
She looked around as an ambulance pulled up along the clutter of security and police cars. Shock hit her anew. Usually peaceful and calm, her street was coated in violence. Kris lay unresponsive a dozen strides away, stabbed, beaten, and she recoiled a step in a flare of panic. Why would anyone want to hurt him? Frankie and his brothers knelt powerless at his side. Ava hung behind Mark, a hand over her mouth, and Philip stood unmoving beside her.
Then the advisor glanced up at Zara’s apartment windows.
