Page 13 of Captured
“Ithought I was done with this,” growled Dimitri as he and Kristos stepped onto the veranda.
When the new crown prince had summoned him from his training rounds this morning, he’d responded with military efficiency, wondering if he’d finally get his orders to go to the border, where his help could do some good. He should have known that those kinds of orders would only come from Cyril. Kristos was so ensnared in his accession duties, he didn’t have time to take a breath, let alone focus on the work he so loved.
“Another party?” he continued. “For what?”
“It’ll get worse before it gets better.” Kristos didn’t look amused either, hanging back as his mother and his fiancée swept forward, clearly bursting with news. “Emmaline’s so relieved that my mother seems happy, she’ll agree to do anything for the few short days she’s here. And Mother is so happy to be planning a royal wedding, she’s impossible to be around.”
“And you?” Dimitri didn’t ask the question lightly. It’d been only a few weeks since Kristos had proposed to Emmaline on open network TV...or pseudo proposed, anyway. He’d given her one of his military pins, not a ring, but the effect was the same: mass media hysteria.
“The wedding, I couldn’t care less about,” Kristos said, shaking his head. “That’s going to be a state event so tortured with tradition that Emmaline will probably fall asleep in the middle of it. But as for her?” He shifted his glance forward and focused on Emmaline.
Despite himself, Dimitri felt a rush of emotion at the change in Kristos’s face. Though Kristos was only a few years younger than his older brother, Ari, Dimitri had spent most of his time with the original crown prince. Still, the boy had matured dramatically since Dimitri had first returned to the palace and taken on the role of captain of the guard again.
Over these past eight years, he’d seen Kristos bored out of his mind with school, excited with his physical training when he’d first joined the military, drunk and celebratory, devastated with the loss of his men in combat...and completely destroyed when his brother had crashed his stupid, fucking plane into the Aegean. Dimitri had even seen Kristos distracted by, and half in love with, whatever woman had crossed his path on any given day.
But he’d never seen him like this.
Kristos grinned broadly, his entire face transformed as he stared at Emmaline like a boy of sixteen and not the future king of Oûros. “Emmaline is everything I wanted, and a lot I didn’t know I wanted. She’s beautiful, giving, sweet?—”
“Pull it together, Pyramus,” Dimitri reached out, punching Kristos in the arm to refocus his attention. “The queen.”
He and Kristos moved forward to watch the announcement, but he’d heard the important part already. As King Jasen’s closest relatives in Oûros, the Raptis family insisted on hosting an engagement party that very night for Kristos and Emmaline, and of course her friends must also attend now that they were back, blah, blah, blah. Emmaline’s gaze swept toward them, and Kristos took another step to enter into the explosion offemale planning, while Dimitri stayed back. He didn’t care about another ridiculous party. He didn’t care about these women.
Well, not all of them, anyway.
Lauren Grant stood between her two friends, the fitness freak and the shrink, holding on to her chair with a little too much grace. He frowned, shifting forward slightly. As if she caught his movement, her gaze drifted to his, then held it for a second. Every ounce of withering contempt that she could infuse into that gaze, she did, then she glanced away.
If the eyes were the window to the soul, this woman offered him nothing but hoarfrost.
Only he knew better than that. It was all he could do to keep from grinning.
“Of course, Dimitri will be on hand to provide security for the event.” He blinked at the sound of his name, lashing down his irritation at getting pulled into the conversation.
“Security?” Emmaline asked, her slender body going instantly tense. “Why security? Is anything wrong?”
“Standard procedure,” Dimitri said, overriding the queen’s voice. The queen looked at him, surprised at his intervention, and he nodded with deference. “Ma’am.”
Queen Catherine smoothed her expression. “Exactly so,” she said. She didn’t look at Lauren, who didn’t look at him, and Dimitri kept his gaze on the room in general. Nicki’s and Francesca’s faces were blank, but genuinely so, not in the calm-façade way of Lauren’s. That façade masked about a million untold truths, he suspected. Not the least of which was last night’s little scare. Interesting.
Predictably, Lauren recovered first. “I’m sure there’s no need for more security than whatever you would normally have.” Her gaze swiveled to his, and he was struck again with its cool dismissal. “It’s an engagement party, right? It should be safe enough without involving Dimitri. He’s done quite enough.” Herlips curled with disdain around his name, and he found that he wanted to hear it from her again—and again. Not in her haughty, refined accent, either.
He held her stare, glaring back at her, matching her ice with fire until finally she faltered, her eyes going wide as he put the full force of what he wanted to do to and with her in his gaze.That’s right, princess. Chew on that.
“Oh, but of course he’ll be there,” the queen said firmly, though Dimitri didn’t miss her glance between them. He quickly shuttered his expression, but he couldn’t do the same to his body. In the blink of an eye, even thinking about holding Lauren Grant in his arms, both of them naked and slick with sweat and heat, was enough to make his body completely forget its hard-core training. The woman was a drug, and he suspected his next hit would be deadly. He needed to get out, get away, get some air. And some control.
“Yes, that should do nicely.” Catherine continued, oblivious to his internal struggle. “We’re not expecting any excitement, but it’s always good to have trained experts on hand. There are any number of details to manage when it comes to public appearances.”
“I’ll get working on that right now,” Dimitri said, grabbing for the opportunity to leave. Almost before the queen nodded, he’d turned on his heel and strode out.
He hit the corridor and kept moving, aiming for the closest location for him to take a moment and ratchet down his reactions. He knew the palace like the back of his hand. He’d been here countless times in his long life, most recently becoming a fixture again when Ari, the crown prince, had reached the age of eighteen and joined the military. Dimitri had been assigned to watch over him—if only from a distance—as part of his role as captain of the guard. Instead, they’d become friends, never mind that Ari was the prince of the realm. Thatwas always Ari’s way. Everything was easy, unforced. Everything was meant for its proper place. And Dimitri’s place had been at his side—in battles large and small. Ari had grown into his position quickly, and Dimitri, as Ari was fond of saying, never changed.
It had taken the crown prince awhile to figure out how true his statement was.
Then came that last, fateful day, when Dimitri hadn’t been there to protect the prince.
Now the palace held no more secrets for him, no more mysteries. And it also didn’t hold Ari. Without the man who’d unexpectedly become his best friend, the place seemed little more than a pretty, painted shell.
One short hallway and a turn later, and he stepped inside the quiet portrait gallery. The room was, as usual, shrouded in soft shadows. The family didn’t come here much. They hadn’t before Ari’s death, and now, when the portraits of generations past seemed only to remind them of the future that they’d lost, he doubted they’d darkened its doors in months.