Page 9 of Royal Guard
I stayed quiet and let her keep talking. Partly because it seemed like it was helping her to relax, partly because it meant I got to hear her voice. She told me about their silver mines—the reason Lakovia was so rich—and their weird, old-fashioned currency of silver coins. She told me how the King had sent her to New York for a preliminary meet and greet to see about joining the UN. I could have listened to her for hours. Every word was like a little teardrop of glass, cool to the touch, that smoothed its way over my brow and scalp and then slid all the way down my spine. It was the antidote to all the hot, smoky anger I carried inside me. It calmed me, it settled me, it made melistenand forget everything else. And when it reached the base of my spine, all that class, all that refinement, did something else to me. Something so wrong, it made my damn ears burn all over again. She was just soposh,so...clean,that I couldn’t stop thinking about what it would be like to hear her say something filthy. Likefuck.Or, hell, to hear her say my name, right when she was shuddering and clutching at me and—
I pushed the thought away and we walked on, mile after mile. It was the most peaceful I’d felt in years. Then she told me about Garmania, the country that bordered them to the north. The one that invaded her country five years ago.
My boots hadn’t stopped moving in a couple of hours: marching is second nature to me, I don’t even notice I’m doing it. But when she said that, my stride faltered.Aw, hell.Now I remembered where I’d heard of Lakovia. I’d seen hazy, smoke-filled images of it on CNN: buildings half-demolished by shelling, occupying soldiers moving through the streets, sobbing civilians. A nasty, bloody war that had shocked the world. But not enough that the world had actually done a whole hell of a lot to stop it. Lakovia had won, eventually, and pushed Garmania out, but a lot of people had died. Like everyone else, I’d shaken my head and muttered about how awful it was, but it had all seemed so distant, a country I’d barely heard of, thousands of miles away. Finding out it washercountry made my stomach churn. I just wanted to grab hold of her and hug her tight.
“We’re at peace with them now,” she said. Her voice was too light, too casual: I’m not a subtle person, but even I could hear the pain she was trying to hide. “And we’ve rebuilt. But...” She swallowed. “There was a lot of damage.”
Her eyes were distant. I wondered if she’d lost someone. I knew what that felt like and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
“The guys on the plane: you know why they were trying to kill you?” I asked.
She opened her mouth as if about to say something but then bit it back and shook her head again. “...no.”
I marveled at how the wind caught her fine chestnut hair. Every time a strand of it billowed across and stroked my bare forearm, my whole body went tense. I was close enough to inhale her scent and it was incredible. Warm female skin, some sweet,citrusy perfume and...something else. Something that calmed me and cooled me even under the blazing sun. It was like she was made of mountain mist.
God, I was like some lovesick kid walking the prom queen home. “Nobody’s threatened you?” I asked.
She shook her head again. “I get threats from crazy people occasionally, but nothing that would explain this.It’s my father who rules. I’m not even important!”
My head snapped round and I almost glared at her. I knew what she meant, but...shewasimportant, dammit. She caught my eye and blinked in surprise. Then her cheeks colored and she watched the ground again. “What were you doing in New York?” she asked.
I gave her the sanitized version: how I’d been living in LA, working as a bouncer for a bar. How I’d gone to New York for a job, but it hadn’t worked out. I didn’t get into the details of how I’d wound up in this state, or how I’d lost the bouncer gig, or what had gone wrong in New York. No need for her to know my whole history. Once I got her back to civilization, I’d never see her again.
That was the first time I’d thought about saying goodbye to her. I wasn’t ready for how it made my stomach twist.
“So what will you do now?” she prompted.
I shrugged. “Find another job, I guess.”Something where they need dumb muscle. “Or try another city.” I stared at the horizon because I didn’t want to see the look of pity on her face. “I move around a lot.”
“Do you like being on the move?”
The answer, when it came, surprised me as much as her. I just kind of blurted it out. She was easy totalk to, dammit, and it had been a long time since I’d talked to anyone. “No,” I said. “Just haven’t found a home, yet.”
A half hour later, a blue pickup truck at least forty years old rattled up behind us. An entire family was crammed into the cab while three farm workers lounged in the cargo bed. We flagged them down and I started trying to talk them into letting the Princess have a seat in the cab but she wouldn’t hear of it. So we rode in the cargo bed with the workers, the Princess balancing a chicken in a cage on her knees.
They took us as far as the interstate and then we thumbed a lift from a truck driver who took us right into LA. I grabbed the first cab we saw and told him to take us to the FBI.
The Los Angeles FBI office was chaos. Every available agent was either investigating the assassination attempt or coordinating the search for the missing princess.
So when we walked through the door there were cheers, prayers and cries of disbelief. Then she was mobbed by her two surviving guards and the blonde-haired woman from the plane. I didn’t get the same welcome. Agents quickly separated me from her and, while they didn’t actually point guns at me, they had their hands on their holsters. I didn’t blame them: when a missing VIP shows up with a big, unshaven guy in a ripped shirt and jeans, they aren’t going totake any chances. But it was a reminder of just how different we were.
“We’ve got your luggage from the plane, Your Highness,” the blonde woman told her. She pointed to a huge pile of bags. At first, I figured the pile was all the luggage from the whole plane and wondered which suitcase was hers. Then I saw that everything matched: cream suitcases, bags, little round boxes, all with the gold royal crest.All that’s hers?!
The Princess glanced up and saw me, smiled, and gave me a little wave. I awkwardly raised one big paw in the air, just in time for one of the FBI agents to thrust a shabby military kit bag into my arms.Myluggage. In fact, everything I had in the world.
The Princess ran off to get changed while two agents sat me down in a small room and had me go over everything that had happened about fifteen times. I was finally rescued by the head of the LA office, a Director Gibson. I distrusted him on principle because he wore a suit. But he chased away the other agents and he brought me the first cup of coffee I’d had all day, so I figured he couldn’t be all bad. I rose to shake his hand and he automatically backed up a little before he caught himself. I forget that my size can be kinda...intimidating.
We sat. “You figure out who those guys on the plane were?” I asked between mouthfuls of coffee.
He shook his head. “I can tell you who theyweren’t.They weren’t passengers. We’ve accounted for everyone on the passenger list.”
I froze. “Then how the hell did they get aboard?” With airport security so tight these days, it would be flat-out impossible for two assassins to sneak onto an aircraft.
Unless they had help.
I started to get an itch, right between my shoulder blades. It was like when you feel there’s someone right behind you, only a thousand times worse. I knew that feeling. I’d had it on my last day as a marine. That feeling that there’s something huge going on, a plan that’s rolling forward, unstoppable, and you’re nothing more than a bug in its path. And maybe, so was the Princess.
I frowned. There was something else, too. Back on the plane, there’d been something familiar about the way that guy fought. He hadn’t felt like some extremist, trained in a cave and full of religious zeal. I’d fought those. This guy had been schooled by experts. He’d felt like a soldier.