Natural-Born Protector / Saved by the Monarch (21 page)

“Hey, you said no more kissing.” She turned slowly with an accusing glare that was a faint shadow of her regular fiery self.

“Just checking your temperature.”

Her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t look like she had the energy to argue with him. “I’m freezing.”

He held her tighter. “Try to think about something else. Like the dragon video game that you’re making. I didn’t know girls were into video games.”

“I’m not a girl. I’m a grown woman.” She shot him some weak indignation.

“Certainly so. Would never make that mistake. Heard you roar and all that.”

A moment of silence passed. She had to be in worse shape than he’d thought. She wasn’t even rising to the bait.

“You could put a prince in. You could pattern him after me. Handsome and valorous.”

She gave a muffled groan and, after a moment, said, “She has a dragon.”

“A pet dragon?” He considered the possibilities.

“A dragon friend.”

“She could do things with a prince that she can’t do with the dragon.”

She shot him a dark look, but the corner of her
mouth twitched up. “It’s not an X-rated game. It’s for elementary school kids.”

“A shame,” he said, and was aware that they had moved even closer to each other for heat.

Her lips were inches from his.

The air thickened around them. Her gaze flew to his, filled with alarm and something else. It was the something else he wanted to investigate.

But a deep rumble sounded above them before he had a chance to do anything.

Her look changed to one of panic, and she burrowed her face into his neck as the cave shook around them. “What is that?”

The rumbling got louder. Right on top of them.

“Avalanche,” he said, powerless to do anything but watch as snow slid over the opening of the cave from above and buried them, sealing them inside.

H
ER BODY SHOOK ALONG
with the side of the mountain as Judi clung to the relative safety of Miklos’s arms. He sat motionless, holding on to her. She could no longer see him, all their light was cut off. But she could feel snow pushing against her, snow that the force of the avalanche had shoved inside their small cave.

“Grab your gloves,” he said, letting her go.

She immediately missed his heat, the sense of safety and comfort he had provided. She searched the snow around them, found one glove, but not the other, panicked a little. “I lost one.”

“Here.” He touched her.

She took the glove by feel and put it on. The rumble
quieted as quickly as it started. She could hear snow squishing and Miklos grunting.

“Dig,” he said. “On top. As high as you can.”

Words could not describe the sense of terror she felt. Her muscles clenched with it. But she made herself move and set to the task gingerly, not wanting to disturb some balance and send more snow tumbling into the cave, which happened anyway.

Her fingers, which had warmed in his hands, felt frozen again once back in the wet gloves. Her fingertips were aching with cold within minutes.

Dig.

Breathe.

Blood pounded in her ears from the effort. Darkness and fear seemed to swallow her up.

“Faster,” he said after a while.

She was pretty sure she was going to lose fingers over this. Or more. She was well aware that the odds of them getting out were not good. Maybe if she had a moment to catch her breath, she would regain back some strength. “Can’t we rest?”

His voice was tight when he responded. “We’re not going to have enough air.”

She hadn’t thought of that. The fresh panic gave her a shot of newfound energy.

Dig.

Scratch.

Push.

Move. Move. Move.

Her lungs constricted. She gasped for air. Oh, God. She wasn’t ready to die.

“Relax.” His voice, soothing, wrapped around her in the darkness.

“I think.” She gasped in a lungful of air. “We.” She gasped again. “Running out of oxygen.”

She was beginning to feel dizzy. She could not see the cave walls in the dark, but felt certain that they were closing in. Her movements grew frenzied.

“You’re panicking.” He sounded calm and sure.

She prickled at that.

“Breathe in slowly. Count to four. Breathe out.”

What good did counting do when they had no air? She wanted to shout at him, but when she did slow her breathing, she found that he’d been right. She was breathing easier.

If she weren’t frozen senseless, it probably would have irritated her that she was proving herself to be a total wimp by freaking out. Especially since she was going for the whole independent, capable woman sort of image. For the prince’s benefit. So he would finally get the picture that she wasn’t the type who could be coerced into an arranged marriage.

She cleared her throat and controlled her digging, changed her efforts from frantic to effective. “How much snow do you think is above us?” She held herself together as much as she possibly could.

“Dig up and out. Right next to my tunnel. We need room to push the snow back.” He reached back and adjusted her hands. “Could be one foot, could be a hundred.”

She so did not need to hear that. But she was glad he was leveling with her. He obviously thought that she
was capable of handling the situation. She prayed that he was right about her. In any case, his trust in her made her want to try harder.

She threw herself into the work, but her fingers were numb, her body stiff from cold. She was losing focus fast, she realized when she found herself spacing out just a minute or two later. Most of her thoughts were now circling around how she could get warm again, instinct pushing her to stop all movement that ate up her remaining energy. All she wanted was to curl up in a ball.

She’d been half-frozen sitting in the cave. Being surrounded by snow on all sides now was bringing her body temperature down rapidly.

She forced herself to keep working alongside him. “Has this ever happened to you?”

She badly needed to hear that an avalanche was survivable. She lived in D.C. What did she know about avalanches? An image of a big, hairy dog with a small barrel of brandy tied around his neck, sniffing snow, came to mind from some old TV show. She didn’t think any of those would be coming around. Nobody knew that they were up here.

“Can’t say that it has,” he said.

She felt like crying—it wasn’t as if he would have seen her in the dark—but she didn’t want any tears to freeze to her cheeks. She kept on digging.

The kidnapping had been a shock to her system and utterly surreal, but a quick bullet seemed preferable now to the slow suffocation that she faced here. She could hear Miklos breathing heavily next to her. He
was clearing enormous amounts of snow. She knew this because she could feel more and more room ahead that she could keep moving into. Her efforts seemed pitiful compared to his.

They were out of the cave now, in a snow tunnel, going up. He moved in front of her, pushed snow back, and she did her best to shove it down next to her toward the cave, kick it along with her feet. But after a while, the snow behind her piled up, closing them in from that end.

Leaving them with even less breathing space.

Don’t stop moving.

Breathe slow and even. She’d read someplace that breathing rapidly used up more oxygen.

She suspected that if it weren’t for the air trapped in the snow around them, they would have already suffocated. Air that wasn’t going to last long anyway.

They weren’t going to make it. The avalanche was too deep. The realization was becoming harder and harder to ignore, her dark premonitions impossible to shake. This was it.

“How are you holding up?” he asked without stopping when she went still from fear and exhaustion for a second.

“Starting to feel claustrophobic.” She set to work again, as much as she could. Too slow. Her fingers no longer moved, so she just pushed her hands around from the wrist like small shovels.

Snow surrounded them.

For a moment she couldn’t tell which way was up. She felt a flash of panic again. Then drew a deep breath and calmed herself, listened to the sound of the prince’s digging.

Miklos. Right. He was supposed to be above her.

As her mind clicked back on, she realized that she was entering hypothermia. First the brain slows, then the body, then comes death.

“I think we’re nearing the surface,” he said after another minute.

Her ears were buzzing. “How do you know?” Pushing the words out was an effort.

She could no longer do anything with the snow that he pushed back, just roll against it awkwardly and compact it to the sides of their tunnel, which made the space even tighter. She felt like she was trapped in a coffin made of ice. She spaced out for a moment.

“The snow doesn’t feel as packed here.” His voice brought her back.

Too late,
she thought as a wave of dizziness washed over her a hundred times stronger than before. She was going to pass out. She didn’t have the strength to tell him. She didn’t think she’d be telling anyone anything ever again. In hindsight, she should have let him kiss her one last time.

She fully expected to die. She was too cold to stay alive.

But after another minute she could see a faint light somewhere up ahead, filtering through snow and ice. She blinked, pretty much the only movement she was capable of at this stage. Her lungs burned. She held her head still to combat the dizziness.

Then his hands broke through, and fresh air rushed into their small tunnel. She coughed and watched as he climbed forward, careful enough not to kick snow into
her face. She registered that he’d made it out, but didn’t have the strength to go after him. Then he was back, head first, digging madly again, and her hands were enfolded in his strong grip at last as he pulled her to the surface.

Air.

Her lungs hurt and made squeaky noises as she breathed in. Her body was one solid block of ice.

The sun was blinding with the clouds gone, its brilliant rays reflecting off the snow. They hadn’t had sun goggles in the first place; there’d been none on the pegs with the ski suits.

She couldn’t keep her eyes open.

“Breathe.” Miklos was holding her face between his ungloved hands, rubbing her cheeks. His palms were the only warm things in a world of frozen snow. “Breathe.”

She did her best.

“I’m sorry,” he said after her wheezing quieted. He didn’t let her go. “If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t be here.”

She wanted to tell him that he didn’t order the kidnapping, nor did he cause the avalanche, but her lungs still felt too tight to speak. He grabbed for her hand, and she winced when his touch brought more pain.

He was opening his ski suit the next moment, then pulled her gloves off, took her hands gently and pulled them under his clothes, pressing them against his bare skin.

Her body and senses were mostly numb. All she could feel was the warmth of his chest and the steady,
reassuring beat of his heart. Thump, thump, thump. It gave her something to focus on other than the strange sleepiness that wrapped her brain in cotton.

Minutes passed before feeling returned to her hands.

“Can you walk?” he asked after a while.

She wanted more rest, to sleep for just a few seconds, but knew that way lay trouble. So she sat up, let him help her to her feet but immediately sunk to midcalf in the loose snow, like he had. And she realized that their skis were somewhere in the cave below.

Along with the gun, their only protection from whoever would be following. She didn’t think the men who had kidnapped them were just going to let them go. And they were out in the open.

They scrambled off the top of the fresh snow, onto a path that was frozen solid, supporting their weight and making progress easier. He was there to prop her up every time she slipped.

Her mind still wasn’t functioning all that clearly, so it took her a while to notice that instead of the direction they’d been following earlier, they were now headed straight down the mountain.

“Where are we going?”

“To the village,” he said.

She blinked. The village he’d talked about earlier? Where, according to him, all kinds of danger awaited?

W
HEN SHE COULD NO LONGER WALK,
Miklos lifted her onto his back. She weighed next to nothing.

She didn’t blame him once for being in this situation, didn’t once complain. She just hung on to his
shoulders with grim determination—after that initial, embarrassed protest. The day was nearly over. They’d marched miles without food or water. She had wanted to eat snow, but he hadn’t let her. That brought down a person’s core temperature faster than anything.

“How are you holding up?” he asked.

She didn’t respond. She hadn’t responded to anything he’d asked in the last hour or so. She was completely still, no longer even shivering.

He figured the village to be about a mile ahead.

She needed serious medical help without delay. He pushed himself to the limit, knowing that every second counted.

When he heard voices from around a boulder, he slowly lowered Judi into the snow, noting her colorless face and barely blinking eyes, and dropped to his stomach next to her.

People were talking ahead.
Friend or foe?
was the topmost question in his mind.

Then the men came into view, wearing snowshoes, walking by at a distance of ten or fifteen meters, not yet noticing them. Their rifles threw long shadows in the twilight.

The two men had guns. Miklos was alone, exhausted and unarmed. But as a soldier, he was prepared to take on odds like that or worse.

“Don’t move. I’ll be back.” He barely breathed the words into Judi’s ear, then rolled away from her and stole closer to the men on the uneven ground, moving between snow drifts. He hoped to catch what they were talking about, but by the time he got close enough, they seemed to be discussing nothing more interesting than the weather.

“Avalanche warning’s out.”

“Good reason not to be on the damn mountain.” The man stomped his feet. “Hope we won’t be stuck up here long. Hate this damn cold.” He stomped again.

Miklos noted the military-issue riffles. They weren’t hunters. But they weren’t military, either. No uniforms. They wore civilian clothing, coats large enough so they could hide their weapons if needed.

His first instinct was to take them on and take them down. He could gain weapons and possibly information from them. He was moving up to a crouch, getting ready
to leap, but then ended up staying where he was, in cover.

This was not a military exercise or a routine mission.

If the slightest thing went wrong, if he were injured in any way, if they captured him—that would leave Judi in the cover of a snowbank somewhere behind him. Alone in the freezing cold. And she couldn’t take these conditions much longer.

Frustration had him grinding his teeth as he stayed down and waited until the men moved on and eventually disappeared behind a boulder. He noted the direction they went and made sure to get a good look at their faces, the most he could do under the circumstances. Not nearly enough.

“Almost there,” he whispered when he got back to Judi. He lifted her into his arms and, keeping his eyes open for more of the enemy, continued down the mountain. He pushed himself to the limit, aware that the men in the cabin had been talking about two days. Since then, one had passed.

Whatever the bastards were planning, he had less than twenty-four hours to stop them.

Any attacks would be happening today. At Maltmore Castle. The security measure of moving the family there had apparently been planned for by their enemies.

Unease crept up his spine. The enemy had gotten into the guarded section of the catacombs and had killed two guards. The enemy knew the emergency procedures for a security breach at the palace. Did they have inside help?

He had to reach his brothers and warn them. He had to reach General Rossi and ask him to send immediate help. And he had to get Judi to safety.

Even in a ski suit and boots she weighed little in his arms. His mood darkened a notch every time he looked at her pale cheeks and closed eyes. Snow had frozen to the tips of her eyelashes. He dipped his head and pressed his mouth against one eyelid, then the other, to warm them.

She looked like a princess under some curse from the evil Snow Queen of fairy tales. And he was the prince. He was the one who was supposed to save her. He pushed harder, held her tighter. “Come on. Just a little longer. We’re almost there.”

The village came into view after the next bend, and he moved off the path, tracking through the snow toward the last row of houses, then weaving his way up the back alleys until he reached the kitchen entrance of the inn. “Hang on.”

He knew the cook. Luigi had been a kitchen hand at the palace for a while until he’d decided to strike out on his own and make his dream of an Alpine inn a reality.

The heat of the kitchen, when he eased in, was such a sharp contrast to the outside weather that it stung his frozen cheeks.

Since Luigi was deaf, he could not call out to get his attention, nor would he have done so anyway. He needed to keep their arrival secret. The man felt the small vibration of the door opening and looked back, wide-eyed surprise on his round face. He was about to
clap his hands to alert the kitchen staff to the prince’s presence, but Miklos signaled for silence. Then mouthed a single word:
help.

Luigi took in the woman in Miklos’s arms and seemed to understand immediately. He had always been a champion at assessing situations at a glance and reading body language. He gestured behind a rack of cooling bread, and Miklos saw a narrow passageway that led to an equally narrow stone stairway. Miklos slipped in there, and Luigi came quickly after him. The man pointed and directed them until they were up the stairs, down the hall and inside a fairly spacious suite, all natural wood and animal furs and antlers, pictures of the mountains on the walls—an Alpine haven. Probably Luigi’s quarters.

“Hypothermia.” Miklos turned toward the man after he’d laid Judi on the bed. “I need a doctor you would trust with your life. With mine.” He made sure to speak slowly and form the words with care.

Luigi couldn’t hear, but he could read lips like nobody’s business. He was already bringing blankets from the wooden chest at the foot of the bed, his large frame moving lightning fast. He nodded.

“Call him here. Don’t say what it’s for. Say there’s been an accident in the kitchen. Nobody can know that we’re at the inn.”

Luigi was looking him over. “Okay?” he signaled.

And Miklos realized that he’d probably heard about the kidnapping on the news by now. Probably everyone had. Which meant he would have to cover his face when he ventured outside. “I’m fine. She’s the one who needs help.”

Luigi went out, then popped back in with a radio transmitter before leaving again. No phones up here. Miklos called in a message to the general on one of the military monitored frequencies. He passed on his current location and requested men to be dispatched to Maltmore Castle at once. He also asked the general to warn the princes immediately. Should anything happen, his brothers should be prepared.

By the time he was finished, Luigi was coming back with a steaming pot of tea and lamb stew seasoned with herbs. He barely handed over the tray before rushing off again. Miklos locked the door behind him.

He quickly removed his boots and ski suit, then started on Judi’s. “I’m going to get you warm. You’re safe now. Open your eyes.”

He discarded the boots and socks and took her slim feet into his hands. He warmed them slowly, without rubbing. If ice crystals had formed in her blood and cells, rubbing would only do more damage.

When some color returned to her skin, a good sign of blood moving to the extremities, no frostbite after all, he moved higher on her calves and massaged those to get the blood moving faster. He could only go so far before he had to remove her ski suit.

“I’m going to take this off to make you more comfortable.”

She showed no sign that she heard him.

Worry ate at him, and anger that he’d gotten her into this. Fury built for the men who brought danger to his homeland, a peaceful country he loved more than life itself. Time was ticking. He would see to it
that she was safe and in the care of the doctor. Then he’d go to his brothers.

She had his military jacket under the ski suit, then that flimsy spring dress she’d arrived in. He removed everything save her underwear, shrugged out of his own clothes, then climbed into bed with her, piling the blankets on top of them.

A hot bath would have helped, too, but that had to wait until she was conscious.

“You need heat. I’m not trying to seduce you.” Then he added, out of habit, “Yet.”

She was like a block of ice in his arms—albeit carved with perfect curves—but he was too worried about her to be distracted by them just now. He rubbed her arms, her back, pressed his cheeks to hers. Minutes passed, and she didn’t seem to warm at all.

“Come on,” he whispered into her ear and rubbed her velvety skin, close to the edge of desperation. “Wake up. We made it. You’re safe.”

That last bit was somewhat of an exaggeration, but he thought she could use hearing something positive. She didn’t stir.

Maybe another approach would work better.

“Have I mentioned that we have practically no clothes on? I’m taking liberties with you here. It’s time to start yelling.”

Her eyes fluttered but didn’t open. He needed to raise the stakes.

He pressed his cheek against hers again and whispered into her ear, “If you don’t tell me to stop, I’m going to kiss you again.”

“You’re giving me whisker burns,” she said weakly. “Get off.”

He pulled back and looked into her eyes, which were blinking to gain focus. Her cheek did look a little reddened where he had rested his own against it. He ran his fingers over his cheeks. Rough. But shaving was the least of his worries.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like I’ve been buried by an avalanche.” She flashed him a
duh
look, coming to life rapidly. “I’m perfectly fine. I just needed to warm up and rest a little.”

Encouraging. Looked as if she was getting her spirit back.

“Can you move everything? Does anything hurt?”

She pulled away from him, wiggled around then looked under the blankets. “Why am I naked?” She did sound quite a bit stronger.

“We had to snuggle for heat.” He was regretting how brief that part had been.

Her lavender eyes narrowed, her face flushed with outrage. “You took advantage of me while I was unconscious?” That was the old Judi. Wide awake and ready to charge at him.

Gratitude hit him at first. They were safe. They were at the inn. She didn’t seem to have suffered permanent damage. But that overwhelming sense of relief lasted only seconds before awareness sharpened that they were in bed together,
practically
naked.

They could fight.

Or they could…

He pulled her to him and rolled her under him in one smooth move, pinning her to the mattress. They were nose to nose. He needed to feel her that close, closer. He needed every inch of their bodies touching to know that she was safe and with him. “I haven’t taken anything yet.”

Enough heat filled his body all of a sudden to keep the both of them warm in a snowbank.

He caught a flicker of response in her eyes, but she said with forced severity, “You promised you wouldn’t kiss me again.”

“I won’t. I’m thinking this time you’ll kiss me.” His gaze slipped to her lips that still didn’t have their full color back.

Clearly they needed help.

“Why should I?” She shifted under him, maybe to push him off, maybe to get more comfortable, but the end result was that now they were perfectly aligned, hip to hip, his legs between hers.

“You’re very grateful that I saved your life.” He wished he could have come up with something snappier and brilliant instead, but his mind was too filled with Judi’s nearness to think.

He could have lost her. They both could have been lost. Primal instinct pushed him to celebrate life in the most basic way.

He ran a hand up her side, caressing her smooth skin. Her full breasts pressed into his chest.

“It’s basic first aid.” He bent to nuzzle the sweet curve of her neck. “We have to get our blood moving.”

“That’s the most pitiful pickup line I ever heard.” Her breath caught on the last word.

His hand stole up her ribcage, stopped just under her breast. “Kiss me because you want me.”

The look she flashed him was seeped in denial. She wasn’t going to make this easy. He should have known that. She hadn’t made anything easy from the second she had gotten off the plane.

But need and urgency built between them. She had to feel it, too.

He gave up the game and lined up their lips, leaving only a hairsbreadth between them. “Kiss me because I want you. You’re driving me crazy.”

Her eyes went wide at his admission. Then the lids drifted down as she closed the negligible distance between them.

Her lips were soft and warming to his quickly. She initiated the kiss, and he didn’t need any invitation beyond that. He tasted her, nibbling at the corner of her mouth, sweeping inside when at last she opened for him.

He wanted her. He’d told her the truth. But it shocked him just how much he wanted her. Even if she didn’t want to marry him, even if she might not make the perfect princess. The thought stopped him. He had to marry the perfect princess—whoever could do the most good for his country. That was his duty. If after all this, Judi turned out not to be the right person for the job…

Thinking of duty seemed impossible with Judi in his arms. He registered the danger in that, but plowed ahead nevertheless.

Her palms came to rest against his chest. Their legs
were entwined under the covers as he drank from her. He shifted, making them both more comfortable, his hands moving up to cover her breast at last. She arched into his palm. A groan of pleasure bubbled up in his throat.

She was undoing him with unprecedented ease.

Her body was perfect, made for his. He was hard and ready between her legs, the adrenaline of escaping down the mountain still pulsing through his veins, rapidly turning to raging lust.

And she had such a tender look in her eyes.

He caught himself on the edge of madness, inched back from the ledge, dropped to his back next to her on the mattress.

He wasn’t used to tenderness. He’d had lovers, and there’d been sex. But he was always aware that they were with him because they wanted something either his wealth or title could give them.

If Judi could have her way, she’d be running the opposite direction from him. The one woman he’d offered marriage to, and she’d turned him down without asking for a second to consider.

She ran a light hand over his shoulder. There was that tenderness again.

He knew how to handle lust. He didn’t know what to do with this strange rapport or connection or whatever seemed to have grown between them.

“You should have something to eat and drink,” he said toward the ceiling, not trusting himself to look at her passion-flushed face.

His body demanded that they finish what they’d
started. His fingertips ached for the feel of her velvety skin. His mouth was parched for the taste of her. He could almost feel what it would be like to slide into her tight heat, to kiss her neck when she threw her head back in surrender, to swallow her moans as he made her his.

Control and sanity. He had to reach pretty deep inside to find any remnants of them, but in the end, he did. He waited while she collected herself and wrapped a blanket around her body, scrambled off the bed to the table and the food.