Natural-Born Protector / Saved by the Monarch (24 page)

His education as a prince might have told him that these were his subjects, men he was supposed to protect, but his military training was stronger just now. They were the enemy. They sought to destroy the country and his family.

They’d taken Judi. He couldn’t find it in himself to forgive.

The fourth guard caught sight of him coming. He lifted his rifle, but was too slow, couldn’t get off a shot before Miklos vaulted over the distance between them and brought him down with enough force to smash the guy’s skull on the rocks on the ground. He pulled the man behind a bush, collected his ammunition and hand grenade then stole closer to the cave.

He could count only sixteen of the enemy now. Some had gone into the cave. He didn’t want those bastards anywhere near her.

He was still outnumbered, but in addition to the small handgun and knives he’d picked up in the village, he also had a rifle now with plenty of ammunition, and four hand grenades. He positioned himself behind a boulder, pulled the pin from one of the grenades—he’d picked one off each man he’d taken out so far—and let it fly.

One of the trucks blew sky-high.

Smoke, fire and chaos reigned, his enemies pouring out of the cave. He shot at will and brought down four, ran to the cover of the next boulder once his location at the first was compromised, then tossed another grenade. This one missed, since the men were shooting blindly in every direction and he didn’t have time to
take careful aim. The explosion didn’t take out the truck he’d targeted, but it did bring down three men who’d been running up to the vehicle.

A dozen or so of the enemy were left.

He didn’t have time to congratulate himself. The next second, a bullet grazed his knee. He limped out of his hiding place, ducking more bullets, lunging behind a bigger rock that could provide more coverage. Bullets pinged off the rock. Then everything went quiet. And then another sound came that made the short hairs at the back of his neck rise.

He looked out for just one glimpse.

Damn. Damn. Damn. The tank was coming his way.

The next second, the top of the boulder he was hiding behind blew off, deafening him, shards of stone raining from above. The force of the explosion knocked him off his feet.

Where in hell was General Rossi?

No longer on the offensive, Miklos ran for his life now, ignoring the pain in his knee and the blood that was running into his left eye from a cut on his forehead.

He stopped long enough to toss another grenade behind him, and this time he lucked out even as his knee gave. The grenade went right in the top and when it blew it took out everyone and everything inside the tank.

Miklos dashed to the left, mowed down with his rifle the four men who were charging him head-on. He figured there were now only half a dozen left. Everything went quiet all of a sudden. And after a while, he realized that those who were still alive had retreated into the cave.

He couldn’t shoot blindly, nor toss a grenade. Not with Judi in there.

She was the perfect hostage. The bastards probably knew that as long as they had her, he wasn’t going to do anything. Unless something had happened to her already. He hadn’t heard her voice once during the fight—the thought filled him with both dread and murderous rage.

He went around the entrance, flattened himself to the rock outside. The cave was too dark to see beyond the first dozen feet. Large and cavernous was his first impression, with plenty of rock formations for the bastards to hide behind.

He moved back, grabbed a fallen man and held the body in front of him as he approached the cave. He didn’t get far before they shot at him anyway. The body caught the bullets, but would not make a dependable shield. He tossed it aside and dove behind the nearest big rock. At least he was now inside the cave.

“I am Prince Miklos of the House of Kerkay. You are committing an act of treason. Let the hostage go,” he called out, pressing a hand to his bleeding knee.

Their only response was more bullets.

When they quieted, he popped up for a second, saw movement and shot blindly that way. The shout that rose told him that he had got his man. He kept down for the next minute or so as bullets pelted the rock he was hiding behind.

They were at an impasse. He couldn’t move forward, and they couldn’t get by him to get out of the cave.

Or could they?

“Miklos!” He heard Judi’s plea the next second. “Don’t shoot.”

And when he popped up again, he saw her emerge from behind a dark rock formation, a man behind her, twisting her arm back, a gun to her head.

“Throw your weapons forward,” the man said.

The cave was too dark to see whether she was hurt. But she was alive. She was well enough to stand. He found hope in that. But it wasn’t time yet to give in to relief, to draw her into his arms and kiss her.

He badly wanted to, needed to kiss her again.

First he had to get them out of here. Miklos tossed the rifle and two of his knives. He kept his last knife and his last grenade hidden, tossed his handgun that was now out of bullets.

“Stand with your hands in the air.”

Like hell. “Let her go. She has nothing to do with this. Let her go and take me.”

“We already have you,” the man sneered.

Miklos pulled the pin from his last grenade then rose, one hand in the air, the other holding the grenade to his chest, under his palm, invisible to the man. “I’m hit.” Come on, move forward, move forward more.

“Both hands in the air!” the man snapped.

Sweat beaded on Miklos’s forehead. If he made a sudden move to put the pin back in, he’d be shot. If he tossed the grenade now, he’d put Judi in more jeopardy.

But the man moved forward at last, switching his aim from Judi to Miklos. Four of his buddies rose up from behind the rock at his back. They stayed where they were, but kept their weapons trained on Miklos.
When Judi and the bastard who held her got far enough from them to be out of harm’s way, Miklos lunged forward, tossing the grenade at those men, letting his knife slide into his palm from his sleeve with the same movement, then throwing that at the one who held Judi.

The grenade hit, shaking the cave and sending rocks flying like deadly missiles through the air. The knife missed, the man ducking out of the way in the last second. He was on the ground, bowled over by the explosion, looking stunned. But he still had his riffle, and he still had Judi.

Miklos had nothing.

He couldn’t do anything else but throw himself at the bastard.

His ears were ringing from the explosion in the closed confines of the cave. Long seconds passed as he desperately fought for the sole weapon within reach. Then a noise reached them from the outside: the rumble of a chopper.

Dust and more rocks rained on them from above, and he realized that the cave’s roof had been damaged enough that it could collapse. Even perhaps from the vibration the chopper was causing in the air.

“Get out of the cave!” he yelled toward Judi just as his enemy kicked him full force in his busted knee and made him see stars.

“I’m not leaving you.” She had a large stone in her hands. She looked like some wild, Amazonian maiden, her auburn hair near black in the dark of the cave.

“Get out!”

She tried to bend to hit the bad guy, but they were
rolling too fast, fighting too furiously for her to hit her target. Not that she didn’t try. She dropped the stone when she realized it was as much a liability as it was a weapon. She tried to throw herself on the man’s legs next, to help Miklos, but the bastard kicked at her, kicked hard enough so she went bouncing off a boulder behind them.

The men rolled. Miklos didn’t dare take his attention off his opponent. A minute passed before Judi limped back, and he could breathe again.

“Go!” He ground out the single word as he fought, aware that the cave could come down on top of them at any second. “Get help.”

He had both hands on the rifle, but the man had his finger on the trigger. He squeezed, the shots going wild, into the already perilous ceiling. More shards flew from above.

In addition to the blood from the cut on his forehead, Miklos also had dust in his eyes, nearly blinding him. His knee throbbed with a sharp pain and didn’t support him when he tried to flip his enemy. At least Judi was safe; he clung to that thought. Judi would be safe, whatever happened to him.

He had done all he could do. The general had already sent help and warning to the other princes. He groaned as the man slammed him against the rock floor. Then he heard Judi’s voice outside, or at least he thought he did, and that gave him new strength. He brought his head hard against the man’s chin and watched his head flop back.

The momentary surprise was enough to get the
gun away from him. Miklos didn’t hesitate to shoot, point-blank.

He barely took a second to catch his breath before he struggled to his feet and started limping toward the mouth of the cave. The royal helicopter hadn’t come for them. The general had sent an Apache instead. His men were already on the ground, all around the copter.

He lowered his weapon.

Then he spotted Judi through the chopper’s open door, in the back. Tied and gagged, her eyes filled with tears. She struggled against her ropes, but wasn’t getting anywhere.

Something was terribly wrong.

They’d been betrayed.

And he had way too little strength left in him. He had a sick feeling that this might be the end of the road for the both of them. But the look in her eyes wouldn’t let him give in to pain and accept his fate.

He blinked the blood and dust from his eyes. “What in hell are you—” He charged forward, raising his gun, ready to keep going with the fight until his legs gave way from under him.

Which turned out to be right that second. He crashed to one knee on the snow-dotted rocks, pain shooting up his leg and momentarily knocking the air from his lungs.

“Judi!” He had to get to her. He crawled in the snow, managing another few feet, knowing that what he had left wasn’t going to be enough.

He had failed.

He had underestimated the enemy and let down
Judi, his family and his people. He should have known something wasn’t right, caught some sign, should have sensed that something had been off with the general.

Hot fury burned through him. He had loved the man like a father. He had confided in him in the past, listened to his advice. He had thought the bastard a hero.

If the army was against the monarchy…No other force in the country was strong enough to stand against the Valtrian Army. The army he’d helped to make more efficient, helped to strengthen. The very one he served in.

With so many of his friends, men he considered brothers.

Would they, too, fight against him?

He looked up at Judi, wanting to make her understand, somehow, how sorry he was that he wasn’t going to be able to save her. He would have given anything to see her safe, but the men who’d captured them had no reason to bargain.

The last time Miklos had been to the compound, as a guest, General Rossi had called it his mountain hunting hideaway. Since then, the place had taken on the character of a miniature military base, crammed with army trucks and the odd tank or two, soldiers—
traitors
—filling the guesthouses.

Since they were both gagged, the best Miklos could manage was a slight brush against Judi’s hands when they’d been pushed out of the chopper. He wanted to let her know that as long as he was alive, he was not going to let anything happen to her. Which wasn’t much of a guarantee under the circumstances.

“Move it.” They were shoved forward, taken into a cement structure that looked like a military bunker, then down a flight of stairs.

Prison cells. When had the general put this in? How long had he been preparing? The sense of betrayal was a heavy weight that pushed him down, along with the blame he felt for not figuring this out earlier. He met with the general at least once a week. How many times had they talked just this month? If he’d caught even a
hint that something had been off, he could have saved his family.

His hands fisted, but he could do nothing. The situation looked as dire as it possibly could. They faced overwhelming opposition forces. So he did what any good soldier would do under the circumstances: kept a sharp eye out for a small break, something he could turn to his advantage. And he refused to give up hope.

“Your new royal suite is waiting,” one of the soldiers mocked, stepping between his prisoners.

Miklos could do little to reassure Judi when her panicked gaze flew to him.

But when they went inside and he spotted the two cells, almost like bear cages, he saw that only one was empty. Then, when he got used to the semidarkness, he recognized the other prisoner, despite the fact that the man’s face was badly beaten and bloodied.

Miklos lurched toward the bars, bruising his shoulder when he broke free from the hold of the soldier behind him, and slammed against the inch-thick steel rods. The gag loosened from his mouth in the process. “Chancellor?”

But the man didn’t move.

“Chancellor! It’s Miklos.” It seemed impossible now that he could have suspected the chancellor of turning against the monarchy, even for a second.

He had trusted the general implicitly because they were both military men. The chancellor was a politician through and through, embroiled in a number of intrigues at court in his younger years, most involving young ladies, then political ones later. And even though
Miklos had been shocked when the general had accused him, in the back of his mind there had been that little doubt, the knowledge that the chancellor had a reputation for being a wheeler and dealer.

“Chancellor Hansen!” He started to look the man over for signs of how serious his injuries might be but was unceremoniously yanked away from the bars, then shoved into the empty cell with Judi.

One of the soldiers pulled a knife and cut their gags as well as the plastic ties that had held their hands together. Then the door swung shut with a creak and a bang. The lock turned.

At least they were together.

He wanted to take Judi into his arms, but the men were heading toward the other cell. He threw himself against the bars, from the inside this time.

“Chancellor Hansen,” he shouted. Then as the soldiers opened the old man’s cell, he called out an order. “Do not touch him!”

Only when they dragged the chancellor out, over the uneven, cold floor, did he realize that his old friend could no longer hear him, nor could he feel the soldiers’ rough handling.

He blinked as the man’s lifeless body was dragged out. Miklos beat against the bars until his hands turned bloody, hard rage filling him. Then he leaned against the cold wall of the cell, seeing little more than the chancellor’s bloodied, lifeless body.

His muscles were rigid with grief, his soul black with the need for revenge. When he got out of here—and he would—those sons of…He was pure soldier in
that moment, a fighting machine that could and would take his enemies apart with his bare hands.

Judi stepped up next to him. Just stood there within touching distance, waiting. Her presence made it impossible to fully settle into the darkness that tried to claim him, no matter how much he wanted to do just that.

“He was a man of peace.” He bit out the words and felt broken, unable to erase the sight from his mind. A man of peace through and through. How could he have ever doubted it? “Hurting him was completely unnecessary. They had nothing to gain by killing him.”

But they’d done it anyway. In cold blood. A kind old man, and they had beaten him to death. Rage was filling Miklos to the brim. He wanted to strike out at anything and everything.

“Were you close?” Judi put a hand on his shoulder. Her voice sounded weak with shock. She wasn’t a soldier, wasn’t used to seeing violence.

Hell, the past twenty-four hours were getting to be too much even for him. “As close as family.” Bile burned his throat. He stepped away from her, his rage too strong, his emotions too tumultuous to be near anyone. He wanted to rip apart their cell brick by brick and go after the general.

She came to him, not understanding his need for space. When he was practically cornered, she leaned against him and wrapped her arms around his waist. “I’m sorry.”

And to his surprise, he didn’t feel like shaking off her touch. But still, his fury took time to cool. A few minutes passed before he rested his chin on the top of
her head and could at least accept a small portion of the comfort she was offering.

Each breath he took brought her scent to him, making it impossible to ignore her.

He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had tried to give him comfort. Maybe the nursemaids when he’d been little. His mother had always been too busy with matters of state to spend much time with her children. The extent of their contact was when the governesses brought the children in for her inspection for one full hour each day before dinner. His father believed in bringing up strong boys, toughening them up early for the roles they would have to play in life. For this he employed fencing and wrestling tutors. As far as personal time went, he did take them skiing once a year.

Judi hugged him tighter.

He didn’t realize until then just how good a gentle touch could feel, that he could need something like that. But now that he had it, he didn’t want to let it go. She was the one person outside his closest family who didn’t want anything from him. In fact, all she wanted was to go home.

But for now she was still here. Still unharmed for the most. They were still together.

He closed his arms around her. “Are you warm enough?”

There was no heat in the dungeon, and all she had on was a sweater. He had a good parka he’d gotten from Luigi.

He’d brought warm clothes for her, too, but he hadn’t been able to get back to his snowmobile after
the fight. He’d been too busy getting tied up and shoved up into the chopper.

“I’m fine.”

Of course she was. She was as tough as any soldier he’d ever known, which he greatly admired about her. But that toughness should never have been tested like this. He pushed her back a little, opened his parka and settled her against his body before closing the parka on her back. He did his best to remain detached and keep his focus on the door as their bodies molded together.

“What’s going to happen to us?” she asked and trembled against him slightly.

Probably the same thing that had happened to Chancellor Hansen, he thought, but couldn’t say the words to her. “There are more people who are loyal to the monarchy than who are against us.”

“So we’ll be saved?”

He didn’t count on that too much. Eventually, good would win over evil, he was sure of that. But he couldn’t guarantee how fast that would happen, whether it would be too late for them. And his family. He would have given anything for news of his mother and brothers.

“Oh,” she said after a while when he didn’t answer. “Things are worse than you thought, aren’t they?”

Still he hesitated to share his thoughts with her. But she was in the middle of the danger with him. She had a right to know.

“Like I told you, just before I left to receive you at the airport, I received intelligence that there was a plot against Arpad, the crown prince.” He still couldn’t say that without seeing red.

Her hold tightened around him. “And there you were, worried about your brother’s life, having to deal with me.”

He didn’t mind dealing with her. He acknowledged the odd thought. She was worth any trouble. And he would defend her with his life if it came down to it.

“There’s more, isn’t there?” She tilted up her head.

“To go after Arpad, a small group of assassins would have been the most logical. Sneak in, sneak out. To remove Arpad, they didn’t need to get the army involved, didn’t need to lay siege to Maltmore Castle.”

“They want the whole royal family.” She finished the thought for him in a shaky voice, sounding as stunned as he felt by the prospect.

“Yes.” The Freedom Council must have decided that trying to make the royal family abdicate wasn’t worth the effort. They didn’t want a cumbersome public discourse that would take forever.

“I think our enemies might be engineering a revolution. A fake revolution. The people aren’t the ones rising up, but that’s what they’ll say later. The Freedom Council somehow gained the general’s support. The general turned the army or part of the army…” A prince didn’t use foul language. But if he did, this would have been the perfect time to swear.

“Why not let you reach your brothers at Maltmore? He could have had the whole family taken out all at once. Wouldn’t that make more sense than having you separately kidnapped?”

“I’m an army man. Some of the army might not go up against the castle if they think they’re going up
against me. The general can cook up some story about my family, about something terrible my brothers did or new taxes the monarchy is planning that would burden the common man, whatever. But a lot of the soldiers know me. The general might even say that my own brothers killed me because I stood up for the people. He plans on taking care of me separately.”

He couldn’t see much of her in the dim prison, but he could tell that she was staring at him with an expression of wide-eyed horror on her face.

“And the soldiers here? They saw you already. They know that the general kidnapped you. Why don’t they turn against him and set you free?” she asked after a while.

“I haven’t seen one yet that I know. They must have been brought in from outlying posts, maybe from the eastern border. No telling what lies they’ve been told. They are loyal to their general. We will not find any allies here.”

But they had to break out somehow.

His brothers and mother were at Maltmore Castle, which had been surrounded by the general’s men on pretense of protection. Had they made their move yet? Was his family already dead?

Judi laid her head against his chest, her voice a mere whisper when she spoke. “How much time do you think we have left?”

J
UDI WAS LEANING AGAINST
the wall as she sat next to Miklos, their shoulders touching. She needed that connection.

Their small prison had no bed, no table, no bucket. It looked more like a bear cage than a prison cell. They’d been dumped in here about an hour ago, but their captors clearly weren’t planning on keeping them too long. She could figure that out on her own, even if Miklos had evaded her question earlier.

They had been left in the dark—the light that filtered in under the door was precious little—and it was cold. But at least the bunker was closed, and it kept the wind out. And being partially underground, it wasn’t nearly as cold as that first cave up high on the mountain.

The thought sent a shiver through her body.

“Did they hurt you when they took you from the inn?” Miklos’s voice cut the darkness and drew her from those frozen memories.

She’d seen him looking her over a couple of times on the way here in the chopper, checking for injuries. He must have seen the one bruise on her cheek. They’d done little beyond pushing her around. “I’m fine.”

“You always say that,” he told her as if he didn’t fully believe her.

“They only needed me to get you to come to them. You should have stayed away.”

He said nothing to that.

“They didn’t exactly take me from the inn,” she confessed. “They tried, I think. Someone was breaking in. But I climbed out the window.”

She could feel as he shifted toward her. “We weren’t on the first floor.”

“I jumped on top of a truck.”

Ominous silence stretched between them.

“Then I asked the driver to take me to Sacorata.” It had been a good plan. It could have worked. If she could have gotten away, then he wouldn’t have had to save her. He could be at Maltmore Castle by now, instead of keeping her company in some nasty dungeon.

More silence. She was beginning to think that wasn’t good.

“I thought if I stayed, I’d just hold you back.” He had to understand that.

“You got into a truck with a strange man?” His voice was deceptively controlled.

“He seemed nice.” Okay, that did sound pretty stupid in hindsight, but at the time she hadn’t had many options.

Yet more silence came from the prince.

“Having to worry about me was the last thing you needed.” That was a fact he couldn’t argue with. She hoped.

“And just how far did you plan to run?” His voice had an edge to it.

She bit her bottom lip. “Home?”

She could hear him breathing. His chest huffed like a bellows.

“You were leaving me for my own good,” he stated flatly.

“Right.” Why did she think that she wasn’t doing a good job at convincing him?

“And then what happened?”

She shivered at the memory. “We ran into a roadblock a couple of miles out of town. They—” She swallowed. “They just shot the driver. He couldn’t have been older than I am. All he was doing was helping me.
They yanked me out of the cab, and then they shot him point-blank.” Her voice broke.