She leaned against him, closing her eyes. Visions of the previous night swam through her head, his warm body pressing hers to the carpet, the tickle of wool on her back, the hot stroke of his tongue on her lips.
“You will be safe,” he murmured. “I promise I will keep you safe.”
“But will you be safe?” she asked.
“No.” He nibbled her ear. “I am the Imperial Prince of Nvengaria. I have not been safe since the day I was born, and I never will be. If I keep ahead of those trying to kill me, I think that is enough.” He smiled into her skin. “Life
is exciting this way. You never live one moment without appreciating it, and every joy that comes your way is that much sweeter. You learn to savor the beauty. Like you.”
She turned in his arms and kissed him, then held him tight against her. Savoring, yes, she had learned to savor what he gave her.
It was there, in the dingy cabin smelling of old potatoes and the brackish mud of the Thames, that she first realized what she had pledged herself to do. She’d given up a peaceful life of spinsterhood in her mother’s house, writing books of folk tales in her plain hand, for a life of tumultuous love and danger. Her days had been lonely, perhaps, but filled with sweet, simple joys, the sort that Damien longed to savor.
She would give him that, she vowed to herself. She would give him sweet simplicity, a respite from his life of fear and tension, a place he could lay his head on her bosom and sleep, free of care.
She would do this for him, she thought, as she lifted her face to his and kissed him, if it took all her resources and all her strength.
“They seem to be on water,” Nedrak said. He held his scrying stone between his fingers and peered into it shortsightedly. “With sails. A ship. Hmm. The captain looks like a veritable pirate. Perhaps they have been captured.”
Alexander turned from the window. The people of the city were beginning to prepare for the Midsummer festival, which would fall on the summer solstice. The festival was usually one of the most frenzied of the year, with the exception of Yule; pagan holidays were soundly embraced in Nvengaria. Things had only now died down from the fertility festivals of May Day, which always meant a fine crop of children at New Year’s.
For Midsummer, there would be fireworks, flotillas on
the river, feasting and music, and this year, Prince Damien returning with his new princess, restored from the line of Prince Augustus of old.
The Council of Dukes expected Alexander to banish the entire festival, but Alexander smiled and said it could continue as planned. “The disappointment when Prince Damien fails to arrive will be more exquisite,” he said smoothly.
The Council nodded, some pleased, some troubled.
“Your assassin seems to have let them get away,” Nedrak said.
“No, he has not,” Alexander replied. “He will hunt them until he succeeds.”
“The prophecy, Your Grace, is strong. It protects him. And her.”
“Nedrak.”
Nedrak closed his mouth as Alexander leaned over him. “No more scrying,” Alexander said. “No more magic. All your magic hasn’t done a damn thing to help me. All the fanatics have only succeeded in killing themselves. It is not magic that will solve this, it is money. I hired the very best, and he will not stop until Damien is dead.” He leaned closer. Nedrak’s eyes were wide. “All your chanting and predicting did not save Nvengaria from near ruin. It will not put it back together. I will.” Alexander struck his chest with his finger. “
I
will.”
“The Council of Mages…”
“The Council of Mages is a pack of fools. This is a new world, Nedrak, one of steam and rifles and fast ships. There are medicines now that keep away smallpox—think of it Nedrak, no one need die of that disease again—and ways to pump clean water to keep away the cholera. Those are ten times better than all your magic, do you not think? I watched hundreds die of smallpox while the old prince refused to let my father send for the vaccine. He believed in the chanting of his mages, and when
they could not help, he had them put to death. You remember that, do you not?”
Nedrak, white-faced, nodded. “Yes, Your Grace. But perhaps Prince Damien will be amenable to new ideas.”
Alexander straightened, and Nedrak sagged against the table. “Perhaps he will, Nedrak,” he said softly. “And perhaps not. I looked into his eyes when Misk brought him back, and I saw the monster looking out. He might be filled with visions of the new Nvengaria at first. He might let the pretty princess ease his mind at first. But it will not last. The monster will win out. I will never let that happen.”
Nedrak swallowed, his Adam’s apple a sharp lump in his thin throat. “But what if your assassin fails, Your Grace? What will you do then?”
Alexander actually relaxed into a smile. “It does not matter. The entire prophecy is a sham. There is no Nvengarian princess. And when the people realize that, they’ll tear him to pieces.”
They landed in France after a run across the Channel on a ship called the
Majesty
, owned by a pirate turned viscount. Damien seemed to be old friends with him, a man with a thick mane of golden hair who gave his name as Grayson Finley. Finley’s children, a twin boy and girl of seven and a boy of five, swarmed about deck, already competent sailors.
Another “old friend,” a swarthy-skinned gypsy this time, met them on the road from La Havre with horses for them all.
Once on horseback, they made good time under fair weather, angling across France toward the German states. English people took this journey as part of their grand tour, to study art and architecture across Europe, but Damien led Penelope and his people at a brisk clip, avoiding cities and fine estates in favor of middling sized towns and tawdry inns.
One night put them far from any town, and they slept in a loft over an enclosed stable yard, breathing the odor of pungent hay and the horses below them. Petri brought them all a bite of bread and warm stew from the farmer’s kitchen. Then they rolled into blankets and tried to sleep.
“Just like old times, sir,” Petri said as he lay down next to Damien.
“Not quite,” Damien rumbled. He put his arm around Penelope and drew her back against him, covering them with one blanket. “Life is much better now.” He kissed her hair and soon fell asleep.
Penelope had little opportunity to lie with Damien as his wife on the hurried journey. The few times they found themselves alone together—and sometimes Petri would stand against the outside of the door to keep everyone out—Damien took full advantage, quickly shrugging off his clothes and taking Penelope fast and hard on whatever surface presented itself.
But there was no more lazing in bed together, no games, no wickedness, only basic, quick lovemaking, and endless roads with the saddle hard under her backside. Wulf rode on the saddle in front of her, much to her horse’s distress, but the boy behaved himself.
They rode out of France, through Wurttemberg and into Bavaria, ever eastward, until they reached the waters of the Danube. In a little town with narrow houses pressed together into narrow streets, they traded the horses for a small watercraft and a man to guide them.
Penelope huddled in the stern of the boat as they pushed away from the banks and drifted between highcut hills, bright green with summer. It seemed as though there was a castle around each narrow bend of the river. They came in the forms of a squat, square tower of an ancient fortress, now in ruins; the stern, upright walls of a later castle with round battlements; or a lacy palace glittering with windows, the summer home of some sprig of
German aristocracy. They had to stop interminable times for tolls, but Damien paid them without a word.
Penelope watched the world slide by without tiring of it. She had never been out of England, and around every corner was a new sight. Wulf gazed about with the same wonder, though the men, including Titus, slept against the gunwales as though uninterested in all this splendor.
Sasha, on the other hand, kept up a running monologue on the prophecy and the importance of arriving in Nvengaria at the precise moment, until Petri threatened to gag him. They were running behind already, and the atmosphere was tense.
The mountains rose, and Penelope bathed her senses in the beautiful, craggy hills that fell to the river. It was full summer, which meant that stiller parts of the river teemed with tiny flies, determined to make a meal of everyone in the boat. They passed a few miserable nights besieged by gnats, except Wulf, who happily ate them.
“Make him stop that,” Egan complained.
Damien shrugged, swatting away the swarm about his face. “He is hungry. At least they are encouraged to look elsewhere for a meal.”
Egan was white to the lips. “Have pity on me. I’ve not had a drop of whiskey in days.”
“It will be good for your soul,” Damien said.
“I haven’t got a soul. Not anymore.” He groaned and laid his arm over his eyes.
“Is he all right?” Penelope whispered later to Damien. “He looks in a bad way.”
Damien leaned close to answer. “He has taken to a bottle more since the war ended. He feels useless. ‘At a loose end,’ as you English say.”
“Perhaps he should marry.”
Damien gave a soft snort of laughter. “Not he. He is in favor of marriage, but for everyone else, not himself.”
“Very likely because the woman he loves is married to
another.” Penelope sighed, both feeling sorry for Egan and liking a good romantic tale.
Damien gave her a puzzled look. “The woman he loves?”
“Someone called Zarabeth. He told me at the ball the Regent gave for us, the night that…” She broke off, blushing. She’d behaved shamelessly, and the trouble was, she was not ashamed.
He sent her a smile full of hot promise. “When we are off this boat and in a bed…” He pressed his lips to her temple. “I will show you so much more than I did that night.”
She shivered. “There is more?”
“Oh, yes, Princess.”
They said nothing for a time. As Penelope resumed her study of the mountains and other craft on the river, she asked, “Who is this Zarabeth?”
“My cousin. She has the title of ‘princess’ although her family is from a distant branch. I knew Egan was fond of her, but he never professed love.”
“Perhaps not to you,” she said. “But he loves her.”
Damien looked thoughtful, but “Hmm,” was all he would say.
They didn’t see any sign of Felsan or other assassins. The river journey was uneventful.
“The mark of an excellent assassin,” Petri said. “He’ll find us, and at just the right moment, he’ll pounce.”
Petri’s predictions did not make for a relaxing journey. They left the boat in Vienna, where the river clogged with huge barges and ships traveling east from Bavaria and west from as far away as Russia and the Black Sea.
They stayed the night at an inn, far from the fashionable world of opera and music and the brilliant Imperial Palace. There, Lady Anastasia found them. She met them in the
private parlor Damien had taken and pushed back her cloak to reveal ballroom finery and diamonds in her hair.
“I will not offer you the inferior wine,” Damien said. “You journeyed quickly.”
“A fast carriage, frequent changes of horses, and a haughty manner works wonders,” she said in her clear voice. She spoke English with little trace of accent, and Penelope knew she’d chosen English so Penelope could follow the conversation. “I was followed all the way. Alexander is taking no chances.”
“And here?” Egan broke in.
“I was not followed,” she said calmly. “But word was waiting for me. Alexander has dissolved the Council of Mages.”
Sasha gave an anguished cry. “He cannot do such a thing. The Council, they have been formed for eight hundred years. They study and regulate magic and work for the good of Nvengaria.”
Anastasia glanced at him with her lovely brown eyes. “Alexander has called them an annoying body of old mumblers.”
“The people will never stand for it,” Sasha declared. “They will rise up.”
“I am afraid the people rather agree with him,” she said. “They jeered Nedrak as he rode away to his daughter’s house in the north. The only magic they want is the prince and princess.”
Damien studied her a moment, then lifted his brows. “You agree?”
She flushed. “Nvengaria needs to be modernized,” she said. “Without losing itself. That is what you must do. And I will do anything to help you.”
Penelope remembered that Damien had said Anastasia worked for Nvengaria, not him. She would do what was best for Nvengaria. If Anastasia thought that meant rid
ding the country of Damien, she realized, the woman would work to do so.
“Go back to the palace and flirt with Metternich,” Damien said. “Keep him busy while I put down this coup and restore the people’s faith. Alexander always knows just how far he can push them.”
“Alexander is not a bad ruler,” Anastasia said, “if a trifle ruthless.”
“I am Imperial Prince,” Damien said. His eyes held a hint of ice, and the room grew chilly. “Nvengaria belongs to me.”
Anastasia hesitated a long moment. She and Damien studied one another, then her flush deepened. “I beg your pardon, Your Highness.” She dropped into a curtsy.
Damien’s tone remained quiet for the remainder of the conversation, then Anastasia took her leave. He spoke as usual to the rest of them after her departure, but the atmosphere remained strained.
The next day they took passage in a larger craft bound for Budapest. The water teemed with barges large and small, moving upstream and down. The going was slower, because as the river broadened, the number of towns with unloading barges and boats grew.
Penelope watched Damien’s impatience grow; Midsummer’s Day was now a scant week or so away. Damien planned to hug the river all the way beyond Transylvania, and in the cold mood he’d lapsed into after his conversation with Anastasia, no one argued with him.
He seemed to change as they moved eastward. The carefree prince dropped away, and he became more and more foreign—to Penelope at least—as he moved into the lands of his ancestors.
In Budapest, he left them behind at an inn while he met with a contact somewhere in the city. He refused to answer questions about it when Egan admonished him for going out alone.
“This city was my school,” he said bluntly to the Scotsman. “I spent three years here learning how to move from mere survival to living on my own terms. I know every street intimately and slept in not a few of them.”
“Weel, we don’t know that, do we, laddie?” Egan said, his brogue going broad. “We don’t know whether ye be dead by an assassin’s blade or merely bein’ intimate with the streets.”
Damien only gave him a withering look and rang for a servant to bring dinner.
That night, since they had a bed alone, Damien made love to Penelope perfunctorily but swiftly, and then gathered her close, saying nothing, simply holding her.
From Budapest, the river ran straight south until Belgrade, where it turned abruptly east again, pulled toward the Black Sea. They plunged between the Carpathian mountains and lands to the south, the cliffs rising abruptly from the water. They drifted close to a cliff that had a small Roman tablet carved in it, to mark the spot where a Roman of old had crossed the river to conquer the barbaric peoples to the north.
Penelope let her fingers scrape the stone in wonder. She’d seen Roman ruins in Bath, but here in the middle of the wilderness, the lone marker that had stood for millennia struck her as lonely and powerful, silent and sad.
Not long after that, where narrow paths took them through cool mountain passes and soaring trees, Felsan struck.
Damien had sensed it coming, but he’d wished the man had waited until they were high in the mountains, Damien’s own territory. He wanted to capture Felsan, truss him up, and deliver the Prussian facedown to Alexander in the throne room of the Imperial Castle.
How the devil the man had decided what route Damien would take, he did not know. One moment, they
walked through cool woods; the next, Wulf gave a sudden whimper, and they were surrounded by men with drawn pistols.
“Hell and damnation,” Egan said. He drew a long knife from his belt, and he and Petri and Titus formed a tight circle around Penelope and Sasha.
The leader of the mercenaries, a huge man with closecropped blond hair and sunburned flesh, held his pistol on Damien. “Do not kill the woman,” he told his men. He spoke in blunt, hard English. “Only the prince. If the others make it necessary, kill them as well. But not the woman.”
Damien wondered why the declaration in English, when his men should already know their orders. He realized that Alexander wanted both Damien and Penelope to know that he would not order Penelope’s death.
He must believe I will think better of him when I see him in hell.
“I commend you on your ability to track me,” he said in German.
Felsan grinned and ran his tongue across the ball of his thumb. “The Austrian woman, she screams very hard.”
Damien felt something evil tighten inside him. He went rigidly silent, but Egan growled like a bear. “You’re dying for that, you mother-loving bastard.”
“I left her alive. He said I was not to kill any of the women.”
Damien heard Wulf whimper again, then the boy suddenly pushed his way between Titus and Petri and ran off into the woods. A mercenary raised his pistol, but Felsan signaled him to stop. “No women. No children. Only princes.”
He smiled, showing crooked white teeth. “Step out and take it like a man, Your Highness,” he said in Nvengarian. “Do not let one of these good servants leap in front of the bullet and sacrifice himself for you.”
Titus snarled, his young face red with fury. “I would die a thousand deaths for him before I let you take him.”
Felsan chuckled. “Only one death would be necessary.”
“Titus,” Damien said clearly, “shut up. I need you to take care of the princess. Do you understand? You guard her with everything you’ve got.”
Titus went quiet, then gave a nod.
Damien looked at Felsan. “If you want me, I will step away. That way if you miss you will not hurt them.”
Felsan’s grin widened. “
Was ist das?
You will not try to pay me more money to be on your side?”
“You would take my money and shoot me anyway. A mercenary who gains the reputation of not staying bought is never again employed.”
“A perceptive man you are.
Also, gut,
stand there.” He pointed a thick finger at a tree to Damien’s left.
“May I say my good-byes to my wife?”
“Yes. If she moves from the others.”
Damien glanced at Penelope. “Love,” he said softly. “Come here.”
Penelope was white to the lips, and her beautiful eyes held great anger. He beckoned to her, and she stepped around Petri and walked slowly to him.
God damn Felsan. Damien had finally found what filled the empty places inside him, what ended the loneliness, what let him rest in darkness without fear. He’d found Penelope after a lifetime of searching, not even knowing he was searching. And he’d had no time, so very little time, to spend with her. Felsan deserved a special place in hell.
Damien reached for her, sliding his fingers through hers, and drew her close. She searched his face as he brushed his thumb across her cheek and leaned to kiss her.
He savored her mouth and the flash of her tongue against his. He knew she thought he had a brilliant plan
that would save them all and destroy Felsan. He did have a plan, but it was far from brilliant and depended on much luck. Felsan was slowing him down and had very nearly wrecked what he had set up, the stupid man. Midsummer’s Day was too close, only days away; he did not have time for this.
He eased the kiss to its end, their lips clinging a final moment, and touched her sweet face again. “You do what Egan and Petri tell you to, all right? Promise me.”
Her gaze roved his face again. “Damien…”
“Promise me.”
She watched him a moment longer, then wet her lips and nodded.
“Good.” He brushed his lips to hers again, then peeled her hand from his. “Go stand with them.”
She swallowed, nodded again, and turned to obey. She still thought he had a brilliant plan. He hoped she would not be too disappointed.
“No,” Sasha screamed.
Felsan started. Petri swung around. “Shut up,” he said frantically.
“No.” Sasha fell to his knees in the dirt. He was weeping, tears running down his face. “You cannot kill him. Do you know what this man has done for me? He took me with his own hands and raised me up. He remembered me, he came for me. Any other man would have let me die, forgotten, but not Damien. He let me live. He is the true prince.”
Felsan’s men trained weapons on him, fingers nervous on triggers. “Shut him up,” Felsan snapped.
“Sasha,” Damien said warningly.
“Kill me, instead. I will die in his place. I am alive only because of him.”
“Fine,” Felsan said in a hard voice and aimed his pistol.
An unholy shriek echoed through the woods, a cry a
man might hear in a nightmare. Before any of Felsan’s mercenaries had time to react, a black streak shot through the air and struck the startled Felsan.
Snarling and hissing, clawing and biting, Wulf, once more a demon, began to tear Felsan to pieces.
Felsan’s pistol discharged. Damien dove for the ground, bearing Penelope beneath him. The mercenaries shot wildly, missing Wulf entirely. Egan tackled one of them, snatching the pistol from his grip and using it to shoot a mercenary who was aiming to kill Damien.
A few more pistols discharged. Blood blossomed on Egan’s arm, but this only enraged him all the more. The Mad Highlander sprang, grabbed another mercenary in his brawny grip, and squeezed hard. With a crunch of bones, the man fell to the damp earth.
Wulf looked up and around, his face and sharp teeth red with blood, his lips drawn back in a snarl. Felsan was a silent and bloody mess beneath him.
The mercenaries who were still unhurt glanced at Wulf, glanced at each other, then turned as one and fled. One was kind enough to scoop up the man whose ribs Egan had broken, carrying him, groaning, over his shoulder.
Egan straightened up, his hand pressed to the bloody arm of his shirt. “God,” he said, looking at the body of Felsan. “Now I truly will be sick.”
They carried Felsan’s body to the river and threw him in. He’d fetch up in a town downstream, where the priest could order him to be given a proper burial.
Penelope was silent as they walked on. She said not one word, not to ask if Damien were all right, or to lend sympathy to the frightened Sasha, or to Egan whose arm had been grazed, although she did help bind it.
“You can go back,” Damien told Egan. “Catch a passing boat that will take you upriver, where you can have that properly seen to.”
Egan gave him a look of disgust. “Abandon you because of a wound that couldn’t slow down a rabbit? Don’t bleat like an old woman.”
Damien smiled to himself. Egan was fine.
Wulf, on the other hand, had disappeared. He had glared at their startled faces when they tried to move to Felsan’s body, then with another shriek, he ran off into the woods. They had not seen him since.
“Do not worry about him.” Damien tried to comfort Penelope. “These mountains are his home. He comes from here.”
Petri added, “He probably went to see his mum.”
Egan glanced about darkly. “So long as he doesn’t bring her back for a visit.”
They walked the rest of that day and on into evening. Penelope tired before long, and when Damien put a supporting arm around her, she looked up at him with dark eyes full of shock. She needed to rest, but he did not want to spend the night in the open. Some of the mercenaries might be courageous enough to try to murder them in the night, and they might not share Felsan’s scruples about not killing them all.
Near sunset, a carter driving into the next village agreed to let Penelope ride on his load of turnips. Damien lifted her, unresisting, and laid her on the rough sacks. He made Sasha ride as well, even if the man insisted he was fine. As soon as Sasha climbed onto the wagon, he fell back onto the lumpy sacks, sound asleep.
Damien carried Penelope to the town’s only inn, and bade the landlord get her a bath and a soft bed. The landlord and his wife looked closely at Damien, no doubt working out in their shrewd country minds exactly who he was. The pass to Nvengaria was not far from here, and the prince was expected with his princess any day.
Fortunately, they said nothing. The landlord’s wife helped Penelope bathe, and tucked her into bed.
When Damien joined her much later in the night, he thought her asleep, but as soon as he stripped and climbed beneath the coarse blankets with her, she threw her arms around his neck, sobbing.
“Shh.” With expert hands, he unwove the braid of her hair and smoothed it with his fingers. “It is over, love.”
He eased his hand to the small of her back, kneading and massaging, while he drew her on top of him. He roved one hand to the nape of her neck and fit her mouth over his. He explored with his tongue, not forcing her to kiss him back, probing her mouth and the moisture behind her lower lip. He slid her legs apart as he kissed her, his erection swelling and stiff, and eased her down onto him.
His mind clouded as her hips began rocking against his, making love to him even as she wept. He scratched lightly across her back, raking his hand to her hips and thighs, tracing circles as he pushed up into her. The high bed creaked, a loose leg thumping against the boards of the floor, as he drove as hard and high into her as he could.
Her hair fell over him like a curtain. He caught strands in his teeth and tugged them. Her tears dropped to his face, hot like the rain that had begun outside the window, tears on the panes to match hers.
He rocked swiftly against the bed, scrape-
thump
, scrape-
thump,
scrape-
thump.
Black spots swirled before his eyes, tiny rivulets of sweat furrowing his skin.
Still crying softly, she lay down on him. Her back was slick with sweat, and their legs and bellies sealed together from the dampness. He moved his hands to her buttocks, but before he could go any further, she came, her climax uttered in gasps and moans.
“Penelope,” he heard himself cry out. He squeezed his eyes shut as his climax took him, purple flickering on the edges of his vision. His seed poured out of him in violent shots, wanting her heat, her juices flowing back hot around him.
“Love you, love you.” He thrust his tongue into her mouth, wanting to be inside her any way he could. “Love you,” he said, his voice hoarse.
Her tears wet his chest. His climax wound down, though he was still stiff inside her.
“It’s all right,” he murmured. He heard himself speaking Nvengarian, but he was too exhausted to think in another language. “It is over, sweetheart. We are still here, still together. If he had not killed Felsan, I would be dead, and I would much rather be here in this bed with you.”
She raised her head, her face twisted with weeping. “I was glad Wulf killed him,” she said, her voice broken. “I was happy to see the blood, because he wanted to hurt you. I wanted to do what Wulf did. I felt it inside me, that insane rage. I wanted to tear him apart for trying to hurt you. I wanted to.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, her sobs uncontrollable.
“Sweetheart.” He gently pulled her down on him and held her close. “It does not matter, love. You were scared—and I did not particularly want to die.”