Leslie Kelly, Jennifer LaBrecque Read online

  So what the hell were they doing heading for that enormous stone monstrosity, pretending he was some prince?

  Saving her life.

  It seemed incredibly far-fetched. He couldn’t see any queen blaming someone else because her pain-in-the-butt son didn’t want to stop playing and come home. At least not blaming her enough to kill over it.

  Saving her job.

  Huh. That wasn’t much of an incentive, since he didn’t much care for her stupid job. Not the kicking-ass part; she was well-equipped for that, from what he’d seen. But the no sex, no love, no family, no home life part. It sucked. Royally.

  Saving her family, then.

  Okay. There was that. Olivia seemed close to her parents and siblings, possibly because she had accepted she would never have a family of her own. They meant a lot to her, and so did their security.

  Saving yourself.

  That was definitely part of it. He didn’t want to lose her and was saving himself from a life without her, at least for the time being. When it came right down to it, he wanted to spend as much time with her as he could. Not merely indulging in a wild, secret sexual affair, but also battering at her defenses, showing her how good an adult relationship could be. She had a lot to learn about that, and he wanted to be the one to teach her.

  That wasn’t his internal white knight talking; she didn’t need rescuing. Yeah, he’d saved her from a life completely devoid of sexual pleasure. But she didn’t need him to save her in any other way. They could go into this as equals, on the same level.

  Just not from the same world.

  Damn the luck.

  “Are you all right?” she asked as they neared what looked like a real freaking moat, all green and slimy, probably full of creatures he’d imagined were lurking under his bed as a kid.

  “Peachy.”

  She didn’t say we can turn around. They both knew it was too late—they’d been spotted, his arrival had been trumpeted, and he suspected Ruprecht’s nasty mother, the queen, was probably right inside the castle, waiting for him to show up, as jowly, suspicious and PMS-y as the prince had portrayed her to be.

  He kinda wished he’d brought the purple Sharpie.

  “You’ll be fine,” she insisted.

  “I’m sure I will. But if this all goes south…”

  “Goes where?”

  “If it goes wrong,” he told her, “what’s the penalty for impersonating a prince? Would I get fed to a hungry dragon or something?”

  “We’re not living in ancient times,” she told him, her voice prim. “Drawing and quartering is much more the standard.”

  Seeing a twinkle in her eye, he realized she was actually teasing him. Something he would never have even imagined her capable of a few days ago when they’d first met.

  “Got it.”

  The twinkle faded and she looked serious as she said, “It would never come to that, of course. If the moment comes when I feel you are truly in danger, Rafe, I will get you out.”

  “I know. But let’s make sure it doesn’t come to that, and I play my part well.” Seeing more people rushing out from their homes to bow, he asked, “Speaking of my part, is there anything else I should know? This bowing, am I expected to do that?”

  The idea obviously horrified her. “Ruprecht bows to nobody.”

  “Not even the queen?”

  She shook her head. “You should kiss her on the cheek as you greet her, and call her Mummy.”

  Mummy. His own mother would whack him in the head with a spoon if he ever called her such a thing.

  “Otherwise, you’ve met Ruprecht, just behave as he does.”

  His hands tightened on the reins and the horse stopped. Because behaving as Ruprecht does was not on his to-do list.

  “What?” he growled.

  “I said, just act like Ruprecht.”

  As if he could. “Uh, in case you didn’t notice, I met him when he was in drag, impersonating his mother. You telling me that’s how he acts around here?”

  She nibbled her lip. “Oh, dear. I didn’t consider that.”

  “Yeah, I thought not. What’s he usually like?”

  “Uh, well, he’s, um, not terribly manly, I suppose.”

  “No kidding.”

  “He doesn’t like to hunt or joust or things of that nature.”

  “Yeah, I coulda guessed he’s not into NASCAR and Penthouse. What is he into?”

  “Into?”

  “What does he like to do for fun.”

  Please don’t say other princes.

  “He’s a good dancer.”

  “Uh-huh.” He loved music, but only when singing.

  “He loves nice clothes and enjoys modeling his new robes.”

  “Gag me.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind.” Sighing deeply, he admitted, “All right, so far it’s not so bad. I can work with most of this—fake an injury or something so I can’t dance. And say I’ve decided I don’t really want people watching me prance around in new clothes. But let me confirm one thing—you seemed shocked when you saw him, so can I assume he’s not out of the closet?”

  Because that was one impersonation he definitely could not pull off.

  “Out of what closet?”

  “Nobody here knows he’s gay. That he likes men.”

  She still looked confused, having no idea what he meant. That was answer enough. Obviously Ruprecht had kept his true self secret even from the royal bodyguards. “Never mind. I got it.”

  Though she still looked puzzled, they began to trot again, side by side. They hadn’t gone ten feet, or whatever they used to measure distance here, when Olivia jerked the reins and stopped short. Her mouth rounding into a perfect O, she stared at him.

  He suspected she’d figured out what “in the closet” meant.

  “You think Ruprecht has romantic feelings for a man?” she asked in a loud whisper.

  “Pretty sure about it, honey. Is it that unusual here?”

  “It’s certainly not unheard of,” she admitted, “but I never imagined it of the prince.”

  Honestly, Rafe had a hard time imagining anyone thinking the guy was straight.

  “He’s so vain. He loves being around women. So when he said he had finally fallen in love…?”

  “Yeah. I’d say Jess is a dude.”

  He wondered how she would feel about that, sensing this Elatyria place was a little backward when it came to social issues. But when her lips suddenly curved into a huge, genuine smile, he figured Olivia wasn’t too shocked.

  “The queen will be furious!”

  “You think?”

  She continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “Oh, this explains so much—like why even the most powerful fairy godmother in the land was unable to find him a love match. It all makes sense now. Poor Ruprecht! No wonder he is so anxious to stay over there where he can be who he ‘really is.’”

  Interesting. The hard-ass warrior sympathizing with somebody who wanted to be free to love who he wanted. He wondered if she even recognized the way she’d changed. Because, honestly, he didn’t see the Olivia who’d jumped him in that alley coming to such a conclusion.

  Still chuckling over the whole thing, Olivia resumed her steady trot. But as they drew ever closer to Alcatraz—er, the castle—and more people came out to greet him, her humor faded away and was replaced by obvious tension. He thought at first it was because she dreaded seeing the queen, then he realized she was on guard. Doing her job.

  Protecting him.

  Soon she was actually leaning forward in the saddle, one hand on the reins, one resting lightly on the sheathed knife at her hip. Her eyes constantly scanned the crowd, and she scowled at everyone, as if she expected someone to pull out a dagger and go all “Et tu, Bruté” on his ass.

  The idea that she’d leap off the horse and fight a would-be assassin was enough to make his own good mood disappear. But he didn’t really worry about it happening. Ruprecht seemed as easygoing as a bunny, as worrisome as
a butterfly. Could somebody like that have any enemies? Who would possibly want to hurt him?

  Judging by the smiles and flowers being tossed at him by the villagers…nobody.

  “Would you relax?” he told her as he drew up beside her. Wanting her to loosen up, needing to see that brilliant smile again, he murmured, “Think about something else. Like how much you owe me.”

  “Owe you?”

  “For doing all this,” he said, waving a hand around him. “You owe me big time, Captain Vanderbrook.”

  She stared at him for a long moment. Then whispered, “I know, Your Majesty. And I will repay this debt.”

  He maintained an innocent, pleasant expression. “On your back, I presume.”

  She didn’t even glance over, but he’d swear a tiny grin quirked her lips. Then, just before she urged her stallion into a gallop, she answered with a saucy comeback of her own.

  “No, I’m pretty sure it’ll be on yours.”

  BY ALL RIGHTS, Olivia should have been well pleased.

  Everything had worked perfectly. In the two days since their arrival in Grand Falls, Rafe had not only fooled Queen Verona and the whole court—having them all hanging on his every word and falling over themselves to please him—but had managed to act more princely than Prince Ruprecht while doing it.

  He conversed intelligently with his advisors, who commented afterward what a sensible young man the heir had become. He threw no tantrums about the food delivered from the kitchens—not even when one of his pies was delivered sans plum and with a rather obvious thumbprint, courtesy of the head cook’s son.

  He made sound judgments at the daily court, delighting sheep farmers by decreeing they no longer had to give a third of their fleeces to little boys who lived down the lane—a rather stupid law, nobody even remembered where that one had come from. The milkmaids loved him for lifting a heavy tax on milk bottles. And he enacted a law that no more birds were to be baked alive into pies, which had much pleased the avian-rights people. Not to mention the birds.

  Everybody was happy. Everyone was excited about the coronation. All of Grand Falls was proud of their prince who had set off on his journey an overgrown boy and come back a man.

  The only one who wasn’t very pleased about any of this was Olivia. Oh, she was proud of him. Thrilled at how well he’d done.

  But she was also jealous as hell.

  Her. Olivia Vanderbrook, who’d never imagined caring for any man, was turning into a veritable shrew over someone she wasn’t supposed to want, something she wasn’t supposed to have.

  Because there had been one more group who had noticed the change in him and come running: all the eligible maidens in the land. Princesses, merchant’s daughters, cinder girls—they all heard that the new manly Ruprecht might soon be ready to choose a bride. They flocked to the castle on one pretense or another, lining up for a chance to see him.

  It made her want to find a giant to beat on.

  She had to give Rafe credit, he didn’t seem glad about it. Yet he was unfailingly kind, always polite. Knowing him as she did, she realized he could never be cruel to one of the horny bitches trying to trap him into compromising her so he’d propose.

  That was where Olivia came in. She was his bodyguard. By day, she guarded his body from those desperate virgins.

  By night, she had that body all to herself.

  It went against her training, and the Amazon code. But she didn’t care. Her desire for him, for the pleasures they shared, had become an intoxicating drug. She didn’t know how she would be able to ever sleep again when she didn’t have his chest to lean upon, the beating of his heart to lull her to slumber. Nor could she imagine the time when she would lose those deep, wonderful kisses that made her toes curl up in her boots. Or go back to being the empty shell she’d been before he’d filled her.

  Not just physically. He’d filled her emotionally, too. When they weren’t doing pleasurable things to each other in the dark of night, they spent hours talking. About his day, about hers. His impressions of her world and how he’d change things. Her impressions of his and what she’d leave exactly the same.

  She honestly could not imagine going through an entire day without seeing him, hearing his voice, feeling his touch.

  The coronation was a few days away, and after it was over, he would go home. She would stay here. And life would go back to normal. Mundane, purposeless, passionless.

  Empty.

  “Liv!” a voice called.

  Jerking her attention down a long, shadowy corridor outside the royal sleeping quarters, she saw Rafe hurrying toward her. He’d gone to visit his “mother,” and she knew he’d been worrying about the appointment.

  “We’ve gotta get out of here.”

  “What?”

  Reaching her side, he grabbed her by the arm. He practically dragged her into the prince’s room, which was draped with rich tapestries and filled with gaudy, gold-trimmed furnishings, all of which he declared suitable for something called a cathouse.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “She’s planning to marry him—me—off!”

  The wheels immediately began churning in her brain. “Great Athena’s ghost.”

  “And Zeus’s, too,” he snapped. “She told me how pleased she is that I’ve finally grown up, and informed me she’s chosen a princess who I am to marry immediately after my coronation!”

  Olivia stared at him, surprised he hadn’t already stalked out of the castle and headed for the borderland. This wasn’t part of the bargain. And the idea of him married to someone else…well, it was not to be imagined.

  “This is madness,” she said. It was so out of character, so unusual given all the machinations the queen had gone through over the years to try to tempt her son into choosing a bride. “She told you this? She didn’t ask for your opinion?”

  He thrust a hand through his hair, shorter now, since they’d trimmed it and re-outfitted him as soon as they’d arrived at the castle. She missed the longer tresses that she’d tangled her fingers in that evening at the falls.

  “Yeah. It’s a done deal. Finished. I have no choice. I get the crown, I get married, I get laid, she gets a grandson.”

  Steam rising in her head at the I get laid part—she’d definitely picked up some of the lingo from his world—she forced herself to think. “This makes no sense.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “She would never…” Suddenly struck by a possibility—an awful possibility—she fell silent. Thinking.

  “What?” he asked, realizing something had occurred to her.

  Olivia didn’t answer for a moment. Casting a quick look around the chamber, she made sure the red velvet drapes were perfectly straight, and no one was lurking behind them. Then she whispered, “She knows.”

  He rolled his eyes. “No way. She woulda tossed me out if she knew. Or chopped off my head.” Obviously he’d gotten to know Queen Verona rather well and no longer doubted the woman’s bloody streak.

  “The queen adores Ruprecht and has never once, in all these years, ordered him to take a bride. She’s only doing it now because she knows you’re not him!”

  “If you’re right—a big if—she’d have to know it wouldn’t be a legitimate marriage.”

  Thinking of the twisted workings of the queen’s mind, she came to another awful conclusion. “She’s come up with a way to hold on to the kingdom without her son. She’ll get you crowned, marry you off, have you impregnate your bride, then…”

  “Kill me,” he muttered.

  “Yes.” That sounded like what the evil queen would do. “Then she’ll remain dowager for another thirty years, all the while planning what she’ll do to your son when he comes of age.”

  “That bitch,” he said, no longer arguing it.

  “Let’s go.” Grabbing his arm, she shoved him toward the window. It was a steep drop down into the moat, but she knew he could swim and there shouldn’t be too many animals to fend off.

  Though, on
ce again, she couldn’t help wishing for that nice indoor plumbing, given what the moat was used for here.

  She reached the mullioned window, pushed it open and leaned out. “Come on, I’ll have you home by tomorrow night, I promise.”

  Rafe turned around, listening intently, as if he heard voices approaching from outside the chamber.

  “Hurry!” She climbed into the window well.

  “What will happen to you if you help me?” he asked.

  “I don’t give a damn, would you come?”

  “I mean it. What will happen if I disappear? Will you be blamed? She’d have to know you’re in on this.” He sucked in a quick breath. “Right before I left, I thought I heard her say something to one of her guards about coming to get you.”

  “Get over here, Rafe, we must go! If she’s figured it out, she knows I’m involved and she’s going to throw me in the dungeon until well after the coronation.”

  And probably until after his death. If she survived that long.

  But he couldn’t go. “Even if you came with me…you couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t take revenge on your family.”

  Olivia stared at him, knowing his was the mind churning away now. Hoping he heard her sincerity, she said, “That’s not your problem, not your worry. You tried to help all of us and the last thing I will allow is for you to be hurt because of it.”

  Instead of coming closer, he backed away, edging deeper into the room. “You go. I’m staying.”

  She leapt to the floor. “Are you mad?”

  “No, I’m dead serious. If we leave together, she’ll have her whole army on us and we’ll never make it to the border.”

  He was right that the regular army would give chase. Not that she didn’t think she couldn’t outrun Queen Verona’s pathetic army.

  “Go, get the real Ruprecht, drag his ass back here, let him take the crown. Then the queen can’t touch me, and she can’t punish you, or anyone you care about, for helping me.”

  She grabbed him and pulled. “Here’s a better idea. I drag your ass out of this place before she marries you to some simpering virgin, then cuts your heart out.”

  “I don’t like simpering virgins,” he said with a grin. “I like bad-girl ones.”