Page 45 of Wicked Queen

Brex had the look of a man who had seen war and suddenly missed it. He was easily two times her size, and most of that was muscle. Given her remarkable impression of a boneless heap of a person, it was proving a struggle to keep her upright. Georgia stalked into the room looking more disgusted than usual as she apprised the situation.

“Why are you here?” Alexander snapped. “You’re Clara’s bodyguard now.”

“He called me.” Georgia hoisted a thumb at Brex.

“You didn’t answer the first call.” Brex tried to shrug and nearly lost his grip on Sarah, who seemed to notice us for the first time.

“Oh! Alexander. I was looking up old boyfriends, so I could move on and grow up and make you proud or whatever shit you wanted—and I discovered that I must go find new boyfriends.” Her finger wagged in my direction. “Not every girl gets a Prince Charming.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, crossing my arms over my robe and wondering how to sort this mess.

“Two nights in a row?” I recognized the unnervingly even tone in Alexander’s voice. He’d turned himself off emotionally. It was what he did whenever he had to mete out a response to a situation.

“I have ten years to catch up on.” She lunged away from Brex and veered into me. I caught her with Georgia’s help.

“Let’s not do it all at once,” Georgia suggested, handing her back off to Brex.

He seemed to consider the situation and made a decision. Instead of continuing to help her, he ducked down and threw her over his shoulder. She tried to kick him, but her aim was lousy.

“Put me down!” She smacked his back. “Put me down! Put me…”

“I think she passed out,” the other security guard said gratefully. Judging by his round eyes, he was new to this gig. I could only hope he was loyal. Not that selling this story would be an option. I doubted she’d kept a low profile wherever she’d been.

Brex carried her to the bedroom, and her involuntary entourage followed. As soon as we reached it, he dumped her on her bed.

I stopped, shocked to discover she’d managed to tear the place apart in such a short period of time. Clothes were strewn everywhere along with books and magazines. It looked as if she’d dumped the content of every drawer and shelf on the floor and then done snow angels in the middle of it all.

We couldn’t ignore this behavior. We couldn’t all go along pretending that she was an adult, or that we could catch her up on what she’d missed. Doctors were going to need to worry about more than physical therapy, and until her head was on straight, we needed to keep her busy.

I stomped over to her bed, determined to deal with it in the morning. At the moment, her needs were much simpler. The acrid scent of gin and being nearly nine months pregnant didn’t mix well, but I forced my stomach to obey me. I pointed at the door. “Out!”

“This shouldn’t be your problem,” Alexander said.

“Are you going to undress your sister and put her to bed?” I planted my hands on my hips and waited for his answer. This seemed to get through to him. “Georgia and I will take care of it.”

“Someone should stay with her,” the rookie security guard said, eyeing the chair in the corner.

Alexander rounded on him. “Do you think I’m going to let you sit in a dark room with my drunk sister?”

He backed up recognizing the alpha male in front of him. “I was just pointing out…”

“That someone needs to stay with her?” Georgia’s glare could peel paint from the walls. Alexander wasn’t going to trust a man, but he was in no shape to sit here himself. The sooner we got him out of the room, the better. “I’ll stay with her. Happy?”

No one looked happy about any of it, but Alexander jerked his chin in agreement.

“You and I need to talk.” Alexander shot Brex a look. I couldn’t tell which one of them was angrier, and since the object of their fury was deep in dreamland, they redirected it at each other.

“At least she isn’t wearing much.” Georgia observed, looking at Sarah like someone was forcing her to unwrap an unwanted gift.

I’d already resigned myself to this fate. “I’ll get her shoes.”

I sat on the end of the bed and began to unbuckle the strappy heels. She’d probably drank too much trying to dull the pain they caused. Georgia urged her up, ducking as Sarah flailed wildly, half asleep and mumbling to herself.

“If she hits me, I’m hitting her back,” Georgia warned me.

“Consider it an official duty.” Sarah had only been home a few days but she was clearly vying to be the next Royal scandal. Alexander had enough to deal with between Parliament and Jacobson. If his sister kept this up, public favor would skew even more heavily against us. We couldn’t allow that to happen.

“She’s going to be trouble,” Georgia said as if reading my mind, and I nodded.