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A grim look on his face, Nik snaked an arm around her waist and brought her to him. Her eyes fluttered closed as he kissed her. His usual tactic for fixing things between them. She remained unresponsive beneath the pressure of his mouth, too terrified to give him any more than she already had. When he finally let her go, she could feel the frustration emanating from him, an overwhelming force it would be all too easy to give in to. Instead she walked away, his muffled curse following her back to the car.
It had been bad enough when she hadn’t loved him, these leaps he was asking her to make. This, this was just too much.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE WHITE MALTESE stone Akathinian palace glittered in the sunlight as the helicopter dipped down over the sea and headed toward home. A strong headwind had been at their nose all the way back from Athens, increasing Nik’s impatience, fueled by the news Sofi´a had given him on the phone last night.
She’d felt their baby kick for the first time. Hearing the wonder in her voice had turned his head into a hot mess.
Piero, his pilot, brought the helicopter in to land safely on the pad. Grabbing his briefcase, Nik stepped from beneath still-whirring blades and headed across the lawn toward the front steps to the palace he took two by two. Abram emerged as he reached the top step, his aide wearing that same frozen look he had the night he’d told him Athamos had died.
“What is it?”
“Idas has seized a ship in the Strait of Evandor.”
His blood ran cold. “An Akathinian ship?”
“Yes. A warship doing exercises.”
“It can’t be Idas.” His mind sped a mile a minute. “We have a peace treaty.”
“The ship that took our vessel had Carnelian flags, Your Highness.”
Thee mou. “Have there been any other reports of aggression?”
“Not that we’ve been able to ascertain.”
It afforded him little comfort. His heart pounded as his brain funneled through procedure. “Call an emergency meeting of the Council, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”
Abram nodded.
“I’ll go by helicopter. Tell Piero to hold off.”
He found his father and appraised him of the situation. Next he found Sofi´a in the salon with Stella, the two of them looking through magazines. She smiled when she saw him, but it faded when she saw the look on his face.
“Idas has taken an Akathinian ship in the Strait of Evandor,” he said without preamble. “I’m on my way to meet with the Executive Council.”
Sofi´a’s eyes widened. “But you have a peace agreement in place.”
Which meant nothing apparently. Idas had made a fool out of him.
Sofi´a got to her feet. “Maybe it’s misinformation.”
“The attacking ship bore a Carnelian flag.” He pinned his gaze on his fiancée, a red mist descending over his vision. “Neither of you are to leave the palace until this situation is resolved.”
“Have there been other attacks?” Stella asked.
“Not that we know of.” Nik swung his gaze to his sister. “You still don’t leave.”
She nodded. He stalked to the door, so angry, furious with himself for being duped, he could barely see.
Sofi´a intercepted him at the door, her hand on his arm. “You don’t have all the facts. It would be easy to jump to conclusions in this situation.”
“Like Idas is a snake? That he broke his word?”
She blinked as he shouted the words at her. “Nik—”
He picked her up and moved her aside. She followed him into the hallway. “Do not let Idas drag you into a war you know is wrong. Listen to your instincts, now of all times.”
He kept walking. Listen to his instincts? His instincts had been right all along.
* * *
The siege over the Akathinian warship taken in the Strait of Evandor lasted for forty-eight hours. Forty-eight nail-biting hours in which Sofi´a, Stella and Queen Amara paced the floors of the palace salon while Nik and a team of negotiators attended meetings in Geneva to free the ship and its crew, currently being forcibly held in Carnelian waters.
King Gregorios was ordered to bed when his blood pressure skyrocketed, something Sofi´a was inordinately grateful for. The elder king’s vitriolic diatribe against Idas was only making a difficult scenario much, much worse.
Abram briefed them as he could. Nik was in the midst of a storm, with his Council divided on whether to provide a military response to retrieve the ship. Some felt enough was enough, Idas needed to be confronted. Nik was on the side of diplomacy, aware Akathinia’s military was still heavily outmatched by its aggressors. He had refused to send negotiators to Geneva, insisting, instead, on being there himself and was doing his best to manage both sides of the equation.
