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The last word died on her lips as she stood facing Elskov’s beautiful, twenty-something queen, or at least a huge image of her projected onto the video screen above the fireplace. She wasn’t wearing a tiara or anything, but there was no mistaking the woman who’d survived an attempted assassination and married a hunk of a man who, rumor had it, kidnapped her to save her from the men who would have gladly killed her.
“Oh, I see you’re making friends, Lucas. I knew you had it in you,” the queen said in her half-Elskovian, half-American accent. “You’ve completely confirmed my decision to make you head of the Silver Knights.”
Out of her peripheral vision, Ruby spotted Lucas glowering at her in that whole dangerous badass way he had, which, it turned out, he’d totally earned. She pressed one clammy palm to her stomach.
The Silver Knights were a thing of legend in Elskov. No one knew exactly who was in the Silver Knights and especially not who lead them. They’d taken down terrorists, well-connected assassins, and anyone else threatening Elskov. Even her father, a despotic braggart, talked about them in hushed tones. The Silver Knights were the boogeymen to anyone in Northern Europe’s criminal underworld who gave even a hint that they might disturb the kingdom’s peace.
“Don’t let that nasty look on Lucas’s face fool you. He’s only two-thirds asshole. I promise,” the queen said. “You must be the infamous Ruby Macintosh I’ve heard so much about.”
She dropped into a jittery, poor excuse of a curtsey. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Please do get up. I’m an Americanized Elskovian, I just can’t get used to all of that.”
“You’re not supposed to say that.” A muscular, blond man strode into view. There was no mistaking Dominick Rasmussen, Elskov’s king. “What will our little prince say?”
“That Daddy has a big mouth.” The queen grinned, obviously too ecstatically happy to put any heat in the insult.
“It’s just Bendtsen.” He looked away from the queen for the first time since appearing on screen. His gaze locked with hers and in a split second he went from the doting husband to a man well used to people always following his orders. “And…someone who is sworn to secrecy or we open up the castle’s dungeons again.”
“Stop teasing her.” The queen rolled her eyes. “We’re trying to get her on our side.”
Ruby straightened and kept her attention focused on the queen and her king even as she felt Lucas prowl closer to her, setting off her fight-or-flight response.
The queen smiled. “Lucas tells me you’re hesitant about our plan.”
Her ultimate plan had been to somehow grab Jasper and run, but discovering exactly who she was up against meant escape wasn’t an option—at least not now. Not that she was going to go all sweet and agreeable on her blackmailer.
Squaring her shoulders, she tucked her hair behind one ear, raised her chin, and looked the queen straight in the eye. “I don’t think it will work.”
“It is risky, I agree.” The queen nodded. “However, Lucas has quite convinced me, otherwise I wouldn’t have authorized such…extreme measures.”
“That’s what you call this?” she asked, frustration making her voice shake.
Lucas moved closer to her, the dark, censorious look on his face warning her against any more outbursts. It took everything she had not to signal her response with a one-fingered salute.
“Don’t worry, he’s helped kidnap me before, too,” the queen said with a light chuckle. “That ended up working out well for everyone involved. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but you can trust Lucas and his plan. It will work. I wouldn’t trust the fate of Elskov to just anyone. I know he’ll do whatever it takes to keep the country safe. On behalf of all Elskovians, please accept my gratitude for agreeing to play a part in this operation—not that I had any doubt in Lucas’s ability to get you to see the light.”
Ruby slid her gaze over to the man in question. He was holding the black folder he’d shown her earlier with Jasper’s arrest report in it. The taste of rotten milk coated her tongue as dread wound around her throat. The message couldn’t be clearer: cooperate or Jasper pays the price. Knowing exactly who Lucas was, she didn’t have a single doubt that he’d follow through with his threat. For the first time in her life, she wished it had been her stepfather playing his sick head games.
“Now,” the queen continued, “if we don’t have anything else, Lucas?”
“No, Your Majesty,” he said.
“I’d wish you good luck, but you won’t need it. We’ll talk again soon.” The image on the video screen swapped from the queen and king to the Elskovian State Seal.
Mind whirling around the ever shrinking possibilities of getting out of this situation alive and with the odds running even on whether her stepfather or Lucas would finish off her and Jasper first, she turned toward the door. The need to get out of here before the walls closed in on her had her so focused on escape, she missed Lucas’s quick movements until he stood between her and the open doorway.
Never taking his attention off her, Lucas closed the door behi
nd him. His spacious study suddenly shrank in size, and her pulse quickened. He didn’t say anything—he just stared with those all-knowing blue-green eyes that unsettled her.
Desire heated her skin as if there was a blaze burning in the huge fireplace across the room. It made her lungs tight and her breasts heavy as warmth pooled low in her stomach. Her reaction to being close to him had to be a side effect from running on adrenaline since she’d realized Jasper was missing last night. Or maybe it was because she’d gotten a little too used to boyfriends who were battery powered. It wasn’t—couldn’t be—because of him. She wouldn’t let it.
His gaze dropped to her mouth and then to the peaked tips of her nipples pressing against the white knit jersey of her dress, the thin material disguising nothing. Embarrassed at her body’s obvious response to him that she couldn’t hide, she brushed past him and reached for the door.
His hand covered hers on the doorknob before she even had a chance to twist her wrist to open the door. Looking back over her shoulder, she noted he stood directly behind her with only a few inches separating their bodies.
“The queen is right, you know,” he said, his warm breath brushing against the exposed column of her neck and setting off a shiver of lust. “I will do whatever it takes and make any sacrifices necessary to safeguard my country. Consider that before you try anything that might sabotage this operation.” He paused as her heart hammered against her ribs. “The queen is also wrong. I’m a complete asshole used to always having my way. You’d better remember that before you go bursting into any more rooms without an invitation.”
