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“Two, you do not give a damn who I am. That is good,” he said approvingly. “Better than I had hoped.” His smile faded. “And three, you would defend my sister’s honor as if it were your own.” He considered Trace for a moment. “So I have to ask—why is she here and not in America?”
Taken aback, Trace could only say, “I... It’s Christmas break. The university is closed until school starts up again in mid-January.” It was a lie, because he knew she had no intention of returning. But it was the only thing he could think of.
“Yes, but she is here and you are there. At least, that is where she thinks you are. So why is she here...alone?”
A dozen responses went through Trace’s head, but none he could say to the king of Zakhar. So he just pressed his lips sternly together and refused to speak.
“What do you know of my father?”
The question came out of the blue, and took him by surprise. “Enough,” Trace said, glancing at the portrait on the wall. His tone was grim, bitter. “Enough to know I’m very sorry he’s dead...because I would have liked to meet him in a dark alley.”
The king nodded his agreement. “If that is how you feel then you know Mara has been wounded in a way no child should ever be wounded.” For a moment his eyes were hard and cold, and Trace could relate. “I tried to make it up to her, but I am just her brother, and it was not enough. For years I thought she would never recover, that she would live apart in her own little world forever, no matter what I did.”
The king’s jaw tightened. “Seven years ago my father tried to force Mara into an arranged marriage. Some women could have survived that kind of marriage, but not Mara—it would have destroyed her. I could not let that happen, so I put a stop to it.”
“How did you—” Trace began, then remembered little things Mara had told him about her brother, and understood. “Leverage.”
“If you like,” the king said. “Some would call it blackmail. The end result is the same.”
Curious, he asked, “What did you do?”
A stillness settled over the king in a way that reminded Trace of Mara when her father was mentioned. “Even before my mother’s death the monarchy was nearly everything to my father—Marianescus have ruled Zakhar in an unbroken line for more than five hundred years. After her death it became his all-consuming passion. I told my father if he forced Mara into marriage he would have no heir—the unbroken line would be broken.” He smiled coldly. “There is one thing about leverage—or blackmail—you must be willing to follow through on your threat. My father knew me. And so he let Mara go.”
Trace let out the breath he was holding. Though his expression didn’t change, his opinion of Mara’s brother—already high—ratcheted up several notches.
“I sent Mara to university in England. I hoped that once she was away from my father’s debilitating influence she would... But no.” The king sighed. “She came back to Zakhar after she obtained her doctorate and taught at university here in Drago. Two years, and the man did not appear, the one who could break the chains my father placed on Mara’s heart.”
The king glanced away, as if seeing something in the past only he could see, something that pained him to remember. Then his eyes moved to the family portrait for a few seconds before his gaze met Trace’s again, and Trace sensed the steely determination in the other man. “I could not let things continue that way. And so I magnified a small crisis here in Zakhar into a major one, and used that excuse to send Mara to your country.”
“You sent her there on purpose?” Trace asked. The king nodded. “Why?”
After a minute’s reflection the king said, “I hoped something might happen there that could not happen here, and it did.” His eyes softened. “Two months ago Mara called me. She told me she had met a man...a man like no other. A man who understood. A man who made her believe she could be loved the way she had never believed before.”
The unexpected, gut-wrenching words stabbed through Trace like a knife thrust, a near mortal wound that left him mentally gasping for air.
“At first I was...concerned. Concerned enough to send men to America to check on this man, to make sure I had not made a terrible mistake sending Mara there. I had to be sure she would not be hurt.” His gaze was direct. “I will be honest. The men I sent had orders to quietly eliminate this man to protect Mara...if necessary.”
“So that’s who they were,” Trace said softly. “I thought they were related to another case, one from years ago. But you sent them. Keira was right when she said—”
