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No comforting trio of dots now.
While waiting, I kept moving, keeping my back flattened to the wall. Like that was going to help for cover if a battalion of red-and-golds suddenly rushed up the hallway. I had the comfort factor, at least—and right now, I’d take what I could get.
“Come on, Jayd,” I gritted, now practically padding on the balls of my feet. “Come on.”
My screen remained blank.
Shit.
But around one more curve in the hallway: a set of broad double doors. Guarded, as Jayd had promised, by only one man in uniform. Jagger Fox. Behind him, carved into the left panel, was an ornate hawk. A dove dominated the other.
I’d seen those images before. In ink, across Shiraz’s biceps.
Yesssss.
Jagger spotted me. Urged me forward by lifting a hand and ninja-tapping his fingers. No further clarification needed. I sprinted for the doors and let him shut me in. Only then did I expel a huge breath of relief, my back still against the door.
The chance to breathe easy was too awesome to pass up. I did it again, letting my lungs fill, before finally checking out Jayd’s digs. Well, what I could see of them. With the lights dimmed in the whole apartment, I could only make out the stuff in the main living room—and even then, only basic shapes. I smelled leather, though. And fresh wood oil on the floor. And, dammit, a distinct hint of currant and bergamot cologne.
Or maybe I was just doomed to smell Shiraz on the air, no matter where I went from now on. Which wasn’t such a horrible thing…
“His Highness, Prince Shiraz Noir!
Okay, the court crier accompaniment might get to be a drag.
Only that part happened to be reality at work, confirmed by the thunder of a cheering crowd from outside.
Outside?
“What the hell?” I added to that beneath my breath while padding across the room. Just before clearing the couch, I stealthily slipped my shoes and phone to the cushions. Not that anyone in that throng—I stuck in the assumption, based on the volume level—was going to hear a damn thing I did.
On cautious steps, I snuck closer and closer to the terrace. Halted a few inches inside the partly open sliders. If I took another step forward, it’d mean the risk of getting hit by the floodlights. And yeah, it was floodlights, cranked so high the lawn looked like it had time-warped from ten at night to ten in the morning.
“What the hell?” I repeated in a rasp.
A drop to my knees became a quick crawl across the terrace, to a shadowed corner enabling me to peek out. Glimpsing the TV reporters and cameras was a blatant explanation for the extra wattage. The cameras needed the illumination for the best shots out here. What I didn’t know was why out here? The party itself was supposed to be contained to the ballroom—or so Ezra had told me, during his last update on what he liked calling “the daily juice on bitch honey’s soiree”.
The official name for the events was the Fête de Yan, an expression loosely meaning “Celebrate the New” in Arcadian, and Ambyr had more than accomplished her goal of making it the hottest story of the week for American celebrity media. According to Ez, all reports were that everything would take place in the ballroom, with the exception of a private reception for the “Citizen VIPs” in Evrest and Camellia’s private garden, followed by a tour of the Palais from Camellia and Brooke. Imagine that.
Finally, after civil unrest, a royal abduction, bridge bombs, and a raging medicane, Arcadia had scored a win. Ambyr Stratiss had to be several galaxies over the moon by now.
Though no one would know it beholding the woman’s face.
I let a gape take over my own as I studied her, standing to the side of a red-carpeted riser, around which the formal-attired crowd had gathered. A podium was placed in the center of the stage, decorated with a drape displaying the Arcadian country crest: a dove with sunbeams as wings. At the back corners, giant urns brimmed with red and gold flowers. Everything was regal and luxurious, everything Ambyr had hoped for, but her expression was pinched and impatient, her skin paler than the shimmery ivory sheath draping her elegant Grecian figure. It didn’t make sense. This was the night she’d waited for. She should be glowing and hopeful, the kingdom’s next perfect princess, just minutes away from taking her place on that stage…
Maybe she was just nervous. I sure as hell related to that one. If that was me down there, waiting to have a ring slammed on my finger, a crown rammed on my head, and expectations shoved down my throat…
But it wasn’t me, thank God, so I could tell the cold sweat to go away now.
The herald finished presenting the royal family. Seemed they were going with the “countdown of importance” thing, so Shiraz had followed Jayd, who took each step with pronounced caution. I winced, hoping her satin and chiffon production of a gown held together until after this ceremony—or whatever the hell it was. After Shiraz, Samsyn and Brooke were introduced, then the queen mother and king father, until at last, Evrest and Camellia took the stage, buffeted by the longest and loudest cheers of the night.
As the ovation grew louder, my smile stretched wider. “Shit,” I whispered, even swallowing against a telltale burn behind my eyes. How was this possible? How could I be battling tears at the sound of those Arcadian cheers and chants? How had just a week in this country equated into this swelling pride on its behalf?
But the truth was a medicane blast in my brain—and just as impossible to ignore. This island had spun its magic around me, nearly as completely as its mystery prince.
No.
He was a mystery no longer.
