Trinity

“What do you think you’re doing?” The tip of the knife was still shoved painfully against my ribs, but now the blade was at my back. Still inches away from my heart, so not much of an improvement.

“Following orders. Which is what you should be doing. And I told you to stop talking,” Zel hissed in my ear as he twirled the tip of blade just enough to cut through the fine fabric of my dress and break my skin. It stung, but I refused to give him the satisfaction of a reaction.

“Where is my mother?” I asked. He had to know where she was.

“I said, stop talking.” His free hand squeezed my shoulder, directing my steps through the winding maze of hallways and rooms in the palace. The place was too quiet. Deserted. Apparently, no one had wanted to miss the party.

Lucky me.

But I never was good at following orders from a bully. Destiny had taught me well. “You said you were going to take me to my mother, which is the only reason I didn’t scream bloody murder on the terrace and have all of Alera come running. So, where is she?”

“Alive. For now. If you give my master what he wants.” He laughed, and the sound was like listening to a hyena. Twisted, coming from a human being. But then, not exactly a human. An Aleran. At least, I assumed he was Aleran. He could have been some other species I didn’t know about. I heard the Everians looked just like humans as well. Or so close it was very difficult to tell them apart. But he was crazy. Insane. Perhaps he was losing his mind slowly, or struggling with orders. I hadn’t been alone on Alera until the ball. His patience was wearing thin, or his master’s was.

“And what is it you want from me?” I shouldn’t have asked, but since his grip was so freaking painful it felt like he was slowly cracking my collarbone in half, it was either talk or scream. Screaming would give me a knife up and between my ribs.

I’d ditched one shoe, then the other, hoping people would see it for what it was, a Hansel and Gretel breadcrumb trail.

“The jewels, Princess. Where are the royal jewels?”

I put my hands up to my ears, felt the large tear-drop gems, tugged them off.

What? No, he wasn’t talking about my stupid earrings. Oh shit. “That’s why you idiots kidnapped my mother? For some stupid black rocks?”

He howled in delight, as if he’d gone just a bit mad in the last few minutes. We continued to walk as we spoke and I dropped one of the earrings on the floor as we went. “Black? So you have seen them! Tell me where they are and I won’t kill you.”

Shit. I could use the pain in my shoulder and the knife at my back as an excuse for my stupid, loose tongue, but I wasn’t one to lie to myself. I’d just made a dumb mistake. Damn it. “I don’t know.”

“Oh, you do. And if you don’t tell me, you’ll tell him. When he’s done with you, you’ll beg him to take them from wherever you’ve hidden them.”

Great. Threats of death and torture. Completely irrational, based on Zel’s heavy breathing and overall excitement level. Faith would say something sarcastic. Destiny would have probably tossed him against the wall and smashed his throat with her boot by now.

Why did I have to be the cool-headed analyst?

And as I pondered that question, the thought that had been tickling the back of my mind since this hostile turn of events blurted out of my mouth. “Why did you try to save our lives when we arrived, but threaten to kill me now? Why are you dragging me off with a fucking knife in my side?”

“Oh, you royals really are just as stupid as my master said you were.” He shoved me into a room I’d never seen before. Based on the musty smell and the light coating of dust on the desk and shelves next to the huge, canopied bed, I guessed this room hadn’t been used in quite some time. At least the knife wasn’t jabbing me now.

“Stupid, stupid princess.”

He laughed again as he shut the door behind him, but this time I didn’t find it at all entertaining.

Leo

“Leo, no!” My father stepped in front of the deadliest assassin I’d ever known and blocked my kill shot with his own body.

“Get out of the way, Father!” Standing behind him with a condescending grin on his face, Vennix—or Nix when we’d been on friendlier terms—used my father as a shield, and fucking smiled at me as he did it. He didn’t blink. Didn’t even flinch that he was about to die. I could take the head shot. I had a few inches of leeway. But it was my father’s brains I’d blow all over the fucking ground if I missed.

Fuck.

“Move, Father,” I growled. Thinking of what Vennix had done, how he’d almost killed Trinity in that suite made me see red, made my finger twitch on the trigger. “He’s a stone-cold killer.”

“So are you.” Cold words. Hard. Intent. The words of a commander and I tore my gaze from the assassin, Nix, the male I’d served with on several missions, the male I’d once respected as a warrior, and looked my father in the eye.

“What the fuck is going on? Trinity has been taken, and you are protecting the man who tried to kill her?”

Vennix stepped out from behind my father, and I adjusted my aim. One blistering shot through the heart would do the job just fine. But his hands were up in the air, and my father was waving me off. “Don’t you dare, Leo. Put it down. That’s an order.”

“I wasn’t trying to kill your mate, you love-sick idiot. I was trying to save her. Which I did.” Vennix had the gall to bow slightly at the waist. “I had to climb down a rope and break through a fucking window. The fight cost me two good men, asshole. You’re welcome.”

What. The. Fuck?

My father cleared his throat. “Nix isn’t the bad guy. He wasn’t at the suite when the princesses arrived and he’s not one now. There is a traitor inside the Jax household. One of my informants caught wind of the plan when Cassander was invited to ease Trinity’s Ardor upon the sisters’ arrival on Alera.”

“How do you know the females who went into the citadel with her are her sisters?” I asked my father. “They covered their heads to remain anonymous and no one has mentioned their relation.”

“I told him,” Nix said.

Traitor.

Maybe I should shoot him just for fun.

My father continued. “Put the ion pistol down, Leo, before you shoot someone. Or at a minimum cause a scene. The fewer guests who know of the princess’s disappearance, the better.”

I sighed, pushed off the ground and stood before my father, but my focus was squarely on Nix. My pistol was aimed at the floor, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t prepared to use it.

“Cassander was innocent in the plot,” my father continued. “He truly believed he was simply doing his job. But one of the guards sent to escort the females told a friend that as soon as her Ardor was eased, they were to murder the consort and frame him for the females’ deaths. The three sisters would have disappeared and no one on Alera would have been the wiser. Or even know of their existence.”

“Except Lord Jax.” So, I needed to kill the man as well. I needed to start a line, just like for the dancing.

“No. This runs deeper than that,” Nix added. “Lord Jax is a pompous old man with too much money and too much time on his hands. He doesn’t have the patience to plan something like this.”

“His son does.” Thordis Jax. I could kill him just as easily. And he’d been speaking with Trinity earlier.

“Listen,” my father said, settling his hands on his hips. He had an ion pistol on his belt, but didn’t make any attempt to use it. As if he didn’t think Nix was a threat. As if he were one of his own. “I will tell you more when Trinity is safe. We don’t know if Thordis was involved. We don’t know who is behind the queen’s kidnapping. When we learned of the princesses’ arrival on Alera from Earth, of the threat on their lives from those who had met them at transport and vowed to keep them safe, Nix and two queen’s guards went to the safe house to save them. They hadn’t been harmed… yet, thank the goddess. But they did save them.”

“I stormed through the window before the guards could get to Trinity and Cassander in the bedroom. I had to get Cassander out of the way, but I did not kill him. Trinity ran to the other room to escape, assuming I was the enemy and afraid I was going to harm her as well. But the other two guards with me were already in direct combat with the Jax guards when I followed her. Then you stormed in and let one of the bastards live,” Nix accused.

I paused, thought about the cluster fuck that was that bloody confrontation. Blaster fire, dead bodies. Fighting. Innocent females.

Fuck. Nix was right. One of Jax’s guards had survived. I’d even given Faith my ReGen wand to save him. And now Trinity’s life was in danger because of it. But I’d had no fucking idea the Jax guards were actually the enemy. Neither had the princesses.

“You should have told me.”

“Before or after you blew my head off?” Nix asked. “Would you have believed me? Would the princesses? I was the one who came through the suite’s window, remember? I was the one who they’d thought killed the consort in the bedroom. I left them in your hands, Leo. You’ve lost two of them and now your mate is missing as well.”

“They aren’t lost.” I glared at my father. Now wasn’t the time to let him know about Faith and Destiny’s plans to infiltrate and learn about their missing mother. “And you should have told me the truth.”

“Just as you told me about your conversation with Prime Nial? Told me about the mission he gave you?”

Score one for the old man. Shit. He was right. And not done rubbing it in.

“I only discovered the truth when Prime Nial contacted me himself, looking for information on an assassin he intended to hunt down and eliminate—on information he’d received from you, son.”

I’d told Prime Nial and Ander about Nix on board Battleship Karter, when we’d all agreed to allow my mate to use herself as bait to draw the assassin out of hiding. The assassin being Nix. But now…

Leave it to the protective Prillon leader to try to help me protect my mate, without her knowing of his additional interference. Calling my father in for reinforcements only made me respect my friend even more. Also, thankful it was my father he’d contacted, who’d been helping. I was grateful, not angry.

Without his help, Trinity would have died before I ever met her—and I would have killed Nix, an innocent male. An honorable warrior. He’d sacrificed and killed during the Hive war, just as I had. Now that I knew he was not trying to murder my mate, I found I had a deep and abiding respect for him. “This is a mess. And my mate is in danger. Is there anything else I need to know? Tell me now. Right now.”

“I ordered Nix to back off when I learned of your mating,” my father said. “I knew you would stay at your mate’s side. And I needed him to help me root out the informant inside the Jax household while you kept Trinity safe.”

Slowly, I put my weapon back in the holster knowing I wouldn’t use it on Nix. The guard I’d spoken to inside the ballroom ran up behind my father, the consort—who’d slipped naked into Trinity’s bed—right behind him.

The consort took one look at me and came to a sudden stop. He swallowed hard, glanced at my father, the weapon at my side, and Nix’s frozen features and stumbled back, hands going to protect his groin. All color drained from his face. “My apologies, my lord. I think I’ll just—“

“Don’t fucking move or I’ll shoot you in the back.” I sounded like a psychotic killer, but I didn’t have time to argue with him. The consort froze in place.

“There is one more thing you should know, Leo,” my father said as I stared down the consort. I’d threatened to cut off his balls so he had to wonder why I’d specifically requested him.

“Explain,” I said, not glancing away.

“I was with Queen Celene on the night of her escape.”

One sentence stopped me cold and I did ignore the consort now. “What?” Even the consort stopped fidgeting and stood, riveted.

“I was a young man then,” he said. “The captain and I helped her sneak through the streets to the citadel because of the attack. She was covered in blood. Her mate had been killed right in front of her. But she was strong, Leo. So strong. Before she entered the citadel and disappeared, I vowed to her that I would remain and protect her kingdom and her throne until her return. And I kept my word.”

“The queen’s guard?” I asked. “That’s what he was talking about?”

The young guard—the one who’d first mentioned the term—stood next to my father and nodded fervently.

I pointed at him. “There is no queen’s guard. Never has been.”

Nix tilted his head, his arms crossed. “On the contrary, I’ve been in the queen’s guard for most of my life. As has every guard on duty tonight.”

A feeling of confusion, or betrayal, burst through my chest as I looked at my father in a new light. “You? You’re their captain?” He was retired. An older man. Not the leader of an elite unit of guards that didn’t exist.

“Yes, son. For twenty years. Since the death of the former captain, Balkan. He and I alone escorted the queen to the citadel, knew of the child she carried. Trinity.”

“Why? Why didn’t you tell me?” What I wanted to ask was why he’d left me out, why he hadn’t made me a queen’s guard. But that would reveal too much pain. Still he seemed to know what I was truly asking, because he answered the question.

“You came back from the Hive wars changed, son. You lost faith. Even with the queen’s spire lighting the sky, you gave up hope of her return.” My father glanced off into the night, toward the citadel where, even from this distance, the bright light of four spires could be seen clearly, like glowing white needles on a black canvas. “The queen’s guard is a secret. Always has been. It requires total devotion. And faith.”

“And before Trinity, I had none.” I took a step back. My father was right not to have tried to convince me to serve in his secret queen’s guard. Before my mate, I’d been existing day to day, with no hope or faith that anything would change. The night of Prime Nial’s call for help, I’d been contemplating the fall of the great, mythical city of Mytikas itself, a city that had been home to the ancients, and then the royal bloodline for thousands of years. “I was a fool, Father.”

“Now he understands.” Nix lifted an arm in an impatient gesture, swinging it around. “Save the male bonding for later. We must find the princess.”

“I don’t know where she is exactly. But I know who is going to help us find her.” I turned my glare to the consort, who’d remained as still as a statue the entire conversation. Perhaps hoping against hope that I would forget he was present, that his balls would remain intact.

“Me?” He took a step back, but the young guard I’d spoken to in the hall pressed an ion blaster to his back with a grin.

I was really starting to like that young male.

“Yes. You.” I took a step toward him. “You know every secret passage in this fortress, or so you claimed when you used them to climb into my mate’s bed to fuck her.”

He had the decency to flush and look at the floor.

“The princess was seen being led up the grand staircase,” I continued. “Into the palace. It would be stupid of her attacker to take himself deeper into a place with no escape. Do you know of any passages that lead to the outside? Escape routes?”

He blinked, confused for a heartbeat, but his eyes cleared and filled with purpose. He stood straighter with understanding. “Yes. There are three.”

“Do any of them lead to the private chambers upstairs?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“And where is the exit?”

The consort looked around, unsure. “It’s secret, my lord.”

I looked at my father. “Jax’s guard took her to the private quarters. I have no idea what his intention is, but whatever they want from Queen Celene, they obviously didn’t get it. They are either getting desperate or thinking Trinity knows something.”

My father stepped forward and placed a calming hand on the younger consort’s shoulder. “The princess has been kidnapped and taken to the private quarters. We suspect the traitor is going to try to sneak her out of the palace. They might kill her. We need your help.”

He swallowed hard.

“That tunnel exits inside the clerics’ healing temple two blocks north of here.” He nodded. “I can show you the way, but the tunnels inside the palace are too complicated for me to simply offer directions.”

“All right,” I replied, nodding. “Father, you and your guards split up. Send some to cover the exit he spoke of. Send some to go upstairs and make sure they can’t escape through the palace interior. I’ll go with the consort and search through the hidden passageways.”

“I’ll go with you.” That was Nix, and it wasn’t a request.

I didn’t want to waste another moment arguing. I could use his help, for while the consort knew where he was going, his skill was in fucking, not fighting. The very idea hardened my resolve. I wanted to beat the shit out of him all over again, but vowed to save it for the Jax guard who truly deserved it. And that was right before I shot him dead.

“Let’s go.” I turned to the consort. “Lead the way. And make it fast.”

My father and a handful of guards ran off, moving silently, like shadows. One guard peeled from the group, heading to the party, no doubt to round up others to cover the exit in the clerics’ healing temple. Nix and I stared at the consort.

“Ahh—um... Maybe we should start in the library? There is an intersection nearby that leads to the royal bedrooms.”

Nix and I both drew our weapons.

The consort jumped, then realized we weren’t going to shoot him and ran off in the direction of the library—a room I had yet to discover—with the two of us right behind him.