SHE LOST CONSCIOUSNESS after that. And really, she was somewhat grateful for that. Less so when she woke up feeling disoriented, cocooned in a bed of soft blankets in completely unfamiliar surroundings.
At least when she woke up this time it wasn’t because he had kissed her.
Though, he was standing on the far side of the room, his arms crossed over his broad chest, his expression one of dark concern. Perhaps that was an odd characteristic to assign to concern, but she had a feeling the concern wasn’t born out of any kind of goodness of his heart, rather over the potential thwarting of his schemes.
His schemes to make her his wife. She remembered that with a sudden jolt.
She sat up quickly, and her head began to throb.
“Be careful, Princess,” came a slow, calming voice. “You do not have a concussion, but you have certainly been through quite a lot in the past twenty-four hours.”
She became aware that a woman was standing to the left of her bed. A woman who had that kind of matter-of-fact bedside demeanor she typically assigned to physicians.
“Are you a doctor?” she asked.
“Yes. When you lost consciousness on the flight, Prince Felipe called and demanded that I make myself available to him as soon as the plane landed. I told him it was likely stress and a bit of dehydration that caused the event.” She sent him a look that carried not a small amount of steel.
“I have indeed been placed under stress,” Briar said. “Since he kidnapped me.”
The woman looked like she was about to have an apoplexy. “Kidnapped. Lovely.”
“Did you have a criticism, Dr. Estrada?” Felipe asked, his tone soft but infinitely deadly.
“Never, Your Majesty.”
“I thought not.”
“Perhaps you ought to criticize him,” Briar said.
“Not if she would like to retain her license to practice medicine here in Santa Milagro. Also, not as long as she would like to stay out of the dungeon.”
“He would not throw me in the dungeon,” Dr. Estrada said, her tone hard. “However, I do believe he might strip me of my license.”
“Do not think me so different from my father,” he said, his tone taking on a warning quality. “I will have to assume control of the country soon, and I will do whatever I must to make sure that transition goes as smoothly as possible. I would like to give you all that I have promised,” he said, directing those words to the doctor, “but I cannot if you don’t help me in this. I am not evil like my father, but I am entirely focused on my goals. I will let nothing stand in my way.” He rolled his shoulders backward, grabbed the edge of his shirtsleeve and pulled it down hard. “I am hardly a villain, but I am...morally flexible. You would both do well to remember that.”
“You can’t exactly issue threats to me,” Briar said, “as I’ve already been kidnapped.”
“Things can definitely get worse,” Felipe said, a sharp grin crossing his lips. “I’m quite creative.”
A shiver ran down her back and she thought wildly about what she could do. There was no hope of running, obviously. She wasn’t feeling her best, even if she didn’t have a concussion. She was also stranded in a foreign country with no ID, no money, nothing but a hospital gown.
“Help me,” she said to Dr. Estrada, because she had no idea what else she could do.
“I’m afraid I can’t,” the woman said. “Except when it comes to your medical well-being. You can take a couple of these pain pills if you need them.” She set the bottle on the nightstand.
“I might take the whole thing,” Briar responded.
“I will not tolerate petulant displays of insincere overdoses.” Felipe walked across the room, curling his fingers around the pill bottle and picking it up. “If you need something I am more than happy to dispense it. Or rather, I will entrust a servant to do so.”
He was appalling. It was difficult to form an honest opinion on his personality, given that he had kidnapped her and all. That was the dominant thing she was focused on at the moment. But even without the kidnap, he was kind of terrible.
“That will be all, Dr. Estrada,” he said, effectively dismissing what might have been Briar’s only possible ally. “She would not have helped you,” Felipe said, as if reading her mind. “She can’t. You see, my father has had this country under a pall for generations. People like Dr. Estrada want to make a difference once the old king is dead—and he is closer and closer to being dead with each passing moment we spend talking. I would prefer that he live for our marriage announcement, however. Still, if he does not, I won’t lose any sleep over it. The sooner he dies, the better. The sooner he dies, the sooner I assume the throne. And change can begin coming to the country.”
“There’s nothing you can do until some old, incapacitated king dies?”
He waved a hand. “Of course there is. If there was nothing that could be done, Dr. Estrada wouldn’t have been here at all. In fact, she’s somebody that I’ve been meeting with for the past couple of years, getting a healthcare system in place, ready to launch the moment I assume power. I have pieces in a great many strategic places on this chessboard, Princess. And you were the last one. My queen.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t. But you will. Ultimately, this will benefit your country. Your parents.”
“My parents live in New York,” she said, gritting her teeth. “I don’t care about anybody else.”
He made a tsking sound. “That’s quite heartless. Especially considering the king and queen assumed great personal cost to send you to safety.”
“I might feel something more if I knew them,” she said, ignoring the slight twinge of guilt in her chest. “As it is, I’m concerned that the mother and father I know are going to be frantic, looking for me.”
“Likely they will be. But soon, very soon, I will be ready to announce to the world that we are engaged.”
“And what’s to keep me from flinging myself in front of the camera and letting everybody know that I’m not your fiancée, I’m a kidnap victim? And you are dangerously delusional.”
“Oh,” he said, “you’ve got me there. Something I didn’t think of. I’ve only been planning exactly how my ascendance to the throne would go for the past two decades. But here, you have completely stumped me with only a few moments of thinking.” He laughed, the sound derisive. “Your country, your father’s country, owes mine an astronomical amount. I could destroy them. Bankrupt them. The entire populace would spend the remainder of their days in abject poverty. A once great nation toppled completely. I, and I alone, have been the only thing standing in the gap between my father and his revenge on Verloren. My own had to go neglected so that I could protect yours. I spent every favor on that. Used every ounce of diplomacy to convince him that it was not the time to move on Verloren. I placated him with ideas that I had gotten leads on your whereabouts.” He shook his head. “I did a great deal to clinch this. If you think you’re going to thwart me with a temper tantrum then you are truly delusional.”
“Well, I was hit by a taxi.”
He laughed again. “True. I should have given the driver a tip. He made this all that much easier. Anyway, you will be well taken care of here.”
“I just have to marry a monster.”
“There is that,” he said, looking completely unfazed by the insult. “What sort of monster do you suppose I am, Princess?”
She couldn’t tell if he was asking the question with sincerity. She wasn’t sure she cared. But as she looked at him, a picture began to form in her mind. His eyes were gold, glinting with heat and the possibility of a kind of cruelty she didn’t want to test. There was something sharp about him, whip-smart and deadly.
“A dragon. Clearly,” she said, not entirely sure why she had provided him with the answer.
“I suppose that makes you the damsel in distress,” he said.
“I’d like to think it makes me the knight.”
“Sorry, darling,” he said. “I kissed you awake not eight hours ago. That makes you the damsel.”
“If we’re going off fairy tales then that should make you Prince Charming, not the dragon.”
He chuckled. “Sadly, this is real life, not a fairy tale. And very often the prince can be both.”
“Then I suppose a princess can also be a knight. In which case, I would be careful, because when you go to kiss me again I might stab you clean through.”
He lifted one dark brow. “Then the same goes for you. Because the next time I go to kiss you, I might decide to swallow you whole instead.”
There was something darkly sexual about those words, and she resented the responses created in her body. No matter that he was... Well, insane almost by his own admission, he was still absurdly beautiful.
And that, she supposed, was ultimately what he meant about the dragon and the prince being one and the same. On the outside, he was every inch Prince Charming. From his perfectly tailored jacket and dark pants, to his classically handsome face and picture of exquisite masculinity that was his body.
But underneath, he breathed fire.
“I am announcing our engagement tomorrow. And you will not go against me.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’m going to allow you to call your parents tonight. At least, the people you know as your parents.”
“They’ll send someone for me. They’ll contact that... They’ll contact the president if they have to.”
“They won’t,” he said, his voice holding an air of finality. “And you know why? Because they do know the whole story of how you came to be theirs. They know exactly who you are, and they know why they cannot interfere in this. They were charged with keeping you safe from me, and they failed. Now, there is nothing that can be done. Once you have passed into the possession of the dragon... Well. It is too late. Tell them everything that I told you. And they will confirm what I’ve said. You don’t have a choice. Not if you want to keep your homeland from crumbling. Not if you ever hope to see things actually fixed. This is bigger than you. When you speak to them, you’ll know that’s the truth.”
Then he turned, leaving her alone with nothing but a sense of quiet dread.
* * *
“I will be having an engagement party in the next week or so,” Felipe said, staring fixedly out the window at the view of the mountains.
“That seems sudden,” his friend Adam said on the other end of the phone.
Adam was recently married to his wife, Belle, after years of isolating himself on his island country, lost in grief after the death of his first wife, and hiding the terrible scars he had received from the accident that had made him a widower. But now things had changed. Since he had met Belle, he had come back into the public eye, and he seemed to have no issue with public appearances. All the better as far as Felipe was concerned, because he wanted to have as much public support as possible.
“It isn’t,” Felipe said. “Believe me.”
“Why do I get the feeling this is the sort of thing I don’t want to know the details about?” his other friend Rafe said, his tone hard.
“You likely don’t,” Felipe said. “But I would happily give them to you. You know I have no shame.”
He didn’t. Though he was hardly going to engage in unbridled honesty and a heart-to-heart with his friends about the current situation. That wasn’t how he worked. It wasn’t the function he fulfilled in the group.
He’d cultivated the Prince Charming exterior long ago. Out of necessity. For survival. Image had been everything to his father, and the older man had always threatened Felipe and his mother with dire consequences if Felipe were to reveal the state of their lives in the palace.
The consequences of behaving otherwise were dire, and he had discovered that the hard way.
So he had learned, very early on, not to betray himself. Ever. He kept everything close to his chest, while appearing to give the whole world away.
“I would like details,” Adam said, “before I know what sort of circus I’m bringing my pregnant wife to.”
“Congratulations,” Felipe said. “Please make the announcement before you come to my party. I don’t want the impending arrival of your heir to overshadow my engagement.”
“I suppose that’s about all the sincerity I can expect out of you,” Adam said, his tone dry.
“Probably. But you see, I have found a long-lost—presumed dead—princess. And, I’m making her my wife. This is good for me for more than one reason. All political things, I won’t bore you with them. Suffice it to say, this party is going to be quite the affair.”
“I see. And how exactly did you find this princess?”
“Well, there’s an app. I just opened it up and trapped her inside a little ball.”
Adam snorted. “I wish that were true, Felipe. But I have a feeling that a lot more skullduggery was involved.”
“There was skullduggery. I cannot deny the existence of skullduggery. Ultimately, I consider that a good thing since skullduggery is a sadly underused word.”
“I do not need details,” Rafe said. “But is my support of you going to damage the value of the stock in my company? That, I do need to know.”
“And I need to know if she is the princess of any country possessing nuclear weapons. Because again, my support cannot endanger my people,” Adam added.
“If the actual details of how I came in to possession of the princess were released, it might in fact cause you both trouble. But they won’t. First of all, her parents owe an astronomical amount of money to my country. As much as they might want to contest the marriage, they won’t be able to. And, once she is more familiar with the situation, she will feel the same way.”
“So, you’re forcing her into marriage?” Adam asked.
“Do I detect a hint of judgment in your voice?” Felipe returned. “Because if I remember correctly you came into possession of your wife when you took her prisoner.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“Because I did it,” Adam said. “Plus, I wouldn’t do it now.”
“Because love has changed you and softened you. I understand. Sadly, I’m not looking for love.” The very idea almost made him laugh. “No chance of softening. But I do believe that in the end this is going to be the best thing for Santa Milagro. If it isn’t the best thing for one woman, when all of my people could be benefited, I have to say I’m going to side with my people.”
“So,” Rafe said, slowly. “You are asking us to attend your engagement party, where you will announce your intention to marry a woman that you kidnapped, who doesn’t want to marry you, but who will have to pretend as though she does so that you don’t bring terrible consequences down on her mother and father, and her entire country.”
“Yes,” Felipe said.
“That sounds about right,” Rafe responded.
“My wife will be...unhappy,” Adam said.
“Then don’t tell her. Or, tell her that’s how all the girls meet their husbands these days. Stockholm syndrome.”
Adam growled. “I’m not going to keep it from her.”
“Fine. But I do expect that she fall in line,” Felipe said, having not considered that his friend’s potential loose cannon of a spouse might be an issue. Who knew what Belle might say to the press?
“Belle does not fall in line,” Adam said. “It isn’t in her nature. However, I will explain the sensitive political situation. I know she would not wish to cause harm. And while I don’t trust that you won’t cause any harm, Felipe, I do trust you’re trying to prevent greater harm.”
“Of course. Because I’m an altruist like that. Details will be forthcoming, but of course I had to call and give you the good news myself.”
“Because you’re such a good friend,” Rafe said, the words rife with insincerity.
No, the truth was, they were friends. True friends, the kind that Felipe had never expected to have. The kind that, he imagined, had prevented him from becoming something entirely soulless.
They had some idea about his upbringing. About the way that he was. But mostly, he showed them the face he showed the world. Prince Charming, as he had just discussed with Talia.
The dragon, he kept to himself.
Usually.