American Prince

I use my thumb to rub the slender band of metal on my ring finger, the one that sits below the dazzling engagement ring Ash gave me. For a brief instant, I’m grateful it hasn’t been stolen from me, that I’ve been allowed to keep at least one thing to myself, if I can’t keep my nakedness or my freedom or my dignity. But the gratitude fades the more I rub at the ring, as I remember what it represents.

I married Ash. I pledged my fidelity—however complicated that concept is between Ash and me—my honor, my respect, and my love. But that wasn’t all, because Ash isn’t just Ash, he’s the President of the United States. He’s the head of the most powerful military force in the world, the largest economy on the planet. Captain of a ship carrying three hundred and twenty million souls. Which means I married into that responsibility, I pledged my honor and respect to his office and his duties.

With Grandpa Leo as my guardian growing up, I’ve always been a patriotic girl. But now I really feel the full force of country first. I’m the First Lady. I’ve promised to do everything in my power to make our nation stronger, to help Ash in his quest to do so.

And the contradiction between country first and wanting to be rescued is obvious and insurmountable. Of course Ash can’t come after me. Logistically ridiculous and morally wrong. He can’t jeopardize the country or use resources available only to his office to find me. Same goes for Embry. Knights don’t rescue damsels anymore, not because they are any less gallant or devoted, but because there are systems in place for these things.

Diplomatic systems.

Military systems.

Intelligence systems.

The problem is that I don’t know how these systems can save me either. Diplomacy needs reciprocal energy, and I doubt Melwas is interested in reciprocating anything other than war. Ash wouldn’t want war, and I don’t either.

Which leaves intelligence. CIA. Special ops. The underground things the majority of Americans never see or know about. Things too opaque even to me to count on.

So the answer is clear. No more damseling. I need to save myself.

I sit up straighter and look around the cabin again, taking stock. My ears are popping, which means we are descending, but I take a gamble and stand up.

“I have to pee,” I announce to Not-Daryl.

“Sit down,” he says dismissively. “We land soon.”

“I have to pee right now,” I say, pitching my voice louder for effect. I mean, I do actually have to pee, so it’s not a lie—not that I’m above telling lies right now. “I’ll pee all over myself and this plane if I can’t go to the bathroom.”

Not-Daryl swears and gets to his feet, yanking me by the upper arm to the back of the plane. He shoves me into the tiny bathroom, but when I try to lock myself in, he shoves his foot in the way, easily blocking the flimsy folding door.

I already know the answer, but I ask anyway. “Can I have some privacy?”

He doesn’t answer, just keeps his foot in the doorway and gives me the same heavy-jawed glare. I sigh and make a big production of maneuvering my bathrobe to hide my lower half as I sit on the toilet. Glaring eyes sweep down the exposed lines of my legs, appraising. I sense that in any other situation, there would be much more bodily violation at stake, but something’s different here.

“Melwas wants me all to himself, does he?” I ask when Not-Daryl’s eyes come up from my bare legs to my face. “You’re not allowed to touch me.”

“I can touch you all I like,” Not-Daryl says. “President Kocur only says you are to arrive to him unmarked. Although…” a wicked smile appears on his face. Not sexy-wicked. Stomach-turning wicked. “…I notice you are quite marked up already by your own president.”

I can almost feel the weight of his assumptions about me, about my body, about what I allow or endure or enjoy.

I stare at him. I stare at him as coolly as I can, channeling all those times I watched Grandpa Leo wrestle down his political opponents by sheer force of will. I pour every ounce of my unusual upbringing as the princess of the Democratic Party, of my identity as Ash’s little princess, as his queen, into my stare. And even though I sit bare-assed on the toilet in a bathrobe, even though by every visible metric he controls all the power here, Not-Daryl’s smile fades and he looks away. He pulls his foot back and shuts the bathroom door with a loud clack.

I win.

For now. Because I can’t outmuscle these men. I can’t outrun them. And after I finish peeing and washing my hands and get back in my seat, I see out the window where they are taking me and I know that I can’t escape.

Fine.

I’ll find another way.

The plane dips away from the massive lodge and into a nearby valley, where it lands on a minuscule airstrip. From there, I’m tied up again and placed in a mud-splattered Range Rover, and we climb up into the jagged mountains. The lodge, hulking and black, comes into view now and again through the trees and around bends in the road. It looks like Dracula’s castle, perched malevolently over the stone teeth of the Carpathians, and I realize we probably aren’t far from the historical land of Transylvania.

I’d rather face a vampire.

But this is more than a castle; we pass perimeter after perimeter of extremely modern security. Fences and gates and patrols and cameras mounted everywhere. Drones fly overhead. This place is just as secure as Camp David. And my heart sinks even further, though I refuse to let my determination flag. I’ll pretend I’m Queen Guinevere in all those stories I teach, unreachable and dignified, and composedly serene even as she’s kidnapped over and over again.