The steady drip of water was the first thing Chey heard when awareness returned. Groaning, slitting her eyes open, all she saw was darkness. Had she passed out at the hotel? Was it the middle of the night? She couldn't recall going to bed. Couldn't even recall, at first, what she'd done last. The hard surface beneath her back and hips made her bones ache, and she reached down with a gloved hand to feel what appeared to be a slab of solid stone.

What the hell?

Sitting up, disoriented and confused, she tried to get her bearings. Struggled to remember why she was here in a place that smelled musty and dank.

“Wynn?” Chey's voice echoed off the walls. Blinking away the blurriness from her vision, she saw a rectangle of light straight ahead, broken up by black lines running up and down the length. Were those vertical blinds? The hotel didn't have them.

Standing up, she discovered she wasn't as steady on her feet as she would have liked to be. Shuffling forward, she bumped into the black lines and realized they were bars. Iron bars. Grunting in surprise, she gripped them in her hands and gave a shake.

It didn't budge. And it was a door, or a gate, she could see that now. A flicker of candlelight out in the corridor beyond was the only source of illumination. The walls there were also stone, reminiscent of underground tunnels.

Turning around, she moved aside so the light would spill past the bars.

She was in some sort of cell. A cell with no other window, no door, only a slab of stone that apparently served as a bed. In the corner sat a rusty pot that Chey didn't want to consider the implications of.

“Hey! Hello? You can't keep me down here!” she shouted, turning back to press her face against the cold iron.

Images rushed back, filling in the blanks of her memory: the Royals in town, Sander making a speech, Chey passing off her note. Their plans to meet. A hand over her mouth and Wynn—oh God, where was Wynn—dragged from the booth.

“Wynn, are you in here? Wynn! Hello?” Chey raised her voice and shook the cell door.

This was impossible. It couldn't be happening, not in today's times. Unless she missed her guess, she was in the dungeon beneath the main Ahtissari castle.

No one answered her calls.

Had Sander set her up? Arranged for someone to grab her? He wouldn't have. He could have ignored her, and her note, and been on his way.

“Hello? Hello?” Infuriated, Chey shook the bars again, then let go. Pressing the heels of her gloved hands against her forehead, she tried to wrap her mind around what it all meant. Surely, whoever perpetrated this crime couldn't hold her long.

Maybe Natalia had been at the meeting and paid her guards to grab them. She seriously wanted to throw down with Natalia, Princess or no.

Chey alternated between pacing and sitting on the edge of the stone slab, one knee bouncing in spastic fits as nerves got the better of her.

An hour went by. And another.

Finally, Chey heard a shuffle out in the corridor. Surging to her feet, she stalked to the bars and shook the door. “Hey! You cannot keep me down here. I'm not a prisoner!”

A long shadow grew from one end of the hall, coming closer. Tall, broad, imposing.

Chey thought she might be sick. Please, oh please no. It couldn't be Sander. Betrayal threatened to make the sudden nausea real.

“My wife has had the devil of a time with you,” the King said, striding slowly into view. He had his hands clasped behind a long cape that scraped the ground at the heels of his boots. White fur draped the shoulders, and a gold chain with an ornate clasp fit snug across his chest. Salt and pepper hair had been combed carefully away from the refined but rugged angles of his face, his goatee neatly trimmed.

Chey stared at Aksel, trying to understand what he was saying about his wife. Helina. The woman who had been such a thorn in Chey's side the whole time.

“I don't know what you mean,” Chey said. Except that she did. She knew Helina didn't want her dating Sander or being in any part of his life.

“I think you do,” Aksel said, coming to a halt on the other side of the bars. He studied her with sharp eyes. “I am King. This is my Kingdom. Sander, my first born, will someday inherit all this, become the ruler I have raised him to be. It comes with great responsibility, something you know nothing about. My wife has tried to warn you away, but you're stubborn, are you not?”

Chey didn't bother to answer what was really a rhetorical question.

“Even my daughter has not been able to keep you away, which, I must admit, is rather surprising.”

“You can't keep me here. I'm not a prisoner. This isn't the dark ages and trust me—someone will know I'm missing,” Chey said, struggling to keep her voice from shaking.

“Really,” he said, and it wasn't a question. “Your parents are dead. You have no siblings. Who then, besides the girl who unfortunately accompanied you here, will care?” He arched a thick brow.

Chey was sure the King didn't mean to hit below the belt, but being reminded of the recent death of her parents felt like it. She looked down, away from Aksel's face. The ugly truth of it was...only her friends would realize she was missing. Chey had an estranged aunt who lived on the other side of the world who hadn't bothered to even attend her own brother's funeral. She wouldn't know or care if Chey disappeared from Seattle.

Both sets of grandparents were gone, and she had no siblings to fall back on.

How galling to know he was right. Aksel appeared to know it, too, and pressed his advantage.

“That's what I thought,” he said. “You've painted yourself into a corner, Miss Sinclair, and you're wrong when you say that you're not my prisoner. That's exactly what you are. Any threat to the crown is dealt with swiftly and harshly and you, Madam, have proven to be just that.”

Chey looked up. Met Aksel's keen gaze. “Because I'm dating your so--”

“Were. Were dating.”

“You have no right--”

“I have every right. It says so in the laws of this country. I may hold you indefinitely, without representation, so long as you fall under the category of direct threat to the Monarchy. It's my word against yours, Miss Sinclair. Who do you think the police will believe?” He paced a few feet away, then back again, the end of his cloak trailing the ground. “You should have gotten on the plane.”

Chey didn't know what to say. The thought that they could keep her here indefinitely made her stomach ache.

“What, no snappy comebacks? No witty repartee? I'm disappointed, Miss Sinclair. I thought you would have at least lashed out over your treatment.” His gaze scanned the circumference of the cell, then found her face again.

“What do you plan to do with me, then? We're in disagreement about my intentions, but you're right. No one will believe me over you. Or your wife.” Chey conceded the point.

“Warnings and threats have failed. Returning you to your own country failed. Murder, failed. What would you suggest I do next?”

“Murder?” Chey followed Aksel with her eyes. What was he saying?

He laughed. Low, quiet. Resonant. “Viia was a decent scapegoat, was she not? A pity, though. My wife had grand designs for her and Mattias. It pained Helina greatly to name Viia as the culprit behind Elise's attack. It had become apparent, however, that Mattias was merely stringing the woman along, so the situation only stepped up the progress of having Viia removed as a possible candidate for a wife.”

Chey felt dizzy at the duplicity of the Royals. Of the Queen. It shouldn't have surprised her, yet it did. Helina, not Viia, had been behind the attack at the castle. The woman was a snake. And what of Viia? The woman was in jail, would probably spend another ten years or maybe even the rest of her life behind bars, all because she'd been convenient to blame murder upon. A good target to shuffle attention away from the Royal family. Forever changed, damaged, through no fault of her own.

It shook Chey to her core to know that these people were Sander's parents.

“Is control that important, then? Did you arrange Gunnar's wife, too? Aurora for Paavo?” Chey asked.

“That you even need to ask that question is the answer itself,” Aksel said, lips thinning. He stopped just outside the bars and studied her face. “The only reason I have taken time out of my busy schedule to visit you in person is because few people know the truth of Viia, and I believe you will take what I have to say next to heart coming from the King instead of security.”

Chey waited to hear her fate. She knew that's what came next. Her hands tightened on the iron until her knuckles turned white.

“Your little friend, Wynn, and her lawyer father pose a significant annoyance. Yes, we could arrange to have him taken out and make it look like an accident, a father-daughter catastrophe that would remove the problem once and for all. It is a tedious business, however, eradicating inconveniences, Miss Sinclair. Therefore, I will take the next two days to decide whether you will suffer an unfortunate accident here in Latvala on your way to the airport, or if, one more time, I will send you packing in the hopes that this time, you understand better that I will take your life if you so much as consider entering Latvala's borders again. No warning, no capture-and-coerce. You will simply cease to exist, and that will be that.” Aksel wore a no nonsense expression, eyes cool and indifferent to the idea of murder.

It was his threat against Wynn and her family, along with the indifference he delivered his plans, that turned Chey's blood cold. She realized then just how out of her depth she really was, and that there were bold plots churning beneath the Royal family of which even some security were not aware. Chey amounted to a wad of gum on the sole of his expensive shoe. One he was having trouble scraping free.

“If you send me home, I promise I'll never set foot here again,” she said, licking her lips. Chey felt it important that she fight for her life. “I didn't understand how serious this was, but I do now. Wynn and I won't ever talk about any of this and Sander will never hear from me once I'm gone.”

“Things are not so cut and dried as all that, Miss Sinclair,” Aksel said. He took a step closer to the bars. “My son fancies he has some shot at 'real love' with you. It has made him take action he would not normally take. Seeing that he is being groomed to one day take my place, it disturbs me that he would challenge our authority over his need to procure an outstanding wife. Your death, arranged just so, would also provide me the necessary tool to press my point home to Sander. Which is—it insults me to have my authority questioned, and that he is not in control here. I am. Finding the wreckage of your 'accident' would not be mistaken by Sander for anything other than what it is: taking you out of the equation while teaching him a lesson I thought he had already learned.”

Chey took a discreet step back from the bars. Chilled, afraid that it was too late to save her own life, she wanted to put as much distance between herself and the King as she could without making him angry. He'd been right about one thing, too. Hearing this from his own mouth made it a hundred times more potent.

A thousand.

She didn't doubt for a moment that he meant every word.

“While I ruminate on it, someone will be down within the hour to move you to more acceptable accommodations. Regardless what you may think, I'm not that much of a heathen.” He rumbled a laugh, winked, then stalked away down the corridor.

Chey stared at the place the King had just been, horrified beyond comprehension. It would do no good to cry, or scream, or protest. There was no one to hear. No one who cared. Whatever guards he sent down were surely in his pocket, immune to her pleas or her truths.

The only thing left to do was wait to see if she lived—or died.

---

---

The two security guards who arrived an hour later to escort her to a new holding room were ones Chey had never seen. They wore standard business suits in black and white and did not make eye contact as they guided her through the maze of tunnels to a more updated section of the dungeon. Here, cement floors replaced the dank stone and the walls were covered with paint.

Although spartan, the room they left her in had its own private bathroom and a narrow trio of windows at the very top of the wall near the ceiling. The cream colored paint offset a twin bed with royal blue covers and sheets.

Chey spent forty-eight hours there, alternating between tears and fury. Just when she thought she had control over one emotion, the other rose up to take its place. She saw no sign of Wynn—or any other 'guest' for that matter. Only the guards who came to deliver her meals.

When they arrived in the early afternoon of her second full day, Chey knew the decision had been made. They escorted her down the corridors, up a flight of stone stairs, and out into a side parking area away from the main courtyard. Snow had been plowed off the asphalt, leaving the drive clear. Chey noted that although it wasn't snowing now, the sky was heavy with clouds that promised more in the near future. She wondered if she would die beneath the brooding heavens.

This, then, was what a death row inmate must feel on his final leg to the executioner's chair.

Escorted into the back of a Hummer, Chey buckled in and fidgeted with the edge of the seat. She sent prayer after prayer that this wasn't her end, unable to wrap her mind around the torture of the unknown. Would she make it to the airport alive?

Intrigued as she had once been with Ahtissari castle, Chey discovered she didn't want to so much as glance at it upon her departure. She didn't care to have a last view of its impressive turrets and decorative arches. Natalia was probably staring down from on high, a smirk on her petulant mouth, counting the seconds until Chey was forever banished from her life.

Tense the entire drive, expecting a crash, or explosion or some other horror, Chey watched the shoreline whip by out the window. How different this trip turned out than how she imagined. Just now, all she wanted was the relative safety of her Seattle apartment and a year or two to recover from her inadvertent misery.

They passed through one small town and approached Vogeva from the north. Surprised when the Hummer pulled up in front of the quaint hotel on the main strip, she sat forward and reached for her belt.

The guard in the seat in front reached back to stay her motion. Moments later, a harried looking Wynn rushed out the front door with two guards carrying their luggage at her flank. She made her way around to the passenger side door and climbed in.

“Chey! Oh my god, you're all right. I wasn't sure what to think when they separated us. What happened? Did you get--” Wynn's immediate questions got cut off when Chey shook her head. Not now. Ask later.

Wynn's mouth shaped an 'oh' of understanding. She reached across the Hummer once she was in to embrace Chey anyway.

Holding tight to her best friend, Chey saw this as a good sign that perhaps Aksel had decided to let them both go home instead of the alternative. She wouldn't ever be so glad to see Seattle again.

The Hummer made good time from Vogeva to Kalev. Chey and Wynn said little on the way. When the vehicle approached the airport, Chey closed her eyes with relief. Her shoulders were tight with tension, her head aching from stress.

On the sidewalk, the guards passed the girls their luggage, which seemed to be intact and accounted for. One handed each a fresh ticket with their name printed on the front.

Chey glanced beyond the guards after taking her envelope with a murmur of thanks, and silently bid Latvala—and Sander—goodbye. It just wasn't meant to be.

An hour later the girls were in the air on their way back to Seattle.