I wake up lying in a bed.

Not my bed. It’s harder, and smaller, and―

Jane.

“Where is she!” I shout―or try to shout. It comes out as a croak.

“Jane!” I rasp.

Something beeps louder as my heart thumps in my chest. I realize I’m hooked up to a bunch of IV lines, and I tear them out of my arms.

Blood drips from my arm, as I jump out of the bed.

I stumble back and forth trying to gain my balance with my weakened legs, and my throat feels so dry that I fear it’s going to crack, but I press on and open the door.

“Jane!”

A nurse rushes toward me.

“Your Highness,” she says. “You need to get back in bed.”

“Where’s Jane?” I ask frantically.

She purses her lip and looks toward the bed. “Your Highness, please, you must rest―”

“Where?” I ask, grabbing hold of her. I won’t let go until she tells me.

“Promise me you’ll lie back down…”

She looks behind her searching for help, and three security guards approach.

“Get him to the bed.”

They start to escort me by the arm, gripping me brusquely, and the nurse scurries away.

I fight them, but their grip is strong, and I’m not recovered from whatever those assholes pumped into me. I still feel sluggish, and my insides feel like squishy foam.

They finally get me over to the bed and convince me to lie down.

“Jane,” I say, grabbing one by the arm. “Tell me.”

“We can’t sedate him again,” I hear the nurse say.

Finally, Magnus steps into the room, and one look at his face is all I need to see to know the news isn’t good.

“Is she alive?” I ask. My heart is pounding and I can hardly breathe.

“We haven’t heard from them,” Magnus says. “But they took Jane as a hostage to get across the border.”

I grip the railing on the bed so tightly that the muscles in my arm bulge, but I can’t hold the grip for long. “Fuck!”

Why didn’t that bastard Siegfried take me? He didn’t even kill me, and he could have. Then I realize the answer, and it makes my blood turn cold. He needs me to want Jane badly enough to let him off the hook.

Fucking coward.

I look toward the nurse. “How long until this shit wears off?”

“A few more hours,” she says. “But you should stay overnight for monitoring. You were given way too large of a dose―”

“Fuck that,” I say. “A few hours? I’m out of here. Magnus, let’s get to the war room.”

Everyone eyes each other.

“Magnus!” I shout.

“Step away,” Magnus says to the guards.

The nurse stares daggers at him, but he grabs my hand and pulls me up.

He grins back at the nurse. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t fall on his ass, don’t worry.”

She scoffs, and Magnus and I wobble a lot more slowly than I’d like toward the war room.

When we get there, my father and a number of parliament members are gathered in a circle. They turn toward Magnus and me when we enter the room, and I realize some of them are not happy to see me.

“Save your anger,” I say, stepping toward them and doing my best to not look drugged. “I have plenty for myself. I should have never taken the princess from the palace under these circumstances, ceasefire or not.”

“They’ve violated the ceasefire,” one of the women says. “Now we’re forced to counterattack!”

A man gets in her face and says, “We don’t have to; we should negotiate.”

“Silence!” my father shouts.

Everyone looks to him.

“They were about to hand Siegfried over to us, so we don’t know if he was acting under orders, or alone,” he says. “There’s every possibility they will turn over Princess Jane and Siegfried to meet the terms of our deal.”

“Right,” I add in. “And that all goes out of the window if we attack now.”

The woman from parliament, Janna Windstrom, scoffs. If I recall correctly, she’s one of the more hawkish members of parliament. “Your Highness,” she says to me. “Just a few days ago, you were strongly in favor of counterattacking.”

“A few days changes things,” I say. “Mrs. Windstrom, a few days ago we had them with their tails between their legs and their backs to us. Now they’ve had nearly a week to regroup and strengthen their defenses.”

She gives me a smug smile and says snidely, “And now they have your princess, and your princess must have taken your balls with her―”

I lunge toward her, but Magnus holds me back, and I’m still too drugged to break free.

“How dare you accuse me of―”

My father steps between us. “Rikard, quiet. Don’t make me order you back to the infirmary until you’re well.” He turns toward the parliament members. “The prince is still feeling the effects of the drug he was shot with.”

Windstrom flashes her teeth at me, but I finally force myself to calm down.

Fuck her. It is about my princess. My Jane. I care more about getting her back than I do about getting Sydia back. What’s a kingdom without a princess, and what am I without her?