“This is insanity. Get out of my home.”
Another guard entered the room. Tall, thin, he was death walking. Even from my layman’s eyes, a killer. Ruthless in his role as some kind of special guard. Behind me, Faith gasped.
“You!” Faith leapt off the bed, as if to attack the man. Moving quickly, I jumped to my feet to block her into the corner with my much larger frame.
“Stay where you are!” I ordered.
She pounded on my back, pushed against me. Enraged. “Move! Let me at him. He tried to kill us.” Her accusation was a snarl of pure feminine rage, and I looked at the large guard with new eyes. He grinned at her words, as if her anger amused him.
I’d calm my mate and then kill him myself.
I took one step forward, but Travin cleared his throat and lifted his own ion blaster in my direction. That made five blasters and six men. The odds were not in my favor. “I’d think twice about making that move, young man. Let the female go. We will not harm her. You have my word.”
Faith moved around me and with all the blasters pointed in my direction, and Travin’s order hanging in the air, there wasn’t much I could do to stop her. Not without getting us both killed.
Thank the goddess she didn’t go far, but stopped directly before me, as if using her body as a shield. Which was insane. “Faith, get behind me. Now.”
“No.” She stood proudly, unafraid, and I was proud of my mate in that moment. She might be a commoner, a servant in my parents’ home, but she was magnificent. Fearless. Proud. Mine. She was mine. “You.” She pointed at the tall one, the killer, yet looked to Travin. “Who are you? Are you in charge of this disaster?”
Travin bowed to her with a deference I did not understand. “Yes. I am Travin Thuraya, commander of these men.”
“Thuraya? Are you Leo’s father?” she asked.
“I am.”
How did she know Leoron, Princess Trinity’s new mate? Of course, his face had been all over the news feeds for days. The common soldier who had risen in the world and managed to mate the princess. He was famous, almost more so than the princess herself. Every male on the planet wanted to be Leo right now.
I looked at Faith’s shoulders, her shining hair, and shook my head. No. Not every male. I was content with what was mine. Faith was more beautiful than the new princess, softer, more alluring in every way. Even her scent drove me to distraction—
“If you are Leo’s father, then you will arrest this man. He tried to kill me and my sisters.”
What the fuck was Faith talking about? I didn’t know she had sisters. I knew nothing about her, other than the fact that she brought my body and my heart to life. That I couldn’t bear to see her hurt or in pain. That I would die to protect her.
I didn’t recognize the guard she pointed out. I didn’t recognize any of them but Leo’s father. It wasn’t a surprise, for I wasn’t involved with the police or the Optimus unit. But I did know their uniforms were from neither organization. They wore the uniform of royal guards. Travin Thuraya had been the head of the guard for years before he retired.
I had to guess with his son’s rise in the ranks as mate to the newly returned princess, he’d decided to go back into a more active role. Especially with the threat to the princess at the reception. But why now? Why here? There was no explanation for why they were in my home at dawn, interrupting a fabulously perfect round of pussy eating.
“Zel is dead. I’ve been searching for the traitor in my mother’s house. I promise you. It is not me.” I put my hand to my bare chest.
The killer snorted at me like I was an idiot. A complete and total idiot. “Now that Faith is safe, I can assure you we will get to you, my Lord.” He said the word Lord like it was acid on his tongue. “You have kidnapped and held a member of the royal family without permission. You allowed the princess to be in danger. You plotted with your friend, Zel, a soldier in this house, to kidnap and murder Queen Celene as well as Princess Trinity. You will pay for your mistakes.”
Holy fuck. He was dead serious, and so was the look on Travin’s face. But Princess Trinity was fine. Alive. Whole. I’d seen the news, at least yesterday. Zel had been one of my father’s guards, it was true, but he was dead, and the trail had gone cold the moment his traitor’s heart stopped beating. Yes, we’d been friends as children, run through my parents’ mansion with wild abandon, raiding the kitchen and stealing treats from the cooks. But that was two decades ago. As we aged, we settled into our roles, me as a Lord and him as a common soldier. I hadn’t spoken more than ten words to him in the last ten years. This was madness. “Faith is safe with me. She is mine. My mate. I saved her from interrogation by the Optimus unit. I don’t know what you are talking about. I haven’t spoken to Zel, more than to say Hello, in years. I would never do anything to endanger Princess Trinity. You have made a mistake.”
Faith shivered, holding the sheet to the top of her breasts like a shield as she stared at the most dangerous man in the room. “You were there that night,” she continued. I could see her hands shaking. “You were after us. Killed the Jax guards. You laughed when my sister shot you. Laughed!” Faith was shouting now and I was no longer convinced the shaking I saw in her was from fear. Her skin was glowing with her rage, her stance light as if she was ready to fly into an attack at any moment.
What the fuck was she talking about?
“And you kept one of those traitors alive,” he countered. “You healed the traitor, Zel, with a ReGen wand so he could go back to the palace and finish what he started. He nearly murdered Princess Trinity.”
Faith froze, as if she’d been slapped. All color drained from her cheeks. “Oh my God.” She swayed on her feet, as if he’d physically struck her. Another reason to kill him later. “So what now?” she asked, her voice much calmer, as if she’d figured something out. “Are you trying to convince me you aren’t here to kill us?”
The other four guards had their weapons trained on us—no, on me. They hadn’t moved a muscle, hadn’t blinked, probably hadn’t even breathed.
“If they were, we’d already be dead,” I told her, my voice grim. Whoever the fuck these people were knew where I lived, knew Faith would be here. Knew things about her I still didn’t. Which made me want to rage and scream like an idiot. She was mine. My mate. And I knew nothing about what was happening here.
She’d been keeping secrets.
But then, she had been caught going through my mother’s things. Snooping around my home. To what end? I’d rescued her from the Optimus unit when they proved a bit too eager to interrogate her, but never gotten any real information out of her. I’d been too busy fucking her. Feeding her Ardor. Practically begging her to drain my strength and my seed often and well. My cock had woken up and I’d lost my fucking mind.