Rather than feeling flattered, she realized his words had set off an unpleasant sensation, crawling along the outer edges of her skin.
“You’re very kind, Mr. Klein. It’s lovely to have you and your esteemed mother here in our beloved Cyrano.”
“And it is lovely to be here. Cyranese hospitality lives up to its legend.”
She had no idea why, but although his words were innocent, Mina felt the urge to use hand sanitizer after he’d said them.
Obviously catching the tail-end of Werner’s sentence as he turned from the Chancellor, Zayn said, “I am glad to hear that. We’re here to serve. Let our staff know what you would like, and we’ll do everything we can to accommodate you.”
Having made their introductions and initial contact, Zayn and Mina had turned to make their way to the dining room when Werner Klein leaned toward one of his companions with a chuckle and said, in distinctly audible German, “I’d like to see if his wife could accommodateme.”
Mina sucked in a quiet breath. At her side, Zayn was suddenly all rapid motion and purpose, closing the short distance they’d walked away from the younger Klein in seconds, to return to his side.
The sudden movement of the King caused a ripple of awareness to go through the crowd, drawing conversations to a halt and bringing all of the attention in the room to him—just in time to witness the precise cocking back of his elbow and the jackhammering of his fist directly into Werner’s face.
One. Two. Three. And Werner collapsed on the ground.
Color draining from her face, the Chancellor took a step toward her son but then seemed to hesitate, unwilling to approach the darkly radiating monarch.
Dressed in black, and towering over the unconscious man, Zayn looked every inch the medieval warrior King, despite the modern lines of his suit and his insistence that Cyrano had moved past its history.
Werner’s cronies stepped closer, gaining confidence after their friend’s embarrassment. In moments, there would be an all-out brawl.
Watching as Zayn’s plans crumbled around him, Mina felt something click inside her. Dr. Aldaba might never have been caught dead in her current outfit—too distracting, after all—but the impenetrable professor and scientist was as much a part of her bones as Queen Amina.
She squared her shoulders and crossed the space between her and the two men as if she was strolling across her lecture room rather than a ballroom at a grand event.
She placed cool fingertips on the King’s elbow and he stilled, the radiating physicality of his intent toward the younger man dimming. And as she restrained him she also said in soft, smooth, and rapid German, her tone at once censuring and commanding—the same tone her mother had used on her to calm her rare tantrums as a child, “Gentlemen. I don’t believe it is considered polite to scuffle indoors. I’m going to have to insist you take this outdoors.”
Zayn shot her a glance that she knew had more to do with the fact that she’d held back her language abilities than the censure in her tone. He did step back, however.
The other men, having been accessories to Werner’s original comment, were not handling the revelation of the Queen’s language skills nearly so well. Two sets of eyes were glued to Mina in abject horror. She recognized the look of individuals staring career failure in the face, but couldn’t muster much empathy. She had been a teacher long enough to recognize a group of entitled rich kids a mile away.
As the threat of physical violence dissipated, the Chancellor stepped inside the circle, her hawk eyes taking in the fact that her son was on the floor and that all his cronies had lost their color.
“What’s going on here?” she asked quietly, speaking in German as well.
Mina opened her mouth, ready to answer for all of them, using the tone she had used as a professor to report to a parent on a student’s progress, but Zayn’s hand on her wrist stopped her.
“I would advise that you leave your son at home next time, Chancellor Klein.”
Zayn’s voice was a whip through the room and Chancellor Klein’s mouth dropped open.
Mina grimaced, adding public rebuking to the list of primeval King’s rights that Zayn was exercising tonight. But even though she felt for the woman—it wasn’t her fault her son’s behavior had been inexcusable—Mina couldn’t help but observe, as Zayn dragged her out of the ballroom, that he had been right. The open-mouthed expression really did make one look like a fish.
CHAPTER TEN
ZAYN’SREINONhis temper was hanging by a thin thread, and he had already taken violent action against the son of a head of state.
“You will never speak of my wife again,” he had growled in German, just before hitting the man with the cold clarity and precision his instructors had always told him to seek.
As a man, Zayn had encountered Werner Klein’s kind many times, and he knew that the best way to deal with that kind of bully was to smash them like an ant and move on. And he’d done exactly that.
That was not, however, how a king dealt with his problems.
Kings treated men like Klein as gnats—unworthy of notice or reaction.
No. He had not acted like a king. He had acted like a man—and not just a man, but a hot-headed youth, the kind of young man he had been when he had gone away to college, wild and unable to carry the responsibility of the crown, rather than the level-headed monarch he’d schooled himself to be.