She nodded, looking up at him, her eyes full of things she had to say.
She opened her mouth, then closed it and shook her head, then opened it again. “I’m sorry,” she said.
They weren’t the words he wanted to hear. Though what he hoped she would say he had no idea. Pulling her into his arms, he rested his nose on the top of her hair and drew in a long inhale. Then he tilted her chin, angling her face toward his one last time. Running his thumbs below her eyes and along her cheekbones, he leaned closed, pressed his lips against hers and kissed her goodbye.
And then, without speaking, he turned and left. If he had stayed a moment longer, he wouldn’t have been able to leave at all.
CHAPTER NINE
AWEEKANDa half later, Hel was in the worst shape of her life.
Despite being in the comfort of her own bed, and the warm bosom of most of her dearest friends and family, she’d slept horribly and felt sicker and sicker with each passing day since leaving Drake in Andros.
Once she’d made herself known, it was a simple thing to get dropped off at a public location, from which point she called the palace first and her mother second. Everyone accepted her story of escaping her unknown kidnapper and returning—how could they not? She was Helene d’Tierrza, captain of the queen’s guard, indefatigable and unbeatable.
And right now, she was a strange shade of grayish green. Strange, because she hadn’t experienced a second of seasickness through her adventure with Drake, and yet was feeling all of its symptoms now.
She wondered if there was such a thing as land-sickness, and if so, if one could suddenly develop it after having spent a short time sampling the seafaring life.
Real or not, it certainly wasn’t helping her track down what had happened with Moustafa.
All that she’d been able to discern was that her cousin, in a move that made absolutely no sense to her, had sent the queen to the summer palace and placed Jenna on a leave of absence the very same day Drake had abducted her.
Zayn had quickly followed behind Mina, traveling to the summer palace and conducting business from there through Hel’s absence. Though he had personally called to tell her how glad he was to know she was safe, and they’d spoken at length about her supposed escape, she had not known at the time to speak to him about Moustafa.
Mina, too, between being at the mercy of Roz for wedding planning and being completely in the dark as to what had led Zayn to reprimand Jenna, had been unable to explain the situation.
Trying to untangle the mess with a hollowed-out and aching hole where her heart should have been, and a nagging and persistent sense of nausea, was presenting her with an entirely new kind of endurance training.
Thankfully, though she never would have imagined thinking this, Mina was gone. The fact that Hel was not on official duty was a shocking saving grace. Normally, her work energized her. It was the thing she lived for, but now, the thought of it made her stomach roll.
Being a guard had given her something real and lasting to do for the first time in her life, a sense of duty and responsibility that the charity rebellions of her youth had lacked—the sense of independent self she’d been so desperately seeking. It had shored up her wobbly, childish hope to undo the ill her father wrought in the world, and made it a full-fledged adult goal and given her the power to enact it.
And, for a short time after the nightmare of her engagement, it had been the only reason she got out of bed and got dressed every day.
Becoming a guard and making a promise to protect those who needed it was the reason she didn’t just let the Tierrza duchy fall into disrepair in order to tarnish her father’s legacy. The neglect would have been satisfying, but that satisfaction would have come at the expense of her tenants and the people who depended on her.
Being a guard was the reason she had female friends. She and Moustafa had been partners for nearly seven years, graduating together from the royal security academy. They were an unlikely pairing—the priory girl and the rebel heiress. After her cousin, the king, Jenna Moustafa had quickly become Hel’s second-best friend in the world.
And from the moment she had watched Dr. Mina Aldaba, now Queen Mina d’Argonia, proud and disheveled academic that she’d been, walk through the chapel doors to become queen not long ago, she’d known she’d gained her most important responsibility and another dear friend.
Knowing that Mina was safe under the protection of the specially trained summer-palace security unit was a deep relief.
Even if it left Hel with nothing but time on her hands and too much to think about, an upset stomach and no idea where her partner had gone.
Tracking down Moustafa was the obvious best choice of her options. But short of calling her family, which she was hesitant to do, she had exhausted her resources with no luck.
And knowing that her resources were...considerable, that pointed to Moustafa actually being with her family.
Hel felt like an idiot. If anything truly terrible had happened to Jenna, her family would have been hounding Hel’s heels like Cerberus.
Jenna’s family was large, ever-growing, it seemed, and deeply interconnected. They were absolutely wonderful, incredibly tight-knit, insatiably nosy and unparalleled at ferreting out information. Hel liked to tease that the terrier spirit was what made Moustafa such a good guard. It was also the reason Hel had avoided calling. It wasn’t wise to call on the Moustafas with heavy secrets on your heart.
But now that the idea had occurred to her she was certain that was where Jenna would be. The Moustafas were members of a long-rooted religious minority in Cyrano. They believed in big families, which made living close in the capital a challenge. Jenna herself came from a farm on the outer edges of a suburb that bordered the city.
Satisfied with at least that one thing in her world, Hel rolled onto her stomach, hoping the pressure might ease the persistent nausea.
“Darling, are you all right? Liza said you weren’t feeling well. And do you mind putting a shirt on?”