The Dare Collection September 2018. Stefanie London

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СКАЧАТЬ start the elevator again, and we both ride to the main level in silence.

      Only when we reach the bottom does Juliet break the silence. “I know what you’re thinking,” she says. “And it’s not your fault.”

      My jaw tightens. “You don’t get it. I ruin everyone and everything. I can’t do this.”

      Her eyes grow wide. “What are you saying?”

      I clear my throat. “I’m saying that you will be cared for and protected by my family. But you will be a princess without a prince. It is not as if I’ve been officially reinstated. It will be best for everyone if the banishment sticks. I am sorry, Juliet.”

      The doors open, and there before us are a host of guards, but they are no guards of Edenvale.

      “Good morning, Princess,” one jeers, and I swear I’ve heard that voice before. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

      Juliet opens her mouth to scream, but one of the Black Watch yanks her from the elevator car and clamps a hand over her lips.

      “Get her to the car,” the first guard sneers. “And be careful. She’s a biter.”

      He shakes out his hand, and I note the scars on both the back and his palm. Whatever happened before Juliet came to find me, this bastard had his hands on her—and she made him bleed for it.

      She kicks and flails, and something in me breaks. I launch myself at the man who holds her, my fist connecting with his face. I feel bone crunch.

      A fist jabs into my side—into my still-healing ribs—and I crumple to the floor, gasping for breath.

      The first guard stands above me, grinning.

      “Are we going to do our dance again, young Prince?” He glances over his shoulder to where Juliet stands captive. “Let her watch this time. Let her see what awaits her in the public square tonight.”

      I roar through the pain and try to climb to my feet, but the man of the Watch pulls a handgun from his side and swings it at my head. Right before everything goes black, I hear Juliet scream.

      Juliet

      In my life, I have known soul-crushing boredom. I have drunk deep from the well of loneliness. I have felt passion grip me in its jaws and tear me to a place between agony and ecstasy. And I have known the awe-inspiring, almost holy sensation of being in love and getting that love returned.

      But I’ve never known hatred—true hatred—until this moment. Bile burns my throat as I fight like a cornered lioness surrounded by jackals. I’m fighting for more than my own life. This is about my unborn child and Damien cold-cocked and discarded on the cold elevator floor like yesterday’s trash.

      One of the abductors carrying me turns my body toward his chest as he adjusts to my thrashing weight. The acrid scent of his body odor assaults my senses. He reeks like liverwurst and stale aquavit. I don’t hesitate, lunging forward and sinking my teeth through his shirt until I connect with the hard muscle beneath.

      Unlike Damien’s powerful body, which exudes a need to protect, this man gives off an air of cruelty and small-mindedness. He wants to hurt me, so I hurt him first and make it count.

      He bellows as my teeth clamp down, and I twist my head back and forth to deepen his pain. I don’t know what has come over me, only that the whole world has turned hazy and red.

      I channel my inner bulldog, driven by a primal need to defend my child. In the background, I am dimly aware of pain in my skull as the man yanks fistfuls of my hair in an attempt to stop my assault.

      My eyes burn, watering from the agony. I can hear strands of my hair giving way as roots are pried from the scalp. But I don’t stop biting because maybe I am buying myself and my baby a few more precious seconds of time. Even now members of The Order might be assembling to come to our aid. And with any luck they will find Damien. Fear creeps into my heart with a reptilian coolness. The last time the Black Watch got their evil hands on him he lost so much. Can he withstand a second assault?

      The world explodes in a white light. A dull, heavy sound of metal striking bone reverberates to my core. My body goes limp as a warm, sticky liquid slides down my neck. As I’m shoved into the cramped darkness of a trunk, a man stares at me with a leering smile, a steel club clutched in one beefy hand.

      “Time to go home, Your Highness,” he chortles before slamming the lid.

      I part my lips to scream but can only muster a weak mewl before I lose consciousness completely.

      I don’t know how long I remain in the trunk. Every so often I start to wake, unable to see anything, not even my hand before my face. Holding my stomach, I croon snippets of lullabies from my country. Not songs my mother ever sang to me, but those my nursemaids and nannies used to comfort me as a child. The lyrics are pretty and silly about mountains and snow, little trolls and wildflowers.

      “It’s a beautiful place,” I whisper before my world goes dark yet again. This is how I spend the ride to my home country—in the trunk of a car, falling in and out of consciousness.

      Yes, Nightgardin is a proud, timeless land forged from ancient glaciers and wild rivers. Its people are good and hardworking even if the ruling class is corrupted to the core. If I find a way to survive the trials ahead, I will figure out how to reforge the monarchy into an institution that can make my people proud once again. Where young women are respected and advanced just like any son.

      But first I need to live long enough to defeat my parents.

      The trunk opens a few hours later and I push myself to sitting, dehydrated with a splitting headache and my hair matted with my own blood.

      I look around, realizing where my abductors have brought me—the Nightgardin Stables. Once it was a place of refuge and freedom for me, but today it may well become my doom.

      “Darling,” a woman croons in the shadow, stepping forward to take the shape of my mother. She looks like a Renaissance painting of a Madonna with her long thick hair and lovely features. The trouble comes when you get a good look at her eyes, which are devoid of any human compassion or love.

      “What have you done, Mother?” I growl as if a fierce voice can cover the fact that my legs are so weak they can barely support me. A pitchfork leans against the closest stable, the home of my favorite stallion, Loratio. If I grab it I could... I could...

      “You wouldn’t murder your own mother, now would you?” she asks with a soft smile, her gaze following mine to the tool.

      “No.” My voice is choked. “I’m not like you.”

      “That’s right.” She watches me with her flat, dead eyes. “You’re not.”

      Then she snaps her fingers, and the Black Watch goons reappear.

      “Tie her up!” she orders. “And put her in the empty stall beside Loratio.”

      “What are you going to do to me?”

      “Me?” My mother adjusts her long gray dress and transforms her face to the picture of grief. “I’m not going to do anything. The Black Watch, however, will show the public what happens to those who commit treason. СКАЧАТЬ