The Pirate Prince (52 page)

Terror wiped her mind blank, and Darius filled her senses. His nearness, the sheer male force of him, overwhelmed her, for she had always been in awe of him, the enigma, the brooding outsider. She could smell the clean, musky scent of him mingled with the smell of horse and leather, the smoke of the cheroots he was always smoking, and the coppery taint of blood. She could feel the heat radiating from his lean, powerful body, feel the thrumming tension coiled in his hard, sinewy form.

Then it all happened at once. He seized Philippe by the throat and knocked her out of his grasp at the same time. Caught off guard even more than Philippe was, she stumbled towards the wall of hedge, landed in a heap near the edge of the courtyard and sat there, immediately pulling the remnants of her silk bodice up over her shoulders with shaking hands.

She looked up in dread when she heard the whisper of metal. Her stare homed in on Darius’s ebony-handled dagger, the slim elegance of the blade kissed by moonlight.

Oh, God
.

Philippe had dropped his weapon in the scramble. He bolted, but Darius was upon him. He grabbed Philippe by the back of his collar and hurled him around, throwing him down onto the flagstone, blocking the exit.

When Philippe threw up both hands to ward off the first blow, Darius’s dagger slashed across both his open palms.

Serafina squeezed her eyes shut tight and turned her face away, but she heard every dragging second of their fight, every gasp and choke and low curse, as Darius savaged him. She longed to run. The cicadas screamed. When Darius swore in some unknown language, she opened her eyes and saw him lift his dagger for the final cut, saw his beautiful face alight with savagery.

Don’t
.

She squeezed her eyes shut tight as the knife plunged straight down like a bird of prey. Philippe’s scream was short, followed by a silence.

Then she heard only the breeze blowing through the junipers until she became aware of the sound of a man’s fierce panting. She felt like she was going to throw up.

It dawned on her with sudden hysteria that she had to run. She had to escape from here, get away from him immediately. She could not guess what he’d do next—he was wholly unpredictable. She only knew that the lust-hardened hunger in his face as he stared at her body had been real.

Never taking her eyes off him, she shoved to her feet in one jerky motion as Darius raked a hand through his hair, pushing his forelock out of his eyes, a black, demonic shape against the lesser dark of night. A second later, he wrenched his knife out of Philippe’s breast.

She kept watching him, wild-eyed, kept clutching the silk remnants of her bodice together as she inched sideways along the perimeter of the courtyard. She ignored the prickly branches raking the tender skin of her back. He was blocking the only way out, but she would claw her way through the thick hedge if she had to.

Darius rose from Philippe’s lifeless body. He took a handkerchief from the pocket of his impeccable coat, the cotton pearl-white in the dark. Wiping the blood off his hands, he paused and suddenly turned, giving the body a vicious kick in the ribs.

Serafina let out a small scream, taken off guard by his swift, tempestuous movement.

He looked over at her, staring harshly at her for a second, as if he were only just remembering she was there.

Then he stood very still, panting, a tall, silent figure looming in the darkness.

“What are you doing?” His voice was unnervingly quiet.

Trapped in his steady, piercing gaze, she froze.

“Jesus,” he muttered, closing his eyes for a second.

She said nothing, gathering her torn dress tighter against her in both sweating palms as she calculated the odds of successfully running past him.

He heaved a sigh, shook his head to himself, then went and splashed his face under the cold bubbling fountain.

A moment later, he walked toward her, slipping off his black jacket.

She shrank back against the bushes from him.

He held out the coat, offering it to her.

She didn’t dare move even to take it, didn’t dare take her eyes off him.

He had killed three men all in a night’s work, he was known to do indecent things to women in the middle of the day, he had stared at her breasts, and then there was the other matter, more troubling still, that eight years ago she had been marked with this man’s blood.

It had happened in the city square on her twelfth birthday, when someone tried to shoot the king. She had been standing there smiling at her birthday festivities, holding her poppa’s hand, when the would-be assassin attacked. And Santiago, this beautiful madman, she thought helplessly, who did not know the meaning of fear, had stepped in the path of the bullet. His body slammed against the king while his hot, scarlet blood splashed on her cheek and on her new white frock.

Since that day, deep down in a primal, illogical place inside of her that responded to things like the warmth of fire and the smell of cooking food, deep down in her blood and bones where she was not princess but simply woman, she knew she belonged to this man.

And the most terrifying thing of all was that she sensed he knew it, too.

His intense, fiery gaze gentled slightly under his long lashes.

She couldn’t stop shaking.

Again, he offered the coat. “Take it,” he said softly, “Princesa.”

Without warning, her eyes brimmed at his gentle tone.

His long lashes flicked downward, as if he had no idea what to do with her.

“I’ll help you,” he said reluctantly, holding out the coat so she would only have to slip her arms inside the sleeves.

Hesitantly, she let him put it on her like a child.

“I thought,” she began. She bit down on her lower lip, unable to finish.

“I know what you thought.” His voice was low, quietly fierce. “I would never hurt you.”

Their stares locked, clashed, both wary.

She was the first to drop her gaze, astounded by her own unfamiliar meekness. Her ex-governesses would never have believed it.

“Didn’t—didn’t you need him alive?”

“Well, he’s dead now, isn’t he?” he said in weary disgust. “I’ll manage.” One fist propped on his hip, for a moment he rubbed his forehead.

“Thank you,” she whispered shakily.

He shrugged and walked away, returning to the fountain.

Finally, now that she saw the danger truly was past, tears overtook her, blinding her.

Serafina sank down where she was, collapsing slowly in a heap on the bricks. Wrapping his jacket tighter around her, she began to weep. When she sobbed aloud, he looked over in surprise. He frowned and came back to her. She could not summon any sense of pride, she just bawled, unable to look up beyond his shiny black boots and gleaming silver spurs.

He crouched down, searching her eyes. “Hey, Princess. What’s this? You trying to ruin my night?”

She paused abruptly, staring at him in amazement.
Ruin
his night?

She jumped when he reached out and cupped her cheek, shrinking from his touch.

“What’s the matter? You scared of me now like everyone else?”

Her answer was a single, shaking sob that came all the way up from her lungs.

His gaze melted, but he lowered his hand. “Hey, come on, this is me. You know me,” he said. “You’ve always known me. Since you were this big.” He held up thumb and forefinger about an inch apart.

She glanced at his hand, then met his onyx eyes uncertainly.

It was a half-truth. Twenty years ago, just before she was born, her parents had saved him from life on the streets as a feral boy-thief. All her life he had been there, in the shadows, but nobody really knew Darius Santiago. He would not allow it, indeed, he saved his most scathing mockery for those who tried to love him, as she had learned.

He lowered his long, thick lashes, and his voice was softer. “Well, it’s all right if you’re scared of me now. I don’t blame you. Sometimes I scare myself.”

“You killed them,” she whispered. “It was horrible.”

“That’s my job,” he replied, “and yes, sometimes it is horrible. I am sorry you saw it. You should have closed your eyes. Your Highness.”

“I did. I could still hear.”

He bristled. “He insulted your honor. He got what he deserved.”

She dropped her gaze, fearing to provoke him.

There was long, awkward pause, and in the silence the knowledge hung between them of those moments, and his stare. She heard him let out a weary sigh.

“No more tears, little one,” he murmured, wiping her tearstained cheek with one finger.

“Why did he do that to me?” she wrenched out. “Why would anyone do such a thing?”

For a moment, he appeared as baffled by her naivete as she was by his ruthlessness. Then he shook his head. “It wasn’t so much to shame you,
Princesa
, as to try and bait me—distract me into making a mistake. He knew he had no way out, and I went along with it because he was so desperate I thought he might actually cut you.”

“Oh, God.” She squeezed her eyes shut.

“It’s over now. You don’t need to be embarrassed with me, all right? We’ve all had our share of humiliation.”

She colored, eyes down, huddling deeper into his coat. “Not you,” she answered barely audibly. “No one could ever humiliate you.”

He gave a short, unpleasant laugh. “You think not? Believe me,” he said.

She stole a curious peek at his chiseled face.

He avoided her eyes as he traced the curve of her cheek with one fingertip, them he laid his hand on her shoulder and gave it a sturdy squeeze. “That man didn’t take anything away from you, you understand? It can’t hurt you unless you choose to let it.”

Her gaze fell. He
was
mad if he thought everyone was as tough and stoic as him.

“You see? That’s my secret,” he told her. “Now I give it to you.”

She glanced up and found him watching her with a faint, teasing smile. She chanced a slight answering smile, then her expression sobered.

“If you hadn’t come, what would have happened?”

“Well, let’s see.” He looked up at the moon, and its light slid downward over his finely-carved, high cheekbones. “You’d have been transported to Milan where you’d have been forced to wed Napoleon’s stepson. Your father might have kept his crown but would have lost any real authority, and France would have used our navy to invade England. Beyond that, who knows?”

She stared at him, incredulous.

He tossed his black forelock out his eyes then flashed her an insolent smile. “Such is my life,” he said cynically. “Come.” He swept to his feet with princely grace and bent to offer her his hand.

Serafina frowned when she saw him sway slightly as he stood. He winced, but the look of pain quickly vanished. It was hard to tell by moonlight, but his sun-bronzed face seemed a trifle pale.

“We’ve got to go see your father,” he continued briskly, “then find someone to babysit you while I catch the rest of Philippe’s associates lurking in the palace.”

As she reached up to take his outstretched hand, she noticed the dark stain spreading from beneath his black waistcoat onto the left shoulder of his white shirt-sleeve.

Her eyes widened. “Darius, you’re bleeding!”

This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming paperback edition of
Princess
, by Gaelen Foley. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.

A Fawcett Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 1998 by Gaelen Foley

Except from
Princess
by Gaelen Foley Copyright © 1999 by Gaelen Foley

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of canada Limited, Toronto.

Fawcett is a registered trademark and the Fawcett colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

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Library of Congress Catalog Number: 98-96037

eISBN: 978-0-345-49415-3

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