Courted: Gowns & Crowns, Book 1 (2 page)

And now she was inside one of those miracle landscapes as she slipped deeper into the water and let the soft waves lift her up, her arms reaching out as she gloried in the beautiful sea. She wasn’t a landlocked princess anymore, but a royal mermaid, given legs to enjoy the world as a human girl. Today, Em instantly decided, today her daydream would be that she was swimming out to meet her former merman lover, and their reunion would be more powerful than anyone would have ever imagined.

She struck out across the waters, glorying in the feel of it sluicing over her back. The current did feel a little strange to her, odd pressures cutting across her body as well as head-on, but she had so much energy pent up inside her that she relished the opportunity to work a little harder than she expected.

Enjoy this
, she ordered herself, as her heart began to surge harder and her muscles stretched. She more than most knew that the music would always come to an end before she was ready. The better she took advantage of these glorious strains of happiness, the better she would be able to savor them when the harsh dissonance of reality came crashing back down on top of her.

“Kristos!” The voice was laughing, and Kristos Andris, crown prince of Garronia, turned back quickly, his gaze leaving the flashing red suit of the woman now too far out in the water for his liking. “What, you think that you can ignore your friends for the first pretty American of the day? The beaches here will be crawling with them in a few hours.”

“You are questioning my authority?” Kristos pushed out his chest. “How dare you challenge the heart of our beloved country!” Without warning, he launched himself at Dimitri Korba, not surprised the man was prepared for the sudden attack. The two of them crashed to the sand and were up again just that quickly, circling each other, ready to fight.

Kristos lived for these brief and no-holds-barred clashes between them, the same way he lived for the rough work and brutal training of the Garronia National Security Force, the most delicate way the Council of Ministers could come up with to describe the country’s fiercely dedicated military unit, so it didn’t unnerve their neighboring countries with words like “army.” Kingdom or not, however, Garronia was more than an enchanted nation-state at the edge of nowhere. Its soldiers were strong; its defenses were sound. It had sent its highly trained forces all over the world to support its allies, and it had withstood both military takeover and political merger attempts for generations. It would hold for a little while longer.

He didn’t have to lose everything quite yet.

As he was about to lunge forward, though, Dimitri stood taller. Their other team members, who’d been surrounding the fighting circle in a loose, heckling group, swiveled as one to see what he was staring at, then they stood straighter too. Kristos didn’t need to turn to see who it was, but he did anyway, quickly wiping his face with his tank top before squinting to take in the new contingent of men that approached in both a rolling ATV and on foot.

The few tourists who were out at this hour didn’t seem to notice that the second most important man in the kingdom was in their midst, flanked on either side by men in military uniform, their sleek guns holstered but at the ready. The defenses of Garronia might be solid, but they were also almost invisible to both visitors and nationals alike most of the time. It was how the country had managed to make tourism its number one national product, enjoyed by travelers from all over the world.

Council Minister Cyril Gerou was clearly not looking for photo ops today, unfortunately. “Prince Kristos,” he launched in without fanfare. “You were due at the palace an hour ago.”

“We’re working out a new training regimen.”

“A task that will now fall ably to your second in command as you take on your family duties. Finally.” Cyril’s tone was sharp, far sharper than Kristos had ever heard it.

His heart sank. So this was it, after all. He’d been granted a year, they had told him. One fucking year, then he’d be called up for official royal duty. They’d been counting down the final days even as he’d been racking his brain for any assignment that would take him to the air, the ocean, the mountains—to anywhere but here in the seat of the kingdom. But every attempt he’d made to escape the Crown’s reach had been pointless, and secretly he’d known there was really no escape.

Had a full year already passed?

As it always did, a rush of anger and misplaced outrage shot through him as he thought about his brother Ari, and the wreckage of the plane that had never been confirmed as his, not completely or definitively enough for Kristos.

Still, he was alone in holding out hope, it seemed. The royal family had a missing prince, and they had a partially-recovered plane. There was no way anyone could have survived that crash, and the entire country had gone into mourning when the news had been made official. The glorious crown prince of Garronia, the darling of the international glitterati, had been pronounced dead at twenty-nine years old.

It was beyond a tragedy, for many reasons. Not the least of which was that it meant the younger son, Kristos, must take up his glorified duties as the new crown prince.

Which made him want to hurl.

Now he looked at the long-suffering Cyril, mentor to the princes of Garronia and a chief advisor in his own right to the Crown. Cyril stared back at him, equally resolute. Kristos could have told him not to worry. He wasn’t going to argue the point in front of his men. Least of all Dimitri, who had been one of Ari’s closest friends until that fateful day a year ago, when Dimitri had been assigned elsewhere and Ari had left to pilot his aircraft on his own, tinkering with some new gadget or another that apparently had been too much for the small plane.

Prince Ari died by his own hand, some would say, if they actually knew the truth.

Which, of course, they didn’t. The political machine of the royal family of Garronia would never allow anything to besmirch the name it had so carefully cultivated over the long centuries of its existence. Garronia had survived the Mongols, as his grandfather liked to say. It would survive this.

Whether due to a shift in his gaze or some peculiar sixth sense, Cyril seemed to realize he’d won. He turned and gestured for Kristos to precede him.

Still, maybe holding on a bit too desperately to his one fleeting last view at freedom, Kristos glanced to the ocean, and searched for the bright flash of red against all that crashing blue.

He froze. “Where is she?”

“Where is who?” Cyril’s voice was testy, but he looked out to the water as well. “There’s no one out there.”

“There was.” Beside him, Dimitri was looking too. “The American swam well, it appeared. She looked to be in no danger.”

“Well, she sure as hell wasn’t wearing scuba gear.” Kristos took a few steps toward the water’s edge, when suddenly his focus was rewarded. A white-skinned body burst up out of the water as if she’d held her breath long enough to explore the bottom of the sea. She whirled around toward shore, clearly getting her bearings—only she chose the absolute worst time to do so. One of the famed Garronia cross waves swelled against her, causing her to turn, then turn again in alarm. She hadn’t been prepared for the undertow, no matter what she’d said. Now, caught where she was, she couldn’t easily strike out toward land, which left only open water as an option until the currents eased and she could once more head toward shore. Given the panicked fluttering of her legs and arms as she took again to the sea, that wasn’t going to be an ideal situation for her for long.

“Send one of your men. You’ll be spotted instantly, and we don’t need the distraction.” Cyril was long used to tourists running afoul of the waters of Garronia, and he wasn’t going to let this one die either. But, given his sharp glance to the villas surrounding the beach, he also had a healthy understanding of the paparazzi that trolled the area, looking for anything that might earn a quick euro. Kristos suspected his own picture had probably been snapped a half-dozen times already, but he’d been dealing with photographers long enough that he’d stopped giving a shit years ago.

Besides, it was only going to get worse, not better, if Cyril had his way…which it looked like he would. Kristos was demanded in the palace, so to the palace he would go.

“I’ll get her—” Dimitri started up.

“No!” Kristos said, snapping the word. He could feel the press of royal obligation weighing down on him, but he refused to let it take hold quite yet. The pretty American woman wasn’t in danger so far, no; but that didn’t mean she was safe. “She’s my responsibility,” he said, causing Cyril to stare at him, patent shock on his face. “I’ll get her.”

“Your what? Kristos!” But the advisor’s words were lost behind him as Kristos dashed forward and entered the waters that he knew and loved as much as he loved every rock and tree of his country. He had explored Garronia’s crescent of the Aegean in every season and in almost every weather condition. He knew exactly when the woman would begin to flag, and he would be there for her.

And if it helped him put off reality for that much longer, then so much the better.

He dived deep into the rolling sea.

Chapter 2

This was starting to seriously suck.

Em struck out again with more force, hitting the water at an angle, gratified that she seemed to be making some headway, though all too aware of how far she was being drawn out into the deeper water with every surge of the strange current. She wasn’t scared, not really. There were boats emblazoned with the Garronia coat of arms that patrolled the far edge of the bay, specifically to ensure no swimmers strayed far enough into open water to be struck by larger craft, or, God forbid, get dragged by the currents out to sea.

Still, she wasn’t really in the mood to be plucked out of the water in some sort of fishing net. For one thing, she’d never live it down. For another, she was grateful enough for her
own
friends taking care of her. She didn’t need anyone else to join that particular refrain.

Nevertheless, it was becoming painfully clear that she also wasn’t in anywhere near as good a shape as Nicki was. And though she’d always loved swimming, her college intramural swim team suddenly seemed like a lot longer ago than a year. It didn’t help that she’d devoted most of the past several months to standing over beds and pushing people in wheelchairs, not to her butterfly stroke.

She seemed to recall that the beachfront curved around to a sandy point to the right of the white stucco and red-tiled villas. Perhaps if she could reach that area, there’d be shallower waters and less current.

If I make it that far.
Her arms felt like leaden weights as she slogged through the water slowly—too slowly, her brain was beginning to chime. And her failsafe might not be so fail proof either. Was she even far enough to catch the attention of the patrolling boats? Should she stop swimming now and tread water, waving as much as she could to catch someone’s eye?

The thought of waving anything sent a surge of dread through her.
Why was she so tired?

Maybe she should try to head closer to shore.

Em plunged forward, focusing on her strokes, but she gradually became aware that the problem rested less with her technique than with the continually shifting current.
Undertow
, Hot Navy Guy had said. But there was more than an undertow going on here.

She knew how to swim against a current. It wasn’t fun, but it was manageable. As she’d noticed when she’d first set out, however, this current seemed to have two thrusts, one directly at her and one that cut across her body, immediately taking her every effort and spinning her off course, so that she wasn’t taking one stroke forward to make up for two back, but two back and one to the side.

It had seemed charming a few minutes ago, but now it was getting downright obnoxious. She was getting spun around, unsure of her destination, and the unfamiliar strain was dragging on more than her muscles.
How am I going to get to shore?

Suddenly all the weight of the past year pressed down on her. Her parents’ horrific crash had come out of nowhere, seeming like a nightmare from which she could never, ever wake up. She’d dropped out of grad school to come home. She was an only child, after all, and her parents had no family close, certainly no family who could take care of such intimate and often harrowing details as personal care for both broken bodies and minds.

Her father should have bounced back more quickly, but he hadn’t, and her mother’s progress seemed to come in completely unpredictable fits and starts. So Em had quietly told her grad advisors that she wouldn’t be able to continue her studies for the foreseeable future. They’d said all the right things and had been so gracious. They’d extended her scholarship offer for a full year, in fact.

Dear Ms. Andrews… Decision needed…

But who was she kidding? She’d not played seriously in over a year, and every time she tried her original audition piece, she flamed out. She might not be able to cut it at Northwestern anymore. Even if she could by some miracle still make the grade, the likelihood of her joining a major orchestra had been slim anyway.