A Great Prince: A Royal Bad Boy Romance
Read A Great Prince: A Royal Bad Boy Romance Online
Authors: Brad Vance
Copyright © 2015 by Orland Outland
All Rights Reserved
Contents
CHAPTER ONE – MAKE WAY FOR THE KING!
CHAPTER TWO – THEY CANNOT EAT YOU
CHAPTER THREE – AN EDUCATION IN DANCING
CHAPTER FOUR – WE WILL BE WITH YOU PRESENTLY
CHAPTER FIVE – ONCE UPON A TIME
CHAPTER SIX – THE PEOPLE WILL NEED YOU
CHAPTER SEVEN – THE PRICE TO BE PAID
CHAPTER NINE – THE LEGITIMATE RULER OF DANUBIA
CHAPTER TEN – WHERE ARE YOU GOING?
CHAPTER ELEVEN – THE PUNK PRINCE PREPARES A PLOT
CHAPTER TWELVE – THE ULTIMATE CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN – WE HAVE SOMETHING THEY NEED
CHAPTER FOURTEEN – JUST A GUEST HERE
CHAPTER FIFTEEN – THEY NEED YOU MORE THAN YOU NEED THEM
CHAPTER SIXTEEN – A ROYAL PICNIC
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN – TO KILL A KING
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN – I AM THE GOVERNMENT
CHAPTER NINETEEN – WE’RE GOING TO NEED SOME TORCHES
CHAPTER TWENTY – I AM ONE OF YOU
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE – THE RULE OF LAW
Burgenland and Danubia are fictional kingdoms. However, I’ve created them from the actual Burgenland, the easternmost state of Austria, and Western Transdanubia, the westernmost state of Hungary. All cities, roads, restaurants and buildings are real. If, at some point in the history of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, someone had sneezed at the wrong moment, who knows, they could have become real kingdoms after all…
His Most Gracious and Imperial Majesty, King Nikolas of Danubia, got low on his snowboard, aiming straight down the black diamond run. His security detail was back there somewhere, he supposed. Near a turn in the run, one of the paparazzi was hiding in the snow.
Some security detail I’ve got,
he thought.
This guy could have a gun instead of a camera.
With a twitch of his hips, he banked sharply, the heels of his feet digging into the mountain. The effect was like a belt sander on a piece of metal, frozen sparks flying through the air. He hoped it ruined the picture. (It didn’t. It showed Nikolas’ powerful form kicking up a spray of ice, as if he was surfing a wave — another wonderful cover shot of His Sexy Majesty for the tabloids.)
He looked back. The paparazzo had fallen over in fright, and his security men were hunched low on their skis, poles held tight to their bodies, trying to catch up with their king.
But he was too fast, even for those athletic men. Weighing over 200 pounds and standing six foot three was an asset in speed racing – the more you weighed, the faster you flew downhill.
“I’m James Bond, bitches,” he whispered to himself. And they were the Bond villain’s henchmen, trying to run him down. But James Bond always won the race.
Besides, he wasn’t that concerned about his safety here. This was Davos, after all. Anyone who didn’t look like a billionaire probably ended up detained by the Swiss police.
Hell, if they didn’t know I was a fucking king, they’d take one look and arrest me. I still look like a suspicious character.
Down in the flats, he started making S turns, little braking moves to slow himself down. His security detail formed back around him, two in front and two behind. Their half-unzipped jackets flapped in the breeze as they moved down the hill. Lots of jackets flapped in the breeze in Davos, especially with this convention thing going on. Open coats provided easy access to holstered weapons. Any man in a half-open coat, wearing thin gloves was a dead giveaway.
Nikolas noticed things like that. Noticing that kind of detail had kept him alive during the years when there were no men behind him, nobody to stop a man with a gun, staring him down in a dark alley, preparing to take his life.
Well, that was a long time ago. It had been five years since he’d been a fucking nobody, just a wannabe
gengszter
, a punk kid on the streets of Szombathely.
A girl squeaked as he ripped past, just missing her by inches.
Make way for the king, motherfuckers!
He braked hard at the bottom of the run, just as a caravan of snowmobiles pulled up to form a U around him. A man was on his knees before him the moment he halted, hands flying to pop Nikolas’ feet out of the bindings on his board. Nikolas was lifting a foot before the man was done freeing it, knowing with royalty’s confidence that no obstacle would ever hinder him.
“Thanks, Oliver,” Nikolas said quietly. Manners had been more than handy when he’d lived on the streets — disrespecting the wrong person was a quick ticket to the graveyard. The habit was too ingrained now to discard, even if he’d wanted to. His servant nodded discreetly.
Also,
he thought,
you never know when you’ll be the servant again. Nothing lasts forever, not even a throne. Be nice on the way up, et cetera.
He hopped on the back of one of the snowmobiles. They were the new electric model. Quiet, discreet, inoffensive. He frowned.
Made in fucking Burgenland, of course. We don’t make anything in Danubia.
Burgenland and Danubia had once been one country, before World War II carved it in two, one side capitalist and one side Communist. And even now, the former Communist country of Danubia struggled in its attempts to prosper.
The snowmobiles took him and his detail to a waiting Rolls-Royce. It was parked in a No Parking zone, like so many cars in Davos, where rules were for other people, not for “Us.”
Barnabas stood by the door, holding it open.
The old scarecrow,
Nikolas thought with affection at the sight of him. His long black cashmere coat with the collar turned up against the cold might as well be a cape, the way it made him look like Dracula. How could Nikolas have ennobled him as anything but a count?
“Your majesty,” Barnabas croaked. “We are late for an appointment.”
Nikolas peeled off his coat and another efficient servant whisked it away. He ducked into the Rolls and threw himself into the corner. A crystal glass of Johnnie Walker Blue was already poured for him, set on a lacquered wooden tray, a custom addition to the Rolls that itself had cost more than some cars. The glass held two fingers’ worth of the whiskey — two of Barnabas’ fingers, exactly. A perfect measure as always, since Barnabas used the only two fingers he still had on his left hand.
His Lord Chamberlain slid in next to him, shut the door, and rapped on the glass divider, signaling the driver to go.
“Royalty is never late, Barnabas,” Nikolas said, savoring his drink. “The appointed time is the time at which royalty arrives.”
He was warm from his downhill run, and warmer now from the drink. He pulled off his tight black Spider pullover, losing some of the heat he’d built up on his descent. Underneath that he wore a white, equally form-fitting UnderArmour t-shirt. He looked down at his own body with pleasure, knowing he could still carry off wearing the tight stuff. Good living hadn’t made him fat yet. Like many who’d endured starvation early in life, it probably never would.
“Not when the appointment is with other royalty,” Barnabas said sarcastically. “Your Majesty,” he remembered to add.
Nikolas sighed. “So what, do I have to wear a suit or something?”
“Yes, sir, you do. You are meeting the princess of Burgenland, and she will most certainly be wearing a suit.”
“I bet she will.” Nikolas thought of the pictures he’d seen over the years of Francesca Albertine, or “old Frankie,” as he called her. She was twenty, four years younger than Nikolas. But she had the stern demeanor of an older woman who’d never had a day of fun in her life.
“So,” Nikolas ventured, “have you found me a good translator for this evening?”
Barnabas snorted. “Yes, sir, a most capable ‘translator’ has been found for you. Quite to your taste.”
“Excellent.” The World Economic Forum was allegedly about a stimulating exchange of ideas. But when powerful men gathered in one location, especially in places where the presence of intrusive media eyes was limited and privacy assured, they wanted women available to cater to their needs.
Of course, everyone pretended otherwise. Talk to a Russian hooker loitering in the lobby of the Belvedere or the National, and in her broken English she would always claim, “I am translator.”
He and his security entourage swept through the lobby of the Belvedere, just another world leader and his bulky friends — nothing to see here. In his room, he showered quickly and emerged from the bathroom in his towel.
But not until after he’d spent a minute examining himself in the mirror. He was twenty-four years old, and had the body of a man who’d lived a vigorous, rigorous life. There were scars from knife fights, mostly, and one scar where a bullet had grazed his side. He hated that one the most; the crazy angle ruined the otherwise perfect symmetry of his six pack and the V shape at his hips.
He’d been lean and stringy in his early teens, from hunger and deprivation. Once he’d been taken in by the gangsters of Szombathely, where nobody went hungry, genetics kicked in. He shot up three inches and gained fifty pounds, all muscle.
He watched the droplets of water roll over his abs as he clenched them. Even the soft life of a king hadn’t spoiled his chiseled core. Yet. Lots of exercise, lots of sex, and of course some good coke now and then would keep him in fighting trim.
His dark eyes and hair, and his slightly olive skin, were the inheritance of Central Europe’s old clashes with the Muslim world. People said he looked like Novak Djokovic, if the tennis player had bulked up and become a rugby player instead. He kept his hair buzzcut with the #2 clipper attachment. Which was most unbecoming for a king, or so he was told by the world’s “royal watchers,” the media’s bottom feeders.
Well, fuck them, it’s my hair. And it’s good to be the king.
Back in the bedroom, Barnabas had laid out his clothes. The king dropped his towel shamelessly, and made a great show of tucking his very large endowment into his briefs, as if there was some doubt that it would fit. The briefs, however, were built to stretch.
He threw on the suit that Barnabas had laid out for him. “You’re a count now, Barnie old pal. You shouldn’t be doing this sort of thing.”
“If I could find anyone I trusted to do it right, sir, I surely would.”
Barnabas helped him tie his tie, more adept at it than Nikolas, even though Nikolas had two more fingers than the count did.
Nikolas looked at himself in the mirror and nodded. He looked pretty fucking great.
So why am I nervous?
The thought flitted across his mind for just a moment. Sure, Francesca Albertine was from a royal line that went back hundreds of years, but so was he. Just because his family got caught on the Soviet side of the occupation zone in World War II didn’t make his blood any less noble than hers.
Your grandfather was a Duke, but your mother was a Gypsy. Hers was a movie star.
He went to the minibar. Locked. “Barnabas. I need a drink from the minibar before we go.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but you had a whiskey in the car. And there will be cameras downstairs.”
Nikolas sighed. “Well, in that case, let’s hurry up and do this, so I can get my evening started properly.”