Adrienne (5 page)

Adrienne didn’t mean to ramble. Her mind couldn’t fathom being thrust into ruling an entire kingdom at such a young age. At age ten she had played with dolls and dreamt of being swept away by Prince Charming, just like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty.

She looked at Malik—really looked at him. Here was Prince Charming—scratch that, he was a king—
King
Charming, and he had definitely swept her away. Except away meant a whole new dimension where her nearest neighbor might kill her to get more power.

Her hand clenched where it rested near her plate. Malik’s parents’ assassinations, while tragic, held a more immediate concern for her.

She was in danger.

“What is the matter, my lady?”

“You want me to live here,” Adrienne whispered. She pushed away from the table. Whether to run from Malik or from this new horrifying future, she couldn’t be sure. She just wanted to be away.

Malik stood as well. “Adrienne—”

She yelled, “You want me to put my life on the line to secure
your
kingdom and squeeze out an heir or two—male, I might add. Are you nuts?”

He replied in a normal, calm tone, “My sanity is quite intact, I assure you. As to the other, I would protect you.”

Adrienne laughed humorlessly at his proclamation. “Protect me? Protect me! I’ve seen your type of protection. His head rolled past my feet.” She started inching back towards the bed and the door beyond it. “No way! No way in hell am I staying in this crazy place. I’ll be killed before my next birthday,” she predicted. Her slow escape to freedom ended when the backs of her legs hit the bed. “Send me home. I don’t know this place and I couldn’t care less about it. Find someone else to play martyr. I’m not it.”

“It does not work like that, I am afraid, Adrienne. The spell found you; you belong to me.”

He started to follow her. No, it looked more like stalking.

She tried not to be scared of what she saw in his eyes. Malik had told her repeatedly that he wouldn’t hurt her, and she gathered from his explanation that he couldn’t have sex with her until after their vows. Keeping that in mind proved difficult when the look in his eyes made her feel like she was on his menu.

She pleaded again, “Please, send me home. I don’t care about some stupid spell. I do care about dying an untimely death.”

Malik closed the gap between them, his body a hair’s breadth from hers. He bent his head and held her eyes in an unbreakable gaze. “None shall harm you so long as I rule here,” he vowed. “None would dare try.”

Adrienne swallowed. She tried to turn her eyes away from his and realized she couldn’t. She felt as helpless now as when Josh and Greg grabbed her, but Malik hadn’t touched her. He hadn’t impeded her escape in any way—except she couldn’t break eye contact or run.

“You can’t force me,” she said with a conviction she didn’t feel. “No priest, or whatever, will marry us if I don’t say yes.”

Malik moved his hand to her cheek and she flinched. “The Mage Guild master needs to hear nothing from you, Adrienne. She does not need your consent and will not ask for it. All she needs to know is that the spell my ancestor cast found you.”

All of a sudden, Adrienne could look away from Malik. She tore her gaze from his with relief and didn’t question why she’d held it as long as she had. Malik had done something to her, nothing else made sense.

“I don’t want this. I don’t know you,” she said in the barest of whispers.

“You will come to know me after the wedding,” he said matter-of-factly. He moved his hand from her cheek to cup her chin, though he didn’t make her look up at him. His thumb rubbed gently over her cheek. “Now that I have found you, I will not hesitate to make you mine.”

The feeling of paralysis returned. She wanted to turn out of his grasp but couldn’t.

“Just like them,” she whispered.

“Who?”

Adrienne looked up at him, proving herself wrong. She could move, just not away from him. “Josh and his friend, the guys you killed. Josh wanted me to do what he wanted—what was in his best interest. To hell with how that would make me look or what would happen to me.” Her gaze bore into his. “When I refused… Well, you interrupted what happened when I refused. Funny how this time I doubt someone’s going to jump out of nowhere and stab
you
with a sword.”

Malik’s hand dropped from her chin. Remembering his parents had hurt, but Adrienne’s words hurt worse. He didn’t want to be compared to the men who had attacked her. They’d wanted to hurt her. He offered her the life and the privilege of a queen, and her only concern was the vague possibility of an assassination attempt in the far-off future. He knew it would only be an attempt, since he planned to protect her.

The first person he needed to protect her from was himself and his lust. In his bid to keep her near him, he had used a light paralysis spell—involuntarily. He hadn’t meant to call the magicks, but neither did he stop them. Adrienne’s comparison held a ring of truth. She had refused him and he immobilized her with the intention of…

No, he wouldn’t have. She had to be pure on their wedding day. He knew her to be pure now—his magicks had discerned this while he healed her. He looked forward to introducing her to the carnal side of life and had hoped such an experience—an awakening—would happen tonight after their wedding ceremony, once he had calmed her fears.

“One week,” he said as he stepped back from her.

“What?”

He took another step back. Being so close to her made him want to forget the ceremony and Derex’s rules and have her at that moment. Such wants were dangerous when his magicks seemed to be heeding subconscious promptings.

“I will give you one week to grow used to Ulan and life on Bron.”

“If I don’t, then what?” she asked, hope coloring her words.

“Regardless of whether you have come to accept your situation here or not, in one week you
will
marry me.”

“And to hell with what I want, huh?”

Malik moved to the bedroom door. He put his hand on the knob and turned back to look at Adrienne. She glared at him. Heat licked at his skin, painful heat.

The heat, a familiar feeling for him, belonged to Adrienne. She was angry.

“Once we are wed, your opinion and happiness will be important to me above everything else. However, I cannot let your momentary upset and disorientation hinder me from keeping the kingdom my parents died for.”

He watched a tear slip down Adrienne’s cheek and steeled himself against the pain it caused him. His time had run out and he couldn’t handle this in any other fashion.

A week would test the limits of his control. The small amount of time it took him to explain his past and Adrienne’s future had him wanting to rip the clothing from her body and run his tongue over her skin. He’d almost made good on the urge three times that he remembered. A week was all the time he could give her and hope to remain noble. He knew she would understand one day. Until then, he planned to make her comfortable and happy.

He opened the door, but instead of walking through it, he beckoned to the people waiting in the hall. Mushira, Hani and Nimat entered and two extra people followed. Malik gestured to them and said, “You have already met your lady’s maids.”

Adrienne nodded. Her gaze traveled to the extra woman and the man who stood next to her. The woman looked like a warrior. She definitely had the height for it. Adrienne guessed the woman had four inches on her.

Unlike Mushira, Hani and Nimat, the woman wore pants instead of a dress. There was a sword strapped to her hip, a small baton hung from her opposite hip and the gauntlets on each of her wrists sported small throwing knives. Her dark brown hair was pulled into a severe ponytail that reached her shoulders. It made her amber eyes look all the more pointed and catlike. Except for the stern look on the woman’s face, Adrienne thought she looked very pretty.

The man by her side, who was similarly dressed and armed and stern, shared his companion’s height. His eyes were a steely grey. And while he had the same severe ponytail, his copper hair went to his mid-back. The man was a toothpick—a broad-shouldered toothpick, but a toothpick nonetheless. He didn’t look like he could lift the sword strapped to his side, but Adrienne got the feeling he wouldn’t carry it if he couldn’t handle it.

Malik explained, “This is Qamar.” The woman bowed at the waist. “And Khursid.” The man bowed. “They are two of the top five Elite, and your personal guards.”

“Two of the top five? What happened to the other three?” Adrienne asked.

“The other three are my personal guards.”

“Why do I get two and you get three? That doesn’t sound that equal to me.”

Mushira sucked in a loud breath. When Malik looked at her, she asked, “May I, Majesty?” She smiled when Malik waved her on, then turned her smile on Adrienne. “You do have three personal guards, Highness.” She gestured to the side. The blonde girl stepped forward and curtsied again. “Hani is a trained assassin.”

Adrienne immediately took a step back. She gave Hani a wary look.

Hani soothed, “I am for your protection, Highness. I have trained all my life as an assassin but my goal was to serve the royal house of Ulan, not to be a mercenary. I made sure I excelled at every lesson so I could anticipate and better protect you, Highness.”

“You don’t even know me,” Adrienne pointed out. She wasn’t sure she wanted an assassin hanging around her as one of her lady’s maids.

Malik informed Adrienne, “She will know you in time. Hani’s loyalty to the royal house was proven long ago or I would not allow her near you, my lady. To the palace, in fact to the entire kingdom, Hani is a simple lady’s maid. Such a ruse makes her your most valuable guard.”

Hani added, “However, I am not one of the Elite.”

Before Adrienne could ask, Malik supplied, “Qamar, Khursid and my personal guards all went through training in Kakra. Once their training finished and I paid their blade price, they endured challenge after challenge to prove they were good enough to be my…
our
elite, personal guards. Hani went through no such process because assassins are not trained in Kakra. Where exactly they are trained is a mystery I have allowed Hani to keep because of the service she is providing me.”

Adrienne quoted, “Fight fire with fire.”

“Exactly, my lady. I realize you have had a trying morning and have had to digest a large amount of information all at once. In a bid to see you in a happier, less stressful mood, I shall take my leave and you can become better acquainted with your guards and your maids.” He bowed to her. “I shall see you again tonight for dinner.”

She watched him leave and close the door behind him.

Dinner? She had barely eaten breakfast thanks to him. She had no intention of letting him ruin dinner for her, as well. That information she kept to herself, for the time being. Another confrontation with Malik had to be postponed for as long as possible.

Mushira started towards Adrienne. She spoke calmly as though she expected Adrienne to bolt at the slightest provocation. “If Your Highness would like, we can prepare a bath for you. King Malik healed your wounds but decided you might wish to have a soothing bath instead of being sponged off.”

She didn’t wait for Adrienne to say yea or nay to the idea, but signaled Nimat to proceed with the bath preparations. Hani followed Nimat without prompting.

“You two can wait outside,” Mushira commanded Qamar and Khursid. Both bowed to Adrienne, then left the room. Mushira assured quickly, “They will be right outside the door, Highness. There is no need to worry they are going far.”

Adrienne didn’t appreciate being treated like a child on top of being kidnapped. She didn’t care if the woman did it to be nice or not.

“Look, Mushira,” she started.

“Yes, Highness,” Mushira responded. She had a smile of encouragement on her face.

“Stop talking to me like I’m three years old. I’m upset, not a child. I realize you’re probably old enough to be my mother, but you aren’t, so don’t act like it.”

In the wake of Malik’s departure, fear had turned into anger, and Malik’s absence made this woman her target. She hadn’t meant to choose Mushira but it had to go somewhere. All these people were the enemy because they worked for Malik.

Mushira jerked back with a look of surprise. She bowed her head. “I am sorry if my actions or words have angered you, Highness.”

“I’m not angry at you. I’m angry at that…that…” She made an angry noise. “I can’t even think of a word strong enough to describe his supreme jerkiness.”

Hani came out of the bathroom, holding a foot-tall vase with intricately painted flowers. She ventured forward and held it out to Adrienne. “Perhaps you would feel better if you threw something, Highness. My mother always did when my father angered her.”

“Thanks,” Adrienne said as she grabbed the vase. She thought about throwing it at the door and knew it would never get there. Too many times people had told her she threw like a girl. She settled for the wall closest to her.

She hurtled the vase with all the frustration and anger she felt. Amazingly, when it shattered on the wall, she did feel better. Adrienne hoped the vase was expensive and well-liked. She pretended it was to increase her satisfaction in breaking it. If it turned out to be expensive, it would serve Malik right.

The door to the room opened. Khursid and Qamar spilled into the room with hands on their still-sheathed swords. Adrienne waved them away. “No worries, just venting. I’m still alive, for now,” she said.

Khursid took a step forward. “We cannot allow you to take your own life, Highness.”

Adrienne snorted. Thoughts of suicide were the furthest thing from her mind. She had meant her imminent assassination. She shot back, “Well, then your job just got easy. I’m too much of a coward to take my own life. I would rather live out this hell than find out what waits for me in the next.”

Neither Khursid nor Qamar looked convinced. They didn’t leave or stand down from their tensed stances.

“Oh, whatever. Stand there, then. I’m going to take a bath and then I’m going back to sleep.”

“Your bath is ready, Highness,” said Nimat as she exited the bathroom. She curtsied. “We will wake you in time for dinner.”