Bad Nerd Rising (31 page)

“Did she check the bath...
water closet?” Abruptly she remembered Europeans didn’t call the
bathroom a bathroom, but a water closet. Emerson would think she
was talking about one of the huge tub rooms they had used when they
couldn’t use the showers in their en suite lavatories.

Emerson frowned and Tia
found herself copying his gesture.
Quit
that
, she scolded herself.
Surely he couldn’t have gotten far
the rational side of her brain assured. The femme
fatale side fortunately remained quiet. Yet her heart still pounded
too hard, and her palms still dampened.

Tia followed Emerson so closely she nearly
trampled the heels of his leather shoes.

“Of course...” Emerson
started, but then he cocked his head at her. “I don’t know. Finding
him in the water closet does seem logical, doesn’t it?”

“That’d be the next place
I’d check if I couldn’t find him in his bedchamber. He should be
weak as a kitten, right?”

“Should be, but Aleksi isn’t one to let
something like a virus keep him down.”

They swept through his
bedchamber door, past several maids wringing their hands, and
crossed the room.
Do
something
, Tia thought, but she refrained
from comment. Right now was not the time to rile up the palace
staff. She was in enough hot water with the still contaminated well
situation.

She and Emerson trekked
across the gorgeous carpet and he swept open the door of the
bathroom. They saw a body slumped on the floor. With a gasp, she
nearly ran Emerson over, but he was faster than her and sprinted to
their fallen prince first.

“What’s wrong with him?”
Tia didn’t recognize her voice, but didn’t care at that point.
Aleksi groaned when Emerson hefted him and she grabbed one of his
arms and draped it over her shoulders. Dead weighted, Aleksi was
not a light man.

She heard Emerson grunt and
they exchanged a quick glance. “Can you handle him?”

“I’ll try. Let’s get him
back to bed.”

“We should call Maks,”
Emerson decided. Maks was in a daylong meeting he couldn’t get out
of, and it seemed Emerson was missing him.

“I’m here,” Maks said and
traded places with her. For which she was grateful. Aleksi didn’t
help his friends at all.

“Is he even coherent?” Tia
fretted, and nearly wrung her hands, but the picture of the maids
doing so stopped her. No, Aleksi needed her. She hurried forward
and ripped the covers back so Emerson and Maks could lay Aleksi on
the bed.

She popped the thermometer
she found on the bedside table in his mouth. His forehead seemed
hot.

“When he starts a high
fever, he typically loses coherence,” Gracia said behind
them.

Tia turned and watched as she took in her
son.

“He is rarely ill,” Maks
muttered, and stared down at his friend.

“Which is probably why
we’re having such trouble seeing him like this,” Emerson
added.

“I hate this,” Tia all but
wailed. She hated seeing him so sick. She hated feeling this
helpless and useless.

“Why so many here?” Aleksi whispered, his
eyes still closed, but he was frowning.

“Aleksi?” Gracia asked and smoothed a hand
over his brow.

“Noisy,” he mumbled and rolled away from
them.

Tia, Emerson, and Maks
exchanged glances before they all three grinned. “I guess we’ve
been told off,” she said through her still grinning
lips.

Her heart had stopped its
melodramatic pounding, and her palms started to dry. Aleksi sounded
like he just wanted to be left alone. She could do that.

For now.

Chapter
23

When she turned the corner, Tia nearly took
out Nick.

“Whoa,” he said, and
steadied her.

She took a moment to catch her breath.

“Where have you been?”
There was no accusation in his voice, just a general inquiry. Tia
felt a stab of guilt for ignoring her brother. But then so much had
happened in the twenty-four hours since he arrived she still
couldn’t deal with it all.

“With Aleksi and in the lab.”

“Did I hear the prince is
sick?”

He kept pace with her as
she stalked up the hall. Normally a calm person, she now considered
taking up running. This pent up energy was ridiculous, but with the
wells not clean, Aleksi maybe not his father’s son, and now with
him so sick, Tia wanted to curl up in a closet somewhere. Or run to
the ends of the earth. She hadn’t decided on which option
yet.

Instead, she had taken up a
new sport – pacing the long hallways of the palace. “Aleksi has a
virus, so yes, he’s pretty sick.”

“You’ve been sitting with him?”

“Sort of.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What
does that mean?”

“We believe Aleksi just
wants to be alone, but we’re trying to force liquids into him. So
some of us have taken turns staying with him.”

“I see,” he said, and
stared at the ceiling. He kept pace with her, which was nice. She
had long legs, but Nick’s were longer, so this shouldn’t be a
stretch for him as they approached a door. They swung around and
paced back down the hall. “Could we find a nice comfy set of chairs
in there?” He used his thumb to indicate the doorway to a small
lounge about midway down the hall.

“Yes, we could,” Tia
answered and followed him through the door. She dug into the
beverage cooler and extracted two bottles before she plopped into
one of the chairs.

Nick sank into the one
beside her, accepted one of the drinks, and eyed her with brotherly
concern. That was an expression she’d never seen before. “What?”
Her voice sounded a little defensive, but then these feelings of
surliness weren’t new these last few hours.

“So, what’s going on
between you and Aleksi?”

If she’d have just taken a
sip of the iced tea in her hand, there was little doubt she would
have choked. “
What?
” ended up being the only word she could utter.

“What’s up between you and
Aleksi?” he repeated patiently. Like he was a dad or
something.

“That’s what I thought you said, but I’m not
sure why you’re asking me this question.”

“Because I’ve seen the way you look at each
other.”

There appeared to be a lot
of that going around. Tia slanted another glance at him. “I don’t
understand where you’re going with this questioning?”

“We want you to be happy.
But none of us want to see you get hurt. You look like you’ve
really fallen for this guy.”

“You could tell that?” She
had to learn how to cover up her feelings better. The day an Ape
could tell how she felt was the day she’d lost her grip on
reality.

He rolled his eyes. “It was pretty
obvious.”

A complete feelings
makeover had suddenly become necessary.

“I like him a lot,” she said after a long
pause.

“I could tell that. But
what are his intentions toward you?”

“Intentions?” She repeated
blankly.

“Is he intending to marry
you?”

“I don’t know.”

Nick frowned. It was a
fierce, brotherly frown. She hadn’t had much occasion to see that
particular expression either.

“Why would you fool around
with a guy whose intentions you don’t know?”

“Did you know Macy’s when you started
fooling around with her?”

“Macy and I didn’t fool
around,” he refuted piously.

Laughter welled from
nowhere, but Tia enjoyed the merriment anyway. “Yeah, right. You
were panting after her from the moment she moved in.”

“Actually, from the moment
I first set eyes on her. But we didn’t fool around.”

“Don’t lie and tell me you never kissed
her.”

His cheeks turned bright
red.

“Right, Nick. Nice try,”
she said and patted his knee.

“If you’re kissing this Prince Aleksi, he’d
better have good intentions toward you.”

“Nick, I’m an American.”

“Yeah, so?”

“European princes do not marry
Americans.”

“The Prince of Monaco
married Grace Kelley. She was from Philadelphia.” Wow, she was
impressed he actually knew that. Hmm, maybe there was hope for him
after all.

“So what? I’m from Hershey,
and I’m not graceful, I’m not pretty, I don’t have good social
skills. Plus I hate pink, high heels, and makeup.” She still wanted
Aleksi with every cell of her being. A ray of hope beamed through
her gloomy thoughts. If Aleksi wasn’t his father’s son, then he
wouldn’t be the prince any longer and that meant she wouldn’t be
his princess.

He frowned at her. “What do
all those things have to do with you marrying this guy?”

She gaped at him. Tia knew
her mouth had fallen open, but for a few moments, she couldn’t seem
to work the proper controls to shut her flapping jaws. When she did
finally seal her lips, she couldn’t think of a rebuttal because his
question was so ludicrous.

“What?” he asked again,
sounding confused.

“Nick, this is Tia you’re
talking to. Your sister.
Me
, marry a prince?”

“What’s wrong with you
marrying a prince?” He still sounded confused.

An Ape was trying to
convince her it was okay to marry a prince. She glanced around the
room, waiting for her other brothers to leap out of the ornate
wainscoting to remind her of what a geek she was.

When neither Bryan nor Josh
showed, she peered at Nick’s face, trying to figure out whether he
had just consumed a dose of cough syrup. It did funny things to
him, which might account for this weird conversation. “Nick, I’m
Tia Morrison, your sister, remember? I’m not princess material.”
Even to her own ears her voice sounded disbelieving and maybe an
octave too high.

“Why aren’t you princess
material? You have a Ph.D. in microbiology, which makes you smart.
Macy has pointed out several times that you look like a supermodel
in hiding, which by the way, I’ve finally noticed. You’re kind to
everyone, you know which fork to use at any meal, and you’re
healthy. What part of that makes you a non-princess?”

This time, Tia forgot which
muscles closed her mouth. She couldn’t do anything more than stare
at him, mouth agape. Yeah, this was princess material. She might
have choked, but she fortunately couldn’t remember how to swallow,
either.

“Hello?” He waved a hand in
front of her face.

“Nick, I hate the color pink, I’m allergic
to makeup, and I can’t wear high heels to save my life.”

He waved a hand. “You could
learn to wear high heels. A few minutes with Starla and you’d be a
professional. By the way, we’ll be sending her to you once she hits
puberty.” Nick grinned when she frantically shook her head no. But
he kept up his litany, “I’m sure princesses can wear colors other
than pink, and you don’t need makeup.” Her brother stared at her
like she’d sprouted another head, with fangs.

Maybe she still hadn’t
managed to close her mouth, but still. This was not a conversation
she had
ever
imagined having with one of her brothers.

Was he endorsing her relationship with
Aleksi?

Had aliens come down and
kidnapped her brother, leaving a nice guy in his place? Stranger
things had happened, she was sure, but this seemed beyond even that
realm.

“Honestly, Tia, Macy said you had some self
image problems, but I didn’t understand what she meant until
now.”

Gaping seemed the new norm
for her. This was crazy. “Nick, it’s not like you and the boys were
encouraging during my growing up years,” she blurted.

He sighed. “Macy also
informed me a good portion of your problems were my fault. Tia, I
had no idea you thought you were ugly.”

“I don’t. But I am a nerd,
and nothing is going to change that.”

“We don’t mind nerds.” He
sounded so serious. “But the thing is, Tia, you are beautiful.
Truly. Macy said that like Savannah, you look good in most
clothing, and you have manners that will see you through every
difficult situation. That sounds like princess material to
me.”

“I’m really attracted to Aleksi,” she
finally whispered.

“That seals the princess
bit.” Nick sounded firm. Tia had dubbed that voice his “dad”
voice.

“Not necessarily,” she
said, thinking about his mother’s declaration. Aleksi might not be
the prince. Which left her where? She would marry him the minute he
asked, but what if he didn’t want her now? With that kind of
revelation, he might need to take a year off and reevaluate
life.

Her heart seized at the thought and she
pressed a hand against her breast, trying to stop the painful
movements.

Nick’s face darkened.
“What, you don’t think he’ll marry you? That skunk has been playing
with you but won’t marry you?”

“No.” Tia reached out and
grabbed his wrist, keeping him in his chair, when he half rose like
he was going to go pound Aleksi. Not a good idea. “No, he’s a very
honorable man. The problem is that he’s only just heard some news
that he’ll have to deal with in his own time. Where before he might
have been thinking marriage, this news might have altered
that.”