Princess (3 page)

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. 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 at once before he came to sate the lust she’d read in his stare. He was the deadliest man in the kingdom and he was out of control, reduced by rage to the law of his boyhood—the law of the streets.

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 watched him, wild-eyed, 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 exit, 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.

Darius 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 papa’s hand, when the would-be assassin attacked. And Santiago, this beautiful madman, she thought, dove into the path of the bullet, his hot, scarlet blood splashing her cheek and 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, not political pawn, 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 softened slightly under his long lashes.

She couldn’t stop shaking.

Again, he offered the coat.

“Take it, Princesa,” he said softly.

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, 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-governess 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, all the strength drained from her. Tears overtook her, blinding her. She sank down where she was, collapsing slowly in a heap on the bricks. Wrapping his jacket tighter around her, she sat, braced her elbows on her bent knees, and held her head in both hands, fighting tears for all she was worth.

I will not cry in front of him,
she thought fiercely, but a moment or two later, she succumbed. She couldn’t help it.

When she sobbed aloud, he looked over in surprise. Frowning, he came back to her, standing tall above her. She could not summon any sense of pride, she just cried, sniffled furiously, and brushed a tear off her cheek with the back of her hand, unable to look up beyond his shiny black boots with their cruel, silver spurs.

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

She stared at him in amazement.
Ruin
his night?

She jumped when he reached out toward her, but he merely offered her a neatly folded handkerchief, producing it out of nowhere with a bit of Gypsy sleight of hand.

After a moment’s hesitation, she accepted it, remembering as she dried her eyes how she used to think he was magic when she was a little girl, for he could pull a gold coin out of her ear and make it vanish again.

He studied her, the arrogant smirk on his lips at odds with the troubled look in his eyes. “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.

The smirk faded. “Hey, come on, little Cricket. This is me,” he said more gently. He looked almost shaken. “You know me. You’ve always known me. Since you were this big, yes?” He held up thumb and forefinger about an inch apart.

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

It was a half-truth. All her life he had been there, in the shadows, but no one 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.

Twenty years ago, just before she was born, her parents had taken Darius off the streets, a feral boy-thief who, by an act of valor, had saved her mother’s life. In thanks, Papa had made him a royal ward, raised him as his own son—insofar as Darius’s magnificent pride would permit him to accept what he viewed as charity. From the time she was old enough to realize that she was something of a disappointment to her parents, a firstborn daughter rather than the hoped-for son and royal heir, she had found an ally and protector in her fellow outsider, the half-Gypsy boy whose only friends, it seemed, were the horses of the royal stable.

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 even scare myself.”

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

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

“I did. I could still hear.”

He bristled. “The man insulted your honor. He got what he deserved.” He rose and walked away.

Holding her head in one hand, her elbow braced on her knee, Serafina watched him stalk off across the courtyard, his broad back and narrow waist snugly fitted in his black waistcoat, his enormous arms draped in full, white sleeves.

Now I have o fended him.
He was an acutely sensitive being, she well knew.

“Come, Your Highness,” he said, remote. “It’s going to be a long night. The French have a few more spies planted in the palace. I don’t know who they are yet and I’ve got to catch them. Until I do, we’ve got to get you out of here immediately.”

She heaved a sigh and climbed to her feet, her legs still shaky from her ordeal.

Darius waited for her by the fountain but he still would not look at her, closed within himself. Hands on his hips, he lifted his finely sculpted face and assessed the brooding night sky. The watery moonlight slid down his high-boned cheeks, kissed his bittersweet, beautiful mouth with its golden glow.

When she joined him, he turned from her to lead the way. “First we’ll have to go see your father. He’ll assign someone to take you into hiding—”

“Darius, wait.” She laid a hand on the broad curve of his arm. “I didn’t mean—”

“Time is of the essence, Your Highness.” He pulled away.

As he stepped beyond her reach, her hand slid off his arm. Glancing off his shoulder blade, her fingertips trailed through an invisible patch of warm, slick wetness on his black waistcoat.

She froze. Slowly, she turned her palm upward.

“Darius,” she breathed, staring down at her bloodied hand.

“What?”

“You’re bleeding.”

She heard his low, cynical laugh as he struck a sulfur match on the stone grotesque of Pan, lighting a cheroot.

“Who gives a damn, Serafina?” he said bitterly under his breath. “Who gives a damn?”

With careless grace, he flicked the still-burning match into the fountain and walked away as its bright flame winked out.

CHAPTER TWO

Only one thing remained for a man of honor whose life had become a living hell: a glorious death. At the moment, Darius Santiago longed for it.

She was afraid of him, yes, with good reason, he thought bitterly. She was the only pure thing he had ever known, gentle and innocent as daylight, and now she had seen him kill like an animal—kill, and relish the killing.

He had taken such pains to shelter her from the darkness of himself—and now this.

As he walked away from her, Darius simmered with self-directed fury, shaken and unnerved yet again by the maddening, heavenly creature. He could not wait to be rid of her and on his way again so he could resume pretending she didn’t exist.

To see her was pain.

Often, far away on his missions, he imagined that if he could just see her, be near her, smell her, he would bask in an ecstasy as on some narcotic drug, but, of course, it was not so. That was merely the illusion that had sustained him for the past year or so, on his downward spiral. Now he saw the truth. Every moment in her presence was torture because she was everything he needed, and he could not have her.

He could not have her. That was all he knew. But soon he would find release.

Urgency thrummed inside his veins. He had to get out of here, away from her. As soon as possible, he’d be on his way. He had walked away from her three years ago, on that starry April night when she had slipped her arms around his neck, kissed his cheek, and whispered that she loved him—
absurd!
—and he would walk away again tonight, just as soon as he’d seen her to safety. Even now, he was walking away, fleeing what he most desperately craved.

He had taken only three or four steps away from her, however, when she caught up to him and firmly took his hand.

“Oh, come along,” she said, with exasperation edging her soft, slightly scratchy voice.

Taken aback, he lifted a brow, too mystified to protest as she tugged him by the hand, pulling him behind her like an errant child.

She marched across the courtyard, ever so like the fairy queen in a snit, he thought. The opulent riot of her long, loose spiral-curls flounced down her back with every vexed step.

“I will never understand you, Santiago,” she huffed. “Don’t you even care that you are wounded?”

He was always Santiago when she was scolding.

“Doesn’t hurt,” he lied, his careless bravado honed to a razor’s edge. Secretly, however, he was pleased that the cut had bought him a little of her charity. Perhaps it would also take her mind off what she had been through and what she had witnessed.

“Why didn’t you tell me at once that he cut you?” The scowl she threw him over her elegant shoulder showed off the clean, patrician lines of her delicate profile and the absurd length of her black-velvet lashes. “Why must it always be a guessing game with you? How could you stand there bleeding and let me go on bawling like baby? Oh, never mind. Is it bad?”

“No need to call the embalmer yet. Well,” he amended, “maybe for him.”

She stopped short as she came to the dead body blocking the exit. She peered down at her dainty bare toes, inches from the pool of blood. He ignored the blood, more interested in the silver rings adorning her toes.

Little Gypsy, he thought in secret delight.

A few of her stray, sooty curls fell forward, softly framing her pale, heart-shaped face as she lowered her head. Then she glanced up at him in distress.

He growled at her obvious need for assistance. “Allow me,” he muttered, loath to touch her.

Her creamy cheeks heated with a summer-rose blush when he bent down slightly, slipped his uninjured right arm around her hips, and lifted her against his chest. Inwardly, he groaned to feel her flat belly and lush breasts pressed to his feverish body.

She was the king’s only daughter and he’d really had no need to know that her rich, berry lips matched her nipples exactly.

Serafina wrapped her arms around his neck, looking down at the dead man in morbid fascination as Darius stepped over the corpse. She was very light, he thought as he held her. Tall and proud, but delicately boned. He set her down quickly on her feet in the grass on the other side.

She pulled his jacket tighter around her, folded her slender arms under her spectacular bosom, and regarded him keenly. “Are you hurt anywhere else, or is it just the shoulder?”

She waited, gazing up at him expectantly, but somehow he forgot to answer, promptly caught up in her otherworldly violet eyes. Ah, but those eyes were his weakness. Lucid and sweet, they were the color of June twilights, fields of hyacinths in heaven, or the lavender of sunset on snow. Eyes that haunted his dreams. He realized he was staring and shook himself free of her spell, disgusted with his own susceptibility.