The King Takes A Bride (Royals Book 4) (16 page)

“Speaking of the wedding,” Gunnar said, hand resting on Krislin's knee. “How many strippers do you want for the bachelor party?”

Chey snapped her gaze to the youngest of the Ahtissari brothers, shocked at the idea of Sander anywhere near strippers. “Bachelor party?”

Gunnar leveled his attention on her, mouth trembling at one side like he was holding back a laugh. “Sure. You know what they are, right?”

Sander didn't try to hold back at all. He guffawed and earned a poke to his ribs for his effort.

“Of course I know what they are.” Chey gave the grinning Krislin a long suffering look before putting Gunnar in her sights again. She narrowed her eyes. “You're joking, aren't you?”

Gunnar arched his brows. “Why would I be joking about that? He's got a lot of living to do between now and your wedding day. What do they call it? Sowing his wild oats?”

Mattias cleared his throat of a noise that sounded suspiciously like a chuckle.

“Are you saying he shouldn't have what every other red blooded male has before his wedding? It's not an uncommon thing,” Gunnar said.

Chey arched a look up at Sander. He smiled so wide it put dimples at both sides of his mouth.

“You wouldn't go to that, would you?” she asked.

“Why not? I'm sure Wynn is giving you a bachelorette party,” he countered.

Chey hadn't thought about that. In fact, how had these two details slipped past the planning and organizing at all? If anyone threw Chey a bachelorette party, Wynn was the woman to do it.

“Are
you
going to go if Wynn arranges it?” Gunnar asked, a quiet chuckle threading through the end of his question.

Sander huffed a breath, as if he too was on the verge of laughing again.

“I hadn't really--” Chey's thoughtful reply ended in a gasp when the back of the limousine fishtailed, swinging left-right-left after hitting a stray patch of ice.

The next thing she knew, the world was spinning. Flashes of mountainside whipped by, replaced by nothing but the yawning maw of space beyond the edge of the asphalt. Out of control, the limousine completed three full rotations while the driver fought to steer free. She screamed at the same time Krislin did when the back tires slid off the pavement, tilting the car at a wild angle.

Clamped against Sander by the band of his arms, he barked orders or commands or something else in his native tongue, legs braced against the floor and a seat. Chey glimpsed Mattias bracing as well, while Gunnar wrapped his wife and held on.

The moon blipped by, a pale streak gone with the next blink.

A bone jarring impact halted the slide of the vehicle down a sloping ravine. All Chey could think in that moment was thank God it hadn't been a straight drop off. They might have tumbled and flipped, rather than spun and slid.

“Everyone wait. Don't move,” the driver said after rolling down the dividing window.

A guard in the front seat carefully twisted a look into the back. “Anyone hurt?”

“Are you all right?” Sander rasped, still holding Chey in a vise grip.

“I'm okay. Krislin? Mattias—Gunnar?” Chey knew Sander wasn't injured. Besides his coherent status and the tight wrap of his arms, she felt his heartbeat racing madly under her cheek.

“We're fine,” Mattias said after a cursory check along the seat.

“We have a problem. No one get out of the car yet,” the guard said.

On the road above, Chey saw the other cars come to a stop. Headlights speared the darkness, slanting askew in alternate directions. Doors opened and men came to the edge, visible by any light coloring on their clothes.

“What problem?” Sander asked.

Chey felt the car slide another two feet. Gripping Sander tighter, she waited to hear what the 'problem' was.

“The front right tire is off the edge over here. It's more than a little precarious,” the guard said.

“Get the women out first. Chey, you and Krislin come to this side,” Sander said after hearing the news.

Chey knew what the problem was without anyone explaining it to her. If they rocked the car too much, it might keep right on sliding over the
other
edge and into a deeper ravine.

With care, Chey eased around Sander after he slowly opened the door. The ground looked strange in the darkness, the snow cut through by the passage of tires on the way down.

“Don't look back,” Sander whispered against her cheek.

Chey put one foot on the slick ground and met his eyes at close range. She worried that the car would keep sliding and start to flip before the rest could get out. “I won't. You all hurry.”

“Don't worry about us. We're fine. Concentrate on your foot placement.” He guided her out of the limousine, bearing most of her weight with the strength of his hands.

The car shifted, surprising a yelp from Chey. She glanced at the limousine with fear threatening to choke her air off.

“Don't look back,” Sander insisted.

Clutching a stray bush with her fingers, bent at the waist with her boots digging into the snow and wet earth, Chey peered up the slope to the road. The distance seemed insurmountable. But then, the distance had seemed that way during the boating accident at the docks. She concentrated on the task ahead, trusting Sander and Mattias and Gunnar to come right on Krislin's heels.

“Miss Sinclair! Come this way.” Bashir stood at the edge of the asphalt while four security members slipped and slid down the slope toward the limousine.

Chey knew they were after Sander. At all costs, they would try and save his life, even at the expense of their own. Focusing on Bashir and his companions, who all cajoled and gestured, Chey started to climb. She heard Krislin get free of the vehicle behind her but didn't look back.

She'd promised.

A sharp shudder of metal almost made her forget and look
anyway.
Shooting a prayer to the heavens, she kept going. She wasn't so far along in her pregnancy that climbing was difficult. It
was
slick, though, and that's what presented the biggest challenge.

“We have a rope here, Miss Sinclair. Another thirty feet and you have it.” Bashir, along with every single other guest, elite or royal or not, jostled for better position with anything they could get their hands on to extend down the slope. Rope, a head cloth, someone's jacket.

It warmed Chey's heart to see troubles and differences tossed aside in a moment of crisis.

“
Mattias!
Mattias! Gunnar, are you all right?” Paavo shouted from the roadside. Two security members physically prevented him from sliding down to help.

“I'm right behind you, Chey,” Krislin said, panting with effort.

“Keep coming, we're almost there,” Chey said. Her hands, numb from the cold, had trouble keeping a grip on the shrubbery.

A short cry at her flank made Chey go flat to the ground and glance over her shoulder. She'd promised not to look back—but Krislin was slipping.

“Grab my hand! Krislin!” Chey gouged her boots into the ground and reached back with one hand.

In periphery, turned as she was, she saw the limousine slide another foot. She didn't see the men out in the open and reassured herself with the knowledge that some of the taller bushes might be hiding them from view.

Krislin clasped her hand. Chey pulled until Krislin had her footing.

“I'm okay. Thanks, Chey,” Krislin said, out of breath from her struggle.

“Not that much farther,” Chey repeated, thinking it might galvanize them both. A string of shouts behind them in the native language just as she faced forward made Chey grind her teeth. Promises, promises. Reaching back to help Krislin was one thing—looking now was another.

With a renewed burst of energy, Chey climbed. Out of breath by the time she came within reach of Bashir's rope, she extended her arm and grabbed hold. He pulled her closer, reaching down with a hand. Chey made contact, holding tight to his wrist. He guided her gently up with surprising strength until one of his companions could wrap an arm around her waist. The other latched onto Krislin and eased her up onto the asphalt.

“Here, Miss Sinclair. Where are you injured?” Bashir asked. His dark eyes glittered as he swept his long overcoat off and swung it around her shoulders.

“I'm fine, really, thank you,” Chey said. Her fingers, red and tingly, grasped three times at the material of his coat before finding purchase. “Where's Sander? Where are the men?”

“I'm sure they are right behind you.” Bashir tried to nudge her toward the open doors of the limousine where warmth waited.

Chey glanced back down the slope, unable to stop herself from looking. “Sander!”

Out in the night, the chop of helicopter blades and the hum of racing engines assured Chey more help was on the way. The aircraft would have to land closer to the docks, but at least it could transport anyone with serious injury straight to the hospital.

A burst of shouts hit the air, nearly drowned out by the vehicles that swarmed up the road from the base of the mountain. Three SUVs outfitted for snow stopped in front of the lead car, headlights clashing like warring swords.

Below, the tilting limousine groaned and slipped over the edge. The sound of sliding turned into the sound of flipping, metal cracking and crashing.

“Did they get out?” Krislin shouted.

“
Mattias!”
Paavo clasped his head with both hands as if he'd just witnessed something horrific.

Chey experienced dizzying fear at Paavo's reaction and the fact that she only saw a few dark figures on the slope where the car had gone over.

With Krislin shouting for Gunnar, Chey stared down the slope, shoulder pressed against Bashir's side. He held tight, speaking quickly in his own tongue to his companions. They sounded concerned and anxious.

Chey didn't know whether to close her eyes, whether to give in to the nausea rolling through her stomach, or to go right back down the hill to see for herself if any of the remaining men were Sander. Of course the latter was out of the question, but the wild thought persisted as panic set in.

Men from the SUVs scrambled down the slope, conversing in short, sharp sentences that Chey couldn't understand. Long minutes later—what felt like an eternity—a blonde head came into view surrounded by three security members.

Before Chey could say Sander's name, Gunnar glanced up, exposing his face to those at the side of the road. Relief and fear hit Chey at the same time.

“Gunnar!” Krislin hugged Gunnar with both arms after he safely made it up to the roadside. He scooped her up, holding her snug against his body.

To Chey's surprise, the driver and the guard from the front of the limousine emerged next, followed by a second blonde head.

“Oh thank God.” Chey squeezed Bashir's hand and closed in on Sander once he crested the edge to the asphalt. She knew by his face when she was right in front of him that something terrible was wrong.

Sander grabbed her up and crushed her to him.

“Where's Mattias?” Paavo shouted after making rounds between his brothers.

Chaos reigned as other guards bellowed Mattias's name.

“Oh no. No,” Chey whispered against Sander's throat. She couldn't allow herself to believe Mattias went down with the limousine. Not Mattias of the kind heart and constant support.

“Your Majesty, we need to get you to the hospital,” one man said. Dressed in a dark, sharp suit, he closed in on Sander.

Leaning away from Chey, meeting her eyes with pain in his own, Sander glanced at the guard. “Take her. Take her and get her to the doctor as soon as possible.”

“What? Sander, I'm not leaving--”

Sander looked at her in a way that begged her not to fight him right now. “We need to make sure you're all right.”

She knew he wasn't just referring to her, but the baby. Chey glanced at the slope, the darkness where the limousine had once been. A crushing sorrow made it hard to breathe.

“Miss Sinclair,” the guard said, holding out a hand.

She glanced at Sander again and couldn't find it in her to demand he come with her. The bond between brothers was stronger than any Chey had ever seen.

“I'll be there soon,” Sander said, giving her shoulder a squeeze.

Paavo, mad with grief, crouched at the edge of the asphalt staring down the slope. Elbows on his thighs, he had both hands clasped together with his fingers against his mouth.

“You people have no faith,” Mattias said as he climbed onto the road thirty feet down from where the rest of them stood. “I had to go this way thanks to the heaving backsides blocking the path up in front of me.”

As one, every head turned Mattias's direction. Two seconds of perfect silence followed.

Mattias brushed at the muck covering the front of his clothes, glanced up, and smiled. “What? I'm not a ghost.”

A rush of relieved laughter, cajoling and cat calls split the air. Sander squeezed Chey's shoulder, parted the crowd with his shoulders and snatched Mattias up into a brotherly hug. She followed right behind him, weak with relief of her own.

“I saw you in the car--” Sander said, fading when Mattias cut in.

“It was a little tricky to get out the other side. But I made it.” He clapped Sander on the back, embraced Gunnar, then wrapped Chey in a gentle hug.

“You owe me for that,” Paavo said, nudging past everyone else to grab Mattias over Chey's head.

Backing out after a quick kiss to Mattias's cheek, Chey let Sander herd her and Krislin toward one of the SUVs. He put her inside and gestured to the driver as well as the guards.

“I'll meet you at the hospital when we make sure everyone else is all right. There are a few guards who suffered minor injuries,” Sander said.

“All right. Hurry up, though,” Chey said.

He kissed her on the mouth, closed the door and stood there as the SUV turned around to head away from the scene.

“That was close,” Chey said to Krislin.

“Too close,” Krislin agreed. “Are you okay?”

“I'm fine, just cold.” Chey realized then that she still had Bashir's coat hanging from her shoulders. Later, when they returned to the castle, she would have it cleaned and delivered to his suite.