Protecting the Princess. Rachelle McCalla

       Stasi suspected he might be close to ending the call. She reached for the phone, eager to speak with her brother.

       “Juliet wants to talk to you.” Kirk handed over the phone, warning her, “Remember.”

       She nodded solemnly and held the phone to her ear before realizing she didn’t know what to say, especially if she wasn’t to give away her brother’s identity. “Are you—” She swallowed back the rest of her question.

       “I am.”

       It was her brother’s voice. Her heart leaped inside of her.

       “Don’t give my friend any trouble.” Thaddeus didn’t use Kirk’s name. Then, as though he suspected she might have her doubts, Thad assured her, “You can trust him completely. Right now, he might be the only person you can trust.”

       “What’s going on?” Stasi asked, knowing that if her brother had heard a report on the news, he might have more information than they did.

       “All I know is that there’s been an uprising. No one has claimed responsibility as of yet.”

       Stasi hesitated. There was so much she wanted to ask him, but she wasn’t sure what she could say without giving away important details if their conversation wasn’t private.

       “Take care. I love you.”

       “I love you, too.” Stasi couldn’t fight back her tears. She handed the closed phone back to Kirk with a trembling hand.

       Kirk lifted the lid on another of the compartments that blended in seamlessly with the stone walls—secret enclosures she wouldn’t have guessed were there had she not watched him open them. He fished out a sleeping bag and handed her the candle.

       “I need to get going. Try to get some rest. I’ll be back for you as soon as I’m able.” He pressed the phone into her other hand, closing her trembling fingers securely over it. “I can’t allow this to fall into the wrong hands now that I’ve used it to call your brother. But please, don’t use it unless there’s an emergency. If I’m not back in three days, your brother will send someone for you.”

       Fear whipped up a froth of questions in her mind. “But how will I know—”

       “Just trust me.” The tips of his fingers hovered an inch from her lips, silencing her questions without touching her royal mouth. “I have no intention of being gone more than a few hours, but it would be irresponsible of me not to provide a backup plan given the circumstances.”

       Kirk bent his head close to hers in the flickering candlelight. “I just don’t want you to worry.” He took a step back and spread his arms wide. “Enjoy this beautiful island. Your brother loved this place. Your ancestors did, too.”

       He looked down at her.

       She tried to raise a smile to her lips, but sorrow and fear wouldn’t let her. “My code name is Juliet?” There were too many details for her to keep track of them all, but she figured that one might be important if she had to contact her brother again. “What is Thad’s code name?”

       “Regis.”

       “And yours?”

       Kirk turned his back to her, pulling a pillow from the storage space that had looked so much like the rest of the stone wall before he’d lifted its secret lid. “You don’t need to know mine.”

       “But what if—”

       He gently tipped up her chin with the tips of his fingers. “It will all come out all right.”

       Looking into his eyes, which were earnest and sincere, Stasi wished she could believe him. “How do you know?”

       “God is in charge. And God is good.”

       She took a shaky breath. “How could God let a thing like this happen?”

       “Your Highness—” He spoke her title slowly, sweetly. She liked the sound of it on his lips. “It is night now, but the sun will shine again. Have faith.” He dropped her chin and walked away through the darkness.

       As she watched him go, she clutched her little candle. Her heart twisted out a desperate prayer that everything would come out all right, somehow—though she couldn’t imagine how.

       The moon was high when Kirk docked his boat and resolutely stepped onto the pier. He’d formed a plan in his mind as he’d sailed into Sardis, and now he headed for his parents’ place, a small cottage behind the palace. Albert and Theresa Covington both held high positions in the royal household. If there was any news, they would know it. And he needed them to see that he was all right. After all that had happened, he knew they would be worrying.

       He carried his duffel bag back to the Jeep, which was parked, undisturbed, where he’d left it. A good sign. It meant that, however coordinated the attack on the royal family might have been, whoever was behind it had not yet gotten around to making an organized search for the Jeep. That much made sense. They’d probably have much more urgent priorities.

       The sound of the lapping sea faded as Kirk started the vehicle. It was after midnight and no one appeared to be anywhere around. Kirk drove toward the palace and parked along a side street a couple of blocks away, pulling out his personal items from where he’d stashed them, tossing them into the duffel bag, then walking the rest of the distance.

       Skirting the rear gate of the royal grounds, Kirk decided to scale the wall instead of using his thumbprint to gain entry. Granted, the print would be easier, but his entrance would be recorded in the security computer. He couldn’t risk giving away his location—not with the likelihood that someone might soon get around to looking for him.

       Fortunately, he’d had plenty of practice scaling the castle walls with Thaddeus when they were growing up. He made it over without any trouble and found his way to the cottage.

       There was still a light on in the kitchen. Kirk tried the door and found it locked, but he knocked and his mother answered, pulling him into a tight hug, and then, a moment later, shaking him by his shoulders.

       “They said you’d been killed at the marina,” Theresa Covington accused her son.

       His father, Albert, rose from his seat at the table. “Folks saw you driving Princess Stasi in a Jeep. It was on the news. There’s a rumor that the two of you were killed and your bodies thrown into the sea.”

       “Did you believe it?” Kirk asked, looking back and forth from one parent to the other. He wasn’t at all surprised that someone might report him dead, and Princess Stasi killed, too. But he thought his parents had more faith in him than to believe such an obviously false report.

       “We don’t know what to believe.” His mother wore a wary expression. “They’re reporting the whole royal family has been killed in an ambush.”

       “And yet—” his father leaned in and spoke quietly “—from what I’ve heard, there aren’t any bodies—not that fit the royal family, anyway. Two drivers and a guard were killed in the blasts. I knew all three of them.” As the longtime head butler and estate manager at the palace, Kirk’s father knew everyone who worked there—even those who worked outside of the main castle.

       Kirk felt the sting of loss that innocent people had died. But at the same time, his father’s words buoyed his hope. If the bodies of the royal family hadn’t been found, then they still were alive. Somewhere. “Stasi will be glad to hear it.”

       “She’s alive, then?” Theresa Covington finally let go of her son’s shoulders.

       “Alive and safe, for now,” Kirk assured them both. “I don’t know who barricaded her in her room, but thank God they did—that’s why she missed her ride in the limousine. She was with me in the Jeep when the first blast hit. But that’s where the truth of that rumor ends. I got her out of Sardis as quickly as I could.”

       “But now what will you do?”